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


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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Perry, you  poo-poo any idea that does not emanate from within Perry. That is what ego does. Divorce the ego and be free Perry. Let the person, place or thing tell you...don't let Perry's ego tell you.  If you don't broaden your horizons Perry,  you will be pigeonholed into the little world of Perry and dismiss potential successes before even trying. 
 
Here Perry, read this old post. It illustrates how you can fail before even trying.
 
NSFW
 
 
Also pay attention to the audio link there from artist Romare Bearden on being able to dream.
 
If the scanner companies are too cheap to include DVD's, they should make a series of download instructional videos for their scanners Perry.  Reality is...there is nothing holding a company back financially from doing it. All that is involved is...to do it
 
Take this example Perry. 
 
61zAQ+8PP3L._AC_SL1200_.jpg
 
 
10 years ago I bought a gal a #10 kettlebell for a present. I think it was $16.95. It came with a workout and instructional 40 min DVD. A good DVD too. Now, if a $16.95 Kettlebell can have a DVD...what can't a $150,000 Lasergraphics scanner have a few GD download videos Perry? And let's say Lasergraphics is just too greedy and can't do it. OK, charge $295 for the instructional PDF and video downloads.
 
Would that fly in the gospel according to Perry?
 
As I said Perry, it would be a great sales tool for any scanner company to come clean with everything related to the scanner before the sale as Retroscan has done. It helps potential customers make a more informed decision as well as helps the owner operate the machine to its full potential.
Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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16 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Perry you sound like a broken record. Please stop saying that.

I sound like a broken record? I am basing my statements on fact, and experience. Tell me, Dan, for all the advice you give on these forums, how much film have you personally scanned where you ran the machine, and on how many different scanners? Because you repeat a lot of stuff on these forums that one could find by googling, and you talk a lot about "your friends" who say this or that. But I'd like to know how much experience *you* have using and scanning film on Lasergraphics scanners. I mean operating the machine, not scans you've had done or sessions you've sat in on. Please, tell me. 

16 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Sure you don't feel you need a user manual, but that doesn't mean the lack of documentation is normal or acceptable.

I've said repeatedly that it would be nice to have a proper manual. But it's also not really necessary with this scanner. If you can't figure out how to use it with a little instruction and a little time spent learning the interface, I would contend that you don't have any business scanning film, at least not for people you're charging money. The fact is, it's one of the easiest applications to use. It took me a couple hours to master. I had one or two questions but they were of the type a manual likely wouldn't answer. It's kind of a moot point, unless you have no idea how to scan film at all. And then, again, you should learn how to do that first, by working with someone who does. How is that different than the telecine world? You didn't go to school to become a tk operator back in the day, you worked at a post house, you wriggled your way into the room as much as you could, and you were taught how to use the gear. 

 

16 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

That's your experience, but some other users have had a different experience.

It's not just mine. I'm not saying any of the company is perfect. but my experience is not isolated.  

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2. They do not provide bugfixes promptly (or - at all).

This is patently false. Stop spreading misinformation. Would you like a list of bugs they've fixed over the years? here's a taste: 

  • When they were improperly registering super 8 film to the perf, instead of using the edge of the film for left/right stabilization, the image was jerky. We worked with other ScanStation users and Logmar Film Systems to provide examples that helped them develop a solution. Took a couple weeks. 
  • keykode reader couldn't process old fuji keycode on a 16mm stock. We had a fix the next day
  • if you were scanning multiple clips to different formats at once, and there was sound, and one of those formats was MP4, sometimes the wrong audio would get applied to the MP4 file. Fixed within 36 hours.
  • A typo in a build of the software set the default output of 720p to 1720p. Fixed within 3 hours
  • We wanted to output 16 or 18fps to a 24fps file in certain specific cases, effectively repeating frames to pull it up. The feature was implemented within a week and they also supported additional input frame rates we didn't ask for.
  • The original SD MPEG2 file format that they used wasn't DVD Spec compliant. We brought this up and they fixed it within 6 hours
  • Customer requested an Uncompressed AVI file format, which wasn't supported by the scanstation. We received a build within 3 hours. 
  • Along with another ScanStation user, we requested ProResXQ support. Took several weeks to implement. 
  • Requested 12bit DPX because a client wanted it. Implemented in about 3 weeks.  

I could go on. This was just looking at a few of my emails to support from the past 6 years, which is where i got the timeframes from. This is the tip of the iceberg for fixes and feature requests they've implemented in the past 8 years. 

Believe me, I'm not anything special to lasergraphics, I'm a colossal pain in their ass. I'm not getting special treatment here. 

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The software as it is today is still buggy.

All software has bugs. but please, provide a list of bugs that make this software "buggy." Because our experience has been that it's very stable, and very reliable. And when we find a bug that they can verify and reproduce, they fix it. See above.

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3. They charge an outrageous amount for support.

Jesus, dude. They do not. How many times do we have to have this conversation? They charge an amount that's in line with the industry standard. If it's too much for you, then I don't know what to say.
 

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4. They do not have proper documentation

This depends on what you mean. If you want a manual to tell you how to scan film, I'd recommend starting here. It's a bit dated but most of the information in the data scanning sections is applicable. As for how to use the software, again this has been covered ad nauseam by me and others who use these scanners day in and day out - they're incredibly intuitive and the software is very easy to use. If you have the slightest clue how to scan film and use a computer, you should pick it up quickly without much, if any, assistance. 

If you receive a hardware upgrade (say you go from 2k to 5k, which involves changing the entire central module), or if you need to replace a broken module (like when our optical track reader died a few years ago), they send you a multi-page detailed PDF with step by step instructions on how to remove the old module, prepare it for the new one, install the new one and get the system set up with a teamviewer session so they can log in remotely and run any calibration or testing tools that might be necessary. We've done this multiple times and the documentation is great on this. That's where it matters. 

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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.

 

Again, this is one experience. "Near Useless" is pretty harsh. In our experience, if you cannot articulate your problem clearly, they can't really help you. But this is the case with any software or hardware. In order to figure out what's wrong, they need to reproduce the problem, and it needs to be an actual problem, not a misunderstanding about how the software works. I've had other users email me, thinking they found a bug in the software, but in fact, they were doing something that didn't make sense, expecting a different outcome. The software wasn't buggy in that case, it just wasn't designed to do what they wanted. And we have also found that if one can make a solid use case for why the software should change, they will make that change. 

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6. If you don't harass them you won't get your training. 

This has not been our experience so I can't speak to it. They arrived here to set up and train us on the scanstation 2 days after the truck dropped it off. 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I am basing my statements on fact, and experience.

And yet not on what LG themselves say. Your stubborn answer is that these people have no business scanning film if they want documentation for their scanner.

Yes they're a simple machine if you compare them to anything older - but you shouldn't have to compare it to something else to make a valid observation or point about it. This isn't 2013.

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

It's not just mine. I'm not saying any of the company is perfect. but my experience is not isolated.  

Sure but neither are the negative experiences.

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I could go on. This was just looking at a few of my emails to support from the past 6 years, which is where i got the timeframes from. This is the tip of the iceberg for fixes and feature requests they've implemented in the past 8 years.

Sure that's true that they've made a lot of improvements since launch, and that's due to users requesting new features, changes, and bug fixes. On the bugs I've heard a few different complaints about issues but I won't repeat them here because I don't know how widely it affects the machines etc. One of my mates that owns one is a software developer, so believe me when I say he will find and notice bugs that the average user won't necessarily recognise as a bug or may dismiss (that's a part of his regular job), so I'm happy to revisit this later on. They did fix one issue he had with a software update.

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Again, this is one experience.

No this is not a single experience. Just checking though - a correction from my previous reply - it took them just over a month to schedule it (not two months), my other friend told him (to paraphrase) "don't be afraid to be pushy, you're going to have to harass that guy or they'll never get around to organising your training". Given that the scanner itself was 6 weeks or so late though on the original estimated delivery time, I do not think that such a delay is acceptable. Sure there's nothing they can do about the global chip shortage but the training is a part of the product, $3,000 on the invoice, so taking that long to arrange it is flat-out ridiculous and from what I've heard other buyers have just given up and gone without their training entirely. By the time he actually got it it was extremely limited use/value since he'd already worked most things out (which included getting a competitor on the phone to help him). BTW from what I understand LG agreed that the delay was unacceptable and they offered a discount on one of the options to make it right, but it's certainly not the first time or an isolated incident.

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5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

 I am basing my statements on fact, and experience. 

For the record, I really appreciate your contributions here Perry, as well as Rob’s. It’s always great to have actual industry professionals on the forum.

The armchair experts comparing dumbbells to scanners or quoting their anonymous friends I tend to ignore.

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I just acquired an Arriscan last week so that means i have SIX effin MP scanners in my shop now.....

1. Spirit 2K (HD) 2007

2. Spirit 2K/4K Data 2008

3. LG Scan Station "personal"

4. Arriscan

5. Xena 4K (s8)

6. Xena 6.5K 8/16/35

I was reading the manual for the Arriscan on the train to NYC today.. a three hour ride... and there is at least three hours of reading there... What a great machine and it does some things which are truly great like changing calibrations automatically by reading the keycode info.

I have spent the last 9 or 10 years helping Co-Develop the Xena scanner with Rennie at DCS in LA and believe me I have felt some pain in that development experience. I began a decade ago because I needed high quality scanning for the lab and used scanners were very very expensive. So I built a Xena 1.0 based on a Oxberry pin registered transport with an Atmel Camilia camera doing sequential RGB and IR scanning at about 0.7FPS.

The Xena is now a very mature and competent scanning system with some really advanced features loke optical pin registration and excellent under the hood control of allot of film scanning and machine parameters. Xena can be a stand alone built machine or retrofitted into some of the truly excellent legacy scanning chassis like the Cintel URSA. It is very reliable and is quite a bit more technical to use that the Scan Station but it is a Win10 based scanner with a pretty understandable GUI. So if you want a high quality scanner and are technical there is a option that meets cost constraints it advanced and very high quality, it is not the slowest nor the fastest of scanners.

The last generation of the Spirit DataCine kind of speaks for itself, it was capable of realtime 2K and 7fps 4K in 2005 or so. It is still an excellent true RGB scanner with great speed. It is loud and hungry and not suitable for home use these cost between $1.2M and $2.2M new.

The LaserGraphics Scan Station "personal" has been a bit of a mixed bag for us, it is very fast and extremely reliable, I hove found it has very few bugs and occasionally it gets funny but just requires a software restart to get back to normal. The GUI is by far the simplest and easiest of any MP scanner and you don't have to know Linux (Like RedHat for the Arri or SUSE for the Spirit) and anyone can easily run it effectively IMO.

Unfortunately it is sort of stuck with not the greatest of cameras (the cmosis CMV50000) so it can show fixed pattern noise on some occasions, like the BMD Cintel does. I am a it disappointed that LG did not see it as a product that they liked nor do they seem to want to improve it. I think they could have had a really good sales experience with it if they had added the 2-flash 'hdr' in software which fixes the problems with the camera mostly. I think they should have called it the Scan Station Dailies and had a keycode reader standard and aimed it at all of us labs. Our machine reliably works almost every day for a range of things from scanning prints to student work.

From what I can tell the full 6.5K Scan Station is a very mature product that is very very fast (LG's hallmark has always been speed in scanning) makes very good high res scans and it by all accounts very reliable. I see some crit about the cost of the machine but a base ArriscanXT is more than 2X the price and a Scannity is more than 4X the price so it is a relative bargain from a business perspective. It seems the Scan Station has a niche in doing allot of archival scans where speed is cost and that it is a great tool for that work.

Shows like Star Wars, Succession, Euphoria etc. typically are done as new on Scannity but that is large post house workflow and costs are much higher than a small shop scanning allot of archival jobs which are much more conscious of cost. Arri and DFT have large engineering staff and charge a ton for support and big post houses require that because big shows have deadlines. I think LG is a smaller company and probably have to figure out what support fires to out out and as such have to prioritize who get what, and with most things capital the paying squeeky wheel usually gets the grease first.

YMMV.

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1 hour ago, Dom Jaeger said:

The armchair experts comparing dumbbells to scanners or quoting their anonymous friends I tend to ignore.

My friends aren't "anonymous" and one of them at least would be well known to Perry and they have almost certainly done business together in the past. He has the most experience of my mates with LG going back to before the SS was even a thing (prior model Directors etc). Another one is on this forum he can speak up if he wants, but my guess is he'd rather not given the stubbornness and combativeness of some of the responses. Something I'd rather avoid. I'm drawing from the perspective of three owners in the main.

Mr Teoli's posts are a bit on the eccentric side, but I think he's frustrated with not being able to afford a proper scanner. That is something a mate is working on changing - in fact I can report he has now begun discussions to get his Retroscan gates fabricated/machined. He's going to patent them before they go on sale otherwise we could show you the design - those of us who have seen the design think it's brilliant. They work perfectly and hold the film perfectly flat. They only fit the latest model. With gates a change of camera, optics, and light you have at the very least a capable tri-format dailies scanner, and also quite capable with small formats and severely warped film, you're most of the way towards a capable home-moves scanner although it does really need new capture software written which is one of the things that will be worked on next.

4 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

I was reading the manual for the Arriscan on the train to NYC today.. a three hour ride... and there is at least three hours of reading there... What a great machine and it does some things which are truly great like changing calibrations automatically by reading the keycode info.

Awesome let us know how you go with it!

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Now, another thing the scanner company could do is make a discussion forum...like this one.

I was on a scanning forum for still photos. They use digital cameras and not scanners for the job. Fantastic little forum. All the free downloads, videos etc. Just amazing what they breast feed you...AMAZING!

And what is the company? They sell a cheap piece of software...yet they give you a zillion times more than Lasergraphics would give you in 10 lifetimes.

How is this possible??? Tell me Perry.

Yet companies making cine' scanners, that only the filthy rich can afford, can give you crap. 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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"Mr Teoli's posts are a bit on the eccentric side"

I don't mind eccentric, but his posts border on spam - thankfully there is an ignore function in this forum ?

It was very interesting though to read all the answers.

Edited by David Sekanina
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On 2/25/2022 at 7:44 PM, Dan Baxter said:
On 2/25/2022 at 12:56 PM, Perry Paolantonio said:

I am basing my statements on fact, and experience.

And yet not on what LG themselves say. Your stubborn answer is that these people have no business scanning film if they want documentation for their scanner.

No, that's not my response, that's you (again) twisting my words around and cherry picking phrases out of what I'm saying.

I have been using the ScanStation on a near daily basis for 8 years, and worked with Lasergraphics through a previous client way back in 2009 or so when the only scanner they made was the Director.

We have the first ScanStation that Lasergraphics shipped, and we have been working with them for about 9 years. Our experience with Lasergraphics support has been rocky at times, and I'm not, as @Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said (but then apparently redacted), a "fanboy." I have plenty of issues with Lasergraphics as anyone who knows me can attest to. But on the whole it is the best scanner available for the widest range of scanning jobs today, at a reasonable price. Support for the machine is good, the company is actively developing new tools (compare that to the GoldenEye - even though DigitalVision is still around, they haven't released a software update in years for that scanner, yet we can download new ScanStation software every 2 months, or when we ask for the latest copy).  The ScanStation, Director and Archivist are incredibly easy to use, they rarely break, and despite your assertions, the software isn't "buggy." 

(On buggy software: We used PixelFarm's PFClean for a few years. It cost us something like $15k, and it never ran without crashing. We lost more money on having to redo work that was corrupted or lost than we spent on the software itself. Eventually we ditched it and haven't looked back. That's buggy software. It prevented us from getting work done.)

Are the annoyances in how the ScanStation software works? Of course there are. But they're mostly minor nitpicks, not things that prevent you from efficiently getting a good scan. Case in point: we recently scanned 180k feet of 16mm and Super 16 camera original film at 2k, HDR. All of that was done, without issues, in about 2.5 weeks. 18 bankers boxes full of lab flats, and we also scanned some other jobs along the way for different clients. This is because the software and hardware works as it's supposed to. If it was truly buggy, we would have been fighting with it all the way.

On 2/26/2022 at 6:41 PM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

And what is the company? They sell a cheap piece of software...yet they give you a zillion times more than Lasergraphics would give you in 10 lifetimes.

Again, you're comparing apples to oranges here. And as someone who used to run a discussion board  20k users, I can tell you that it's a nightmare to deal with. So much more goes on behind the scenes that I don't think you have any clue about, from having to deal with forum software updates, to security issues, to spammers, to getting personally dragged into conflicts between users.  I would much rather have a direct line to their support team when I have a problem, or a resource like the Lasergraphics Users Facebook group when I have a general question that's not time-critical. Why does the company need to be the administrator for a forum anyway? There are plenty of options for us owners/users to discuss things among ourselves. 

You seem to have this idea that any company has unlimited resources and should provide all kinds of stuff at no charge. In the case of a small software company that has one or two developers, community support forums can alleviate the support load, but the quality of that community support is almost always lower than direct support from the people who make the product and know it best (from the inside, not just as a user). I am happy to pay for support knowing I can get an answer quickly, because we can't afford long stretches of downtime while we wait for some random person on the internet to make a suggestion that may or may not have any relevance to the problem at hand. 

On 2/27/2022 at 1:11 AM, David Sekanina said:

I don't mind eccentric, but his posts border on spam - thankfully there is an ignore function in this forum ?

So much of my time has been taken up in recent months replying to posts on forums like this one that are spreading false information about the scanner we rely on on a day to day basis for our business. You have no idea how many emails I've gotten from customers pointing to posts here and on other forums that are completely incorrect, worried about something that someone said (which is based on guesswork, usually) that's not correct. Seriously, I feel like a huge chunk of my day every day is spent responding here to counter the false information. It's soul sucking, but we can't ignore it because once bad info is out there, it has a tendency to stick. 

 

On 2/25/2022 at 10:35 PM, Robert Houllahan said:

What a great machine and it does some things which are truly great like changing calibrations automatically by reading the keycode info.

The scanstation does this as well. 

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Some type of dust mitigation system may be a good option to put on a 'big boy' scanner. Now, I don't know how practical this is, or even if it is already incorporated in cine' film scanners to some degree.

This would involve dust mitigation via a low power compressed air blower to pre-dust the film in a vacuum sealed scanning cabinet. Many cine' scanners already look like they operate in glass door enclosures.

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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Perry had brought up how some archives fail to keep scanner operators and the scanner knowledge leaves with the operator. This would be useful to bring new operators up to speed. In another thread I suggested the scanner company give you some standardized duped archival film and a DVD instructional series, so the operator can check their scans by comparing them to the provided sample scan. That would be a welcome tool when buying a scanner. 

Or if we are talking Lasergraphics...since they don't even want to give out half-ass instructions...they could charge $695 for it. 

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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Let's talk about the Retroscan for a moment.

I think my model is the Universal. It is not their newest $10,000 model. I don't pay attention to models; I just use things.  Mine cost about $6,000. I've only scanned maybe 100 films with it. I've used it to learn about scanning more so than actual scanning. I figure why scan 1,000 films twice if I get a 4K scanner. 

But, in the big picture, 2K or 4K is not the issue. And no sound is not the issue. I can get by with AEO Light if I must.

Here are the main problems for me with the Retroscan...

1) There is a problem with clear edge films. They make a laser light pin gate for that, but the laser light does not work on warped film. So Retroscan should come out with some sort of tool that blackens the edge on one side of the film to read it better.

Sounds crazy...huh.

But no one has made a better suggestion for clear edge film. I guess blackening the edge of customers films would be an issue. But for me...no issue. Even though an archivist, there are tradeoffs. If a better scanner can never be had, then I must make do with the 2K Retroscan or not scan at all. If I don't scan, there is a risk that the films will be trashed if I kick off. So, I do the best I can with what I got. And a tool to blacken the edge would take care of the clear edge issue. (I bet Perry is laughing his ass off.) 

2) A warped film gate with the original LED lights needs to be made. The Retroscan will run about anything through it. But it runs it as-is warped more or less. A warped gate probably won't work with the light pin gate unless the gate could hold the film very flat. The light pin gate works by reflecting and it can't reflect evenly off of warped film. And the warped gate does not have to be perfect. Just make the film75% - 85% better. Again, if the film is warped bad, even the LED's have trouble with it if black edged.

Those are the 2 fixes I need for the Retroscan. Other than that, it is a great little machine for the money, as long as you feed it what it likes. 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

But on the whole it is the best scanner available for the widest range of scanning jobs today, at a reasonable price.

Right and I haven't argued with that point. I even asked @Daniel D. Teoli Jr. to name a "better" tri-format scanner and he didn't. The options in that space are very limited. Even the Kinograph v2 (if it's ever completed) won't be tri-format.

The cheapest tri-format scanner with any legitimate potential is the Retroscan Universal Mark II. If Moviestuff were smart they would just make a "premium version" and charge an extra $5K, but they don't and there's no point in expecting they ever will. But they can be modified quite easily. The main issue remains 35mm support, it doesn't really have proper 35mm support but it could.

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

2) A warped film gate with the original LED lights needs to be made. The Retroscan will run about anything through it. But it runs it as-is warped more or less. A warped gate probably won't work with the light pin gate unless the gate could hold the film very flat. The light pin gate works by reflecting and it can't reflect evenly off of warped film. And the warped gate does not have to be perfect. Just make the film75% - 85% better. Again, if the film is warped bad, even the LED's have trouble with it if black edged.

Those are the 2 fixes I need for the Retroscan. Other than that, it is a great little machine for the money, as long as you feed it what it likes.

Right so you proved what I've been saying this entire time about a gate. We have them for the Universal Mark II now but I don't think that anyone would bother designing them for the MkI. It's obsolete even by Moviestuff's standards. A proper warped gate will get the film 99%+ flat no matter how warped, you see greater distortion in the sans of the 00's from the Spirits scanning film in perfect condition.

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

1) There is a problem with clear edge films. They make a laser light pin gate for that, but the laser light does not work on warped film. So Retroscan should come out with some sort of tool that blackens the edge on one side of the film to read it better.

Sounds crazy...huh.

But no one has made a better suggestion for clear edge film.

All it needs for that is a (removable) sprocket-wheel to register the frames. But that would take someone the time to do the R&D to actually get it working.

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

But no one has made a better suggestion for clear edge film. I

The issue is that a laser is not a great method for perf detection. Unless you spend big bucks on a proper sensor from a company like Keyence, which makes some that can detect the perfs in clear film. but they cost hundreds of dollars each, and they're probably too bulky to fit inside that scanner. Also, laser detection is problematic when you have multiple gauges and the perfs are in different places. It's just a bad way to do it, IMO, without a major engineering effort. 

Short of a sprocket wheel (which can be problematic on shrunken film), the best method is to take an image of the whole frame (overscanned, including the perfs), and use machine vision to locate the perfs. There are big advantages to this, including handling areas where there are no perfs due to damage. On film where you have perfs on both sides, you can fall back on other holes. Or for formats like Super 8, you can take a guess at where the film should be based on calculations made from where the surrounding frames ended up, and use the opposite edge from the perfs to do the left/right alignment using the film edge. 

Lasers are fine if the film is reversal with dark areas between the perfs. But unless you spend a lot of money testing with lots of different types of film (something I suspect isn't the case with this scanner), and a lot of money on higher end components, then it's just not going to work in all cases. 

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17 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

We have them for the Universal Mark II now...

Dan, this is good news for people who want an affordable scanner that is capable of 4K/10 bit.

Will you/your business release the warped film gate and 4K/10-bit camera and better light source and modified software as separate parts or as a kit?  (Or both?)

Also, will you include, ahem, an instruction manual on how to install the mods?  I have very little interest in DIY, but for an upgrade that adds much value to the Mark II, I would do the work if clear instructions are included.

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You could pay him to do the upgrade mods if you don't want to do it yourself, it'll take a bit of argy-bargy trial-and-error to get the light right and things like that. We're also not sure if fitting the gates will be completely straightforward, in an ideal world they would be, but it depends on if there's variation machine-to-machine or not. 35mm is still an issue, we know how to fix the speed issue but I think the motors are too weak to reliably be used for full 2,000ft reels so that would mean 35mm is still short subjects only really. It's really still a 16/8 scanner that has some limited 35mm ability.

A DIY write-up should be available soon as well, but it's really not complicated. If you want a 16/8 dailies scanner then it's not too much work, if you want an archival scanner then there will be extra work really (this is where you're going to want proper 3rd-party capture software so you can stop, rewind, re-calibrate etc). Optical pin-registration is also possible, theoretically if someone programs it.

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