Chris Graham Posted January 26, 2007 Posted January 26, 2007 Can anybody shed some light on the subject of single frame by frame capture on quality? I would imagine that a good rig for single frame by frame capture, even though tedious, would deliver good results vs. a pro telecine rig. Any options? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted January 26, 2007 Site Sponsor Posted January 26, 2007 Can anybody shed some light on the subject of single frame by frame capture on quality? I would imagine that a good rig for single frame by frame capture, even though tedious, would deliver good results vs. a pro telecine rig. Any options? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I think that under most conditions the difference would be night and day. I have seen good looking captures from single frame machines but they are not in the same league as a Telecine system for the following reasons. 1. Framing is arbitrary not necessarily registered by a precision mechanism and not adjustable while running. An example would be when transfering a 400' roll when you go from one 50' section to the next the vertical framing may be slightly different and there is no way to compensate for this in a single frame unit. Also a claw driven mechanism cannot compensate for older shrunken film and may ruin it. 2. The actual camera "head" or pickup is a common video camera and the light source can be anything but uniform. A telecine will have either a CRT with Photomultipliers or a set of very high precision CCD's and a highly uniform light source. Furthermore a great deal of electronics which ensure that the signals generated by whatever pickup system are delivered to the Color-Corrector in their best form. 3. A professional telecine is always attached to a real time uncompressed color corrector which allows the colorist to set a wide range of color settings by frame or have the color settings change by keyframe over transitions or scenes. A Film chain generally has no counter and color correction is usually either done on the fly or after the clip has been captured both are compromises. 4. A telecine suite will produce Uncompressed 10bit 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 with a real 1080by1440 (4:3 Super8) resolution not compressed and with a proper optical system which will actually resolve the full intended resolution. The proof is in the pictures made try both and see for yourself. -Rob-
Anthony Schilling Posted January 26, 2007 Posted January 26, 2007 (edited) A place like Flying Spot or Spectra is going to be better than any home transfer. For negative film, home transfers are still not even a real option. On the other hand with reversal film, a unit like the Work Printer XP can produce some very nice results (depending on your DV capture device). But not usually as good as most pro telecine. However, if you know what your doing, a home transfer of reversal can be good enough to justify not spending big bucks on a pro transfer. I have done WP transfers of films that have also been transferred by a pro. The most obvious differences in a pro transfer compared to my best home transfer is... sharper and crisper image, more accurate and vibrant colors, more shadow detail, density ect... supurior overall. I tend to reserve my money spent on pro telecine for negative film. Because I can't do it myself, and because negative film offers advantages that reversal doesn't. I tend to use the Work Printer and reversal film for my personal art projects, and has been very satisfactory and effective for that. When I shoot for purposes other than personal enjoyment, I get a pro transfer even if I shoot reversal. Spectra's colorist has actually given me results from reversal that look more impressive than the projected image. Spectra (Rank) and Flying Spot (Shadow) also give the best results for S8 negative that i have wittnessed so far. So my advice is, if your shooting negative or producing something for another... get a good pro telecine. If you shoot reversal (and a lot of it) for personal enjoyment, a home telecine like the WP can give impressive results that you can work with. Edited January 26, 2007 by Anthony Schilling
Chris Graham Posted January 26, 2007 Author Posted January 26, 2007 thanks. what about this service you reckons -videoconversionexperts.com http://www.videoconversionexperts.com/Film...ose_Process.htm Bronze Real-Time Process Our Bronze will result in a video that is a decent representation of the film. Because this is a digital transfer, the quality loss from the film is about 20-30%. An analogue transfer looses about 40-50% of the quality which is what most film transfer companies use. Silver Frame by Frame Our Silver process results in an exact duplication of the film (no loss in quality) because of the frame by frame capture. The results are noticeably better than the real-time Bronze process. The picture is sharper and has less grain. Gold Frame by Frame Hollywood Restoration I Our Gold process includes a frame by frame color correction, exposure enhancement and removal of the majority of grain and scratches. You can see that the majority of the grain/scratches are no longer there and the colors have been corrected which results in better quality than the film* Platinum HD High Definition Frame by Frame Hollywood Restoration I Hollywood Restoration II You can see the imagine looks more 3-D, is sharper and had less grain over the Gold process. Also, if you look at the facial tones, you can see that the color correction is slightly better than the Gold.
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