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What is verdict on Cintel 2 scanner for 16mm?


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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On 1/14/2020 at 1:10 PM, Robert Houllahan said:

Yeah what Perry said.

 

Alcohol is not a liquid with a refractive index which will really work as a liquid gate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachloroethylene is.

You will need some proper handling and venting of that fluid.

 Arri and DFT have full immersion gates here is a video of the Scannity:

 

I think each liquid gate for the Scannity is $225,000 not sure if they have a 8mm liquid gate yet.

Real liquid gate scans are expensive and fussy.

 

Did Scannity invent the wetgate? If the wetgate is $225K how much is the scanner Robert? 

I'm still looking into FilmFabriek-HDS-2019-technical-specifications.pdf

I have not found much feedback on them. Have you had any experience with that unit Robert for the budget minded scanner? It does not do me any good that there are better scanners in the world that I could never afford. I'm looking for a 4K scanner that is affordable, reliable and produces decent results with warped up archival material. 

 

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22 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

I just bought one, should be arriving in April. I will be posting a lot about it once it arrives. It's the only scanner like it on the market. Not only does it have a wet gate, but it's also triple flash monochrome, which his really nice. I'm sad it doesn't take cores directly, need to use split reels, but that's not a horrible inconvenience. 

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18 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

 

Did Scannity invent the wetgate? If the wetgate is $225K how much is the scanner Robert? 

 

 

Scannity is about $1M for the scanner.

Xena has full immersion liquid gates for 8mm 16mm 35mm and 56/70mm for far far less.

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22 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I just bought one, should be arriving in April. I will be posting a lot about it once it arrives. It's the only scanner like it on the market. Not only does it have a wet gate, but it's also triple flash monochrome, which his really nice. I'm sad it doesn't take cores directly, need to use split reels, but that's not a horrible inconvenience. 

Did they impliment Machine Vision perforation registration on that scanner? Like Xena Kinetta Scan Station?

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1 hour ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Did they impliment Machine Vision perforation registration on that scanner? Like Xena Kinetta Scan Station?

Not sure! But I'll know in 30 days or so! I'll do a very lengthy video for ya. It maybe a great option for the future for ya. 

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1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Not sure! But I'll know in 30 days or so! I'll do a very lengthy video for ya. It maybe a great option for the future for ya. 

I helped to Co-Develop the DCS Xena which we use and I have three of, 4K 6.5K and one that will take a 12k or 14K  + sensor soon, I have actual full immersion liquid gates for them and the Xena has very advanced machine vision perforation based pin registration so I think I am good.

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2 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

I helped to Co-Develop the DCS Xena which we use and I have three of, 4K 6.5K and one that will take a 12k or 14K  + sensor soon, I have actual full immersion liquid gates for them and the Xena has very advanced machine vision perforation based pin registration so I think I am good.

Yea the Xena a good product. I'm sad it has some FPN issues with the 4k imager. I assume the 6.5k imager is a lot better. 

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13 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea the Xena a good product. I'm sad it has some FPN issues with the 4k imager. I assume the 6.5k imager is a lot better. 

There is no FPN issue with the 4K Pregius sensor (Same one that HDS uses) and the 4K and 6.5K sensors are from the same family of Sony Pregius global shutter cmos sensors.

I also have a Scan Station P 5K which uses a JAI 5K CMOS sensor and that does have FPN issues.

LaserGraphics offers the 4K and 6.5K Sony Pregius sensors as updates to the Scan Station now also.

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On 3/15/2021 at 8:35 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

I just bought one, should be arriving in April. I will be posting a lot about it once it arrives. It's the only scanner like it on the market. Not only does it have a wet gate, but it's also triple flash monochrome, which his really nice. I'm sad it doesn't take cores directly, need to use split reels, but that's not a horrible inconvenience. 

I suppose you can say it's a "wet gate" since the film is wet when it goes through the gate... 

"also triple flash monochrome' -- can you elaborate here? nothing in the specs on this scanner talks about this, at least not in the PDF on their web site. Are you talking about HDR or are you talking about a monochrome camera that uses Red, Green, Blue lights to create color images, like the Lasergraphics Director or the Arriscan?  Or is it doing some kind of trick like the Scanity's "HDR" that uses the R,G,B photosites to do HDR for B/W film (but not color) in a single pass. I'm not something sure that would work with a bayer sensor, but maybe? 

FWIW, one of our best customers is a pretty well known film archive. They bought one of these,  but only use it to capture quick and dirty transfers as access copies and to evaluate the condition of films. Then they send the films to us for scanning. It's not a substitute for a scanner that has better optics, better cameras, better mechanical design, better software. It'll certainly do the job better than a Retro Scan or Cintel, but not as good as a ScanStation or other similar machines. With a few exceptions (<cough> Scanity <cough>) there's a reason scanners are as expensive as they are - you get what you pay for. 

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32 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I suppose you can say it's a "wet gate" since the film is wet when it goes through the gate... 

If it does the job, then I guess it's ok? It's not a liquid filled gate no. But it does fill the gaps caused by scratches in the film, so that's the most important aspect. I'll find out real quick if it works well enough. I know a guy locally who uses it for restoration work only and he's very happy with the wet gate, even though it's very slow. 

32 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

"also triple flash monochrome' -- can you elaborate here? nothing in the specs on this scanner talks about this, at least not in the PDF on their web site. Are you talking about HDR or are you talking about a monochrome camera that uses Red, Green, Blue lights to create color images, like the Lasergraphics Director or the Arriscan?  Or is it doing some kind of trick like the Scanity's "HDR" that uses the R,G,B photosites to do HDR for B/W film (but not color) in a single pass. I'm not something sure that would work with a bayer sensor, but maybe? 

Yes sorry, the jargon we toss around here for scanners that use a monochrome imager with RGB lights is "triple flash". I don't know why they don't mention it on their specs. They're missing A LOT of stuff in their spec sheet. If you watch the videos of it running, you can clearly see it flashing multiple colors from the LED. The sales rep confirmed it's CCD triple flash. To me this is a huge advantage over single flash CMOS imager systems with bayer color filter. 

32 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

FWIW, one of our best customers is a pretty well known film archive. They bought one of these,  but only use it to capture quick and dirty transfers as access copies and to evaluate the condition of films. Then they send the films to us for scanning. It's not a substitute for a scanner that has better optics, better cameras, better mechanical design, better software. It'll certainly do the job better than a Retro Scan or Cintel, but not as good as a ScanStation or other similar machines. With a few exceptions (<cough> Scanity <cough>) there's a reason scanners are as expensive as they are - you get what you pay for. 

Well yea, I mean I agree you always get what you pay for. But at the same time, I've seen some amazing scans from home made optical printer scanners that have blown my socks away. So it's not "that" hard to get a decent image. Will you get Arriscan quality? Heck no. But we should be close to the quality of a 5k Scan Station. I can't imagine it being radically different, more about that below. 

We recently did a test comparing the Imagica 4k, Spirit 4k, Cintel II and Scan Station 6.5k with 16mm @ 2k. The only reason I haven't published the results is because honestly, without watching the raw DPX files on a grading monitor you can't tell the difference between them outside of the Cintel II which looks like total crap. The Imagica was the "crispest", with more film grain seen than any other machine. It also revealed the most amount of dirt in the image. The Spirit 4k was hum ho, typical spirit, soft everywhere and superior colors. The Scan Station "looked" the best, it was the most pleasing image to look at. Working the image was the best with the scan scan station AND over-all, I feel it was the most stable image of the bunch, even the Imagica which is pin registered. The scan station compensates for camera issues too, where very few other scanners do that. 

So yea, I wholeheartedly agree with you. If you spend $100k+ on a scanner, it better be superior to everything else on the market and Lasergraphics 6.5k imager is very good. If the HDS+ is 10% worse at something, maybe higher noise floor, maybe dynamic range issues, maybe stability, I'd be still ok. The key for me is to offer fast, low-cost service to my customers for their OCN, but retain the 4k quality that they've all been after. You can get low-cost, decent resolution AND speed, but the image will ALWAYS suffer. As you said, there is no magic. So I wait to see what the issues are with the HDS+ and I will report back once the machine is in my hands. I have a feeling a lot of people who own them, don't use them for final scans because they "think" other scanners are better OR they can't setup the HDS well enough. It's a fully manual machine, you literally set focus by hand, so it's much easier to screw up than some other scanners. 

 

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1 hour ago, Robert Houllahan said:

There is no FPN issue with the 4K Pregius sensor (Same one that HDS uses) and the 4K and 6.5K sensors are from the same family of Sony Pregius global shutter cmos sensors.

Did you update the imager on the Xena's in the last few years? The scans I did with you on the Xena in 2017/2018 had FPN. 

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17 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Did you update the imager on the Xena's in the last few years? The scans I did with you on the Xena in 2017/2018 had FPN. 

Yes both Xena machines got new Sony Pregius sensors but they replaced Kodak CCDs and I never had any issues with fixed pattern noise with those, they were just slower 3.3K and 5K sensors. Are you sure you didin't get a scan from the Scan Station?

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49 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Yes both Xena machines got new Sony Pregius sensors but they replaced Kodak CCDs and I never had any issues with fixed pattern noise with those, they were just slower 3.3K and 5K sensors. Are you sure you didin't get a scan from the Scan Station?

Not sure, it was such a long time ago.

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1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yes sorry, the jargon we toss around here for scanners that use a monochrome imager with RGB lights is "triple flash". I don't know why they don't mention it on their specs. They're missing A LOT of stuff in their spec sheet. If you watch the videos of it running, you can clearly see it flashing multiple colors from the LED. The sales rep confirmed it's CCD triple flash. To me this is a huge advantage over single flash CMOS imager systems with bayer color filter. 

I watched the videos and I don't see it changing multiple colors. It's continuous motion and moving fairly fast. I'd be very surprised if this is sequential RGB.

What camera is in the one you bought? The exact model. 

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2 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

What camera is in the one you bought? The exact model. 

Won't know until I get it, didn't ask them. Robert seems to think it's the Sony CMOS, but I was assured it was monochrome 4k CCD. 

So we'll see! 

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20 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Won't know until I get it, didn't ask them. Robert seems to think it's the Sony CMOS, but I was assured it was monochrome 4k CCD. 

So we'll see! 

It would have to be a intermittent transport for a monochrome sensor so either actually mechanically pin registered like an Arriscan or it would have to have precise transport control and advanced RGB GPU Perf registration like the Director. I am sure it is a Pregius 4K cmos sensor and continuous movement, I also thought it was not GPU "pin" registered.

 

Also there are not many newer 4K CCDs there are 3.3K and 5K Ex-Kodak CCDs which will get you about 12fps in 4-tap mode also those CCD Machine vision cameras are now "legacy" and becoming limited in availability.

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22 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Won't know until I get it, didn't ask them. Robert seems to think it's the Sony CMOS, but I was assured it was monochrome 4k CCD. 

So we'll see! 

CMOS != Bayer sensor. 

CMOS, like CCD, is just a method of capturing photons. Both can be Bayer, both can be mono, both can be RGB.

the likelihood that this is a mono camera with sequential RGB is vanishingly small. They’d be screaming that from the rooftops if that was the case because of the world’s (largely) irrational fear of Bayer masks. It would be a marketing coup.

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13 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

the likelihood that this is a mono camera with sequential RGB is vanishingly small. They’d be screaming that from the rooftops if that was the case because of the world’s (largely) irrational fear of Bayer masks. It would be a marketing coup.

Yep I agree, but again we'll see! Clearly there is some incorrect data from the sales side of things, but I don't want to point fingers until I get it and fully test it. 

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6 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:


CMOS, like CCD, is just a method of capturing photons. Both can be Bayer, both can be mono, both can be RGB.

the likelihood that this is a mono camera with sequential RGB is vanishingly small. They’d be screaming that from the rooftops if that was the case because of the world’s (largely) irrational fear of Bayer masks. It would be a marketing coup.

I think true sequential RGB does manage to get more accurate and separated color especially in the hilites of negative, more accurate individual R,G and B illumination and without the channel cross-talk of a Bayer sensor and it's photo-site color dyes. But this is often at the expense of speed complexity and sub optimal Nyquist oversampling.

We have been doing allot of 2K S16mm scans on the Xena 6.5K which images the full 16mm gauge width at 6464 Pixels and then down samples to 2K in GPU. The scans look fantastic and color accuracy and grain rendering are both excellent.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

I think true sequential RGB does manage to get more accurate and separated color especially in the hilites of negative, more accurate individual R,G and B illumination and without the channel cross-talk of a Bayer sensor and it's photo-site color dyes. But this is often at the expense of speed complexity and sub optimal Nyquist oversampling.

We have been doing allot of 2K S16mm scans on the Xena 6.5K which images the full 16mm gauge width at 6464 Pixels and then down samples to 2K in GPU. The scans look fantastic and color accuracy and grain rendering are both excellent.

 

 

Right. The light should be tuned to the type of film (pos or neg, for example) or at least, it has be be dealt with in the image processing before the files are written out. 
 

I think a lot of people don’t realize that all Bayer sensors are monochrome, they just have a physical mask over the pixels that separates the mono photo sites by color. The exact same sensor without the Bayer mask is a mono camera.
 

With over sampling any negative side effects of the Bayer mask in a color camera basically go away, effectively making it a lower resolution RGB camera. Exactly as you say. 

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6 hours ago, John Rizzo said:

Lasergraphics 

just has just come out with a new scanner at a 40k price point called the archivist.

Yea it's pretty cool. My only beef is that it crops for 16mm and super 8, rather than having an optic change. I guess that would constitute more money. But since I saw this come out a while back, I've been contemplating it as a great companion to our HDS, for the 35mm clients. 

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