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16mm pc film scanner used as a telecine


Jonathan Bryant

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The next step up from Moviestuff would be the new Blackmagic Cintel that runs around $30,000.

 

...but doesn't actually exist in the wild except for a few slick photos of the models who apparently run these machines. It's been close to a year and a half since they were first announced at NAB 2014, with no sign of them. As of today, vaporware, pretty much.

 

Lasergraphics has a stripped down version of The ScanStation now that starts at about $50k, I believe. limited in several ways but I'm sure more feature packed than the Cintel or Moviestuff units.

 

-perry

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  • 2 weeks later...
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...but doesn't actually exist in the wild except for a few slick photos of the models who apparently run these machines.

I was wondering if those Blackmagic models come with the gear. I mean, for $30k they at least could have them deliver the unit.

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This thread evolved quite a bit from the simple question of if there's a desktop scanner for 16mm film.

 

Unfortunately with film it's a little like, "if you have to ask...you can't afford it."

 

It's just plain expensive, no way around it. Also, remember that for 95% of film's existence it was finished and edited in the film dimension vs. scanning and editing digitally. A laborious process, but if you knew how to cut film I guess it would be possible to do it this way for less.

 

You've got to buy the film and process it. Those are fairly fixed costs (yes you can try to find re-cans and short-ends and work deals with labs). Those are not cheap but can be done.

 

Scanning however is where costs go crazy. Not just crazy expensive, crazy in price ranges. Seems to me that if I was to do a low budget or micro budget feature on film, I would budget/borrow $50k to buy a scanner like Perry mentioned for the term of the project and sell it at the end. Even if you just get 50% of your money back you probably come out way ahead vs. scanning all those dailies. Maybe even scan some friends films at the same time for a little extra money.

 

Even with that however, you'll need to bring the final cut to a colorist to get the most out of your expensive project. But then, you'd need that step with RED or Alexa or iPhone 5 to be honest.

 

Another method would be to buy your local colorist/film scanner guy a lot of beer and become good friends with them. They love it when you ask for favors.

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Seems to me that if I was to do a low budget or micro budget feature on film, I would budget/borrow $50k to buy a scanner like Perry mentioned for the term of the project and sell it at the end. Even if you just get 50% of your money back you probably come out way ahead vs. scanning all those dailies. Maybe even scan some friends films at the same time for a little extra money.

 

Here's the thing. If you're paying $25k to scan your dailies, you're either doing the work in the wrong place, or you're talking about insane amounts of film.

 

A little over 20 years ago, I made a 16mm documentary from raw stock to finished print. It was only a 12 minute film. I worked some deals on the stock, had free access to cameras through my school, and happened to work at the lab, so I got heavily discounted processing, timing and printing. I had to pay full price for my optical track, because the lab didn't do that in-house. that 12 minute film cost me a grand total of about $3000 over the course of a year, and that's with discounts and upgrades to my Mac LCIII to handle 16bit sound so I could do my own audio mix ($500 for a 500MB hard drive!). Had I paid full price for processing, rented sync sound cameras and tape decks, and had I paid for a facility to do my mix, I would have been into it for well over $5000, most likely.

 

Film --the whole process of making one-- has always been an expensive proposition. The only way to do it on a shoestring is to work deals, and frankly, most businesses in the industry are willing to do that, if you're reasonable about expectations and willing to be flexible.

 

The good news, at least in terms of DI and scanning, is that the insanely specialized hardware to do this is becoming much more inexpensive, and that's allowing services like ours to offer very reasonably priced scans. I haven't heard of anyone working in 16mm doing a $25K scan job in a while, unless you're talking major productions like some television shows or bigger-budget features.

 

-perry

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  • 2 months later...

I continue to be shocked that a viable and inexpensive consumer-level desktop scanning solution isn't on the market yet.

It just needs to be large enough to hold a scanning camera and rollers/claw mechanism to drive the film through.

 

It doesn't have to have fancy locomotion; I'd be fine with it spitting the film out onto the floor. It just needs to be cheap and produce HQ images with good if not great registration. Drifting, scratches etc are easily handled by any number of frame-blending dust/noise-removers today.

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I agree. It's preposterous. The market exists....maybe those of us who would use a device like this need to make some noise and make sure it is known that this is a niche that someone could make some money on.

 

Any ideas where to start?

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I agree. It's preposterous. The market exists....maybe those of us who would use a device like this need to make some noise and make sure it is known that this is a niche that someone could make some money on.

 

Any ideas where to start?

Unfortunately no.. The best idea I can come up with is to ask all chinese manufacturers of cameras, scanners, etc to consider R&Ding one.

 

the fact that this decade-old thread is one of the top hits when web-searched doesn't inspire confidence;

there just isn't much recognition of the need or the niche 'opportunity'.

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I don't understand how what you wrote answered the question that was asked or in any way helped the person who asked the question. All you did was poop all over it.

 

Anyone who hold a film reel in his hands is aware that there are thousands upon thousands of frames to be scanned. Most of us are undaunted by this and want to find a solution. Like the asker, I too would like a pro-sumer solution for feeding and scanning 16mm and 8mm films. The asker wondered if such a product existed. He did not ask to be lectured on your opinion of the absurdity of such an undertaking.

 

I do not believe such an item exists. It is unfortunate because there is a vast market for such an item. They have scanners for picture film, why not movies? Come on guys!

 

-Daniel

 

 

For 24 fps material, that's 14,400 individual frames you'd have to scan just for ten minutes of footage.

Even if you only took ten seconds to scan each frame individually by hand, it would take 40 hours -- basically two days straight -- to scan that ten minutes of footage.

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"More often than not, DI is too cost prohibitive to be considered. Our local film lab charges $2.50 per 2k frame scan. If I shot my indie feature on 35mm at a tight ratio of 5:1, I?m looking at a book rate of $1,764,000. And sure, the lab will be more than happy to cut me one heck of a good deal on the bulk. But even with an unlikely 99% discount it?s still more than I can afford."

 

What lab is this?? A lab in 1989? Our most expensive 4K Pin Registered scan for 35mm is $0.60/ft and we offer a 2K scan of 35mm for about $0.20/ft or less depending on volume.

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I don't understand how what you wrote answered the question that was asked or in any way helped the person who asked the question. All you did was poop all over it.

 

Anyone who hold a film reel in his hands is aware that there are thousands upon thousands of frames to be scanned. Most of us are undaunted by this and want to find a solution. Like the asker, I too would like a pro-sumer solution for feeding and scanning 16mm and 8mm films. The asker wondered if such a product existed. He did not ask to be lectured on your opinion of the absurdity of such an undertaking.

 

I do not believe such an item exists. It is unfortunate because there is a vast market for such an item. They have scanners for picture film, why not movies? Come on guys!

 

-Daniel

 

 

Such a prosumer scanner does now exist now. http://www.moviestuff.tv/universal_web_ad.html It will run you about $4500 with both 8 and 16mm gates. The quality is better than what I was getting from a $600,000 machine at the time this thread was started.

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