Which European post houses offer PAL-format direct to hard drive super 8 transfers?

Bjarne Eldhuset · August 15, 2006

Hi, I'm going to shoot a music video in the autumn, and as it will be shown in PAL-format, most US post houses seem to be either to expensive, don't offer PAL as an option, or will make some sort of conversion. In my case, to have 24 frames per second footage telecined to almost 30 (NTSC), and then converted to 25 again (PAL), will probably not look too good....

So, i wonder,

Which best quality or near-best quality solutions do I have?

Which post houses IN EUROPE offer direct to hard drive super 8 transfers?

Who are the best?

Who are the cheapest?

Who are in between?

Who do you love?

Hoping to hear from those of you that have tried various european services.

Greetings from Bjarne in Oslo, Norway.

Bernhard Zitz · August 15, 2006

http://screenshot-berlin.de/

http://www.super8.nl/

both have the MWA flashscan8, screenshot-berlin does 4:2:2 10bit to harddrive, I had good results this way...

no idea how the MWA flashscan8 compares to a rank or similar...

Bjarne Eldhuset · August 15, 2006

Hi, and thanks for your reply! Screenshot Berlin looks to be able to telecine 20 rolls of super-8 negative film with their best quality-option, "digital components YUV@ 270 mbit/s", for about 290 euros, film cleaning included. On top of this comes valued-added tax and shipping.

To me, this seems pretty cheap? I contacted a norwegian firm that wanted about twice this price for the same job, although this maybe was for a better quality option.

As, Bernhard says, does anyone noe how the flashscan compares to rank or similar? Would also be happy to see some more telecine places added here. If anyone has stills or transfer examples, that would be nice too!

Greetings from Bjarne, Oslo, Norway.

Bjarne Eldhuset · August 15, 2006

I've now sendt e-mails to several companies around europe, and some more places, and will post the replies when i get the answers.

First out are US company Colorlab

Here is their answer:

Hello,

We can capture PAL to hard drive. It is not a direct to hard drive

transfer. We will have to transfer to NTSC first and then do a standards

conversion.

We charge $350.00 per hour of work and can usually do about 12 minutes

of film in an hour. We only do Scene to Scene color correction for PAL.

You will need to provide a firewire or USB 2 hard drive for us to use.

The hard drive should have no files on it as we will format the drive

before starting the capture.

We charge $80.00 per hour of work for hard drive capture.

Dan Horstman

Colorlab

Rachel Oliver · August 15, 2006

I've now sendt e-mails to several companies around europe, and some more places, and will post the replies when i get the answers.

Hi;

This will be very interesting for Euro shooters, thanks!

Olly

Bjarne Eldhuset · August 16, 2006

Answer from german company Andec Filmtechnik:

With our Rank facility we can only deliver on DV/Beta or Digibeta. Thats normally in 25 fr/sec PAL .

Kindly regards

Ludwig Draser

Answer from UK company EverMedia:

Thank you for your enquiry and we will be delighted to assist in your cine
conversions.

Yes the format will be PAL and we can convert your cine footage and supply

these on an external hard drive if you wish. You can either provide the hard

drive or we can source it for you. The format will be DV-AVI or any other

format you nominate. The cost will remain the same as if you were putting

the footage on DVD or DV Tape as follows:

Cine to Hard Drive, Setup and Transfer = £19.50

15 x 3" reels (silent), frame by frame capture and basic editing @ £10.50

each = £157.50

Risk Free Delivery Service (i.e. we return your hard drive first by Airmail

and on your confirmation of receipt and satisfaction we then return your

source material) = £12.50

4% Surcharge for Online Payment by PayPal = £7.58

Total cost = £197.08 (approx. 290.00 Euros)

So your conversion can go straight to PAL without any problems.

To proceed:

Please send your films and a copy of this message to the address below:

EverMedia Ltd

A3, Moor Lane Business Centre

Moor Lane

Widnes

Cheshire

WA8 7AQ

England UK

Please note that due to popularity of this service our current turnaround is

around 3 to 4 weeks for your films. However, if you require your conversions

earlier then please let me know and I will see what we can do to comply.

If you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.

We look forward to being of service to you.

Regards,

Amir Azizpour

Customer Services Manager

www.EverMedia.co.uk <http://www.EverMedia.co.uk>

Tel: 0845 658 4455 or 4433

Answer from UK company Ascent Media:

We too have PAL as our standard format. We can telecine your Super 8 to Digi-beta for £ 25 per roll, this price includes stock but is + VAT (tax).

Bjarne Eldhuset · August 16, 2006

Answer from swiss company Bolex Digital:

We do offer direct to hard drive telecine. We scan the S8 at 800x600
and store them in Quicktime or AVI files (MJPEG-A lossless compression).

It cost less than a DVD transfer, there is no additionnal charge for

DVD menu creation or whatsoever.

We can scan your reels at 24fps and store the images in a 24fps video

file, no framerate conversion. You will have to "double" one image

per second if you intend to produce a PAL DVD, it will be

automatically done by the DVD authoring software.

I hope I have answered your questions.

Best regards,

Jean-Pierre Gehrig

--

Bolex-Digital

c/o Cinetis SA

Case postale 265

Avenue de la Gare 2

1920 Martigny

Switzerland

--

T : +41 27 722 80 80

F : +41 27 722 80 91

--

Answer from US company Flying Spot Film Transfer (Seattle):

We can xfer directly to drive in PAL.
We are not setup to xfer to tape in PAL.

The cost would be the same whether it was PAL or NTSC.

Eric

FSFT

Answer from german company KAHL Film & TV:

We offer telecine to PAL in DV-mini, DVCam and BETA SP for 2,70/min. We do telecine now with BOSCH FDL 60 and color-Correcture with FRP 60 also for Super 8 only in PAL.

I will add more answers when I receive them. Please feel free to comment on the various options here.

Best regards, Bjarne, Oslo, Norway.

Bjarne Eldhuset · August 17, 2006

Answer from US company Debenham Media Group:

We do not offer direct PAL transfer at this time. We could transfer your film in NTSC at 29.976
frames per second (1 film frame per video frame) and you could then convert it to PAL 25 frames

per second on your PC or Mac. That would eliminate most of the motion artifacts. We can transfer

to USB 2.0 portable Hard Drive at either 25Mbs (MiniDV quality) or uncompressed 270Mbs (very high

quality 4:2:2)

Thank you for your interest in Debenham Media Group's, MyMovieTransfer.com for your 100% digital

film transfer.

Best Regards,

Stuart

Stuart Debenham

Debenham Media Group

416 Mill St.

Coraopolis, PA 15108

1-800-865-7172

412-264-2526

www.MyMovieTransfer.com

www.3516.com

Answer from dutch company Home DVD Entertainement:

Thank you for your interest.

We can transfer Super 8 mm to harddisk in AVI format.

We can also transfer the films to MiniDV or DVD.

We work only in PAL format and 24 frames per second

is no problem.

I hope have informed you sufficiently.

With kind regards,

Daan Müller

Edited August 17, 2006 by Bjarne Eldhuset

Alex Wuijts · August 17, 2006

www.videoduplo.nl

www.supersens.nl

Both have the Flashscan8.

Bjarne Eldhuset · August 18, 2006

Answer from danish company Videokopi.dk:

- Do you offer direct to hard drive telecine also in PAL-format? And if so, will this cost more?
Yes we do it for the same price but you have to provide your own hard drive. We don't convert the scan to NTSC and then PAL we transpose from 18 or 24 direct to 25 (PAL) or 29.97 (NTSC) any other way would challenge the quality.

- What other telecine options do you offer for super 8?

What do you need? Allmost any format can be done DVD, Mini DV Hard drive DIVX AVI MPEG2 etc.olso old tape systems can be used.

- What will it cost to transfer 20 rolls of negative super 8 film with the options your company offers?

I wount recomend our service if its negative film. Our system is for positive film.

You have to contact one of the dealers for prices look at this page http://www.videokopi.dk/aiz.asp?id=1617

Answer from US company Woodland Media Productions:

We cannot handle negative film.

Chris

Answer from US company DVFilm digital transfers:

We only do transfer TO film.

Try pro8mm.com

Answer from US company Film-to-video.com:

My apologies, but we don't have the ability to make PAL format MiniDV.

Yui Daoren, "tech guy" with:

_________________________________________

Bruce Mayfield, d.b.a. Film-to-Video.com (505) 820-1331

Answer from US company D-Vision Video:

HI Bjarne,

We do not go directly to hard drive. Our system, the Goko, allows us to go directly to mini dv, from our telecine, then we usually create DVDS from there. We do not have the ability to create PAL format in mini-dv, we can do it in VHS, but that would be going backwards. I am not 100% positive about something, but what version of DVD do you use in Norway, I know it is not PAL vs. NTSC, it is more like "regions", I am not sure what regions we are in, nor what area you are in. I have heard that DVD players in computers all have the same regions.

Is there no company in Norway that does this film transfer? I did a google search for you and came up with this URL in Norway, I can't read Norwegian, but it appears they do it. http://www.stew-arts.co.uk/cine2video/tran...ions/NORWAY.HTM

Good luck.

Bonnie Durkin

Answer from US company Video/Graphics Art Studio:

Thank you for your inquiry. We can put your film onto an external hard
drive as Microsoft DV .avi files in PAL format. This will be a higher

quality so, in essence, you can convert to DVD without the dual loss you

anticipated. For PAL formatting the charge would be 37 cents per foot.

When sending a hard drive, allow 1 GB for every 50 feet of film footage.

Sincerely,

Gail Gupton, owner

www.videographics.net

Answer from US company Sunray Video Productions:

Hello,
Thank you for your inquiry.

In answer to your question, we are unable to transfer 8mm negative film,

only positive film.

Nor can we transfer direct to a hard drive in PAL.

Our process only allows us to transfer to NTSC first, then to PAL.

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Debbie Barber

Answer from US company Family Film Transfer:

We can transfer your super8 films to a PAL-format DVD. We would not have to transfer it to NTSC first. We use a proprietary process to transfer the films to the computer where we edit as needed and then create the DVD which will give you a high quality telecine transfer.

If you wish to have us do this work, you will need to pay for the cost of shipping your project both to and from our office. We highly recommend that you both package your films securely and insure your shipment as we cannot be responsible for any damage to your film in transit. Payment will also need to be received before we can ship the final project back to you. We accept payment via PayPal for international jobs.

The following is a rough estimate (in US Dollars):

20 rolls of film (assume 50 feet per roll) 1000 feet x $0.12/foot = $ 120.00

One Standard DVD $35.00/each = $ 35.00

Total Estimate = $155.00 plus actual shipping costs

to return project and film

Feel free to contact us for further clarification either via email or phone.

Sincerely,

Robert Christenson

Owner

FAMILY FILM TRANSFER

14034 Jacylyn Drive

Rogers, MN 55374 United States

www.familyfilmtransfer.com

763-383-2905

Puh, and there are more answers to come. I guess this thread could have been renamed to "Which post houses offer ...", as I have e-mailed lots of companies around the world :-)

Regards, Bjarne Eldhuset, Oslo, Norway.

Simon Brown · August 18, 2006

I would strongly recommend do some tests before you choose. There is a big difference in quality between

telecine and capture a video camera, which basically is what a lot of the cheaper alternatives are. Simply letting you know after I found out the hard way.

Bryan Clark · August 22, 2009

Hello

I was cruising around forums to do with video conversion and saw this. I'm surprised how many people cannot capture to PAL directly. I know that DVD Your Memories in San Diego, CA, USA can capture straight to PAL, and can do negative or positive 8mm film. You might want to check out their film transfer page. Seems like it would be $240 for the competitive transfer and $390 for premium to hard drive (given you have 20 rolls of 50 ft).

Kent Kumpula · August 22, 2009

Seems like it would be $240 for the competitive transfer and $390 for premium to hard drive (given you have 20 rolls of 50 ft).

We would charge about $300 for a transfer of 20 reels as a supervised transfer to 1280x720 as ProRes files directly to hard drive. Transferred with a FlashscanHD. But since this thread is several years old I´m guessing the prices mentioned earlier in this thread are not really up to date...

fabian gebbert · August 25, 2009

http://screenshot-berlin.de/ i can realy recommend. they have also a flashscanHD device. they were featured in the mag "schmalfilm". they did some professional work for franka potente and more. they are also very friendly :-)