inDI at Laser Pacific...Feedback?

[rbg]

Hey,

 

Just found out about this: http://www.laserpacific.com/pdf/LaserPacific_inDI_v2.pdf

I'm wondering if anyone has feedback, experiences, comments.

Looks like a good indie-tool??

 

Ryan Barton-Grimley

[e gustavo petersen]

I just heard about this too from a post-production super I know - he mentioned they've been offering this for about a month. We're going to pay them a visit next week to discuss a feature for later this year. I'll report back what we find after we talk to them. It does sound promising, though...

 

PS. Hey Ryan!

Edited August 14, 2007 by Eric Gustavo Petersen

[rbg]

It does look like a nice alternative to regular DI or HD telecine for anybody shooting Super16, especially on a budget. Good to see you knocking around on here Eric!

 

 

I just heard about this too from a post-production super I know - he mentioned they've been offering this for about a month. We're going to pay them a visit next week to discuss a feature for later this year. I'll report back what we find after we talk to them. It does sound promising, though...

 

PS. Hey Ryan!

[Michael Most]

It does look like a nice alternative to regular DI or HD telecine for anybody shooting Super16, especially on a budget. Good to see you knocking around on here Eric!

 

A number of facilities around the country - including ours (Cineworks in Miami) - do basically the same thing, and in our case, including the use of a Kodak TCS box for the original transfer, very similar to Laser's. I will confess, though, that Kodak/Laser Pacific is very good a "branding" things, regardless of whether they're particularly unique and exclusive or not.

[John Sprung]

Hey,

 

Just found out about this: http://www.laserpacific.com/pdf/LaserPacific_inDI_v2.pdf

I'm wondering if anyone has feedback, experiences, comments.

Looks like a good indie-tool??

 

Ryan Barton-Grimley

We've been doing business with Laser-Pacific for over 20 years, back to the Pacific Video days. They're an excellent company. As for this process, the thing to do is look at some tests. It sure sounds like it should be very cost effective.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Dirk DeJonghe]

I don't see the economical advantage of this 'single scan' method. Since most productions shoot at least 10 to 20 : 1, it makes more sense to do a straight telecine to SD, and scan only selects at high quality (after off-line editing).

 

A 90 minute film is about 1.2 TB or more of storage (10 bit DPX Log). Why would you want to scan about 25 TB 95% of which will not be used? Even if TB are cheaper than they used to they still take up space and capacity on the network that must be pâid for somehow.

[John Sprung]

Re-scanning selects is additional time in telecine, with labor. Compare that with the cost of storing everything at full resolution. Sometimes it may work out better to re-scan, but we've found that it usually tips the other way.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

"rbg", Please change your display name to your first and last name as per the forum rules. Such can be done by going to the "My Controls" section of your profile.

[Dirk DeJonghe]

John Spung,

 

I think it largely depends on the price ratio between 'real scanning' and telecine transfer. In my case I have a non-real-time 2K-3K real-scanner and an SD/HD telecine. The telecine is about one tenth of the price of the scanner per film minute. The telecine needs one minute per film minute, the scanner will take one hour per film minute.

[Stephen Williams]

John Spung,

 

I think it largely depends on the price ratio between 'real scanning' and telecine transfer. In my case I have a non-real-time 2K-3K real-scanner and an SD/HD telecine. The telecine is about one tenth of the price of the scanner per film minute. The telecine needs one minute per film minute, the scanner will take one hour per film minute.

 

Hi,

 

Having compared a Spirit V Arri Scanner I can confirm that scans are vastly superior, however it's rare that I get the budgets where I have that choice.

 

I could be wrong but I thought a Spirit datacine was the original Spirit, where the CCD is rather less than 2k?

 

Stephen

 

From a CML post earlier this year,

 

 

Shadow has 3 x CCD line sensors (Dalsa), Lamp Halogen 250W, Zeiss Lens

R= 1440 Pixels, G= 1440 Pixels, B= 1440 Pixels

 

Spirit1 has 4 x CCD line arrays (Kodak), Lamp Xenon 300W, Kodak Lens 1 x Detail channel = 1920 Pixels R= 920 Pixels, G= 920 Pixels, B= 920 Pixels

 

Spirit 2K has 3 x CCD line sensors (Dalsa), Lamp Xenon 700W, Kodak Lens

R= 2046 Pixels, G= 2048 Pixels, B= 2048 Pixels

 

Spirit 4K has 6 x CCD line sensors (Dalsa), Lamp Xenon 700W, Kodak Lens R= 2046 Pixels, G= 2048 Pixels, B= 2048 Pixels

and

R= 4096 Pixels, G= 4096 Pixels, B= 4096 Pixels

 

The Rack3 (video rack) on all this machines is the same ...

At NAB 07, Thomson did show a SpiritHD with a new video rack.

[Dirk DeJonghe]

Stephen,

 

Shadow and Spirit2K have the same Dalsa CCD sensors. Because Thomson didn't want to spend money on upgraded Zeiss lens design, they kept the previous design that only covers part of the 2K CCD. If you look in the pricelist for the Spirit, you will see that the Kodak optics are very expensive and we all know that Zeiss makes pretty decent optics too. I have comparisons of the same negative on Shadow and Spirit 2K and they are certainly very close but not identical.

 

Dirk

[Stephen Williams]

Stephen,

 

Shadow and Spirit2K have the same Dalsa CCD sensors. Because Thomson didn't want to spend money on upgraded Zeiss lens design, they kept the previous design that only covers part of the 2K CCD. If you look in the pricelist for the Spirit, you will see that the Kodak optics are very expensive and we all know that Zeiss makes pretty decent optics too. I have comparisons of the same negative on Shadow and Spirit 2K and they are certainly very close but not identical.

 

Dirk

 

Hi Dirk,

 

I remember you mentioning that on CML, thats why I included the Shadow in the chart. I think you may have provided those no's I posted. I am not sure who the original author was as I only saved the data!

 

Stephen

[Michael Most]

I don't see the economical advantage of this 'single scan' method. Since most productions shoot at least 10 to 20 : 1, it makes more sense to do a straight telecine to SD, and scan only selects at high quality (after off-line editing).

 

A 90 minute film is about 1.2 TB or more of storage (10 bit DPX Log). Why would you want to scan about 25 TB 95% of which will not be used? Even if TB are cheaper than they used to they still take up space and capacity on the network that must be pâid for somehow.

 

 

I think you're misunderstanding what they're doing. The "scan" is done on a Spirit telecine as a 4:4:4 RGB dual link HD transfer. It's recorded on HDCam SR in real time, and a downconversion is made through a LUT for editorial. The "conform" is done using video methodology, albeit in 4:4:4 RGB. There is no storage issue because no storage is used (other than SR tapes, of course) until the final DI color correction, assuming you choose to do that correction in a DI environment - but you can also do the final color correction in video. Using essentially video post production methods and equipment through the process makes it considerably less costly than a "conventional" DI, especially when you consider that a facility like Laser Pacific is well set up for this approach (they finish at least 15 network television series there every season). The quality, when this approach is handled correctly, can indeed be quite close to a conventional 2K DI in many cases.

[Alex Ellerman]

I know people hate to address the ugly topic of finances... but for a 90 minute S16 feature using this path inDI or simliar path... are we talking over or under $100k for this type of DI, assigning all variables to the most likely case...

[Dirk DeJonghe]

Michael,

 

I now understand the reasoning. In my workflow we don't use tape anymore except for final output or for rushes.

 

If you record to SR tape and you want to grade/ dustbust/ conform/ VFX etc you would still have to playback from SR to disk as image sequence. In this case you are probably using the SR recorder as an expensive tape streamer.

 

On my telecine I use only two formats: SD and HD. On my scanner I can use whatever is most suitable, I can scan Super 35 letterboxed as 2.35 or as 1.77 for TV release.

[Michael Most]

If you record to SR tape and you want to grade/ dustbust/ conform/ VFX etc you would still have to playback from SR to disk as image sequence. In this case you are probably using the SR recorder as an expensive tape streamer.

 

An expensive ****real time**** tape streamer. That makes a big difference, as the playback to DPX files is much faster than a data tape restore, and usually faster than a file copy. If you happen to have an SR deck (and anyone who creates or delivers elements to studios or broadcast networks in the US does), it's a very, very efficient way to work.

[Paul Bruening]

Bruce, G'day, McNaughton is putting the finishing touches on my scan rig. It's a 2-perf Mitchell head with LED rear projected lights and a computer controlled single frame motor. I'm pointing a Kodak DSLR with macro lens into the gate. It can capture 5K wide images (limited to bayer pattern style sensor) and sequentially store the images in RAW format. Rough calculations indicate that 5- 500 Gig SATAs will hold the RAW data for a 90 minute feature at 5K width per image. Given that the images are half height, the files will probably macro-chop down to half the file load size. I have no idea how well this rig will actually deliver or if the images will be attractive. But, if it does work it's a hell of a lot cheaper than paying for scans. Kinetta makes the same style of rig in 4K. I ordered this thing from Aranda long before Kinetta put out their rig. It does make me feel more confident now that someone respectable has pursued the same kind of idea.

[Michael Most]

Bruce, G'day, McNaughton is putting the finishing touches on my scan rig. It's a 2-perf Mitchell head with LED rear projected lights and a computer controlled single frame motor. I'm pointing a Kodak DSLR with macro lens into the gate. It can capture 5K wide images (limited to bayer pattern style sensor) and sequentially store the images in RAW format. Rough calculations indicate that 5- 500 Gig SATAs will hold the RAW data for a 90 minute feature at 5K width per image. Given that the images are half height, the files will probably macro-chop down to half the file load size. I have no idea how well this rig will actually deliver or if the images will be attractive. But, if it does work it's a hell of a lot cheaper than paying for scans. Kinetta makes the same style of rig in 4K. I ordered this thing from Aranda long before Kinetta put out their rig. It does make me feel more confident now that someone respectable has pursued the same kind of idea.

 

You'll also have to process and scale the RAW images after scanning before you can use them. This can and will take a long, long time unless you know something that I don't about RAW converters for still images. Are you really sure that the cost of building this rig, maintaining it, and the time it's going to take to use the output is worth it, especially considering that scanning has become something of a commodity item of late (i.e., it's probably much cheaper than you think...)? I think there's a point at which do it yourself ceases to be productive, either practically or financially.

[Paul Bruening]

Time will tell.