Perry Movie Transfers

[MovieStuff]

Hi, all!

Just a plug for my ex wife Annette' s transfer service. For any of you older forum members, you might remember that she used to run our transfer service in the earliest days of MovieStuff back in Houston. With our daughter in college, Annette has decided to resume doing transfers. She has a great eye for color and I've set her up with our Universal scanner as well as all the various gates we produce. She now goes by the name Annette Perry. Though we went our separate ways years ago, we are still great friends and I know she would do a terrific job for anyone looking for a budget scan.

You can find her at http://www.perrymovietransfers.com

Thanks for looking!
Roger Evans
owner, MovieStuff, LLC

[Tscan]

Nice! I can relate to the hard drive disclaimer. Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard you stress that the drive be NTFS formatted, you still get Mac formatted drives from people that just don't work with Windows. Locals drop off and pick up next day, but some will end up having to make 2-3 trips before they give me a drive I can use. Although for smaller jobs, those 32 or 64GB USB thumb drives have worked pretty well lately, so long as they are formatted NTFS.

[milesandjules]

Thats cool Roger- M&j wish Annette all the best with her new business

[RyanH]

That's good to know. Quick question Roger, on her page is says she is capturing at 1080p. Does that mean you have upgraded the camera?

[MovieStuff]

That's good to know. Quick question Roger, on her page is says she is capturing at 1080p. Does that mean you have upgraded the camera?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, her page actually says that all film is captured at "1080p quality". The camera is still the same 964 but that's really only 58 lines short top and bottom of being true 1080. That's about the thickness of an 8mm frame line. On output, the software then gently bumps that up to 1080 or down to 720 or all the way down to SD in PAL or NTSC. Our tests have shown there to be zero difference in perceived quality between capturing at 964 and 1080, hence the term "1080p quality". The main reason for stating the quality is for people wanting slides transferred, since they would only be at HD resolution and not a typical 5k scan. Hopefully, in the first or second quarter, we will have a 2k upgrade kit for the Universals for those that feel they need 2k resolution.

Roger

[RyanH]

Huh. 964 is only 90% of 1080p, and you have to be cropping inside the frame otherwise you'd lose even more when you crop out any oversampling. Just feels kind of disingenuous. 1080p is a very specific technical claim.

[MovieStuff]

Huh. 964 is only 90% of 1080p, and you have to be cropping inside the frame otherwise you'd lose even more when you crop out any oversampling. Just feels kind of disingenuous. 1080p is a very specific technical claim.

Well, there is no intent to deceive though I suppose I could put a denoted explanation so I get your point, thanks. But, seriously, 10% is distinction without a difference, within the context of this application. You could realistically cut the resolution by 30% or more down to only 720p and, honestly, you'd never see the difference on regular 8 or super 8 home movies displayed on a typical 42 inch diagonal flat screen and you could double the resolution and it still wouldn't be enough for 16mm Kodachrome. More to the point, picture quality isn't really just a numbers game. For instance, our previous Sniper-HD units technically scanned at full 1080p but the Universal at only 964 is noticeably sharper with way more detail in a side by side comparison. Also, when we were offering the 16:9 1080p transfers on the Sniper-HD units, a lot of people that cared wanted us to pull back so that the frame lines were visible top and bottom on the captured 1080 image as they wanted to then crop in post right to the frame line edge. Of course, when you do that, you end up with a 964 scan which is then ironically resized to 1080! But, again, I will take your comments under consideration.

My best,
Roger

[Will2]

Nice! I can relate to the hard drive disclaimer. Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard you stress that the drive be NTFS formatted, you still get Mac formatted drives from people that just don't work with Windows. Locals drop off and pick up next day, but some will end up having to make 2-3 trips before they give me a drive I can use. Although for smaller jobs, those 32 or 64GB USB thumb drives have worked pretty well lately, so long as they are formatted NTFS.

I know it might be inconvenient, but it seems like if your business is handling digital video, picking up a used $300 Mac might be a good investment for those customers working on that platform. I know it's an extra step but making it easy for customers makes them want to come back.

[Will2]

You can find her at http://www.perrymovietransfers.com

Hmmm...that web design looks familiar...

Just out of curiosity, why the JPEG text? It keeps it from being searchable via Google...is that part of the plan?

[MovieStuff]

I know it might be inconvenient, but it seems like if your business is handling digital video, picking up a used $300 Mac might be a good investment for those customers working on that platform. I know it's an extra step but making it easy for customers makes them want to come back.

Unless something has changed, a Mac can read an NTFS drive so it should not be a problem for them to simply transfer the files from the NTFS drive to their Mac. On the other hand, if someone using an older Mac happens to think a FAT32 drive is acceptable and they have video files that are larger than 4 gigs, things get needlessly complicated. So the easiest thing to do is simply specify that all drives should be formatted NTFS.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

You can find her at http://www.perrymovietransfers.com

Hmmm...that web design looks familiar...

Just out of curiosity, why the JPEG text? It keeps it from being searchable via Google...is that part of the plan?

There are actually plenty of text tags hidden down at the bottom of the page as white HTML text that google can easily find. Using a JPEG was just a fast, easy way to get something up. She'll be redesigning her site as time goes on.

Roger

[RyanH]

You could realistically cut the resolution by 30% or more down to only 720p and, honestly, you'd never see the difference on regular 8 or super 8 home movies displayed on a typical 42 inch diagonal flat screen and you could double the resolution and it still wouldn't be enough for 16mm Kodachrome. More to the point, picture quality isn't really just a numbers game. For instance, our previous Sniper-HD units technically scanned at full 1080p but the Universal at only 964 is noticeably sharper with way more detail in a side by side comparison.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I really appreciate and agree that resolution is only one factor of the quality of any image, and optics, the source, mechanical factors and such often have a far greater effect while being far harder to quantify. But it still feels off to me to take one of the few precise definitions and stretch it to try and include other factors. The resolution is a number with a meaning, not a quality slider. After all, I suspect that if the company you buy your cameras from advertised the resolution as being 1080p, you'd be fairly upset when they turned out to be only 964, and any argument that "you can't notice the difference" would not impress you (or many other customers).

Which has me kind of curious about your 2k upgrade. Once it's available how are you or your customers going to differentiate it from your current offering? After all, if the quality really is indistinguishable, there's no reason to buy (or offer) the upgrade, and if it's not indistinguishable, it leaves the people who buy a true 1080 camera in a bind. Are they supposed to tell clients that all the other people offering 1080 are advertising falsely? Why spend extra if someone else can spend less to advertise the same quality? I can see some interesting conversations with customers "Yes, but when they say 1080p, it's not really 1080p, but my 1080p really is..."

[MovieStuff]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I really appreciate and agree that resolution is only one factor of the quality of any image, and optics, the source, mechanical factors and such often have a far greater effect while being far harder to quantify. But it still feels off to me to take one of the few precise definitions and stretch it to try and include other factors.

But that's the reality of scanning any kind of image. It would actually be more dishonest to pretend that just scanning at a specific number guarantees an expected quality. Not putting a spin on it but "1080 quality" could actually be achieved by scanning 8mm film in standard definition PAL and then uprezzing to 1080. That's been proven many times over by members of this very forum. Honestly, the average customer would never see the difference on a typical HD television set. Also, and this is important to remember, it is not unusual on very expensive scanners to crop into the pixel array when the loss of pixel resolution is less than the required optical resolution of the target being scanned.

The resolution is a number with a meaning, not a quality slider.

But the number only has a meaning if one understands it within a given context. If 1080p is viewed as an accurate quantifier of quality, then all 1080p camcorders would produce the same quality results simply because they are 1080p but that clearly is not the case. Resolution is only one very small part of image quality and resolution can be manipulated based on target size and intended display size. But, rather than get into the mathematics, the term "1080 quality" is what we use on her website. Now, on my MovieStuff website, I am very specific that the cameras on the Universal scan at 964 resolution and are gently upscaled to 1080. This is because the buyer of the system needs to understand the specific resolution of the camera. But someone asking for a scan of their old home movies just needs to be assured they will get 1080 quality, regardless of the method used. So, again, context is everything.

After all, I suspect that if the company you buy your cameras from advertised the resolution as being 1080p, you'd be fairly upset when they turned out to be only 964, and any argument that "you can't notice the difference" would not impress you (or many other customers).

But that's a different conversation. If I ask them what the resolution is and they say it is 1080 and it's really 964, they have misrepresented the technical specs of the camera. But if they say the camera is 964 resolution but provides 1080 quality, that may very well be a true statement, depending on the context of how the camera would be used and the expectations of the user. Again, on my website, I am very specific about the actual resolution of the camera. I have yet to find any professional that has had a differing view regarding that 10% difference you speak of within the context of scanning old 8mm films. As I say, you could easily drop the resolution to 720 for 8mm and it would pretty much look the same on a typical display or you could double the resolution and it still would fall short of what you really need for 16mm Kodachrome. So, within that context, the missing 10% is irrelevant. It's either too much without or or not enough with it.

Which has me kind of curious about your 2k upgrade. Once it's available how are you or your customers going to differentiate it from your current offering? After all, if the quality really is indistinguishable, there's no reason to buy (or offer) the upgrade, and if it's not indistinguishable, it leaves the people who buy a true 1080 camera in a bind. Are they supposed to tell clients that all the other people offering 1080 are advertising falsely? Why spend extra if someone else can spend less to advertise the same quality? I can see some interesting conversations with customers "Yes, but when they say 1080p, it's not really 1080p, but my 1080p really is..."

Well, again, context is important, especially when talking about resolution versus aspect ratio. The 2k upgrade kit will have a camera that is not limited to just 2k as the sensor is actually 2048 x 1536. Since, with rare exception, the aspect ratio of the target image is almost always 4:3, that means one could use the entire 4:3 sensor and end up with a scan that would need to float within a 3k 16:9 frame to maintain all the 2k detail of the 4:3 film image. Otherwise, you would be cropping into the film image to fill a 16:9 2k frame. And, finally, offering the 2k kit isn't because I see it as necessary to the medium but, rather, simply because people are asking for it whether they need it or not and one must remain competitive within this market. But they will be able to scan at the 964 resolution, also, if that is what they are used to doing. But they would be doing it with a better, sharper sensor. So there are other distinctions about the new camera beyond just a comparison of 964 vs 1080 resolution.

Roger

[RyanH]

"1080 quality" could actually be achieved by scanning 8mm film in standard definition PAL and then uprezzing to 1080.

If I ask them what the resolution is and they say it is 1080 and it's really 964, they have misrepresented the technical specs of the camera. But if they say the camera is 964 resolution but provides 1080 quality, that may very well be a true statement

See, this is my hangup, and I suppose it's semantics as much as anything else, but I always tend to feel definitions matter. If someone says "this is 964 resolution but provides 1080 quality" everything after that but is meaningless. Could just as easily be "this is 964 resolution but provides 56849 quality". Used in this way "1080 quality" conveys exactly 0 useful information.

A 480p image can very well be a better quality picture than a 1080p one, but that does't mean that it is 1080p. This shows up all the time in the professional photography world where someone with an older, lower megapixel camera but amazing lenses can take much higher quality pictures than someone with the latest body and kit lenses. That doesn't make the older 16mp camera "32mp quality". The idea that "1080p" means a specific thing, but that "1080p quality" is independent from any technical meaning rubs me the wrong way. The whole imaging industry needs better language to talk about quality, but degrading specific technical terms into generic marketing descriptors isn't useful.

[MovieStuff]

"1080 quality" could actually be achieved by scanning 8mm film in standard definition PAL and then uprezzing to 1080.

If I ask them what the resolution is and they say it is 1080 and it's really 964, they have misrepresented the technical specs of the camera. But if they say the camera is 964 resolution but provides 1080 quality, that may very well be a true statement

See, this is my hangup, and I suppose it's semantics as much as anything else, but I always tend to feel definitions matter.

But definition and meaning can be mutually exclusive. If I say that I am 6'1", that defines how tall I am but has no relevant meaning without context since there are always those taller or shorter than me. Likewise, if I say only that I am taller than my girlfriend, that provides a meaning by way of context of relative heights, even if I never define how tall I am by the inch. My point is that a definition is important as a baseline of information but has no meaning without context. If I am selling a scanner, then I need to define the resolution of the camera which, in this case, is 964. When I say that our 964 camera produces 1080 quality, it isn't something pulled out of thin air. It is a true statement derived through direct comparisons with other 1080 cameras. But even if I had a camera that scanned at 1080 resolution, a claim of "1080 quality" would need to be verified since some 1080 cameras produce a better image than others. If it didn't look as good, then all I could really say is that it scanned at 1080; not that it scanned at 1080 quality. ;)

If someone says "this is 964 resolution but provides 1080 quality" everything after that but is meaningless.

On the contrary, it actually provides useful meaning beyond just a number. To say that something scans at 1080 and therefore provides 1080 quality would be meaningless unless verified through direct testing. Again, if the number 1080 is a quantifier of quality, then all 1080 cameras would look the same and they do not. This isn't my opinion. This is what drives the sensor industry.

Could just as easily be "this is 964 resolution but provides 56849 quality". Used in this way "1080 quality" conveys exactly 0 useful information.

Not at all. To say that this 964 camera produces 1080 quality is a true statement easily verified through a free test transfer offered on both my site and her site. To say that 964 produces 56849 quality is easily identified as a false statement even without a free test transfer.

A 480p image can very well be a better quality picture than a 1080p one, but that does't mean that it is 1080p.

Agreed. But you need to decide which argument you are making. If a 480p image is better quality than a 1080p image, then it would not be a false statement to say the 480p image is at the very least "1080p quality".

This shows up all the time in the professional photography world where someone with an older, lower megapixel camera but amazing lenses can take much higher quality pictures than someone with the latest body and kit lenses. That doesn't make the older 16mp camera "32mp quality". The idea that "1080p" means a specific thing, but that "1080p quality" is independent from any technical meaning rubs me the wrong way. The whole imaging industry needs better language to talk about quality, but degrading specific technical terms into generic marketing descriptors isn't useful.

I agree except that neither you nor anyone else seems to be confused by it.

That said, I will most likely put a denote on Annette's website. You raise some valid concerns and it's always better to be transparent about these things.

Cheers
Roger