Telecine to digibeta and transfer to minidv a good option?

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

A hack colorist with a Thompson Spirit will produce shit results. A talented colorist with a Workprinter can produce astonishing results.

Exactly. But if that was a fact it surely doesen´t "prove" that a WP gives better quality than a professional transferring machine, be it a Rank Turbo, A Shadow Telecine or whatever. ;)

A WP does NOT have the same potential to begin with though. ;)
But if compared to a bad transfer, surely the WP can be the winner.

8)

[christoph]

What matters is 1) the talent of the cinematographer and 2) the talent of a colorist.

ha! to what i add one more:
3) the talent of the director :P

++ christoph ++

[cubsfan45]

Here's the link if anyone's interested in seeing what I'm talking about - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1620686,00.asp . I don't exaggerate, I say it how it is. The CRT tubes in a lot of Rank's are outperformed in terms of quality with a lot of the modern chip technologies. The dynamic range of our H-1 via HD-SDI is amazing. We also have scrutinizing individuals raving about our high-def transfer, so go figure. We can offer professional HD quality for much less than what you'd be paying for a Spirit/Rank session and as unbeliable as it sounds, is not too good to be true. See for yourself, we've been doing this for 5 years and seen every kind of transfer technique possible and picked the one with the best value.

Best,

~Eugene

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

Here's the link if anyone's interested in seeing...

Sorry if it comes as a shock to you, but I believe we all know about this test, and have done so for quite some time now.

It is old news, Eugene.

What is more surprising though is that you don´t seem to even understand what we are talking about here, do you? :?

This discussion has NOTHING to do with prices, so you can just drop the selling-speach already. :roll:

[mattias]

A hack colorist with a Thompson Spirit will produce shit results.

i disagree. the stock defaults produce fantastic results, always sharper, steadier and with more dynamic range than any workprinter regardless of camera used (becasue of limitations in the ligth source and lens system), not to mention "rank" which is about the worst telecine quality you can get these days, even the most recent digital varieties.

/matt

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

i disagree. the stock defaults produce fantastic results, always sharper,

/matt

Not if it hasn´t been focused properly. ;)
We are talking bad transfers here... :lol:

[christoph]

not to mention "rank" which is about the worst telecine quality you can get these days, even the most recent digital varieties.

dunno about other ranks, but i've got transfers of super8 reversal film with a Rank-Cintel MK III C and a 35mm print on a Rank-Cintel Ursa Diamond, and they were very very good. the colorist, who had a spirit in house as well, said he prefers the ursa for 35mm reversal and the spirit for 16mm negative (because of the reduced grain),

++ christoph ++

[steve hyde]

A hack colorist with a Thompson Spirit will produce shit results.

i disagree. the stock defaults produce fantastic results, always sharper, steadier and with more dynamic range than any workprinter regardless of camera used (becasue of limitations in the ligth source and lens system), not to mention "rank" which is about the worst telecine quality you can get these days, even the most recent digital varieties.

/matt

....okay, fair enough. If you lift that sentence out of the context of what I wrote it does sound heavy handed....but my point is that a good colorist can do a fine job with DV.... and I have seen Workprinter xfers that look better than some "Ranks" that I have gotten..

Steve

[MovieStuff]

Since I build the WorkPrinter and Sniper-Pro units, perhaps I can put this in context:

First, the PC magazine article was between the Sniper-Pro and the Rank Turbo. It was not between the WorkPrinter and the Rank-Turbo. The Sniper-Pro uses a broadcast grade camera with 3 half inch CCDs and bypasses the condenser lens and mirror. If you use the same quality camera with the WorkPrinter and align it perfectly, the results can be very similar but bypassing the condenser lens is always going to be a better game.

In terms of what is "better", the WorkPrinter and Sniper units do not have the same potential as a Rank because the Rank can work with DaVinci and Dubner color correctors that are very powerful tools for fine degree color correction during the transfer stage; something that the Workprinter or Sniper units can not do. That said, access to that kind of superior potential comes at a price that most people shooting 8mm can not afford. Going into a Rank session underbudgeted is foolish because it is like getting in the seat of a Formula One race car with only a dollar for gas. You won't get far and you will never experience the full potential of the machine.

But, even with a budget, it is not uncommon for Rank operators to see 8mm as the red-headed step child and errors that they would never allow in a "professional" 16mm or 35mm session often slip by carelessly in an 8mm session. As we have seen time and again on this very forum, paying more for a Rank telecine does not guarantee satisfying results, even though it should. It just means that you will usually spend more money. But doing it on the cheap does not automatically mean that the results will be anything less than professional looking, either. It only means that you will usually spend less money. If that satisfies the customer, then I'm not sure what the argument here really is since you can send the same roll of film to half a dozen Rank houses and get half a dozen different results, ranging from fabulous to crap.

As seen in the PC Magazine article, the results between a Sniper-Pro and a Rank can be very, very close and, for some people, the difference is not worth paying the higher price for a Rank transfer. But, then again, I have seen the price of Rank houses drop a bit over the last two or three years and I know for a fact that is because people now have alternate, high quality, viable choices for transferring their 8mm film, whether that is with a WorkPrinter, Sniper-Pro, FlashScan or even a DIY home telecine. As Eugene has correctly pointed out, modern imaging chips have come a long way and have helped to level the playing field and close the gap between Rank telecine and low cost telecine units like the Sniper-Pro or the FlashScan.

If you can afford it, a Rank has the potential to produce superior results. No doubt about it. But as others have pointed out here, that difference is often tempered as much by operator input and budget constraints than any technical manifestation that the average 8mm user would be able to discern.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

But if compared to a bad transfer, surely the WP can be the winner.

But that holds true regardless of what two transfer units you are referring to. It doesn't take a bad transfer to make the WorkPrinter look good any more than it takes a bad transfer to make the FlashScan look good. The WorkPrinter is capable of producing beautiful results that defy the low cost of the unit. Bad results are certainly a possibility but wasn't it only recently that someone complained that they paid for a Rank transfer and got a dissapointing FlashScan transfer, instead? ;)

The machinery is important to a certain degree but I have found that it's all about the care taken with the transfer.

Roger

[christoph]

roger,

i agree mostly with you, and as always you have my respect for being honest about your gear (which is terrific for it's targeted market)..

so yes, the workprinter will be fine for most purposes (ie enjoy your super8 films on a TV) and yes with a skilled operator you can get satisfactory results. the point is though that no matter how great of a colorist you are, you'll hit a limit because the density film of reversal is too high to be captured by any - broadcast or prosumer - video camera.. (and the color grades of negative films are to subtle to get corrected without noise).

so everybody will have to decide for themself what kind of quality they need, and which budget they have, but if somebody comes out and claims that their HDV camera hooked up to a capture card gives better results than a (somewhat adequately operated) spirit i'll jump out of my bed and shout NO NO NO! ;)

++ christoph ++

ps: i got some color negative transfered to uncompressed 10bit on a flashscan recently because of budget constraints.. wont do it again, not because it looked bad, but because i know it can look better.

[Patrick]

This has been a very interesting discussion but my decision to go with a Rank (or possibly Spirit) was made before I started this post. It will be interesting to see for myself just how much exposure latitude a Rank / Spirit unit has. Though having said that, I find the quality of transfers from a Workprinter / Sniper / Flashscan 8 very impressive.

Still, I think there's a lot for me to learn about the options available to me in a Rank or Spirit session. I am still a little in the dark about just what these machines can do with the 'look' of my footage.

[woods01]

I did a 16mm short earlier in the year. I had a rank done on 800ft of
film and had it transfered to beta and then transfered to miniDV with
outside equipment. I chose beta because I felt that since I was spending
100s of dollars an hour for the work then I might as well have it stored on
a quality archival format. MiniDV is just too fragile and prone to dropouts.

Why not Digibeta? Well I have easy acess to a beta deck at the film co-op,
so if I wanted an offline edit done I'd have that option available for little
cost but I havn't done that. It looks great from the DV.

Get it transferred to a pro format, the decks will be around for many years
who knows how long miniDV will stay around in the fast evolving dv
market.

[Actor]

who knows how long miniDV will stay around in the fast evolving dv market.

I would venture a guess that it will be a long time. While it is true that the market is "fast evolving" the fact is that consumers (miniDV is a consumer format) simply do not spend the cash to keep up with the latest technology. Most formats simply do not find a market. Others hang on long after you would think that they should have died. You can still purchase new Hi8 and VHS-C camcorders. MiniDV will not go away soon.

[Andreas Wideroe]

Why does "everybody" call professional telecine machines "Ranks"?

Rank refers to the old name of Rank Cintel Ltd. which was changed to Cintel International Ltd. in 1996.

http://www.cintel.co.uk/about_history.html

Ranks only refer to one manufacturer while there are atleast 4 more on the market.

Can we come up with a new term please?