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Blackmagic Cintel Film Scanner....


Robert Houllahan

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You at NAB, Rob? I'm heading out today and I'm planning to check this thing out tomorrow. My first take, based on a long history with BMD:

 

1) It's probably not done. According to the press release: "later in 2014 once all the NAB customer feedback has been included into the product" -- so, yeah, not done.

 

2) It's not likely to ship anywhere near that timeframe. Maybe next NAB? If it's inside a glass box at their booth and they don't have a model with platters spinning, then make that NAB 2016!

 

3) They spent an awful lot of time making it look pretty on the wall. Sure, we have more wall space than floor space right now, but it feels like they're marketing it as something you'd hang in your living room. I'm more concerned with the total lack of specs than how pretty it is. Check the photo out: http://images.blackmagicdesign.com/media/8756077/cintelfilmscannerhero.jpg

 

4) Doesn't look like it handles audio, at least from the pictures

 

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for disruptive technology like this and I can't wait to see what it'll do to pricing on other scanners. But I'm not holding my breath on this. They still haven't implemented Teranex features they announced 3 years ago at NAB... Last year it was "3 months from now."

 

-perrry

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Not going to NAB I can drink at home..;-) I mean see the stuff online.... Have work to do this week...

 

1. Definitely not done.

2. Definitely not shipping soon.

3. No specs indeed, film scanning is easier said than done especially with print, and it is probably a "4K" BMD camera with a film transport

4. No idea but it probably reads analog audio by machine vision, I would think.

 

We all know that BMD is good at bringing out new disruptive products and lousy at follow through on making them fully functional.

 

This will drive the price of scanning down, a bit and I am not sure if it's good for the lab or not maybe there will be more demand for film. Maybe we will buy one and offer 'BMD" scans along with our Xena machines, which I think will produce higher quality than the BMD machine, just not as fast.

 

Time will tell...

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The part of film production that is most costly (from my standpoint) is the scanning. Everything else in my chain is easier to find deals on.

 

Depends on what you're looking for and who you're asking. There are a lot of places that are sticking to the old models of very high minimum order sizes, very costly per-foot or per-frame rates, etc. And then there are those that aren't, in part because the most recent generation of film scanners required a much lower capital investment. In the past year, the pricing for scanning has already started to come down significantly, you just need to look around to find the deals.

 

-perry

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I keep hearing this, Perry, but I never seem to find those deals. I always manage to find houses that are stuck in 1980 and dont realize that their condescending attitude and inflexibility is killing their industry. Do they not see that people can shoot 4k video for the cost of making a short on 16mm? I'm not trying to be a jerk but I have been a big proponent of film but I am not supportive of many of the people in the chain behind it. I believe that even now, many people would still want to shoot film rather than video. But it is cost prohibitive and practically a joke when there is so much available at your fingertips for low prices.

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Well first of this is truly great news, almost a miracle. The web has been pretty wide spread since 1995 and now in 2014 we finally get a Telecine/Scanner manufacturer that actually lists it's price on the front page – that's at least, worth a small hallelujah.

 

Now, Matthew I totally agree with you, if I remember correctly I brought up many similar points. When the news broke about BMD acquiring Cintel. Post houses attitudes, have been relay poor especially in Europe, as long as I can remember. But now the wait is finally over.

 

I can actually make a budget item for scanning, without being forced to jump through hopes, like some kind of domesticated animal.
30k that's it. No hassle no fuss, no more wasting time. Film is finally liberated. So a good day indeed : )

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Robert, tell me what your lab would charge me for 14,000ft of 16mm with a 2k scan? I saw your advertised rates per hour but I don't know how lab time equates to actual footage, as I have never gotten a film scan but only done telecine to this point.

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Were you asking about 16mm? 35mm would basically be half that. also we have our new Color camera Xena about to be running and we could probably get 16mm to about $0.20/ft for DPX and ProRes444 and maybe less if we do the processing.

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It's true David, also there are still allot of questions to be answered about the new Cintel machine, stuff like what the frame rates are for stabilized scanning and mechanical pin registered scanning. What formats does it scan to? DPX? ProRes444? I would think that the 24fps realtime scan is like a telecine without stabilization but there are no specs yet.

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Given that it is based on proven Cintel technology, I think that it will be a winner. If they can bring it in at or around that price point, again, a winner. With the Ursa camera just announced and the fact that it is sensor upgradeable, I think that a 4:3 chip is in the near future that will be for both the camera and the scanner. Maybe it will do DPX and ProRes simultaneously, but I think CinemaDNG and ProREs are more likely. All the ingredients are there for Black magic to have a hit.

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I tend to think that it will be a fine device. But, other than the diffuse light source they reference, it doesn't look like it's going to have a whole lot in common with any proven control technology. But, thankfully, it sounds like it will be based in industry standard proven technologies of the last few years.

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I just talked to the Xena guy who took a look at the BMD Cintel machine, he says it looks nice and it basically a re imagined Cintel Ditto scanner with a UHD (Not cinema 4K) sensor (I think the BMD Production camera) with a diffuse LED light source. They had prototypes with very simple software running and only a 35mm gate, the 16mm gate is not built yet and it seems that the sensor and lens are fixed so 16mm is a cutout on the sensor (now maybe it will change in the future) and it is dual sprocket drive.

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It's quite good looking. They're being intentionally cagey about features, and the official line is that it's because they're looking for feedback on what features they should implement. The "demo" was one of two prototype units, and it was using a macbook pro on the computer side. I don't know if it was actually capturing or if it was just playing the film. My guess is that the software was purpose-built for the demo and consisted of just a viewer screen and RGB wheels for color correction. Captures to DNG, and since it comes with Resolve, that'll probably be the only format it captures to. At least, that's my guess. I would think they could repurpose the Media Express application to work with the scanner for capture.

 

It's sprocketed, and they claim it will handle slightly shrunken film - we often see film worse than what it's supposed to handle, so I don't think this is going to be considered an archival scanner. Scanning back catalogs, yes. Scanning ancient film, probably not.

 

There are connectors on the scanner deck for add-on devices such as an audio reader. They're actively working on that, they say. I would imagine there would be something for keykode and other metadata as well. I don't think smaller than 16mm is likely on this machine.

 

All in all, it's pretty impressive, and I do like the approach they're taking of throwing it out there and asking for feedback before proceeding. Perhaps this is something they're changing about the culture at BMD. The scanner is not being hyped at the show. It was just there in a low key way, and there was a lot of headscratching by attendees ("hey look! film!"). I think they're definitely going to shake up the scanning world, at least in terms of pricing. I wouldn't expect this to be on par with the Director, Scanity or other high end machines, but I could be wrong. Without tech specs nailed down it's hard to say, but I do think it'll have an effect on the high end scanners, just by covering most of the basics.

 

Interesting times.

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Perry, at this point, I am not sure that it needs to complete with the highest end to be successful. If it can yield "good enough" results but for a much lower price point than we have been accustomed to then it is a win in my book. I am not sure what labs will bill the final price at for it but with a $30k investment, I cant imagine it could be anywhere near the .35-.50/ ft of other machines.

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Scanning price is usually linked to the speed of the scanner, and the cost of the machine, at 24fps and $30k the cost goes down. The only issue is that film scanning is easier said than done and the "4K" sensor from the BMD production camera has issues...;-) I think it's great to see them actually announce a machine but I bet it's going to be a while before they can deliver it.

 

I could see us selling scans that came out of this kind of machine for $0.10/ft for 16mm with no grading if we had one, the problem with that is that people expect a good looking image from film and I'm not sure if most end users want to do the work to make what comes out of a scanner like this look good.

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Robert, it depends on the demographic. There is value in dime a foot scans. Many of us poor filmmakers have much more time than money. Therefore, taking time to make something look good is not a problem. Those in this demographic have to choose between shooting film on the cheap or shooting a bmc 4k camera. I would always prefer film in that instance...at least for the superior color rendition and DR.

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