Workprinter XP to Sniper (Kinda)

[BigWorm]

Art,

Nice capture! That's one hell of a camera too! I had a DVX-100 back in the day but regrettably sold it. Panasonic makes a good product and I miss that camera.

I've also been following your videos on YouTube for quite a while now.. All around good info there...

[Roster]

I second that Tom. Art's work is great.

Your conversion info/writeup is fantastic too. I have a Workprinter XP (non RGB) and you have me seriously considering it. I'm not sure I trust my skills to pull it off by I'm sure I can get some mechanically inclined friends to help.

I can run my WP on either a PC or Mac, but is there a Capturemate for HD?

Wooda

[BigWorm]

Wooda,

My main computer at home is a MAC so of course I am also interested in a HD capture package that runs on a MAC. I checked with Sebastian Bird of bensoftware a month ago and he didn't have an HD version of Capturemate available yet. Said he was thinking about it but nothing concrete yet.

Yesterday, I completed the Velocity HD and Velocity Box configuration for my new WorkPrinter HD and all I can say is that it's a rather complex set of hardware and software that Roger and Jeff have assembled to make it all work. I was sitting there thinking about how much work they have done and how much time it would have taken me to get to where they are now with their capture units and software. Do yourself a favor and go with the Velocity HD and Velocity Box. It'll save you time in the long run. Personally, I'd rather spend my time be shooting and transferring than messing around with a telecine rig.

[BigWorm]

An HD capture with the new upgraded Workprinter HD on Vemio:

http://www.vimeo.com/8872969

[avplumber]

hey Tom

i have a barebones Workprinter-XP and I've been capturing HD on my Mac with it since i bought it last year. the difference is that i don't have the Velocity box. i still use the modified mouse. i'm not really sure how the Velocity box works. i've been meaning to give Roger a call to get some details. but when i read on here that he has 3000+ customers that each need handholding (his words), i feel guilty every time i think about picking up the phone.

i've used a few different cameras, including the Canon 7D. but my main setup is this:

Workprinter XP with modified Mouse
Panasonic HVX-200 via component HD (also used Sony EX1 with HD-SDI and Canon 7D with HDMI successfully. i was going to try a RED One, but it's live output is only 720p)
CaptureMate
AJA Kona LHe (but i've also used a Matrox MXO2 and a Blackmagic Intensity Pro)
Mac Pro 8 core

CaptureMate doesn't care what resolution you're capturing. it will work with all the capture methods that your capture card currently supports. but it only works at Uncompressed. it wont work with ProRes, which is my main codec. so i have to capture Uncompressed 8-bit or 10-bit 422. after capture i transcode that to ProRes HQ, then delete the original clips. Roger suggests a multidrive RAID-0 for capturing, and when dealing with Uncompressed HD, it's beyond required. you also have to make sure that you have a fast computer. i'm lucky that my main capture storage is a fibre channel RAID on an Xsan system. so bandwidth isnt an issue. but i have to make sure that i transcode the Uncompressed files to ProRes ASAP so the other editors on the Xsan don't start yelling at me for using up all the space.

with the MXO2, you can use either a Mac Tower or Laptop. so i tried capturing with my MacBook Pro 2.33 and a Firewire 800 drive and it didnt work. 8fps is just too fast. with a slower Workprinter, the laptop setup could work. so you need heavy iron to make HD capture work, but it does work. typically i capture on the Mac Pro and transcode to ProRes. then i do all the followup color correction and editing on my MacBook Pro reading the ProRes files from a firewire 800 drive.

e

[mr.skull]

Hi avplumber,

Do you like the Blackmagic Intensity Pro card? It seems like a good deal for 200 bucks. I already have all the equipment I need for HD super 8 captures except the hdmi interface. I have an 8 core mac, a canon HF100 camcorder, and the all-important workprinter. Glad to hear that Capturemate works with HD, and uncompressed is a fine for me as I have the 1 fps Workprinter Jr. No RAID needed for captures at at that speed. So any thoughts on the Intensity Pro card by you or anyone else would be appreciated.

Best Regards,
Joel Fletcher

[MovieStuff]

The BlackMagic Intensity Pro card works just great. Super cheap and you can capture uncompressed or with the MJPEG (not MPEG) HD codec. That's what we use for the Sniper HD and WorkPrinter-HD units and the image quality is just great.

[mr.skull]

That sounds excellent Roger. I captured all of my super 8 films to SD via the Workprinter about 5 years ago, but always planned to re-do some of them in HD when the technology was ready. Which is pretty much now.

Roger, do you know if the 12x zoom of the Canon HF100 has enough "reach" to work with the condenser lens of the Workprinter?

Thanks,
Joel

[avplumber]

The BMD Intensity Pro is a great card and a steal. i even color corrected a series for National Geographic on one.

e

[BigWorm]

I finished the conversion of my standard WorkPrinter-XP to WorkPrinter HD and I am very pleased with the results. The WorkPrinter-XP is an awesome machine and my main goal for the conversion was to reuse as much of the original WorkPrinter as possible and integrate other COTS products as needed to make it work. The conversion is near perfect and I couldn't have wished for a better configuration to take my captures to the next level (HD). I have posted a guide that details everything I did to make the WorkPrinter-XP to HD upgrade. Click the link below to download the .PDF document.

http://files.me.com/tom.houston/ewsk5p

Happy New Year!

I'm changing some things around. The conversion document is available directly from my site now (URL in signature) and the old link no longer works. For anyone needed assistance with the conversion, I'm offering this as a service as well. The original conversion document link is located at the bottom of the "Workprinter-XP Conversion" page.

Thanks!

[BigWorm]

eBay seller (jiakgong) has 4-way Macro focusing sliders for $48.99 including free shipping! I have purchased from them in the past and they are reliable. It's a great price if you've been contemplating converting your standard Workprinter to an HD capable machine. Let me know if you need assistance with your conversion!

[gaugefilm]

Reviving this old post,

I've been trying to get Roger for a week, but now I also feel a little bad trying to calling him daily since last thursday (finding he has some 3000+ customers)! And this was posted in 2010! I think I'll leave off it for a few weeks and see if he gets back to me in his own time. I thought I'd ask here instead for the time being.

I purchased Toms XP conversion doc and have been sourcing the parts list which comes to a smashing low price. I'm stumped on whether to purchase a workprinter-xp of Roger for conversion or a workprinter HD. The benefits of the HD version is you can fine tune exposure with the unit, it can accommodate uncompressed captures at the flick of a switch and most importantly it has the velocity circuit already installed which bypasses the need for a sync mouse (I assume this means I don't need the velocity box on Toms parts list). It also eliminated the need to set a timing disc. So as long as I can pull off Toms conversion on the HD unit (which I'm pretty sure I can) I will have a nice capable machine with a small footprint.

Some tech questions I wanted to as Roger:

1. Will the HD converted unit both capture the film gate pillar box style and full crop (that is cropping the top and bottom half of the image out). Can you zoom in optically/ or get the Canon HF200 close enough to the film gate with the Raynox DCR-250 macro lens attached? It's important it can do both because a lot of my customers are artists and they prefer the image to fill the full 16:9 frame for internet use. I want to get as much information for them in the capturing stage as possible.

2. I'm building a computer. Can anyone help me with the specs? I know I need a Raid-0 drive and a Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro Card. Other than that I have no clue. If anyone can recommend some other specs that would be awesome.

3. Will the unit switch from Super 8 to Standard 8 seamlessly. How much calibration is required to change between the mediums?

Thanks everyone. I'm all set to purchase what ever I need, whether it be the HD Workprinter or the rather more expensive Sniper HDL. I'm hoping i can get the HD Workprinter because that'll mean there will be some cash left over for a 16mm unit! Hopefully an affordable 8mm and 16mm HD telecine service will be set up in the UK in no time. Exciting stuff!

Thanks
Kevin

[granfer]

A word of caution here!!! It is far too easily overlooked that Blackmagic Intensity Pro is VERY, VERY fussy about what Computer it will run on. It's SO easy to simply gloss over the System Requirements on the Blackmagic Website and think that your computer is more than adequate... but Intensity Pro will not work properly if you use other than the specific motherboards listed fitted with the CORRECT[/b ] Chipsets and Processors.
I'm no computer technophobe, so I found to my cost that the computer I built specially would not run it; I simply had not understood the implications of not following the detailed requirements WORD for WORD!
Which is why Roger recommends a particular Computer supplier who will build you one specially for use with Blackmagic Hardware.

[gaugefilm]

Thanks granfer, I'll definitely pay close attention to system requirements! I, like you, would have probably glossed over such things. I would purchase the comp from the states but the problem is customs and vat to the UK. It's already going to cost a bomb for the telecine machine. Trying to keep costs to a minimum.

Unfortunately still no word from Roger. Anyone got any ideas how long it can take for him to reply?

Best
Kevin

[MovieStuff]

Thanks granfer, I'll definitely pay close attention to system requirements! I, like you, would have probably glossed over such things. I would purchase the comp from the states but the problem is customs and vat to the UK. It's already going to cost a bomb for the telecine machine. Trying to keep costs to a minimum.

Unfortunately still no word from Roger. Anyone got any ideas how long it can take for him to reply?

Best
Kevin

Hi!

Just noticed this. We've been slammed with orders but I was pretty sure I answered you. I will double check my emails and messages but feel free to email me directly at roger@swtexas.net or call me at 830-966-4664

Sorry for any delay. Things are hectic this time of year.

Roger