Help ! - Unexpected B & W telecine of Col. Neg.

Stephen Pye · September 22, 2009

Hi - I played on a Sony UVW 1800 P Betacam deck a tape of some 35 mm colour neg processed and telecined to Beta SP - it was done by a reputable Lab in England.I'm getting only a B & W image - is it a convention of some Labs to do the initial one light transfer ( of the rushes or "dailies" as you good folk in the U.S. describe them ) to monochrome ? Lab hasn't got back on my e-mail on the matter and the annoying thing is I have no other Beta SP tape to check out the Betacam deck which I've just bought on Ebay from a reputable seller and which seems to be working fine ( using the S- Video output to a colour monitor ).Obviously it could, nevertheless, be the deck - it could, of course, be something embarrassingly stupid on my part - I'm not naming the Lab in question - everything else on this micro-project ( albeit on 35 mm ) has been handled by them fine so far and perhaps there's someone out there who has a simple answer on this ? Thanks.

Robert Houllahan · September 22, 2009

Hi - I played on a Sony UVW 1800 P Betacam deck a tape of some 35 mm colour neg processed and telecined to Beta SP - it was done by a reputable Lab in England.I'm getting only a B & W image - is it a convention of some Labs to do the initial one light transfer ( of the rushes or "dailies" as you good folk in the U.S. describe them ) to monochrome ? Lab hasn't got back on my e-mail on the matter and the annoying thing is I have no other Beta SP tape to check out the Betacam deck which I've just bought on Ebay from a reputable seller and which seems to be working fine ( using the S- Video output to a colour monitor ).Obviously it could, nevertheless, be the deck - it could, of course, be something embarrassingly stupid on my part - I'm not naming the Lab in question - everything else on this micro-project ( albeit on 35 mm ) has been handled by them fine so far and perhaps there's someone out there who has a simple answer on this ? Thanks.

I would check the S-Video cable and deck/monitor for proper operation. Try playing another Beta-SP tape that is known good and in color to check the whole system. If the other tapes play in color then the lab made a mistake if they play in B+W then the Deck/Cable/Monitor has a fault. If the tape is actually B&W call the lab and they will re-transfer the film for free.

-Rob-

Stephen Pye · September 22, 2009

I would check the S-Video cable and deck/monitor for proper operation. Try playing another Beta-SP tape that is known good and in color to check the whole system. If the other tapes play in color then the lab made a mistake if they play in B+W then the Deck/Cable/Monitor has a fault. If the tape is actually B&W call the lab and they will re-transfer the film for free.

-Rob-

Thanks Rob - will have to explore those avenues unless Lab does get back to my e-mail with what their position is on this.The Sony manual on the UVW1800 P doesn't list ( in the Troubleshooting section ) playback in B & W of colour material as something that can occur.

cheers,

Stephen.

Dominic Case · September 22, 2009

I don't think the lab would have intentionally supplied a black and white transfer. Almost certainly a deck problem, if you have only just bought it. That is the big unknown. You'll need to get hold of another, known SP tape to check.

If still in doubt, have you tried PHONING the lab? I presume you are in England too.

Michael Collier · September 23, 2009

I can't imagine a telecine could be done in BW by accident. Like was said before, check other tapes. If you don't have one, visit your local TV station, they should have some old tapes hanging around with something playable on them. They would likely give these away for free, especially if you impress on them you just need it for testing.

I would check the SVideo cable, since those separate Luminance and chroma. If one or both chroma tracks has a damaged wire, all you would get is black and white.

1800 is a pretty old deck, and it could be bad, even if the seller was reputable. On the heads there are very fine copper wires attached to a small board on top. If any one of those breaks, every other field will be black and white, giving a desaturated, pulsating look. If two of them breaks, its back to black and white again. There are also several areas within the 1800 that could conceivably make your image BW, and none are truly 'user fixable' so they wouldn't be covered in just the trouble shooting manual. You would need an shop repair manual to make sure all the pots are correctly trimmed.

get another tape, get another cable.

Chris Burke · September 23, 2009

I can't imagine a telecine could be done in BW by accident. Like was said before, check other tapes. If you don't have one, visit your local TV station, they should have some old tapes hanging around with something playable on them. They would likely give these away for free, especially if you impress on them you just need it for testing.

I would check the SVideo cable, since those separate Luminance and chroma. If one or both chroma tracks has a damaged wire, all you would get is black and white.

1800 is a pretty old deck, and it could be bad, even if the seller was reputable. On the heads there are very fine copper wires attached to a small board on top. If any one of those breaks, every other field will be black and white, giving a desaturated, pulsating look. If two of them breaks, its back to black and white again. There are also several areas within the 1800 that could conceivably make your image BW, and none are truly 'user fixable' so they wouldn't be covered in just the trouble shooting manual. You would need an shop repair manual to make sure all the pots are correctly trimmed.

get another tape, get another cable.

THis is what i was thinking, since the 1800 is an old deck. If you don't have another color tape, maybe you could take your tape that is in question, to the said TV station for play back. Do you guys have a local access TV stations, like we do here in the US? Maybe they would help out. Or just go back to the lab with tape in hand.

Stephen Pye · September 23, 2009

THis is what i was thinking, since the 1800 is an old deck. If you don't have another color tape, maybe you could take your tape that is in question, to the said TV station for play back. Do you guys have a local access TV stations, like we do here in the US? Maybe they would help out. Or just go back to the lab with tape in hand.

Thanks to all for those helpful replies - I'm going tomorrow to a facility house here in Dublin, Ireland with the tape for them to play it through one of their machines and that will establish definitively if it's B & W or not ( in other other words was it a telecining mistake or is my Beta machine acting up - I don't have any other tapes of known quality to put through the machine ).Interesting that it is thought it could be the Sony - I'm so used to everything that I've bought so far on Ebay working satisfactorily that my first hunch was that it was a glitch in the telecine process rather than a fault in something I bought off a complete stranger ! ( though the seller is reputable and if turns out to be machine that is at fault, I'm sure everything will be resolved to my satisfaction ).

cheers,

Stephen

Stephen Pye · September 29, 2009

Thanks to all for those helpful replies - I'm going tomorrow to a facility house here in Dublin, Ireland with the tape for them to play it through one of their machines and that will establish definitively if it's B & W or not ( in other other words was it a telecining mistake or is my Beta machine acting up - I don't have any other tapes of known quality to put through the machine ).Interesting that it is thought it could be the Sony - I'm so used to everything that I've bought so far on Ebay working satisfactorily that my first hunch was that it was a glitch in the telecine process rather than a fault in something I bought off a complete stranger ! ( though the seller is reputable and if turns out to be machine that is at fault, I'm sure everything will be resolved to my satisfaction ).
cheers,

Stephen

Hi - turns out the footage was properly transferred to colour - it also turns out that there appears to have been some quirk with the S video connection I was using as my Sony 1800 is now playing back colour properly.So my faith in my Ebay purchase of an item - the Sony 1800 - ( and in the Lab that did the telecine ) has not been shaken !

Stephen.