DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Forum covering all aspects of small gauge cinematography! This is the main discussion forum.

Moderator: Andreas Wideroe

carllooper
Senior member
Posts: 1206
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2010 1:00 am
Real name: Carl Looper
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by carllooper »

RCBasher wrote:
carllooper wrote:I wasn't "making assumptions again". I was literally asking you how you were controlling it.

So perhaps if you had written the assumption statement in the past context rather than the present (eg "I had assumed from....") then I would not have assumed incorrectly that you were still wrongly assuming! :P

Anyway, fun as this banter may be, my original posts were about thinking the requirements through thoroughly then picking the right design and components to meet those requirements.

Frank
cool. And great posts I must say.

cheers
C
Carl Looper
http://artistfilmworkshop.org/
Thomaseo1
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2014 3:57 pm
Real name: Thomas Pederson
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by Thomaseo1 »

Update
After speaking with the family friend we came up with an arrangement that would increase my budget and since the time it would take to build such a machine would be more than a few weeks and an uncertainty in its cost/quality we decided to go with the Retro 8 since it appears to be a more consistantly reliable system.
From the images I've seen on the web of the Retro 8 it appears that the camera is the only thing hooked up to the computer. My best guess is it's basically taking video of steadily moving film and a majority of the work is done on the software side.
Before I pull the trigger on such a large purchase there are still a couple of requirements/questions I'd still like to achieve/answer and hope the Retro 8 can do it.

-HDR - Using the manual exposure settings at different gain levels on the Retro 8 to capture a film numerous times than using something like avisynth to realign and merge the films together creating an hdr film
-Wet Gate/Automatic film cleaner - use the film o clean http://www.film-supply.com/product_info ... ucts_id=63 and a non-toxic cleaning solution to help unwrap film removing any scratches or a film duster http://www.ebay.com/itm/Staticvac-Kinet ... 1209858440?
-Future Updatability to 4k - use a 4k or higher machine vision camera and possible other optics to replace the current camera system and use modified software to create a even more detailed picture
User avatar
MovieStuff
Posts: 6135
Joined: Wed May 01, 2002 1:07 am
Real name: Roger Evans
Location: Kerrville, Texas
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by MovieStuff »

Thomaseo1 wrote:Update

Before I pull the trigger on such a large purchase there are still a couple of requirements/questions I'd still like to achieve/answer and hope the Retro 8 can do it.

-HDR - Using the manual exposure settings at different gain levels on the Retro 8 to capture a film numerous times than using something like avisynth to realign and merge the films together creating an hdr film
I believe that should work pretty well. The RetroScan-HD software has a pretty powerful gamma adjustment that should help shorten that process. Also, if you capture uncompressed and then output uncompressed you can get an awful lot of detail out of the darker areas without having to resort to HDR.
Thomaseo1 wrote:-Wet Gate/Automatic film cleaner - use the film o clean http://www.film-supply.com/product_info ... ucts_id=63 and a non-toxic cleaning solution to help unwrap film removing any scratches or a film duster http://www.ebay.com/itm/Staticvac-Kinet ... 1209858440?
I have no idea if the Film O Clean unit will work. Frankly, I contacted the guy that makes it and talked to him several times. He was supposed to send me a sample of his product while I was still in early development of the Retro series but after many discussions he never came through so I just gave up. We did add some user accessible utility screws to the side of the unit to attach third party or experimental cleaning or wet gate devices but you would have to engineer your own bracket. Had the guy sent us a Film O Clean, we could have made the mounting method ready to go but, alas, that never happened.
Thomaseo1 wrote:-Future Updatability to 4k - use a 4k or higher machine vision camera and possible other optics to replace the current camera system and use modified software to create a even more detailed picture
Nope. The camera can not be update or changed in these units for a variety of physical and software reasons. That's not to say we don't know how but I would spend far more in R&D time and resources to achieve it with not enough sales to ever cover the development costs. So I would say the answer to this question is no.

Call me if you would like to discuss more thoroughly.

Roger
supa8
Posts: 128
Joined: Sun Feb 09, 2003 4:18 pm
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by supa8 »

I agree. As usual, it appears people tend to disregard the human & time factor in the grand making of things.
Labour itself if you were to pay yourself $10 and hour on a first project would certainly go beyond the $1000.
My 2c... (free of charge)
RCBasher
Posts: 456
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:27 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by RCBasher »

supa8 wrote:I agree. As usual, it appears people tend to disregard the human & time factor in the grand making of things.
Labour itself if you were to pay yourself $10 and hour on a first project would certainly go beyond the $1000.
My 2c... (free of charge)
Would have to seriously disagree. The subject title said DIY. DIY is generally done in one's non-formal working time and it would be unusual to pay oneself with money for such time. If you would otherwise be working and earning money, then yes it should be taken into account but then the same would apply to any activity around the house from cooking, washing up, cleaning, gardening, watching TV, making films, etc. We could take it to the extreme and do paid work for our every waking hour and then employ servants to do everything around the house, not a new idea but would be rather rare these days!

We mostly all have spare time, or should I say leisure time and I for one would prefer to spend it being creative, with some DIY for example, than sitting down in front of the idiot's lantern watching the endless banal rubbish trotted out as TV programming. Your time can be valued in many ways but to just put a $$ value on leisure time is stupid IMHO.

Roger runs a business and has to put food on the table for his family. Ergo he has to make a decent margin on his products and whilst there may be some economies of scale, I would suggest that for this type of product there would be plenty of scope for a capable DIY'er to achieve the same or better for less outlay in cash terms, the "price to pay" being leisure time - although I would consider the end result a reward for my time, "payment" doesn't only come in money tokens!

Anyway, from reading the above posts it would appear that Thomas is making the correct decision for his own purposes, perhaps the post title should have been "Should I build my own scanner or buy one?"
Off all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.
User avatar
MovieStuff
Posts: 6135
Joined: Wed May 01, 2002 1:07 am
Real name: Roger Evans
Location: Kerrville, Texas
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by MovieStuff »

RCBasher wrote:
Roger runs a business and has to put food on the table for his family. Ergo he has to make a decent margin on his products and whilst there may be some economies of scale, I would suggest that for this type of product there would be plenty of scope for a capable DIY'er to achieve the same or better for less outlay in cash....."
I agree but this presumes that the end result of the DIY project would give the desired results so being "capable" is really the deciding factor as much as money. The OP may not want to spend more than $1000 on a project like this but not getting what he needs at half that price isn't a bargain, either. And, as someone that has very little of it, leisure time can not be overvalued. ;)

Roger
RCBasher
Posts: 456
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:27 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by RCBasher »

MovieStuff wrote:I agree but this presumes that the end result of the DIY project would give the desired results so being "capable" is really the deciding factor as much as money. The OP may not want to spend more than $1000 on a project like this but not getting what he needs at half that price isn't a bargain, either. And, as someone that has very little of it, leisure time can not be overvalued. ;)

Roger
If people say "I'd rather go fishing" (or insert whatever activity takes your fancy) than build a scanner, then that is absolutely fine. But to try valuing ones leisure/hobby time at an hourly rate is ridiculous because one would not normally be doing paid work at that time, by definition!

At the risk of making incorrect assumptions :P , the topic is about a DIY scanner. Nothing DIY happens without a bit of effort and time. Anyway, I converted my Eiki 16mm projector for transfer in under 30 minutes! Obviously it depends on where you start from, I had one of my lighting systems, etc. sitting on the shelf so it was a doddle.

As to the end result, I bet I could build a $2000 scanner (+cost of a PC) which would blow away pretty much anything else out there in terms of image quality, speed and ease of transfer- but couldn't do it for $1000 though...
Off all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.
User avatar
MovieStuff
Posts: 6135
Joined: Wed May 01, 2002 1:07 am
Real name: Roger Evans
Location: Kerrville, Texas
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by MovieStuff »

I have no doubt that you could. But the relevant question is can the original poster do the same even with twice that amount of money or time? Again, results are the key otherwise ANYone can build a scanner if resulting quality isn't an issue. Even if all the components were free, it isn't worth the time spent if the results fall short of what's desired due to a lack of skill.
Nazdar
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:23 pm
Real name: Josef
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by Nazdar »

Hi, here are two nice and complete opensource telecine projects that can help you. ;)

8mm Rasphberry
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 43&t=79582
http://github.com/jas8mm/rpitelecine

KINOGRAPH 8,16, 35mm
http://kinograph.cc
http://www.instructables.com/id/Kinogra ... m-Scanner/
Nazdar
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:23 pm
Real name: Josef
Contact:

Re: DIY Dual 8 Telecine HD Digitizer under $1000?

Post by Nazdar »

Hi, here are some very nice and complete design DIY telecines

8mm Rasphberry telecine
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt ... 43&t=79582
http://github.com/jas8mm/rpitelecine

KINOGRAPH 8, 16, 35mm
http://kinograph.cc
http://www.instructables.com/id/Kinogra ... m-Scanner/
Post Reply