Telecine without sprocket holes!

[Santo]

Hey, I'm about to send you a single 50 foot reel of K40 I shot a couple weeks back for one of your free tests.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041108-4382.html

I sure hope Roger isn't incorporating Best Buy corporation tactics. I'm just asking about what he's got on his website, and something he's proposed to me himself. There's nothing malicious involved.

[greenplastic79]

I was in no way insinuating that Roger uses any form of malicious business tactics. Roger is obviously a gentleman and a scholar.

I just think it's silly to extort one of Roger's free services when you already know what an outstanding person he is. I guess I should just mind my own business and let you take your gift horse to the vet.

[Santo]

As usual, you make little sense and are unworthy of your Great Gazoo avatar. How am I extorting anything? What in the world are you talking about? Why are you trying to paint such a bizarre black picture of a simple question? You owe me an apology.

[MovieStuff]

Hey, I'm about to send you a single 50 foot reel of K40 I shot a couple weeks back for one of your free tests. I'd like to see what this Sniper thing can do.

Sure! Just print/fill out this form and include it with your film:

http://www.moviestuff.tv/transfers_freetest.html

You can send PayPal to moviestuff@swtexas.net

You'll be one of the first few orders in our telecine suite since we moved it to Utopia, Texas!

Just looked at your site and it's advertised as "rock steady" and "razor sharp".

Well, I think our transfers look pretty good but you'll have to judge for yourself if they're legendary. ;)

If you have any telecine questions, just talk to my wife, Annette. She runs the telecine department but when your film comes in, I'll be happy to personally oversee the transfer (she's much better at color correction than me, though).

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

[MovieStuff]

my suggestion would be to use a registration pin that stops the wheel and holds it in place intermittently.

That's pretty much how our prototype is working except there is a sort of spring loaded ratchet mechanism. Basically, there is always forward tension on the film by way of slip clutch on the take up. A rotating cam releases the pin temporarily and the drum starts to move. The spring loaded pin then snaps into the next registration hole to stop the forward movement. Pretty simple, actually. I am also looking at a worm gear that would move the drum in increments. That's even simpler (and quieter, too!).

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

[paulcotto]

If you use a stepper or a servo motor the accuracy is a product of how many steps it takes to move the wheel a given distance. If you use a gear reduction you can go as fine as you want to. 1 step can equal .00003 inches. Then you tell it to move enough steps to equal one frame. It's really easy to do with modern CNC software. All CNC machines use this principal and its been around for over 30 years now so it works. You could eliminate the sprocket teeth and just use rubber coating on the big wheel for friction. One pin on the weel is all that would be needed for alignment.

Regards,
Paul Cotto

great idea roger.

Is not so hard to build, maybe using an electronically controlled step-by-step motor which can move the sprocketed drum in an intermittent way

are those really that accurate though? seems like the wheel has to be very carefully balanced and the film fed with a very steady tension for it to work. my suggestion would be to use a registration pin that stops the wheel and holds it in place intermittently.

/matt

[Alex]

Two things I'm wondering about.

The bigger this sprocketed hub is, the more likely one may get sideways weave, no?

The other thing is if for some reason the distance between the sprocket holes on the film isn't consistent, than couldn't the big sprocket gear gizmo turn into a giant sproket hole puncher punching new sprockets between the existing ones?

[marc]

This would be a very simple unit to produce and could run unattended for hours and hours. Should handle splices like a dream, too!

Does this mean that it would be a cheaper purchase than the workprinter?

[marc]

Roger,
I have one more question that is somewhat unrelated but since you were talking about the workprinter projectors, I thought that I would ask about it. What would you charge for the refurbished projector by itself without the whole setup?

[mattias]

If you use a stepper or a servo motor the accuracy is a product of how many steps it takes to move the wheel a given distance.

makes sense, but i was also concerned about the load. are they strong enough to stop at such exact positions and remain very steady there?

/matt

[MovieStuff]

If you use a stepper or a servo motor the accuracy is a product of how many steps it takes to move the wheel a given distance.

makes sense, but i was also concerned about the load. are they strong enough to stop at such exact positions and remain very steady there?

/matt

Stepper motors come in all sizes and they are plenty strong enough for this type of application. I have used stepper motors in the past for a variety of personal projects where I am the one using the unit but I have found that using them in products to ship out can sometimes be problematic because they are harder to diagnose problems on and the average person can not service the unit. Gear motor mechanism may not be as elegant but typically are cheaper to produce and are not as "fiddly" in the long run. It just depends on the application. It would certainly work for this unit and is something I have considered. If just building a one-off that I was using myself or for someone else that was capable, I wouldn't hesitate using stepper motors but there are other issues I have to look at when mass producing something because I don't personally put in every nut and bolt. As such I have to take into account the skill level of the person I hire to assemble, etc.

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

[MovieStuff]

This would be a very simple unit to produce and could run unattended for hours and hours. Should handle splices like a dream, too!

Does this mean that it would be a cheaper purchase than the workprinter?

Not likely. Creating something from scratch is never as cheap as modifying an existing unit. I have no idea what this unit would cost but I don't really sell that many WorkPrinter-Jr units and I have to be careful about over diversity in my product because it causes problems with storage and manufacturing, labor, etc.

What would you charge for the refurbished projector by itself without the whole setup?

We don't sell the projector portion seperately because I have to ultimately set up an entire unit, complete with condenser lens and the such, just to be able to test. Once I reach that stage, the labor is already invested in the unit.

On a related note, sometimes people contact me and tell me that they have an old projector they found in their grandfather's closet or something and they expect a substantial price break for providing their own projector. They really don't understand that the price is based on the labor and overhead that goes into the unit and not just the base material cost, which is usually minimal. One guy had actually gone ahead and traced down the exact same projectors I use for the 8mm and 16mm Snipers as well as a video camera. He then sent me an email and said he wanted to ship the units to me and would pay me $100 to build them into Sniper-Pro units; $200 if I built them on a rush! He was dissapointed when I declined and actually quite angry. I reasoned with him and asked if people could get film transfers from him for free if they simply provided their own blank video tape. He suddenly understood the flaw in his logic! He ended up buying my units and is now very happy.

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

Moviestuff wrote:

He then sent me an email and said he wanted to ship the units to me and would pay me $100 to build them into Sniper-Pro units; $200 if I built them on a rush!

Are you serious? 8O
Must be a new record of idiotic people! 8O

[paulcotto]

The larger ones are used to move the X-Y bed on a vertical milling machine so I don't think there would be a problem with 8mm film I have built my own CNC mini mill with servo motors on all 3 axis, Servos have many advantages over steppers. Steppers heat up and loose tourque as speed increases. Servos dont have those problems and can act as steppers with the right controler. I use the gecko drive units because they are simple to set up and tiny.

http://www.geckodrive.com/products.htbml

They are great for experiments. I drive them with Turbo CNC and a cheap old PC.

http://www.dakeng.com/turbo.html

Regards,
Paul Cotto

If you use a stepper or a servo motor the accuracy is a product of how many steps it takes to move the wheel a given distance.

makes sense, but i was also concerned about the load. are they strong enough to stop at such exact positions and remain very steady there?

/matt

[Actor]

My idea for the ultimate telecine unit is to lay the film out on a 50' long light table. The camera would be mounted above the table on a motion control unit capable of movement in x,y,z,pitch,roll and yaw. Registration would be acomplished by an A.I. program which would use the frame boundary as a reference. Even better, the program could scan each scene (after first deciding which series of frames constitutes a scene), construct a reference background in memory, decide whether the camera was fixed, panning, tilting, zooming or whatever, then adjust registration based on the background. The ultimate solution to jitter and shake. It would be wonderful.

This thing could be assembled with off the shelf hardware and software. The only thing that might have to be built to order would be the light table as I doubt that anyone manufacturers one that big.

The cost of this thing would be enormous. I would guess upwards of $100,000 or even $1,000,000. Unless I win the super duper lotto I'll never build it. I can dream can't I?

Something like this was used by the National Archieves to transfer the Zapruder film to video. A specially built 25' long light table was used. Each frame was photographed with a 5x4" still camera. Each 4x5 was then copied with a digital camera, registration being controlled by a human operator.