Someone knows the telecines of Screenshot Germany

[avr]

Hi, I just to know if someone worked with Screenshot (Germany)

http://www.screenshot-ag.com/index.php?id=13&L=2

How good are their telecines? thanks in advance

[mr.re-Sotto]

yes, we do!!
fine company in berlin!

[Juergen]

great scans; one of the winners of the tests in schmalfilm magazine

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

I don´t understand german, but I do understand the "10-bit"-part. But neither the internal camera nor the internal framestorage/electronics are capable of delivering 10-bit colorspace. The scanner captures 8-bit, and they deliver the 8-bit as 10-bit.

It just makes the files a lot larger and it sounds better from a selling point of view. But the colors from the transferred film are still 8-bit.

At least this was what Bernhard Wanko (I believe it was him?) told me over the phone during one of our many discussions about technical details and improvements.

[jpolzfuss]

I don´t understand german, but I do understand the "10-bit"-part. But neither the internal camera nor the internal framestorage/electronics are capable of delivering 10-bit colorspace. The scanner captures 8-bit, and they deliver the 8-bit as 10-bit.

Strange - they do use a Flashscan8 and MWA Nova (the producer of the Flashscan8) even claims that their device can do 10bit!?
http://www.mwa-nova.com/pdf/flashSCAN8.pdf

BTW: I'm more than pleased with their transfers so far!

Jörg

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

I also have the Flashscan8. It has internal electronics, framestorage and a camera. All these components are 8-bit. The internal SDI-converter/output converts the 8-bit to 10-bit at the same time as the signal is converted to SDI standard. So it outputs 10-bit (but it doesen´t get 10-bit from the filmoriginal, the "extra bits" are just a waste).

I talked personally with the guys at MWA-Nova. Many, many times. And they told me it can only capture 8-bit.

Call them and ask if you don´t believe me. Ask for Kai Gerhardt or Bernhardt Wanko, since the sales guys you are going to talk to in the first place probably don´t know all that technical stuff (they always redirect me when I call with difficult questions... ).

[christoph]

i had a flashscan transfer done to 10bit uncompressed 4:2:2 and under closer examination it was clear that it was only filled with 8bit of meaningful data.
the reason for this is -- as kent explains -- that the unit itself only outputs 8bit on the SDI interface, so even if you capture 10bit later on it wont bring you any extra information.
the transfer was done with one of the early units, i dont know if they replaced the electronics in the meantime.

all that said, clean 8bit in uncompressed 4:2:2 is a very high quality format, and usually the final transfer quality is limited by other problems rather then not having 10bit.

++ c.

[TedL]

Screenshot has both the flashscan (SD) and new flashscanHD systems.

The first 50 SD flashscans were not 10-bit internally, but all others and the flashscanHD units are, as explained in April 2009 when the subject came up in another forum. Kai Gerhardt of MWA writes:

The SDI signal always carries 10 bits, this is part of the SDI standard. If you use the Firewire output with DV compression this picture always has 8 bits according to the DV standard.

The flashscan camera puts out an analog component signal. The framestore module digitizes this signal, puts it into a memory and reads it out from there to the SDI output. The first 50 machines are equipped with an older model of the framestore module which makes the digitization with 9 bits and the frame memory is 8 bits wide. That means only 8 of the 10 SDI bits are used.

The latest model (all the newer 100+ machines) has an entirely 10 bit wide signal path. Here you get "real" 10 bits. It also features embedded audio in the SDI out, which the older model does not have.

In general I would say this is more an academic discussion, there is no visible difference in the picture quality.

You also have to take into account what the end user gets. In case of a DVD or miniDV tape or a DV compressed file on hard disk these formats are all 8 bit formats. Even if you give him a 10 bit uncompressed file, does his monitor process 10 bits? Only the very latest HDMI standard supports more than 8 bits, the ordinary (=affordable) DVI or HDMI connected flatscreen works with 8 bits.

10 bit video processing is only relevant in a professional studio environment where excessive color correction is applied to the image. We recommend to do the color corrections with the flashscan's camera and the lightsource and not afterwards.

The flashscanHD of course has 10 bits, the camera also directly delivers HDSDI, there is no analog step in between.

Kind Regards,
Kai Gerhardt

MWA Nova GmbH
Development Department

I hope this is helpful.

Ted

(I am the US/Canadian distributor for MWA products)

[Justin Lovell]

I met the boys at screenshot when I was visiting for the NOMOS AWARDS super 8 festival.

They are a great team and have a fantastic studio setup. If you're in the hood, I recommend dropping in and saying hi. I was glad I had the opportunity to check 'em out.

I believe they were involved in the original construction of the flashscan.