Blackmagic introduces $30K 16/35mm film scanner

[Andreas Wideroe]

[Nicholas Kovats]

Thanks for posting the official BM video, Andreas. It is great to see an aggregation of all the former Cinetel pre and post software in one package. I wonder if they eventually will integrate Resolve? But his last words are telling, "...we hope to be shipping by the end of the year (2014)". But the pre-hype may impact the scanner market.

Its great see you guys hacking and retrofitting legacy film scanners!

[Andreas Wideroe]

I hope to see Revival made into a Mac app or fully integrated into a Resolve. Would be awesome.

Anyone here attend NAB this year?

/Andreas

[nikonr10]

In the age of most people trying to make ends meet , who can afford 30k on a scanner ! for home use ? unless your some kind of evil banker or of that kind ,
nice dream ' just to shoot on film , ie photo's or makeing film's that is not a cheap thing too do , the kodak moment is not a eveyday thing anymore !
but maybe in time it will come down in price"

Mind you new mac's never did . But there must be a market for those's that can ?

[Tscan]

In the age of most people trying to make ends meet , who can afford 30k on a scanner ! for home use ? unless your some kind of evil banker or of that kind ,
nice dream ' just to shoot on film , ie photo's or makeing film's that is not a cheap thing too do , the kodak moment is not a eveyday thing anymore !
but maybe in time it will come down in price"

Mind you new mac's never did . But there must be a market for those's that can ?

Exactly. Unless you're a 1%er that likes to shoot on 16/35mm film, a price tag of $30K is in the commercial realm. Theoretically a scanner at this price could offer much cheaper scans, since most high end scanners were running up to $200K until recently. But most existing places are still carrying the burden of more expensive equipment. I don't see a start up venture buying this machine and getting much 35mm business. If I didn't already own the Retro8, I would be willing to spend as much as $5K on a lesser version of this that did 2k scans of 8/16mm formats. That way i could still service enough of a niche to justify having it for my own personal use.

Let's say hypothetically I have the skills and resources to buy this unit as a business venture servicing industry 16/35mm projects. Even though there are a good amount of features and TV shows shooting in the US Pacific NW where i live... Only a portion of them are shooting on film. Since there are no labs up here anymore, their films are most likely sent to LA for processing and dailies. So my point is, Entering the 16/35mm post production market as a start up would be very difficult. For an existing venture, most of the established places are still paying off the machines they have. It will have to fit into a place that is at the point of upgrading their older, paid for equipment.

[Will2]

You would need a relationship with a film archive and a contract to do 4K scans of their material. Unfortunately the cream of that crop is already spoken for. It would be good to find some corporate archives like old NASA contractors that haven't re-scanned all their archives.

Blackmagic says there's a huge market but I think it is for the companies that own the archives to buy this and do it themselves vs. hiring it out.

It's a good point that all the post houses sitting on their million dollar Spirits are going after the archive market like crazy. If they've been doing it for a while their machines are more than paid for. A house here in Dallas had two Spirits and a Millennium and they were paid for 10x over with what they used to bill. Can't get that money anymore but the machines are well past paid for.

[wado1942]

Blackmagic is DETERMINED to make cheap/unreliable video equipment for every corner of the market aren't they? I've used plenty of their stuff and I can't trust any of it. I won't buy anything they make in the foreseeable future.

[Andreas Wideroe]

We've used Blackmagic products for proffessional use in my postproduction facility for years without any big problems at all. We've been very happy with the products.

[wado1942]

You're lucky. Not one of our computer BM cards has been reliable, nor any of our Hyperdecks.