Cintel DSX

Gregor Queck · February 22, 2022

If one would get a cheap used, working Cintel DSX today, how do you get the data of a data scan out of the machine?
What format is the data?

Is the Digital Wetgate as good as a real one?

Thanks!

Perry Paolantonio · February 22, 2022

I've never used one myself, but we have worked with footage scanned on one using the OSCAR feature (the "digital wet gate"). My feeling was that it was overly aggressive, and there were a *lot* of artifacting issues. In the end we asked the client to have it re-scanned with the "wet gate" stuff turned off, and we were able to much more effectively clean up the film in Phoenix.

Personally, I think the scan is the wrong time to try to do cleanup - creation of a dust map for use later in restoration tools is fine, but using something like Digital ICE to clean up the film while scanning is, in my opinion, a big mistake. It's far from perfect, and those artifacts become a permanent part of the scan. I've yet to find a restoration tool that works correctly 100% of the time. There always has to be some human intervention to catch the mistakes. It's probably worse with an older system like the DSX.

Gregor Queck · February 22, 2022

38 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I've never used one myself, but we have worked with footage scanned on one using the OSCAR feature (the "digital wet gate"). My feeling was that it was overly aggressive, and there were a *lot* of artifacting issues. In the end we asked the client to have it re-scanned with the "wet gate" stuff turned off, and we were able to much more effectively clean up the film in Phoenix.

Personally, I think the scan is the wrong time to try to do cleanup - creation of a dust map for use later in restoration tools is fine, but using something like Digital ICE to clean up the film while scanning is, in my opinion, a big mistake. It's far from perfect, and those artifacts become a permanent part of the scan. I've yet to find a restoration tool that works correctly 100% of the time. There always has to be some human intervention to catch the mistakes. It's probably worse with an older system like the DSX.

Thank you, very insightful!

So the software has caught up with the old solutions.
Makes sense, as it uses motion vectors, which Oscar is clearly not.