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Here is how a cine' film scanner should be made...


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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Over at the Large Format Forum they were discussing their dream 'want list' in a flatbed scanner. With cine' scanners, one thing I'd like is a diagnostic port. You pay the scanner company $299.99. You get a little computer you plug into the port, and it tells you what is wrong with the scanner. Then you call up the company and buy a part from the company for $399.99  + $15 shipping and boom, you are back scanning. 

And I'm being generous with the scanner companies since I know they mark everything up like hell. So, I marked up their diagnostic reader by 1200%

Amazon.com: MOTOPOWER MP69033 Car OBD2 Scanner Code Reader Engine Fault Code Reader Scanner CAN Diagnostic Scan Tool for All OBD II Protocol Cars Since 1996, Yellow : Automotive

Remember the Volkswagen Bug? 

Volkswagen means 'The People's Car.'

That is how a cine' scanner should be approached, make them user friendly with repairs. You should not have to pay $11,500 to get a repair estimate on your scanner. As far as the rest of the dream list? 

As long as it scans sharp and produces quality scans, is easy to use, affordable, reliable and reads sound. I'm not too picky. 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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On 2/19/2022 at 11:37 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

That is how a cine' scanner should be approached, make them user friendly with repairs. You should not have to pay $11,500 to get a repair estimate on your scanner. As far as the rest of the dream list? 

 

Wow. ok. So this is in reference to the Lasergraphics scanner on ebay. That is not a "repair estimate" -- that scanner hasn't been used in who knows how long. It doesn't have the hard drive in the computer because it was pulled from government use (so the drive is gone for security reasons). It's not 100% clear that all the other parts are there. 

The fee is to ensure that everything is there, working, and at the same baseline it was when it was new. Otherwise, how can you expect a company to support that if they don't know what's wrong with it? If there are major parts that are broken, missing, or damaged, that needs to be brought up to snuff before they would support it. I don't see how that's unreasonable at all. 

OBD2 is a standard that car manufacturers agreed on decades ago. That's an industry that has sold billions of units (cars) in that time. Billions. How can you compare that with an industry as small as the film scanning business with a straight face? 

On 2/19/2022 at 11:37 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Then you call up the company and buy a part from the company for $399.99  + $15 shipping and boom, you are back scanning. 

This is pure fantasy, and has zero basis in reality.

 

On 2/19/2022 at 11:37 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

As long as it scans sharp and produces quality scans, is easy to use, affordable, reliable and reads sound. I'm not too picky. 

I hate to break it to you, but that's not how the world works. you are being too picky. You cannot have it all without some compromise. If you don't want to spend as much cash, then build your own scanner. There are projects out there like the kinograph, which aim to do this. But you're going to spend many years of your life on it. time is money. 

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A lot has been discussed on these forums about Lasergraphics not giving you an instruction manual for their expensive scanners.  Or if they do give you a manual it is a crappy manual of little use. It would be nice if someone that has a copy the 'instructions' would post a copy of it at the Internet Archive to see what the verdict is. 

Early%20Apple%20&%20Clone%20Computer%20C

eBay Archive: Fair Use

In the old days of early computing, they gave you a thick pack of floppy discs with the operating system on it as a backup. Then when CD's came out for storage, they gave you a thick pack of CD's. Then they cheapened up and you had to use like 30 CD's to make a backup off your computer yourself. Now they give you nothing, but I guess (?) you could get it online. 

Steve%20Wozniak,%20John%20Sculley%20&%20

Internet photo: Fair Use

What Lasergraphics, and any scanner company for that matter, should do is give you an instructional DVD of how to use the scanner. Or if the company is too cheap to give you a DVD, then post instructional videos at their site. A few years ago, before the virus hit, Lasergraphics would charge you $7,500 for onsite setup and short instruction. So, I'm thinking that is why they didn't want to give you any sort of useful instructions. Lasergraphics wanted to get the setup fee.

Breastfeeding%20Bedouin%20RPPC%20D.D.Teo

RPPC DDTJRAC

DVD's / video and photo illustrations are great for instructional purposes. They can really breast feed you the scoop!  The scanner company could post the instructions / videos online for prospective purchases to study beforehand. That would make a great sales tool in itself. That is what I like about the Retroscan. They breast feed it all to you upfront.

https://www.moviestuff.tv/universal_mark-II_support_page.html

 When I discussed the Volkswagen above being the people's car, it underscores some of these scanner company's business practices of no useful instructions, not being user serviceable and high maintenance / support fees that makes their products more of a rich person's scanner than a 'people's scanner.'

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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32 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Wow. ok. So this is in reference to the Lasergraphics scanner on ebay. That is not a "repair estimate" -- that scanner hasn't been used in who knows how long. It doesn't have the hard drive in the computer because it was pulled from government use (so the drive is gone for security reasons). It's not 100% clear that all the other parts are there. 

The fee is to ensure that everything is there, working, and at the same baseline it was when it was new. Otherwise, how can you expect a company to support that if they don't know what's wrong with it? If there are major parts that are broken, missing, or damaged, that needs to be brought up to snuff before they would support it. I don't see how that's unreasonable at all. 

OBD2 is a standard that car manufacturers agreed on decades ago. That's an industry that has sold billions of units (cars) in that time. Billions. How can you compare that with an industry as small as the film scanning business with a straight face? 

This is pure fantasy, and has zero basis in reality.

 

I hate to break it to you, but that's not how the world works. you are being too picky. You cannot have it all without some compromise. If you don't want to spend as much cash, then build your own scanner. There are projects out there like the kinograph, which aim to do this. But you're going to spend many years of your life on it. time is money. 

 

So, I take it you are against making scanners more user-friendly and affordable Perry.

OK, you tell me what Lasergraphics charges to fix your scanner in the field if it is not running Perry? (Not counting parts.) And what do they charge you for support, so they talk to you Perry?

Can you imagine in the early days of the Xerox machine if they told customers, it is $11,500 for a field call Perry? No one is arguing that it takes money for a service call. It is just $11,500 for a service call is pretty steep. 

OBD2?

That is why I raised the price 1200% for the diagnostic unit Perry. But forget the OBD2 for a second. If they can't sell a diagnostic unit for that price, then it should be very easy to have the computer run a diagnostic checkup to tell you what parts you need on the scanner. And if they want to charge $299.99 for diagnostic software that is fine as well. 

Kineograph?

I think it is more for tinkerers. I don't want to build a scanner...I just want to use a scanner Perry. 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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11 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

So, I take it you are against making scanners more user-friendly and affordable Perry.

 

Not at all. But your expectations, as I said above, have no basis in reality. 

First, Lasergraphics does give you a manual of sorts. It is not a PDF, it is an inline HTML document you get to from the software. It's basically a reference to how you use certain features and yes, it's grossly incomplete. That being said, it is not, and should not be the job of a scanner manufacturer to teach you how to scan film. Their software is *very* easy to use. It's the same basic application for all of their scanners so it is mature, stable and works very well. There are quirks but it's pretty intuitive to use and frankly doesn't require a manual. When I need to know how to do something on the scanner I send an email to their support. I get a response the same day usually, with instructions. In some cases what I want to do is novel, and they have altered the software to support that feature. 

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

That is why I raised the price 1200% for the diagnostic unit Perry. But forget the OBD2 for a second. If they can't sell a diagnostic unit for that price, then it should be very easy to have the computer run a diagnostic checkup to tell you what parts you need on the scanner. And if they want to charge $299.99 for diagnostic software that is fine as well. 

 

 

Honestly, you have no idea what you're talking about here. The cost of the device you plug in to give you diagnostic information is trivial. Integrating that into the software and hardware is not. I guarantee that Lasergraphics doesn't have a device like you're describing, because there are better ways to determine where a problem is. 

 

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

I think it is more for tinkerers. I don't want to build a scanner...I just want to use a scanner Perry. 

you cannot have it both ways. It is clear from your posts that you have no idea how these machines are built, the engineering resources that go into building a film scanner, the engineering resources that go into writing software, the time, money and human effort that go into supporting hardware and software.

You want something that's cheap, high quality, easy to use, has free training., extensive documentation, doesn't cost anything to support, and that you can fix yourself. Best of luck with that. 

 

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

Can you imagine in the early days of the Xerox machine if they told customers, it is $11,500 for a field call Perry? No one is arguing that it takes money for a service call. It is just $11,500 for a service call is pretty steep. 

 

IT IS NOT A SERVICE CALL.

again, in case I wasn't clear: IT IS NOT A SERVICE CALL.

And one more time in case anyone missed it: NOT A SERVICE CALL. 

That diagnostic fee is to ensure that all of the stuff on the machine is working. There are already parts missing, which is acknowledged by the seller. How can you realistically expect a company to say "sure, we'll provide  support for your used scanner that's missing parts, even though we don't know what parts are missing?"

That diagnostic fee is to pay for someone to spend time, probably at least 3-4 days, combing through the machine to make sure nothing is broken. They have to completely reinstall the operating system and software. Have you ever installed Windows? it's an all day affair to get it installed and all the security holes band-aided shut. They have to ensure all the add-on cards work and that the correct drivers are installed. That's an older model PC so it may need to be upgraded entirely since it ran Windows 7 (or maybe even XP) originally, and that's EOL now. If parts are missing, they have to be replaced. 

Just like buying a pre-owned car from a dealer, they have to ensure it's as good as a new one, before they're going to spend time (and therefore money) supporting it. I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to grasp that it costs money to do this. No company is going to (nor should they) spend the better part of a week tinkering with an older model machine for the fun of it. 

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This is why we bought the FilmFabriek scanner. Where it may not be as good as a scan station, part of the purchase price includes support and because the software and computer is pretty generic, 90% of all issues can be solved without manufacturer support. 

Now of course the LG machines can do more than our measly machine can, but at 5x the price. There is a certain point where the excess performance of the LG machines, isn't as important. However, I will say nobody has even attempted to make a cost-effective scanner yet. Volume would be the problem in doing so, just not enough people will want them. 

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1 hour ago, David Sekanina said:

What I don't understand is why BMD does not put a better sensor into their scanner. ?

The chief engineer suddenly died a few years ago, right in the middle of developing a new machine. I've been told, during the pandemic, they started working on a new scanner. So we'll see! 

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It took me all of ten minutes to learn and start using the scan station, Steve Klenk came to do training but honestly with a few caveats the machine does not really need much of a manual to use it.

You should see the 285 page manual for the Arriscan and you also better know linux and be decent at math for that machine.

Similar to our DFT Spirit 2K/4K Data machine which runs SUSE 10 for the Bones or SUSE11 for the PhantomII control software. It took me a week to get the PhantomII software running on a Z840 with SUSE11 configs and drivers etc etc.

I have the original sales receipt for our Arriscan it was $580,200.00 in 2007 and the DFT Spirit 4K was $1.75M in 2008

So "they" have made a low cost scanner and it has sold like hotcakes, it is called the Scan Station.

 

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1 hour ago, Robert Houllahan said:

So "they" have made a low cost scanner and it has sold like hotcakes, it is called the Scan Station.

 

Oh, I agree with you there, but I think some are not talking the difference between Caviar and Lobster, but between steak and potted meat...

?

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5 hours ago, Frank Wylie said:

I think you can safely say that if an inexpensive, super high quality scanner could be built for mass production, it already would be on the market and selling like hotcakes.

Na, the Wolverine which is $299 doesn't sell like hotcakes. Mind you, its garbage, but most private owners who have huge collections of film they want transferred, aren't buying a scanner. They'd rather the film sit and rot then transfer it to "video". Only the corporations/libraries/archives really need scanners and MOST of them already have a machine and/or a business they use to transfer their stuff. 

Sure, a SUB $10k machine that does S8, 16mm and 35mm at 6k sounds amazing, until you realize the computer to make that work would also cost $10k (storage included). Someone MAY be able to sell 200 $10k machines globally, but after that, all they're doing is supporting the machines that already exist and that's expensive. 

It's kind of the same issue with new film cameras. Everyone is like, "OMG I WANT A NEW CAMERA" and then when you see the price tag, you're like "NO THANKS" because reality is, people talk and tire kick, but very few... and I mean VERY few commit. 

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I think the best a low budget film enthusiast can do is to build a diy scanner from a film projector and change the motor to a stepper/reduction gear normal motor controlled by an Arduino, then using normal mirrorless photo camera with macro lens controlled by the same Arduino to capture the image frame by frame in raw stills and stitch them to video later. It is not real time (you should get up to something like 1fps scanning speed depending on the camera you use and needs lots of post work to get it to a watchable video) but it is "good enough" quality and pretty affordable if you have lots of free time. ( I was developing this type of system last year but it was evident that no one was willing to purchase the finished product because the whole point of people wanting to own this type of system is that they have built it by themselves even if it ends up costing 10 times more than the readily made product sold by someone else. So no reason trying to sell anything like this to others and thus no possibility to make a commercial product out of it because one cannot sell even a single one of them to anyone)

Anything which needs to be BOTH good quality AND real-time is always "expensive" by film enthusiast standards and thus "extremely frustrating" and "unfair" because they cannot afford purchasing one.   But designing and building good quality real-time scanners IS expensive and one can only cheap on things if the persons designing and building them are willing to work on them for years for free, even paying all the material costs and tools needed (who is going to spend at least many hundred Ks of their own money to a scanner project if they have to give it away for free?) .  Not going to happen unless one gets a millionaire to sponsor the project and then donating the finished scanners to the hobbyists for free

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Topics keep popping up about low priced scanners, building cheap scanners, etc. I don't own a scanner, but I send my work off to be scanned for a reason - cost. I shoot film and collect film, and while it would be nice to have a scanner for my projects and small archive, it just doesn't make sense. The return on investment really wouldn't make sense when I can pay $25 per 100 feet of 16mm for a 4K scan from someone else with professional equipment. If I were to buy a machine to start a business, I'd invest in a quality unit to produce quality work for clients. Sure, if one isn't trained in conversion, maybe a "low-end" device would be good for self-training, but not for business. You want to produce a quality product.

I shot 600 feet of 16mm for a project yesterday and just sent it out for processing.

Rough estimate: Film stock = $264, Processing = $180, Scanning = $150...Just under $600 for maybe 15 minutes of footage? Throw in shipping and taxes and it adds up rather fast. Too fast for an independent artist, but I'd rather have a competent operator using a quality machine with quality parts.

I am not a scanning expert, but someone that depends on excellent scans for my money. Like others have stated, you are paying for research, development, continuous improvements. Someone else's time to save you time.

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8 hours ago, Don Cunningham said:

Rough estimate: Film stock = $264, Processing = $180, Scanning = $150...Just under $600 for maybe 15 minutes of footage? Throw in shipping and taxes and it adds up rather fast. Too fast for an independent artist, but I'd rather have a competent operator using a quality machine with quality parts.

$220 + $120 + $140 = $1.20 per foot state side for stock, processing, prep and transfer in 4k. Obviously without tax... but that's the raw price. 

I agree... paying someone to scan for one or two rolls per year, is smart. 

We shoot 20 - 40k feet worth a year. The price adds up FAST. We save roughly $5k-$10k a year by owning our own scanner and we make around $30k a year on scanning other people's work. It's not quite a "business" more like a friend service, but needless to say, we're one step away from it being a pro business. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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On 2/21/2022 at 9:54 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

Not at all. But your expectations, as I said above, have no basis in reality. 

First, Lasergraphics does give you a manual of sorts. It is not a PDF, it is an inline HTML document you get to from the software. It's basically a reference to how you use certain features and yes, it's grossly incomplete. That being said, it is not, and should not be the job of a scanner manufacturer to teach you how to scan film. Their software is *very* easy to use. It's the same basic application for all of their scanners so it is mature, stable and works very well. There are quirks but it's pretty intuitive to use and frankly doesn't require a manual. When I need to know how to do something on the scanner I send an email to their support. I get a response the same day usually, with instructions. In some cases what I want to do is novel, and they have altered the software to support that feature. 

 

 

Honestly, you have no idea what you're talking about here. The cost of the device you plug in to give you diagnostic information is trivial. Integrating that into the software and hardware is not. I guarantee that Lasergraphics doesn't have a device like you're describing, because there are better ways to determine where a problem is. 

 

you cannot have it both ways. It is clear from your posts that you have no idea how these machines are built, the engineering resources that go into building a film scanner, the engineering resources that go into writing software, the time, money and human effort that go into supporting hardware and software.

You want something that's cheap, high quality, easy to use, has free training., extensive documentation, doesn't cost anything to support, and that you can fix yourself. Best of luck with that. 

 

IT IS NOT A SERVICE CALL.

again, in case I wasn't clear: IT IS NOT A SERVICE CALL.

And one more time in case anyone missed it: NOT A SERVICE CALL. 

That diagnostic fee is to ensure that all of the stuff on the machine is working. There are already parts missing, which is acknowledged by the seller. How can you realistically expect a company to say "sure, we'll provide  support for your used scanner that's missing parts, even though we don't know what parts are missing?"

That diagnostic fee is to pay for someone to spend time, probably at least 3-4 days, combing through the machine to make sure nothing is broken. They have to completely reinstall the operating system and software. Have you ever installed Windows? it's an all day affair to get it installed and all the security holes band-aided shut. They have to ensure all the add-on cards work and that the correct drivers are installed. That's an older model PC so it may need to be upgraded entirely since it ran Windows 7 (or maybe even XP) originally, and that's EOL now. If parts are missing, they have to be replaced. 

Just like buying a pre-owned car from a dealer, they have to ensure it's as good as a new one, before they're going to spend time (and therefore money) supporting it. I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to grasp that it costs money to do this. No company is going to (nor should they) spend the better part of a week tinkering with an older model machine for the fun of it. 

 

I said Perry at the opening this was about how a scanner should be built. It outlined basic things I wanted in a scanner. The basics of not giving out a proper manual seems to sum up Lasergraphics to a proverbial T. They want the support $$ they want the service call $$ Perry. One would think you work for Lasergraphics with your defense of the indefensible Perry.

If Retroscan can give you a detailed PDF manual on a $6,000 scanner and an equally detailed manual on the $200 software, then why can Lasergraphics do it for a $150,000 scanner Perry? How is that possible Perry? Is Retroscan not based in reality Perry?

No Perry, my wants would be easily doable by any company that wanted to implement them. As I said, if they don't want to make a handheld scanner for trouble shooting, then diagnostic software would not be a big deal at all.

It is only in your mind Perry that these things are ridiculous. Nothing I proposed is out of line to implement.

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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On 2/22/2022 at 11:02 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

$220 + $120 + $140 = $1.20 per foot state side for stock, processing, prep and transfer in 4k. Obviously without tax... but that's the raw price. 

I agree... paying someone to scan for one or two rolls per year, is smart. 

We shoot 20 - 40k feet worth a year. The price adds up FAST. We save roughly $5k-$10k a year by owning our own scanner and we make around $30k a year on scanning other people's work. It's not quite a "business" more like a friend service, but needless to say, we're one step away from it being a pro business. 

 

Hey, it pays for itself with your side gig. Good for you!

That is better than running an open content Archive with no funding. Although, I only work on what want to. (Maybe not 100% of the time, but the majority of the time.) Sometimes I need to work on peripheral material I don't like to round things out with a project.

If I shot film and produced a few reels a year, then commercial scanning would be the deal.  But, even if I was rich and could pay half a million $$ for basic commercial scans; there are some films, such as vintage bestiality films, that commercials scanners wont scan. So, you are still stuck scanning them. 

And to get proper scans you need the TIFF files as well as the video. And the scans need to be timed instead of best light scans with most vintage and home material. It all that adds up. 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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On 2/22/2022 at 2:19 PM, Don Cunningham said:

Topics keep popping up about low priced scanners, building cheap scanners, etc. I don't own a scanner, but I send my work off to be scanned for a reason - cost. I shoot film and collect film, and while it would be nice to have a scanner for my projects and small archive, it just doesn't make sense. The return on investment really wouldn't make sense when I can pay $25 per 100 feet of 16mm for a 4K scan from someone else with professional equipment. If I were to buy a machine to start a business, I'd invest in a quality unit to produce quality work for clients. Sure, if one isn't trained in conversion, maybe a "low-end" device would be good for self-training, but not for business. You want to produce a quality product.

I shot 600 feet of 16mm for a project yesterday and just sent it out for processing.

Rough estimate: Film stock = $264, Processing = $180, Scanning = $150...Just under $600 for maybe 15 minutes of footage? Throw in shipping and taxes and it adds up rather fast. Too fast for an independent artist, but I'd rather have a competent operator using a quality machine with quality parts.

I am not a scanning expert, but someone that depends on excellent scans for my money. Like others have stated, you are paying for research, development, continuous improvements. Someone else's time to save you time.

 

Sure Don, as you outlined, would not make sense to do it yourself. As I replied previously, I got over a million feet of film and some of the material commercial scanners won't touch. And in the big picture I like doing things myself if possible. But if rich...I agree...let someone else do it if you can.

This is just a fraction of the films I gotta scan Don...

 

DSC09271.jpg

 

Eventually this will be for films titled from 'M  to T' (I'm hoping they fit in this space.)

For my own filmmaking I'm all digital Don. I only work with cine' film for archival work or for my personal still film work before I moved to digital.

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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24 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

They want the support $$ they want the service call $$ Perry.

You keep saying this like a guy in a truck and greasy overalls comes to your shop with a toolbox and fiddles with some stuff in the scanner. That's not how it works.

With Lasergraphics, the support contract pays for support. What do you get? answers to questions, fixes to bugs you find, replacement parts for things that break (most of which can be swapped by the end user in the field and (Surprise! come with detailed step by step instructions). 

The point that I (and Rob) have made and that you are 100% ignoring, is that YOU DO NOT NEED A MANUAL to use these scanners. It's that simple, intuitive and reliable. Yes, there are some small details like how to format keykode files, or how to use their token system for filepath customization, and those things are documented. Would a full manual be nice? Sure (i've probably said that 10 times in these threads already). Does it prevent one from learning how to use the machine quickly? No, it doesn't. 

I run a business. That business relies on hardware and software to be there, running, working correctly, when we need to to be. We could not run a business with unreliable systems. That comes at a price, because entropy. Things break. Things require work. Operating systems change, breaking software, requiring new versions. Someone has to write that software, test that software, verify that the hardware is working properly. Why do you expect this to be free? How can you reasonably expect a company to remain in business if it has to provide all of that at no cost? 

 

 

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On 2/22/2022 at 1:48 PM, aapo lettinen said:

I think the best a low budget film enthusiast can do is to build a diy scanner from a film projector and change the motor to a stepper/reduction gear normal motor controlled by an Arduino, then using normal mirrorless photo camera with macro lens controlled by the same Arduino to capture the image frame by frame in raw stills and stitch them to video later. It is not real time (you should get up to something like 1fps scanning speed depending on the camera you use and needs lots of post work to get it to a watchable video) but it is "good enough" quality and pretty affordable if you have lots of free time. ( I was developing this type of system last year but it was evident that no one was willing to purchase the finished product because the whole point of people wanting to own this type of system is that they have built it by themselves even if it ends up costing 10 times more than the readily made product sold by someone else. So no reason trying to sell anything like this to others and thus no possibility to make a commercial product out of it because one cannot sell even a single one of them to anyone)

Anything which needs to be BOTH good quality AND real-time is always "expensive" by film enthusiast standards and thus "extremely frustrating" and "unfair" because they cannot afford purchasing one.   But designing and building good quality real-time scanners IS expensive and one can only cheap on things if the persons designing and building them are willing to work on them for years for free, even paying all the material costs and tools needed (who is going to spend at least many hundred Ks of their own money to a scanner project if they have to give it away for free?) .  Not going to happen unless one gets a millionaire to sponsor the project and then donating the finished scanners to the hobbyists for free

 

That is for the tinkerers AAPO. Someone that has a talent for it. Plus much of my film is warped like hell or has blown sprockets.

Broken%2016mm%20Film%20D.D.%20Teoli%20Jr

Click on it...and keep clicking to magnify

 

The%203%20Graces%201.03mb%20D.D.%20Teoli

 

Now, the section I showed above of the broken film...I just cut it out and splice around it. Same thing if I get a few inches of film with terrible glue on it from melted tape. I just cut it out. I got bad lungs and don't need more crap to breath. If I can clean it with Filmrenew or Edwall, fine. But if it needs the hardcore cleaners my lungs say NO! I abused the lungs enough with 30+ years of being in the darkroom.

I deal with a huge, huge amount of archival material as well as my own, neglected photography; plus audio and VHS video. So, I can't do it all and just make do best I can AAPO. Now, if it is something super rare, then I will attempt some perf tape repairs on it. 

Now a proper archivist leaves it all in AAPO, burn holes, rips, everything. But they have big budgets and eager beaver lackey interns to do the grunt work. 

...I'm my own lackey intern!

Well, gotta go. I will try to catch up when I can. And thanks for everyone's replies! I look forward to reading some more of Perry's excuses as to why scanner companies are entitled to rape their customers. 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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the whole point of spending many years and a truckload of money to design a great quality film scanner is that the end user does not need to do the developing work or learn to machine precision mechanical and optical parts, work with plain image sensors and developing one's own image processing pipeline etc.   

It is, of course, possible for the end user to learn to make good quality scanners by themselves which use one's own image processing pipeline instead of relying on dslr for capturing the frames. but it is still very expensive for them even if the workhours would be "free" and the amount of work it takes to design and built one is crazy for the image processing pipeline being so freakishly hard to do correctly. If you really use all your time working on it (instead of doing paid work) and really want to learn the best you can and are a very very quick learner then you MIGHT get some kind of working prototype in about 3 years or so, using your own image processing system for it and diy designed mechanical parts and film transport. but that is really stretching it and requires you really working on it full-time instead of doing any kind of paid work.

How much one's time lose for avoiding 3 years of full-time paid work by working on a "free" film scanner project?  from 100k to 150k maybe?

the 3 years would be a very tight schedule though so I would expect more like from 4 to 5 years or so to get the scanner working approximately correctly so that you can start to do some actual work with it. 

What has it cost this far to you in lost time and effort you could have used for doing paid work, maybe something around 220 to 300k ?   That is not "cheap" for a film scanner by any means if you can buy 10 new Cintel scanners for the price.

But if you don't want to waste your own time (your own time is money too just like everyone else's) then you must pay someone else to do the work. It is going to cost SOMEONE hundreds of K:s to desing a film scanner in any case.

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The reason I recommend adapting a film projector to frame by frame using an Arduino and capture the film frames using a normal factory made photo camera is because it takes off about 99.999% of the work needed for designing and building a film scanner. 

This is because you are eliminating both the need of needing to learn how to control image sensors and read and process their data to usable image form (this is hands down the hardest part of a scanner project, over 95% of the scanner designing work is electronics and software) AND it also removes the need to design precision mechanics.

You are just adapting a different slow motor to work with your existing normal film projector and then use an Arduino and some kind of sensor which triggers the photo camera automatically when the film frame is correctly in position using the standard cable remote connection emulated by the Arduino.  You would want to use some kind of led light in place of the projector's original lamp to reduce the heat on film when it is advanced slowly. But all of this can be built in a WEEK or a max of TWO WEEKS even if you need to learn how to program Arduinos.  

Yes that is 1 to two WEEKS compared to from 3 to 5 YEARS of work.  

If someone wants to build this type of simple "projector scanner" we can make a community project out of it. It is entirely possible for anyone on this forum to build one. 

But I would forget building a "cheap" diy scanner using a plain image sensor and building the whole image processing pipeline by yourself. that is way too time consuming and difficult to do for anyone actually wanting to shoot films or scan films instead of just using 5 or 10 years of your life just to learn how to build film scanners

If you want to build your own scanner, the only "sane" way to do it is to use a factory made image capture system like a DSLR or a mirrorless camera and then just use the effort to get the mechanics and led light to work correctly to get yourself actually do some scanning with it in reasonable time

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This ^

We are 4 years into a scanner design project. It's not full time, though at some points along the way it has been. We did this because no commercially available scanner is available for the film we want to scan, to the specs we want. Every single word Aapo says above is dead on. It is soul-sucking work. It's not something one person can reasonably do, so we hired a firmware developer to handle the nuts and bolts code to control our motors, LED board and communications. We have someone else doing our color science, developing the processing pipeline. We hired others to do things like perf registration and machine vision coding. That's stuff that's way above my skill level. And it costs money and takes time to do these things. 

I designed the LED driver board and the LED board itself. That alone took 8 months of iterations to get right, and 4-5 versions of PCBs for each of those boards. 

I did the mechanical design for this, which has evolved a bit over time, but has taken 2 years and several thousand dollars in machine shop time. Some things we prototyped on our own CNC router, which was handy to have (and cost $1500 itself). But the final parts were manufactured in a shop so they fit precisely and were anodized so they're black. That cost a lot of money and took weeks to do. Some of it had to be redone because of minor tweaks we made along the way. There will be more tweaks too. I learned how to do 3D CAD, learned a lot about CAM and machining, taught myself to use a metal lathe, and got myself a nice 3D printer to prototype some of the parts that we will eventually have injection molded, like the integrating sphere. None of that was cheap, or free. The lens cost as much as two new pairs of (nice) skis. The camera cost as much as a small used car (well, maybe not in 2022). The motors, controllers and power supplies came to several grand.  

By the time we're done with this, including all of my time, the machining, the parts, the software developers, the firmware designer, the PCB manufacturing and changes due to supply chain issues and parts not being available anymore, I'd guess we'll be over $100k into this machine. 

The notion that this can be done at commodity prices, with quality, speed, reliability and easy of use is utterly ludicrous. 

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47 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

The notion that this can be done at commodity prices, with quality, speed, reliability and easy of use is utterly ludicrous.

Not with a max of 200 units sold ever. It would have to be cheap enough to sell millions and there just aren't enough people who would pay for it. 

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1 hour ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

The point that I (and Rob) have made and that you are 100% ignoring, is that YOU DO NOT NEED A MANUAL to use these scanners. It's that simple, intuitive and reliable.

Perry you sound like a broken record. Please stop saying that. It is not what Lasergraphics themselves have advised my friends who own these. A couple of months ago one of them (Steve Klenk I think) said that they know they are behind in documentation and that it's a "work in progress". Sure you don't feel you need a user manual, but that doesn't mean the lack of documentation is normal or acceptable.

On the other thing you keep saying:

On 2/22/2022 at 12:44 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

Lasergraphics does not have poor support. Their support is exceptionally good.

That's your experience, but some other users have had a different experience. Want me to list out their complaints? 1. Lasergraphics do not want to support the ScanStation Personal. They have even explicitly said that. 2. They do not provide bugfixes promptly (or - at all). The software as it is today is still buggy. 3. They charge an outrageous amount for support. 4. They do not have proper documentation. 5. The support is near useless - a friend of mine had to get another ScanStation user on the phone to help him with a couple of things because Lasergraphics wouldn't answer his questions and at that time (about 2 months after delivering his scanner) had still not given him his training. 6. If you don't harass them you won't get your training. I could note a couple more things as well. For example they continued selling them with the JAI camera until last year, on a brand new scanner you had to pay USD $20K for the proper camera or they would give you the junk one. To quote a friend "it’s awful and is designed as a red-light camera for traffic use".

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. There are plenty of pros though so let me be clear about that before you think I'm just LG-bashing as that's not the intention. Here are the pros: 1. Gentle on film, 2. Reliable, 3. Most software features are free but on other scanners everything is an expensive software license, 4. Direct to Prores plus proxy, 5. They come with good training, 6. you can bypass the useless P/T rollers (I'm listing that as a pro since if you look at the design of the Cintel or the Kinetta you can't bypass them and are forced to use them). So it has pros and cons.

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1 hour ago, aapo lettinen said:

The reason I recommend adapting a film projector to frame by frame using an Arduino and capture the film frames using a normal factory made photo camera is because it takes off about 99.999% of the work needed for designing and building a film scanner. 

This is true, but why start with a projector at all?

It's better to start with something actually designed to scan film, here's the photo I posted of a modded Retroscan, the mods would take 1 day on a brand new one if you paid someone to do it for you. And I promise you I'm not lying when I say the film is running through a prototype archive gate in that photo. They took months of work to design, so when they're ready for sale you can see them properly and you'll be able to purchase them as a 3rd-party product. That one will be used for software development so that soon there should be proper capture software capable of running those things with a better choice of camera, and then you could continue that development to include the features of the "big boy scanners" like optical stabilisation, direct Prores encoding, perhaps even controlling proper RGB lights as well.

Proper 35mm support will still take some work though, it's likely that you're going to need to put better motors into the Moviestuff to support full 2,000ft 35mm reels, it also doesn't capture 35mm properly it captures on every perforation and then decimates the unneeded frames, that will hopefully be fixed soon using a simple 3rd-party hardware mod to properly support 2/3/4-perf film. A projector will never support 2-perf or 3-perf scanning, you would have to run the film through multiple times and then matrix the frames to do it. A projector can't rewind film either, so you can't stop the scan adjust the settings for something spliced in and then rewind back to where you need to be and continue.

The issue with the Moviestuff is that it's incomplete, but starting with a projector is starting with something even more incomplete! Sure you could get one up-and-running as a dailies scanner with a similar amount of work and probably save yourself $8K in the process since you don't have to buy a brand-new machine, but then you're on your own in terms of running it as a DIY machine or designing warped-film gates for it etc.

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