The 16mm to HD, 4K or 2k Question

[gianni1]

Greetings, been away, now I'm back with a query for the congregation:

Do I use a broadcast quality scan, or a mom & pop shop - ebay scanner shop, or purchase a HD, a 4K, or 2K machine and kit?

I got the budget and 60,000ft of 16mm in cans to scan, something like fifty 1200' reels of corporate and charity stuff from the 70's and 80's.
At the moment don't have the inventory list in front of me, so don't know how many are sound or silent.
Mostly original material we own the copyright, a few are optical sound tracks me thinks.
I know 2k is the norm, but they are considering 4K.

Gianni

[inlieubeaulieu]

I'd say 2K for 1.37 material, as it allows you to either crop down or down-rez for 1080p (not that 4k wouldn't allow for this either, it just seems like a lot of wasted space for academy ratio material)... if it was Super16 4k would be nice.

But... if you have the budget go big!

[gianni1]

Thanks!

[Will2]

Don't go mom & pop...find a transfer house with good equipment that can make a good deal on that volume. Lasergraphics if you can find one near you. It will be worth the effort and cost.

[Tscan]

A lot of it probably has optical sound. With 60K feet and maybe sound, you could easily end up paying well over 10K to have all that scanned, especially if you want audio sync. You could buy a new Moviestuff 2K unit with 16mm gate and sound unit for less than $7K. The results are really nice. Make some calls and get some quotes, then decide what makes sense. You can always sell the unit for a good price when you're done.

[gianni1]

Thanks again, I would rather trust your personal experiences than a half hour of google searches (which I did btw).

At this stage for archival purposes, since we have the films, I'm suggesting a 2k scan, and keep the films in storage another five years or so and scan again when the 4K transfer prices come down.

G