16mm Scanity film scans - any visible difference between getting .dpx files or a ProRes 4444 deliverable

[Stephen Perera]

.....as it says on the tin: 16mm Scanity film scans - any visible difference between getting .dpx files or a ProRes 4444 deliverable????

 

[Robert Houllahan]

Very little to none

[Robin Phillips]

my experience is that you loose some grain detail going just to prores 4444. its not much, but if you are a sharpness freak like me you may notice. its mostly the details around the grains that can add a sense of a sharper picture, even if the line pair resolution is more or less the same. but lighting your film with a bit more contrast will probably create a greater sense of sharpness that outweighs codec concerns. 

if you were doing VFX, I'd say get the DPX or see if they can give you prores 4444XQ over traditional 4444. but the reality is that you are probably fine, especially if scanning at 4k. 

[Stephen Perera]

Just now, Robin Phillips said:

my experience is that you loose some grain detail going just to prores 4444. its not much, but if you are a sharpness freak like me you may notice. its mostly the details around the grains that can add a sense of a sharper picture, even if the line pair resolution is more or less the same. but lighting your film with a bit more contrast will probably create a greater sense of sharpness that outweighs codec concerns. 

if you were doing VFX, I'd say get the DPX or see if they can give you prores 4444XQ over traditional 4444. but the reality is that you are probably fine, especially if scanning at 4k. 

Thanks for coming in. No special effects at all. Plain filming. Nothing to 'correct' other than taking it up from the 'log' look back to the film's colours. I have one scene though thats shooting the dark with the key lights being my exposure and the surrounding black area is grainy as f@ck. I dig grain but this is crazy haha

[Tyler Purcell]

I haven't seen any difference between the 4k DPX and 4k Pro Res 4444 files, zero. 

Maybe at lower resolutions perhaps, but not at 4k. 

[Stephen Perera]

Yeah figured as much....thanks for the comments

[Don Cunningham]

This has always been a good read: https://www.gammaraydigital.com/blog/prores-or-how-we-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-compression

[Ludwig Hagelstein]

Go for 4444xq, but no, no visible difference.

[Stephen Perera]

The article was really interesting thank you very much Don. And thanks to @Ludwig Hagelstein, @Tyler Purcell, @Don Cunningham, @Robin Phillips, @Robert Houllahan for the comments....I got my ProRes 4444 files footage at 4K on the Scanity and looks great to me thank you for all your help Robert with that as well

 

[Ludwig Hagelstein]

6 hours ago, Stephen Perera said:

The article was really interesting thank you very much Don. And thanks to @Ludwig Hagelstein, @Tyler Purcell, @Don Cunningham, @Robin Phillips, @Robert Houllahan for the comments....I got my ProRes 4444 files footage at 4K on the Scanity and looks great to me thank you for all your help Robert with that as well

 

Cool. Where did you scan? 

[Robin Phillips]

my preferred scanner is Fotoken's Scanity 4k, or if I have the option the lasergraphics director Roundabout has. those are true RGB scanners.

that being said, if you run a lasergraphics scan station, a bayer patern scanner, in HDR mode, the color reproduction gets damn near that of the Scanity. some vendors offer hdr mode for a modest price bump but some charge quite a bit for it (requires two flashes per frame, so the machine runs slower)

[Stephen Perera]

Processing and scanning on Scanity as a 4K at my beloved Cinelab London, a place that makes you feel like your stuff matters to them!