A method and apparatus for producing and storing a digital image that
electronically represents an image on a filmstrip, wherein the image
recording medium is scanned to produce digital pixel data representative
of the image content of successive scan lines of the medium, and the
digital pixel data from successive scan lines are written to a circular
buffer. The location of respective image frames contained in the digital
pixel data written to the buffer is detected by analyzing the data
written to the buffer using predetermined algorithms, and then the
digital pixel data representative of detected image frames is copied into
frame buffers before the data on the circular buffer of image frames
already copied into image buffers is overwritten with digital pixel data
representative of the contents of subsequent scan lines of the image
recording medium.