Telecine to digibeta and transfer to minidv a good option?

[Patrick]

I am pondering possible formats to transfer 16mm colour negative to in relation to quality and budget constraints - and I am on an extremely low budget! Someone has mentioned before the idea of telecining film to digital betacam and then letting a video conversion company transfer the digibeta footage to minidv for convenience of editing at home. Evidently, this also eliminates the cost of hiring out digibeta editing equipment.

I'm not an expert on these things but I would assume that there would be some loss in quality when going from digibeta to minidv. I do note that some people comment that colours on digibeta footage are nicer than on DV for example. However, what I would like to know in particular is if telecining to digibeta and then transferring to minidv will produce better quality results than simply telecining directly to minidv? In other words - if the final editing tape format is going to be minidv, is it worth telecining to digibeta initially for the master copy?

[MovieStuff]

There is no point transferring to Digibeta first if your final edit is going to be miniDV quality. The idea of transferring to Digibeta is so that you can do an offline or "proxy" edit from the miniDV on your computer and then use the resulting timecode to have a post house match your edits off the Digibeta master. That saves money because all the decision making is done cheap on your own NLE system and minimal outlay of cash is needed for the conform of the Digibeta material.

Roger

[Patrick]

"The idea of transferring to Digibeta is so that you can do an offline or "proxy" edit from the miniDV on your computer and then use the resulting timecode to have a post house match your edits off the Digibeta master."

Ah very clever!

However, after the final edit, if you then wanted to distribute copies of the film on dvd or vhs, then I guess one would have to return the digibeta edited version to the posthouse and pay them to produce the dvd and vhs copies using their equipment. Though it would be more convenient to burn dvds and make tapes at home.

[steve hyde]

...This is the work flow I use.

If you plan to do any chroma work, CGI or other post effects you want as much information as possible so you can either have an online editor do that at the post house or you can make your off-line edits on miniDV and then produce an edit decision list (EDL) and then ask the posthouse to pull the edit decisions from the DigiBeta at full 8bit 4:2:2 to an external hard drive so that you can do it yourself on your editing computer.

I use FSFT.com here in Seattle. They don't charge extra for a simul record to both formats so it makes sense to master the transfer on Digibeta.... I actually had a defective DV tape on a recent transfer so I was glad I had the Digibeta master. It was easy for the colorist to strike a dub to a new DV tape. Digibeta is a better archive for your xfer.

Otherwise I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you are filmmaking on someone else's dime and they want broadcast quality. If you don't plan to use chroma keys or CGI or other post effects, you will probably be happy with your DV material if the camera original is exposed well and you work with a good colorist...

Steve

[Patrick]

I'm not familiar with 'chroma' but there won't be any CGI or post effects other than titles. There could be a possibility that there might be some dissolves in the film but this is not certain yet.

Basically the film will be a visual montage of natural landscapes and wildlife set to music. I am not using anyone else's money - this is entirely self funded. I'll be shooting on Fuji 16mm neg film. The way the final film will be distributed will be that copies will likely be sold from a website. There is a good possibility that a tourist / souvenier shop will also sell copies of the film. There is also a slight / remote chance that a ferry ship may also be able to stock copies. In light of all this, would a telecine to DV be good enough quality? On the other hand, the archivability of Digibeta sounds attractive.

[BK]

would a telecine to DV be good enough quality?

You have to look really "closely" on a professional broadcast grade monitor to tell the difference between material recorded on Digibeta or DV especially if the source is originated from a high quality master such as film or HD source. You would be alright using DV for your particular purpose of making DVDs I presume as a finished product for distribution.

Digibeta is a more robust format though compared to DV, and is less prone to tape dropouts after repeated use.

Bill

[Patrick]

Thanks Bill! You've persuaded me to go the DV route with telecine. Though it's a pity Ive only got MiniDv to work with - potentially more drop outs than DVCam.

[BK]

Your are welcome Patrick.

This is quite a good write up on DV, and some explanations:

http://www.videomaker.com/article/10234/

Bill

[Andreas Wideroe]

This site is great for video tech info:

http://www.adamwilt.com/

Compare the different formats:
http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html#DVformats

[cubsfan45]

Patrick,

Our company offers cost-effective high-def telecines from 16mm neg stock. It's only $.30/ft to get a high-def master uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2 on external hard drive and $20.00 to get a MiniDV copy from the high-def master. Encoding to SD DVD's looks much better from an HD telecine as compared to a standard-definition transfer.

All the best,

~Eugene
http://www.filmtransfer.com
eugene@filmtransfer.com

[christoph]

Encoding to SD DVD's looks much better from an HD telecine as compared to a standard-definition transfer.

i respectfully disagree. a really good SD transfer with a spirit/shadow/rank looks better on DVD than any home made high def transfer (including my own, which i consider state of the art, if it only would work more practical ;).

the benefit of high def is only really gonna kick in if you can view it on something better than PAL/NTSC equipment (HD-DVD, computer playback to HD screen, filmout), and even there it's question if you're more into detail/sharpness or colors/contranst range.

bests
++ christoph ++

[cubsfan45]

Not really - a well calibrated Workprinter-XP setup is as good if not better than a Rank transfer. There was an article a year or so ago that compared different transfer technologies - MovieStuff's Workprinter went head-to-head with a Rank Turbo and the difference in quality was negligeble. The potential quality a Workprinter-XP can deliver lies in the video camera used, making it a completely scalable system. The quality also lies in the operator using the equipment. We have a client that used Bono Labs for an uncompressed HD transfer and was extremely disappointed. He next came to us to put our system to the "test" and was very happy that he could get better quality for only 1/5 the cost.

Best,

~Eugene
http://www.filmtransfer.com
eugene@filmtransfer.com

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

Not really - a well calibrated Workprinter-XP setup is as good if not better than a Rank transfer.

Now don´t go and make yourself look stupid, stick to the truth.
Just a friendly advice. ;)

And if you really believe that... well than I guess you need to learn a thing or two. ;)

[steve hyde]

Patrick,

Discussions on this stuff always end up becoming technocratic. e.g. which tape format records more color, which is better: Spirit, Rank, Workprinter or what ever.... I get grouchy about it and say: bah!

Don't under estimate the human component. What matters is 1) the talent of the cinematographer and 2) the talent of a colorist.

A hack colorist with a Thompson Spirit will produce shit results. A talented colorist with a Workprinter can produce astonishing results.

In other words pick your collaborators carefully and worry less about the technical stuff.... (not saying the technical stuff is not important - it is just that the technical talk tends to eclipse the importance of human talents)

Steve

[christoph]

Not really - a well calibrated Workprinter-XP setup is as good if not better than a Rank transfer.

well, if you rephrase that to:
"a really well calibrated workprinter setup by a experienced colorist and digital scene by scene correction can look as good or better than a transfer on an old rank with a crappy colorist"
..then i agree. if you think that it can remotely as good as a decent transfer on a spirit then quite frankly i dont.

of course you wont get a super8 spirit transfer for 30 cents a foot either, but that's another story.
++ christoph ++