Telecine to digibeta and transfer to minidv a good option?

[christoph]

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

well, i guess because very few of the other high end transfer machines (ITK Millenium, Sony Vialta, Quadra etc) have a super8 gate. i know of two places with a spirit and one with a shadow, but that's about it. in my area, the affordable opion is usually rank-cintel.

but basically you are right.. maybe we could call them "flying spot and line area transfers", or just "transfers on professional telecine equipment" ;)
++ hristoph ++

[Andreas Wideroe]

There are Super8 gates availeble for all of these machines except maybe the Sony Vialta which I don't know so much about.

Super8 gate is an option normally which costs quite a lot.

Yes, let's call them a flying spot scanner, line array scanner or a data scanner or simply a professional telecine.

[VideoFred]

but basically you are right.. maybe we could call them "flying spot and line area transfers", or just "transfers on professional telecine equipment" ;)
++ hristoph ++

What's the difference between flying spot and line area?

And what is the most important factor that makes the difference between DIY and pro... Is it the sensor, the principle, the backlight or is it the sum of all these factors?

Fred.

[Patrick]

"MiniDV will not go away soon."

Hmmm...Ive noticed a significant reduction in prices of MiniDv cameras recently. Actually, that was the reason why I was able to afford my JVC MiniDv camera with firewire in/out. I asked a woman at a shop about the drop in prices with MiniDv cameras and she said that consumers are rushing to buy all these cameras that record to hard drives and minature discs - (thanks to clever marketing I gather.)

"consumers simply do not spend the cash to keep up with the latest technology."

Ive noticed that consumers have embraced digital still cameras wholeheartedly. It's almost an uncommon sight nowadays to see someone out and about with a 35mm still camera.

"You can still purchase new Hi8 and VHS-C camcorders."

I am really amazed when I see VHS-C tapes still being sold at supermarkets.

[christoph]

What's the difference between flying spot and line area?

i think flying spot refers to a tube ray (similair to CRT monitors) and the line array (not area, sorry) in a spirit means that it usues a CCD which is only 1 (or a few?) pixels high.

And what is the most important factor that makes the difference between DIY and pro... Is it the sensor, the principle, the backlight or is it the sum of all these factors?

well, the principle is very different on those machines (like the CRT *is* the backlight).. the main difference is that they can afford higher quality components, and have professionals with a lot of experience to assemble them ;)

but if i could afford ten or twenty thousand bucks and half a year to test, i'm pretty convinced that one could build a setup which is nearly as good, though probably it wouldnt work in real time (for that you'd need more like 50'000).
++ christoph ++

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

But that holds true regardless of what two transfer units you are referring to...

Ummm, yeah. But what I reacted to, and replied to, was a guy who believed that his lowbudget WP setup was superior to "a rank", or at least produced the same level of quality. And it just isn´t true, his setup is not capable of producing the same quality of images that a proffessional telecine setup is capable of delivering.

That is just a fact, that is the way it is.

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? ;)

Roger

Yes, a negative transfer I might add. But what has this to do with this thread? It only proves my point.

The Flashscan is designed and meant to be used for transferring reversal films. There is a negative function, but it is not perfected and no money is really spent on making negative transfers as good as possible, bevause they cannot look as good as they do with a telecine machine designed for negative transfers to begin with.

I tell all my clients that I can transfer negative reels, but to get a testreel first so they see the results. I try to be honest.

What is more interesting is that this WP guy is offering negative transfers... And bragging about quality... My guess is that he can never even match the colors from a Flashscan8 negative transfer (due to the lack of optical color correction)... :roll:

[VideoFred]

but if i could afford ten or twenty thousand bucks and half a year to test, i'm pretty convinced that one could build a setup which is nearly as good, though probably it wouldnt work in real time (for that you'd need more like 50'000).
++ christoph ++

Christoph,
You could stay here in my old but fine workshop for a few months.
You can even sleep here :lol:

We could brew something together, haha

Serious now...
The new trend is making stills from film frames, right?
And put them on a portable HD for the customer...
How fast can you make stills with your cam?

Fred.

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

....edited....

[mattias]

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

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

the colorist is hardly any more responsible for a badly maintained and set up scanner than the dp is for a broken pulldown claw in the camera. perhaps we should extend that list to ac and service technician too? in my opinion that's crossing the line of silly. fully working equipment and no silly mistakes has to be assumed. the question is what can a very skilled professional add, not what can a moron destroy.

christoph, yes, the diamond is a great machine that i use all the time, but i've never seen it outperform the spirit. i imagine it can work great on 35mm reversal though because of its incredible edge sharpness. this tends to increase grain on other formats while in that case it will probably only increase the punch. never tried it.

the flashscan in my opinion would be placed just under the diamond, above the old ursas and the mk3 and certainly above wp's and snipers. its latitude is limited by that of video of course, but image stability and sharpness are much better than "rank quality".

all based on experience from my own transfers. i haven't read any specs and haven't talked to anyone. for whatever that's worth. ;-)

/matt

[mattias]

The Flashscan is designed and meant to be used for transferring reversal films. There is a negative function, but it is not perfected and no money is really spent on making negative transfers as good as possible, bevause they cannot look as good as they do with a telecine machine designed for negative transfers to begin with.

actually if you look at the raw image a spirit creates from the negative it's not pretty either. it's a lookup table in the davinci that does the magic.

as long as the scanner provides all the info needed you should be able to correct it just fine digitally. either using the camera functions or in the computer.

the problem with your otherwise great setup is that you can only capture in dv, thus you've thrown away too much information for proper color correction in the computer.

and remember that when i posted the testreel you did for me here people said it was the sharpest super 8 they had seen. and the colors were ok too, even though i had used the old vision, heavily overexposed and with the wrong filtration.

/matt

[Patrick]

If I recall, I believe that the Flashscan 8 uses the same Hitachi 3ccd camera as Roger's own Sniper unit so I assume that sharpness and dynamic range at least would be identical with these two transfer units.

By the way, is there such a thing as a Flashscan 16?

[MovieStuff]

But that holds true regardless of what two transfer units you are referring to...

Ummm, yeah. But what I reacted to, and replied to, was a guy who believed that his lowbudget WP setup was superior to "a rank", or at least produced the same level of quality. And it just isn´t true, his setup is not capable of producing the same quality of images that a proffessional telecine setup is capable of delivering.

Of course it can, and does. PC Magazine did a head to head test with a Rank Turbo and the results are online for everyone to see. Since the Rank does not do HD, then I would say that his WorkPrinter/HD set up is going to do things that the Rank can not. We have been experimenting in house with HD transfers using an HD camera and while I don't agree that the results would be better than a high end HD scanning unit (sorry, Eugene), it looks to the eye far and away better than any SD transfer I have seen off of 8mm.

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? ;)

Yes, a negative transfer I might add. But what has this to do with this thread?

It just shows that regardless of the equipment used, operator input is as important as anything if quality results are the goal.

It only proves my point.

Not really, since the makers of FlashScan promote it as a negative scanner:

http://www.mwa-nova.de/flashscan8.htm

What is more interesting is that this WP guy is offering negative transfers... And bragging about quality... My guess is that he can never even match the colors from a Flashscan8 negative transfer (due to the lack of optical color correction)...

Well, your guess is based on your own inability to do negative transfers, depsite the fact that the FlashScan is promoted on their website as a negative scanner. As such, your "guess" has no relevance to whether or not Eugene can do a good job off of negative using his modified WP system. I, personally, have never been able to do good negative transfers with our system nor do I promote my WorkPrinter or Sniper units as negative scanners -however- I have seen excellent examples of negative transfers by Justin's Sniper-Pro and Mitch (who uses his own condenser lens set up). I mean, let's face it, regardless of whether you are using a WorkPrinter, Sniper-Pro or a FlashScan, you are simply copying film to digital using a video camera. The FlashScan makers promote their product as a negative scanner so why can't Eugene or anyone else that also use a camera to transfer film? If they produce good looking results that the customer is happy with, then that's the bottom line even if neither you nor I can achieve good negative results with the very same equipment. Our inability to handle negative has no bearing on what others are able to achieve.

As to whether it is "better" than a high end system, well I know the limitations of my equipment and I know that is impossible (again, sorry, Eugene). That said, we have sold quite a few Sniper-Pro units to archive houses that feel the results they achieve are superior to what they got when the sent their films to high end scanning houses. People can go on and on about histograms, resolution and color depth but, in the end, customer satisfaction is the primary measuring tool of whether a system is viable or not.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

If I recall, I believe that the Flashscan 8 uses the same Hitachi 3ccd camera as Roger's own Sniper unit so I assume that sharpness and dynamic range at least would be identical with these two transfer units.

No the Hitachi camera we normally use is an older model than what the FlashScan uses. But Justin uses the same camera on his Sniper-Pro that the FlashScan uses and we can fit any camera to the Sniper-Pro. We have made units with Sony, Hitachi and Panasonic cameras. Whatever the customer wants.

Roger

[mattias]

If I recall, I believe that the Flashscan 8 uses the same Hitachi 3ccd camera as Roger's own Sniper unit so I assume that sharpness and dynamic range at least would be identical with these two transfer units.

not exactly the same camera i think, but probably close. your conclusion is odd though. do you mean it uses the same light source, the same optics and the same transport too? how else would they be identical?

/matt

[Andreas Wideroe]

What's the difference between flying spot and line area?

See here:
http://www.cintel.co.uk/about_readfaq.asp?ID=13