Starting in 1997 with funding from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, and through cooperation between SLBA and SVT the old "SF archive" was transferred to video with the intention to make the film material available to researchers at the SLBA premises.

As modern technique made it easier to save motion pictures in digital format, the idea arouse at SLBA not only to transfer the old films to videotapes, but also to transfer the material into digital video files. Even with video it was quite a complicated procedure for the researcher to access the film material. For each film or feature it was necessary to fill in an order form after the catalogue search. A study copy of the archived original was then made at SLBA. The order took time and cost money for the researcher. If it had been possible to link each catalogue item to the current film in digital video format, the administration would be considerably reduced and the availability for the researcher would be considerably increased.

In the year 2000 SLBA applied for funding to digitalize the "SF archive". Nearly four million Swedish kronor was granted by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg's Foundation. From the videotapes that had been copied from original films, three digital files were set up, one master file and two files with a higher grade of compression in order to facilitate digital distribution via the net.