Blackmagic Cintel Film Scanner....

Alex Lindblom · April 12, 2014

Thank you for your input guys. I had my eye on Xe over at kitmondo but it seems to be gone now, it scans 8perf at 36.86mm – 24.58mm.

Now Rob the Xena seems very interesting to me the modularity of it, is there any reason why I couldn’t just put a C500 in it? It seems very clear that the cmos train just gone keep rolling, just look at NAB this year, we are gone get better and better cameras for cheaper and cheaper prices.

To me this seems like a no brainier, we should have the option to use these cameras as scanner heads. I mean a used Sony F65's goes for 25K now it's crazy, I'll think you'll be hard pressed to find a better sensor than that. But for people who don't like bayer, Red have monochrome Epics and Dragons. There will be a camera out there whatever your wallet or taste.

Jeremy Cavanagh · April 12, 2014

We chose this sensor (see below) for our new fast machine: ( http://imperx.com/ccd-cameras/B3340/ ) it is a 3.3K 17fps color 4/3" sensor with four taps, i.e. it reads our 4 quadrants to four pipes for speed vs. quality and because it will basically be "Super" 2K resolution.

Robert,

Thanks for posting this link.......... what is approximate cost of these cameras?

Robert Houllahan · April 12, 2014

The 3340 with camera-link and frame grabber card cost Cinelab about $7000.00 the 6620 is about $23,000.00 list I believe, actual sales price on that one I am not sure we may buy one in conjunction with the three other facilities running Xena based scanners.

Alex, JAI has CMOS cameras and they are available in form factors which can work in scanning, the Xena guys are testing one now.

using a F65 or Epic may seem like a good idea but rolling shutter and film scanning has problems and fitting a camera intended for production into a film scanner would be physically difficult and the CCD and CMOS cameras that are available in Camera-Link are actually higher performance, lower noise and better suited to film scanning. A $20K 6620 is just basically the cost of the sensor which gets used in astronomy and industrial and military imaging.

Jeremy Cavanagh · April 12, 2014

Robert,

Thanks for info, I would like to build my own small format scanner (8/16) but don't have much idea of how much machine vision cameras cost so that's useful information as I work through the various trade offs I'll need to make due to budget, etc.

Off course I would want a mono 4 K CCD sensor with global shutter, externally triggered and pixels larger than 7 um built into an area scan camera that can deliver over 20 fps for a price I can afford............ but I doubt I'm gonna be able to afford that :rolleyes: .

Anthony Schilling · April 12, 2014

It's a dream machine at that price, but still not priced for independant film makers. Maybe smaller commercial production outfits that want to cut out major production costs. It will be interesting to see how this affects the scanning business as a whole because most places are still paying for mega dollar machines. Even the desk top Kinetta 4K scanner is $180K. Hopefully they will come out with something more in line with the indi film market they serve with their cameras, like a 2K 8/16mm version for under $5K.

Perry Paolantonio · April 13, 2014

Hopefully they will come out with something more in line with the indi film market they serve with their cameras, like a 2K 8/16mm version for under $5K.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Like we discussed earlier, the sensors alone cost thousands. Even using their own camera as a base there's a ton of mechanical engineering work that goes into even simple scanners, so selling something for $5k seems highly unlikely. Cameras have no moving parts and they'll sell them in much greater numbers, which is why they're able to sell them cheaply. I just don't see that big a market for film scanners. They'd probably have to sell many thousands of them to turn a profit, and that seems unlikely.

Charles Zuzak · April 16, 2014

Kodak invented the digital camera, and just sold their division that makes sensors...

I don't know what CCD is in the Scan Station but it is probably a Kodak-Truesense CCD. I think the Scanity has Dalsa line array(s) and the Arriscan is an Alev-IV CMOS chip I am not sure who makes it for Arri though.

The Alexa features an ALEV III sensor. Are you sure about that model number? (Doesn't it even matter what number it is?)

ON Semi manufacturers the Alexa sensor. I read about it a while back but I can't find the link anymore.

Robert Houllahan · April 16, 2014

I probably got the Arri number wrong..;-)

Andreas Wideroe · April 16, 2014

What's the price of an Xena scanner?

Robert Houllahan · April 16, 2014

Depends on configuration.

They are working on a Rank-Cintel retrofit which uses the transport and replaces everything else for about $25K up through a full new machine for 16mm / 35mm /65mm /70mm for about $175k

Andreas Wideroe · April 21, 2014

Cool. We've been looking into retrofitting FDL-60/90/Quadras with a 4K linescan camera and new LEDs++. The pricetag will be close to $50K very quickly with software development and so on.

Any idea if there exist open source or similare software that someone would share for linescan / framegrabbers applications for filmscanning?

Robert Houllahan · April 21, 2014

The guys that build the Xena machines don't like line scan cameras, have you considered a full frame imager and LED illumination instead of a line scan?

Kemalettin Sert · April 22, 2014

The Alexa features an ALEV III sensor. Are you sure about that model number? (Doesn't it even matter what number it is?)

ON Semi manufacturers the Alexa sensor. I read about it a while back but I can't find the link anymore.

http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/newsItem.do?article=2878

TowerJazz did Mysterium and MX sensor for RED.Dont know about Dragon

Charles Zuzak · April 22, 2014

http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/newsItem.do?article=2878

TowerJazz did Mysterium and MX sensor for RED.Dont know about Dragon

How did you determine TowerJazz's involvement in designing/manufacturing RED CMOS sensors?

Robert Houllahan · April 23, 2014

I think that was announced when the Dragon got an award, JJ has money but building a chip foundry is really expensive some place had to build it.

Andreas Wideroe · May 9, 2014

The guys that build the Xena machines don't like line scan cameras, have you considered a full frame imager and LED illumination instead of a line scan?

Yes I have. LED illumination is something we would go for anyway (diffused). I like the fact that linescan cameras are very fast, full rez (no bayer), can do more vertical resolution and outputting the correct aspect ration. However, there is always the risk (or problem) with image compression.

Perry Paolantonio · May 9, 2014

Yes I have. LED illumination is something we would go for anyway (diffused). I like the fact that linescan cameras are very fast, full rez (no bayer), can do more vertical resolution and outputting the correct aspect ration. However, there is always the risk (or problem) with image compression.

By "compression" I assume you mean the warping that can happen at splices and such, right? That depends on the scanner design. Machines like the Imagica or Northlight are intermittent motion but use linescan cameras (part of the reason they're so slow). The film is held in place and the scanner itself is moved across the frame, rather than having the film run constantly past the scanner. Because it's pin registered, you don't wind up with the same kind of warping you'd see in a telecine, when you hit a splice. But it ain't fast.

Kenny N Suleimanagich · November 4, 2015

So this is now available and on the market. Anyone heard of one in use? Anyone seen footage? I know Alpha Grip's mobile labs use them for 4K dailies. Anyone else?

$29K for the scanner and $1500 for 16mm or 35mm gate. Not a bad price of entry comparatively.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Kenny N Suleimanagich

Perry Paolantonio · November 4, 2015

I've heard the picture quality is ok - not great, but not terrible. Also, 16mm is a window of the sensor, so it's limited in resolution (compared to a scanner like the ScanStation, which can physically reposition the camera/lens so the the full sensor can be used for smaller gauges).

I've also heard that it's a little bit funky in terms of actual usage. Also, no audio scanning as of right now (you need to overscan a soundtrack and then post-process the image of the audio. Not a bad thing, just slow).

It also needs a mac with thunderbolt that's capable of running Resolve. I don't know that it works on Windows, which is a much cheaper way to go when building a resolve system.

Robert Houllahan · November 4, 2015

Yeah the 16mm scan window on the BMD scanner is sub HD I think, pretty bad.

I am sure it's ok for 35mm

Tyler Purcell · November 4, 2015

I've already done a lot of work with it and have been impressed with pretty much everything.

First off, it's super easy to use and very versatile. It scan's 2, 3, 4, perf 35mm, full frame and academy. The thunderbolt interface plugs into any machine with a thunderbolt port, though it does require high-speed thunderbolt storage, so a trashcan Mac Pro and raid is kind of a "must-have", which adds another $10 - $20k to the budget right off the top. The DaVinci interface is easy to use and it flat-out works.

It allows for on the fly adjusting scene by scene or straight CinemaDNG or DPX raw capture to disk. Real-time support requires fast storage. It was able to do 15fps on our iMac using the internal SSD no problem. It currently captures at UHD resolution at any frame rate your computer can handle.

The scanner does have a few minor hiccups. The big one is the registration, which comes from the perf. It's adjustable, but it's perf only, it really needs to be frame line based as well. I tried making that happen a few times during my few hours in front of the unit, but no matter what, it wanted the perf to get decent registration. At slower speeds, the registration appeared to be better.

The other hiccup is the 16mm conversion, it's not very quick. They will have sound and keycode readers in the near future, the ports exist, it's just a matter of accessories hitting the market.

Over-all the image is pretty good. I didn't have much to compare it with during my testing. It's far better then any real-time capture device I've ever seen. Yet, it doesn't have the refinement of some of the other high-end scanners I've seen images from. For a real-time scanner, it's by far the best product out there. For most applications, it will work perfectly. I'm not sure how it will look on the big screen, I will be doing further work with it come the new year. However, I have a feeling it won't beat the other top scanners out there, mostly due to the imager type and registration system. I maybe wrong, it's just a feeling I have. For the price however, it's a mighty good deal and I'm sure they'll sell very well.

Tyler Purcell · November 4, 2015

Yeah the 16mm scan window on the BMD scanner is sub HD I think, pretty bad.

I'm working with Blackmagic on this problem come the new year. I'll keep you in the loop.

Perry Paolantonio · November 5, 2015

The scanner does have a few minor hiccups. The big one is the registration, which comes from the perf. It's adjustable, but it's perf only, it really needs to be frame line based as well. I tried making that happen a few times during my few hours in front of the unit, but no matter what, it wanted the perf to get decent registration. At slower speeds, the registration appeared to be better.

This is kind of impractical. Cameras register using the pins, so should the scanner. Relying on frame lines gets dicey when the frameline disappears against the edge of the frame (due to the exposure). That is, a dark frame and dark frameline make it impossible to find. The perfs, however, are in known positions and can be easily tracked optically.

-perry

Tyler Purcell · November 5, 2015

The perf's of our test material were all over the place. It was brand new vision 3 35mm camera negative. The scanner was constantly correcting and keeping the perfs stable, but the image lacked decent registration as a consequence. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anywhere near what I expect from a motion picture film scanner. I do know the test material was shot with an Arri III and the lock-down shots moved quite a bit. This is why I assumed, it would be better to take registration marks from the actual frame lines, comparing one frame to the next, rather then ONLY the perf's.

Perry Paolantonio · November 5, 2015

That points to something either wrong in the scanner or in the camera, though - if the camera is using pin registration, every frame should be in exactly the same place when scanned with a pin-registered scanner (regardless of whether that scanner is using a mechanical pin or a machine vision optical registration system like the one in the ScanStation and others).

In what way was the registration off? can you describe it or show a sample somewhere?

The problem with using the image's frame line as a reference is that very often it's too close to the density of the space between frames, and effectively disappears. For a frame or two this may not be a big deal, but for a long sequence you'd lose your reference points entirely.