Is there a reason scanning companies charge more for higher (full) res scans?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

I had read some pricing from a scanner company where they were using a Lasergraphics 5K scanner. If they turned down the res they charged less. 

Why?

A photog shooting a job does not use a 50mp camera and quote a price, then turn his camera's res down to 10 mp and charge less for the same job. Why don't scanning companies use the full res their scanner provides and just charge one price? Is there a good reason for this? Or is the reason $$?

Edited October 13, 2022 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Mark Dunn]

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

Is there a good reason for this

Because they can?

Same way you have to pay extra to make Arris do certain things. Even happens in cars now- the facility is in the vehicle as manufactures but you have to pay extra to turn it on. BMW do it with heated seats- you rent them by the month.

There's some justification if the higher res scans take longer and produce more data, though.

[Perry Paolantonio]

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

I had read some pricing from a scanner company where they were using a Lasergraphics 5K scanner. If they turned down the res they charged less. 

Why?

Seriously? Time is money.

If you scan with the scanner in 2.5k mode you can get 60fps. If you scan at 5k it's half that speed. If you scan in 6.5k mode it's half that speed. So 2k = 60fps, 5k = 30fps, 6.5k = 15fps. If you have HDR then halve each of those numbers. 

If you're outputting a 2k file from a 5k can (Super2k) it still takes the same time to scan as a 5k scan does, it's just that the file the scanner generates is smaller because there's less data there. 

None of this takes into account file formats. If the client wants a 5k scan of DPX sequences, the scanner can happily do that at the rated speed. It will, however, take 10x longer than it took to scan, to copy the files off. 20x if the client provided a USB drive. 

 

5 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Because they can?

No. Because it costs more to work at higher resolutions at every level: scanning, file wrangling, rendering (if you're grading or restoring), etc. It's not a conspiracy or gouging (well it may be by some), it's because we also need to make a living, pay our employees, rent, electricity, insurance, shipping, internet, etc. 

[Perry Paolantonio]

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

A photog shooting a job does not use a 50mp camera and quote a price, then turn his camera's res down to 10 mp and charge less for the same job. Why don't scanning companies use the full res their scanner provides and just charge one price? Is there a good reason for this? Or is the reason $$?

Also, this is a terrible analogy. When you hire a photographer, you are hiring someone by the hour (even if it's a package price, they're figuring it out by the hour, most likely). You are paying for someone's time and skill. You are not paying because of the camera they use. And if you are, you're going about finding a photographer the wrong way.

The idea that anyone can buy a high end camera and take a good picture is ridiculous. I could give my mother my good DSLR and she'll still take photos of people with their mouths open, eyes half closed, and their faces partially cropped. 

This last notion extends to film scanning. There are plenty of folks out there with good film scanners who do bad work. We've re-scanned a lot of that stuff over the years. Just because you have a tool doesn't mean you know how to use it. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Perry Paolantonio

[Mark Dunn]

1 hour ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

 

No. Because it costs more to work at higher resolutions at every level: scanning, file wrangling, rendering (if you're grading or restoring), etc. It's not a conspiracy or gouging (well it may be by some), it's because we also need to make a living, pay our employees, rent, electricity, insurance, shipping, internet, etc. 

 

6 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Because they can?

Yes that's not fair to you. But I think it does apply to vendors locking out certain uses that are built-in unless you pay extra.. Like the rented heated seats and the extra fees to use certain hardware features (RAW output, high speed, some aspect ratios, apparently).

Edited October 13, 2022 by Mark Dunn

[Dan Baxter]

7 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Same way you have to pay extra to make Arris do certain things. Even happens in cars now- the facility is in the vehicle as manufactures but you have to pay extra to turn it on. BMW do it with heated seats- you rent them by the month.

That is completely not how it works. BMW shipping cars with software-locked features is shocking (as it should be) to everyone. But we are talking about vastly different quantities, and if you bother to look at the Arri pricing they don't charge extra for software features. Arri you're talking about a 2004 scanner with a user-base at least two orders of magnitude smaller than BMW. Are you seriously saying you'd expect to have the latest and greatest for free?

As Perry says the scanning speed changes and for the ScanStation's at the hardware level it's fundamentally limited by the camera. To get the best scan though, you may have to slow down the scanner anyway and that's the so-called secret. All continuous-motion scanners can have motion blur and while 15fs may be fine for most film, it isn't the case for all film.

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

I had read some pricing from a scanner company where they were using a Lasergraphics 5K scanner. If they turned down the res they charged less. 

I won't share exact details of this on open forum, but I do have examples of where companies with 5K model ScanStations (obsolete now) are charging rates that would make even Pro8mm blush. So please do not think the rates you see published by some companies is necessarily fair or normal. With anything to do with film, put on your critical-thinking cap and be as sceptical as anything.

[Tyler Purcell]

As said above, it's all about time. 

For instance, if a customer doesn't care about quality and just wants to see their film in 1080p, we can scan those films at 24fps no problem. However, if they do care about quality and they want 2k or 4k DPX, that slows down the process dramatically. We only average between 7- 12fps. Where that's still pretty fast for an inexpensive machine, it's still very time consuming. 

Our system is designed from the ground up for a single day of work. So we scan all day, which I believe is 6000-7000ft a day when you take into account threading, cleaning the machine between rolls, setting up the scanner and then a chunk of time after scanning prepping for the over-night transcode. We transcode over night onto a delivery raid and then come the next morning, delete all the original files and do it all over again. 

We don't have enough work to worry about scanning 7k+ feet everyday. Yesterday we probably did around 5k and today, we won't scan anything, so it ebbs and flows quite a bit. If we had a faster scanner, it wouldn't matter. If we were a full time lab, with customers coming in the door, I can see how speed would mean a lot. Since we're a boutique outfit, it's more about client relationships and offering a more tailored workflow for each client, rather than the big box workflow. 

If we scanned 7k ft a day, at our current rate, there is no way we could be in business, paying rent, with employees, etc. You've gotta either charge a lot of money, which puts you directly against the big labs OR work out of your house, with no employees, which is what we do. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Tyler Purcell

[Dan Baxter]

9 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

We transcode over night onto a delivery raid and then come the next morning, delete all the original files and do it all over again.

That's the key difference between the Blackmagic Cintel, the Filmfabriek scanners, and a Lasergraphics. With a modern LG whether that's a ScanStation a Director or their cheaper models (ScanStation Personal/Archivist) you can scan straight to a deliverable format. From what I understand most scanning clients want Prores XQ or Prores HQ unless they're home movie clients in which case they often want MP4/Bluray (which you do need to transcode for full quality). So for MP4 it's a bit more work, but it's not as much as if you were starting from DNG/camera raw.

The other thing that affects the time is the prep work (cleaning the film). A wet lab with perc-converted ultrasonic cleaners is the most efficient, but even with those you may need multiple passes on really dirty film to get it clean (other options include HFE-converted ultrasonics, other large non-ultrasonic cleaners like Kodak P-200 with Isopropanol or Naptha, or a Kelmar cleaner with Film-Guard or other choice of solvent). Many of the post-production houses only use safe chemicals which are generally less efficient and drives up the cost if they have to spend longer cleaning the film. Kodak had a list on their website, but they've removed the page. Here's a screenshot:

What's helpful is the Kodak list clearly shows you the efficacy of the solvent against the cost. There's a lot left out of the list, like comparing the efficiency of an ultrasonic Lipsner-Smith against a non-ultrasonic cleaner with the same chemical. Also the Lipsner-Smith ultrasonics were never designed for use outside of labs so they're complicated to use, or to put it another way they're not idiot proof. You can buy refurbished Lipsner-Smith ultrasonics from MMT where they're converted to use a chemical other than Trike, and if they're in the hands of someone that knows what they're doing they're safe for film, but if someone doesn't know what they're doing they can easily get the tension wrong and damage film. There's also the complication that they're not portable. They weren't designed for scanning, they were designed for wet labs well before digital scanning was a thing. So maybe you're doing work for a client that won't let out their film and you have to take your scanning equipment to them, even if you have Perc-converted ultrasonics you'll need another option in that scenario and that will also affect the price you can quote if it drives up the time it takes to do the work.

[Tyler Purcell]

1 hour ago, Dan Baxter said:

That's the key difference between the Blackmagic Cintel, the Filmfabriek scanners, and a Lasergraphics. With a modern LG whether that's a ScanStation a Director or their cheaper models (ScanStation Personal/Archivist) you can scan straight to a deliverable format. From what I understand most scanning clients want Prores XQ or Prores HQ unless they're home movie clients in which case they often want MP4/Bluray (which you do need to transcode for full quality). So for MP4 it's a bit more work, but it's not as much as if you were starting from DNG/camera raw.

Sure, but who can afford a $175k+ scanner?  You're either working yourself to death to pay it back OR you're doing boutique work, where it's all about restoration or high end clients. In todays world, high end clients usually want a full blown lab, where one person can deal with the entire process from photochemical through final delivery. Which is not easy to startup due to permitting and initial costs. It's why most labs run the wet lab at a loss and charge a lot for scanning. People like myself who focus on scanning, it's all about low cost and with a $40k scanner, we get the type of clients who can't afford other labs and/or don't want to ship their film. 

1 hour ago, Dan Baxter said:

The other thing that affects the time is the prep work (cleaning the film). A wet lab with perc-converted ultrasonic cleaners is the most efficient, but even with those you may need multiple passes on really dirty film to get it clean (other options include HFE-converted ultrasonics, other large non-ultrasonic cleaners like Kodak P-200 with Isopropanol or Naptha, or a Kelmar cleaner with Film-Guard or other choice of solvent). Many of the post-production houses only use safe chemicals which are generally less efficient and drives up the cost if they have to spend longer cleaning the film. Kodak had a list on their website, but they've removed the page. Here's a screenshot:

Prep is all done at the wet lab. We receive the film prepped ready to go on the scanner. 

[Dan Baxter]

5 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

You're either working yourself to death to pay it back OR you're doing boutique work, where it's all about restoration or high end clients.

Not really, that's a bit of a myth that I think is spread from the low-end home movie market where they justify using Tobins or Retroscans by saying "this is professional quality and without having to spend $250K on a Lasergraphics ScanStation". I'm friends with one of the reps for Filmfabriek so it's hardly in my own interests to be talking-up their largest competitor, but this myth that the price makes it unattainable for low-end work is just not true. I don't think LG designed them originally for professional work at all, if they did they did a poor job because all the default settings are for low-end work and not what you want for restoration. They have a bunch of cool features that lower the output quality, and the ones that increase the output quality to get you the best work are not intuitive or documented or explained in the training. For example, manually slowing down the scan if there's motion-blur: that's not intuitive to an average user, not covered in training to my knowledge, not documented, and it requires an operator who knows how film should look intuitively and will know if something looks off. There are numerous companies that take shortcuts with them because they think it makes no difference. Professional companies use them to do consistent quality work, but that's only one use-case and they would be in the minority of users. There are many different use cases where you'll make back the investment in about a year, it's not like the ye-olde slow DPX-only scanners that cost $1M and the investment would take a multi-year timeframe to payoff charging scanning rates that only the high-end clients can afford (which limits the market you can use it for).

You don't necessarily need high-end clients. One of my friends has a client that does low-value films regularly on his ScanStation, and the client is very happy because they get colour correction that wasn't possible with the way they were having them scanned previously. That's not a high-end client. That's just a normal small company.

Sure the upfront cost is a lot, but it's not as much as you're making it out to be in terms of a business asset for delivering a service. Compare the equipment costs in other industries - CNC routers for example. Also $170K isn't the entry cost, the entry cost is the cost of the Archivist which is around $45K or so and includes the host computer. You could have one of those for a year and then trade-up to a full ScanStation for 35mm. Or you just configure the ScanStation with less features - if all your work is 35mm then just buy the 35mm gate and don't buy the 16mm or 8mm gates until later.

In short I do not think it's an exclusively high-end scanner at all, you just have to look at how the majority of them are used in the real world to see that.

9 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Prep is all done at the wet lab. We receive the film prepped ready to go on the scanner. 

Yeah that's another option is to outsource that work.

[Tyler Purcell]

8 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Also $170K isn't the entry cost, the entry cost is the cost of the Archivist which is around $45K or so and includes the host computer. You could have one of those for a year and then trade-up to a full ScanStation for 35mm. Or you just configure the ScanStation with less features - if all your work is 35mm then just buy the 35mm gate and don't buy the 16mm or 8mm gates until later.

Does Lasergraphics offer a trade up program? From my understanding, they don't. 

Also the benefits of the Archivist over the HDS+ are limited, especially when you take into account that we were sold on the idea that hardware stabilization would be out in April 2022, which never happened. Then pushed to October... which clearly doesn't appear to be happening either as I'm in contact with them and haven't heard much. It's really the only thing missing. The HDS+ does have a wet gate, which is a very powerful feature. I've been able to scan things that nobody else has been able to, just because I can remove the majority of scratches. 

The Scan Station with it's 6.5k imager, 35mm + 65/70 gates/rollers and of course the missing bits the Archivist doesn't have, is worth the money. 

I'm not sitting here saying the Scan Station is the best, I was simply commenting on the fact it's one of the only scanners that creates Pro Res deliverables right from the get go. So it can be one of the fastest machines to make money. However, when you take into account copying files to client drives and QC'ing them, there is still a lot of time in the file processing anyway. We generally write the Pro Res files directly to the clients drives if they're fast enough, overnight. Thus, in the morning, we can hand the drives over to the clients. The reduction in time to take pro res files off the scanner and simply copy them onto the clients drives, doesn't really change our workflow because in the end, it would slow our raid down too much so we couldn't scan anyway. This is why we do all of our file mangling after we've finished scanning for the day. 

[Tyler Purcell]

8 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Yeah that's another option is to outsource that work.

Need a lot of permits in CA to have a decent cleaner. 

[Perry Paolantonio]

16 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Does Lasergraphics offer a trade up program? From my understanding, they don't. 

Yes, they do. It's on the product page for all the non-Director pages. 

 

16 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Also the benefits of the Archivist over the HDS+ are limited

That's a ridiculous statement, sorry. 

[Tyler Purcell]

54 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

That's a ridiculous statement, sorry. 

Can the Archivist remove scratches in scan? 

[Perry Paolantonio]

5 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Can the Archivist remove scratches in scan? 

Sigh. Neither can the rubbing alcohol "wet gate" in the HDS+ - that's simply not how wet gates work. But we've been through this before.

It may mask some things, and it definitely is a nice plus that it can basically clean the film as it goes through rather than in a separate pass (we use an Isopropyl-based cleaner for that and it does a decent job on most film except the dirtiest). But it's not a wet gate. It's just a gate that's wet. 

The ScanStation (and almost certainly the Archivist, though I haven't used one myself) has very diffuse light, I'm betting much better than the HDS+, and really doesn't need a wet gate as a result. All but the deepest scratches are taken care of by the diffuse light source. so are fingerprints on the film. We've tested it (load scrap film, lick your finger and leave a print on the film. then scan it and it's gone). 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Perry Paolantonio

[Robert Houllahan]

In response to the OP's question about scanning rates, as others have said the more pixels and DR the more money you have to spend, in a log ca$h curve ;-).

A Scan Station 6.5K in 6.5K mode and HDR runs at 7.5FPS (Same speed as a Spirit 4K) and I think it can go 60FPS in 5K SDR mode for 2K scans.

My Arriscan runs at just about 2FPS in 6K HDR RGB mode, expect to pay more than $2/ft for HDR true RGB 16bit scans and I would expect a Director 13.5K would be even more I am not sure if anyone has one yet but I would ask $3/ft for 6K and $5/ft for 13.5K scans on that machine if I had one.

As for the Archivist I can let you know in about 3 weeks when I get mine, I will sit it next to my absolutely not obsolete Scan Station SSP with 2-flash HDR for 35mm and 16mm. Beyond the perfectly working optical pin registration on the Scan Station as a plus over the HDS+ the Archivist has Mag sound for 8mm and 16mm that works. Add the speed and total reliability plus a million at the same time file output formats to the mix the LG machine is way ahead.

As for Liquid gates I have  8mm 16mm and 35mm full immersion Perc based gates for the Xena scanners (5.4K and 9.4K machines) expect to pay allot of $$ for any machine with real full immersion liquid gates for films which need this for damaged base scratches. Not every damaged film needs a liquid gate but if they do then it is a very consistent way to fix base problems without having the variability of who and how is doing digital repair, the base scratches are gone and more time can be spent on fixing other stuff.

Basic scanning up to 4-5K prices have come way way way down the Spirit 4K I have cost $2.2M in 2009 when it was built, the cost to run it made the cost of scans allot. Also the expectations for fast turnaround are higher than ever so scanning to DPX and rendering even with scan and renders going simultaneously becomes very slow for 4K and higher res DPX scans.

New LaserGrpahics Xena Kinetta HDS etc. color sensor scanners cost pennies in comparison and scans up to 5K are kind of commodity and the scans are really good. Businesses have to make money to keep the doors open the payroll taxes paid and electricity on, so $0.15-$0.25 more per foot for 4k/5K over 2K is just a really small amount to pay for more pixels in the overall scheme of things.

YMMV

[Tyler Purcell]

1 minute ago, Robert Houllahan said:

As for Liquid gates I have  8mm 16mm and 35mm full immersion Perc based gates for the Xena scanners (5.4K and 9.4K machines) expect to pay allot of $$ for any machine with real full immersion liquid gates for films which need this for damaged base scratches.

Did Renny make those, or was that home made?

[Tyler Purcell]

59 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

The ScanStation (and almost certainly the Archivist, though I haven't used one myself) has very diffuse light, I'm betting much better than the HDS+, and really doesn't need a wet gate as a result. All but the deepest scratches are taken care of by the diffuse light source. so are fingerprints on the film. We've tested it (load scrap film, lick your finger and leave a print on the film. then scan it and it's gone). 

Actually, I've received films scanned on a scan station that needed a wet gate and we've completely removed the scratches. So guess again. 

[Robert Houllahan]

2 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Did Renny make those, or was that home made?

What do you mean "Home Made" ?

Rennie designed them and they were fabricated with CNC mills out of brass and stainless steel etc. They have a very large flow turnover and the quartz apertures are distanced to make spots etc out of the focus plane, they do not look very different than the Arri liquid gates for the XT they are very costly to build.

[Robert Houllahan]

Here is the 16mm Xena Liquid Gate for example.

[Perry Paolantonio]

20 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Actually, I've received films scanned on a scan station that needed a wet gate and we've completely removed the scratches. So guess again. 

yeah, ok...

I always knew LA was a funny place. Didn't know the laws of physics don't apply there though. 

[Tyler Purcell]

2 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

What do you mean "Home Made" ?

Beautiful work!  

[Dan Baxter]

10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Does Lasergraphics offer a trade up program? From my understanding, they don't. 

It says they do on the website.

10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Also the benefits of the Archivist over the HDS+ are limited, especially when you take into account that we were sold on the idea that hardware stabilization would be out in April 2022, which never happened. Then pushed to October... which clearly doesn't appear to be happening either as I'm in contact with them and haven't heard much. It's really the only thing missing. The HDS+ does have a wet gate, which is a very powerful feature. I've been able to scan things that nobody else has been able to, just because I can remove the majority of scratches.

The main benefit is in the workflow not the overall quality as they're based on the same technology (their own proprietary LED lights designed for Bayer scanning with Sony Preigus sensors). You're transcoding overnight, the LGs scan straight to Prores. You do have flexibility to do things that the LGs won't let you do like re-position the camera.

10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I'm not sitting here saying the Scan Station is the best, I was simply commenting on the fact it's one of the only scanners that creates Pro Res deliverables right from the get go. So it can be one of the fastest machines to make money. However, when you take into account copying files to client drives and QC'ing them, there is still a lot of time in the file processing anyway.

Sure, the QC is important, and the LG helps you with that because it can do a second output (or a third, a fourth, a fifth) at the time of scanning. So you can make a 2K Prores HQ for QC and check that instead of having to check 5K or 6.5K files.

9 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Can the Archivist remove scratches in scan? 

Real wetgate is a wet-lab service and uses Perc, the only true wetgate chemical. You can get a similar effect with other chemicals, but Perc most closely matches the refractive index of film which is why other chemicals have more unwanted side-effects. Anyway there's nothing stopping you from making a simple wetgate solution for a LG using a safe chemical like Film-Guard or Isopropyl or Lumina scanning fluid and lots of people have done it. My friend who is a Filmfabriek rep would probably say that method can get you 95% of the full effect, but also so can just cleaning the film first and using a scanner with diffusion. Using chemicals that don't match the refractive index of film as closely though degrades the quality - so you lose fidelity such as contrast or dynamic range. The integrating spheres have the best diffusion for scratch concealment, but the light-cubes in the Archivist or ScanStation or the blob that Filmfabriek has get you perhaps 90% of the effect that the integrating sphere will give you. I've seen this first-hand, there are scratches that completely disappear on an Arriscan or even on a Blackmagic Cintel are not fully concealed on a ScanStation.

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Actually, I've received films scanned on a scan station that needed a wet gate and we've completely removed the scratches. So guess again. 

Everyone I know that has ScanStations has their own wet-gate solutions. Yes it's nice that FF has a simple solution that's designed from the get-go so you can use it right away, but it's really not as complicated as you're making out. If someone can't make their own I would question their ability to use it for consistent professional work.

8 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

As for the Archivist I can let you know in about 3 weeks when I get mine, I will sit it next to my absolutely not obsolete Scan Station SSP with 2-flash HDR for 35mm and 16mm.

My apologies Robert if it sounded insulting, what I meant was I'm aware of many companies that have 5K ScanStations (the full ones not SSPs) with no HDR that are more than likely running on the original version of the software they came with in 2015-2017, and are used for commercial work. They typically charge exactly the same rates that the company across the street with a current model charges because there's no difference in the amount of work involved in using them. The cost is based on labour not equipment. How they're used makes a huge difference - in the default settings the artificial sharpening is so aggressive that you can literally see the Bayer mask in scans!

LG is not innocent in this, until 2020 the "full" ScanStation still came with the JAI camera and you had to pay a lot extra for the 6.5K Sony-Emergent. So there will be users that purchased them in 2019-2020 that didn't know any better in terms of the quality of the camera and may have thought that it's just an increase in resolution rather than significantly better camera for scanning. People have a hard time understanding dynamic range, they find it easier to understand resolution, that's why I usually talk about colour fidelity because it paints a more visual picture that people can understand. Thankfully they all come with proper cameras now and the JAI is no longer an option. They need better documentation, and Steve Klenk has even admitted this to one of my friends - he says it's a work in progress. The Arriscan XT has a big thick manual, so does the Blackmagic Cintel if you were to print off the PDF. Very simple things that an inexperienced user can get wrong are outlined there, and despite what others here say I have seen first-hand (relayed through friends that have shown me) or been told second-hand about numerous simple errors that simply would not be made if there was documentation you could show the scanning company. One of the most common is you're told there's no artificial sharpening when "filtering" is on 0.4 (the default setting). Most end-clients can't tell if something is off they are totally reliant on the company to do it right, but it would be a lot easier for the knowledgeable client if they could show their scanning company documentation that backs up what they say - and everyone benefits then because the company ups their game then all their other clients now get better scans.

I'm reminded here of a time around 2014 that someone sent off his home movies to a company with an original 2K ScanStation and he said "wow these scans look worse than a restroscan" so he told them to do it again, and they did and then he was satisfied with the results. There may still have been further room for improvement, he would not have been able to tell but the moral of the story there is that company clearly knew they could do better work as their re-scan was a night-and-day difference (mind you they were very clearly priced for low-end work they were not charging what you'd expect in 2014 for professional quality, but that doesn't mean the client understands that because the client thinks he's shopped around and found a great deal). There's a lot of companies like that, just because the scanner is expensive doesn't mean they care about QC.

By the way did they give (sell) you HDR for the Archivist?

[Robert Houllahan]

There are more Pros than Cons to the Scan Station line of scanners, the addition of 2-Flash "HDR" to the 5K SSP basically just fixes my biggest issue with that scanner. It is great for 35mm dailies and 35mm Commercials and Music Videos etc. which need 4K or 5k overscan and a fast turnaround. The HDR option for the SSP cost the same as the HDR option for the full Scan Station and that is fine.

They do not offer HDR for the Archivist but the Sony Pregius sensor in that machine has far better noise performance. I see these two machines as basically replacing my two Spirit DataCine machines.

Every lab I know of has a pile of scanners, Spirits and Scannity Northlights and Arriscans Golden Eyes and Oxberrys hanging around. Every lab I know of has at least one Scan Station.

YMMV

[Tyler Purcell]

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

It says they do on the website.

Yea I just noticed the sliver of text. I wish they made a big stink out of it. 

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

The main benefit is in the workflow not the overall quality as they're based on the same technology (their own proprietary LED lights designed for Bayer scanning with Sony Preigus sensors). You're transcoding overnight, the LGs scan straight to Prores. You do have flexibility to do things that the LGs won't let you do like re-position the camera.

Honestly, straight to pro res doesn't do me any favors anyway. We always need to do cleanup work with one light scans anyway. We rarely deliver "straight off scanner", most 1200ft rolls (3x400) from the lab of original camera negative, will need to be broken up by rolls into separate clips and slight grading done due to stock differences. If you set first frame of your scan to 50D and the 3rd roll is 500T for instance, you will need to compensate for that. We have learned you can scan using the same light setup, but the color balance needs to be altered so it looks acceptable to clients. 

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Sure, the QC is important, and the LG helps you with that because it can do a second output (or a third, a fourth, a fifth) at the time of scanning. So you can make a 2K Prores HQ for QC and check that instead of having to check 5K or 6.5K files.

That's a nice feature, I didn't know it did that. 

However again, we can do a full days worth of transcoding to any formats we want for next day delivery. 

The advantage of "same day" files, doesn't mean much when the files are 500+ GB each (Pro Res 444) and the client drive is a 2.5" Spinning disc, still takes hours to copy. We transcode directly to client media over night most of the time and deliver next day. 

So we receive film sunday night. Comes back from the lab monday afternoon. We scan till around 9pm. Files are transcoded to the drives over night, we are delivering to the client Tuesday morning at 9am. That's our "typical" turn around time. 

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Real wetgate is a wet-lab service and uses Perc, the only true wetgate chemical. You can get a similar effect with other chemicals, but Perc most closely matches the refractive index of film which is why other chemicals have more unwanted side-effects. Anyway there's nothing stopping you from making a simple wetgate solution for a LG using a safe chemical like Film-Guard or Isopropyl or Lumina scanning fluid and lots of people have done it. My friend who is a Filmfabriek rep would probably say that method can get you 95% of the full effect, but also so can just cleaning the film first and using a scanner with diffusion.

Of course, I mean I know all about proper wet gates. Nobody is saying the FF wet gate solves all problems. 

From my personal experience, the wet gate really isn't for removing dirt, it's just for filling in scratches, making them less visible. The cost to run a real Perc wet gate; permits, venting, gate itself, etc, is just not feasible unless you own a wet lab and are pushing a million feet a year. If people need that service, they can go to a wet lab and pay a lot of money for it. Maybe someday if we have a wet lab, we will offer that service, but it won't be with a FF scanner, that's for sure. 

Also, we've had film cleaned at Fotokem, Spectra and Color Lab, it rarely makes any impact. Spectra is where I normally get my stuff cleaned and we've had rolls where it's made zero difference. The dirt is so baked into the negative, even running it through the cleaner 4 times, has made little to no difference. We did find a chemical (forgot the name) which supposedly does work, we got some, but haven't setup the clean room in the garage to hand clean each frame yet. We want to do that soon tho, I hope it works!  

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Using chemicals that don't match the refractive index of film as closely though degrades the quality - so you lose fidelity such as contrast or dynamic range. The integrating spheres have the best diffusion for scratch concealment, but the light-cubes in the Archivist or ScanStation or the blob that Filmfabriek has get you perhaps 90% of the effect that the integrating sphere will give you. I've seen this first-hand, there are scratches that completely disappear on an Arriscan or even on a Blackmagic Cintel are not fully concealed on a ScanStation.

I have used the Cintel II quite a bit, it shows the same scratches our FF can conceal no problem with the wet gate. 

I've been digging for some of the old scans, but alas looks like I threw them all away due to space. I have a demo that I'm working on to show the power of the wet gate, but without showing other scanners, it may not be worth while. I have access to a Scan Station, Cintel II, Spirit 4k and Imagica.

The Imagica is the worst offender, it shows everything, totally worthless in my opinion. The Cintel II is just a garbage imager, not even worth discussing, especially for 4k. It shows plenty of dirt and grime on the scans, including any scratch I've ever had on film. The Spirit does a good job actually, it appears to hide quite a bit. I feel the Spirit probably does the best out of all the scanners. The FF with the wet gate, does the best of course, but as you pointed out the refractive index of the alcohol isn't great. It can lead to issues, you've gotta be very careful. The quality of alcohol, the cleanliness of the sponges, the speed of the machine, it all makes a huge difference in that refractive index. 

I'd love to try a different chemical that isn't toxic, if you have some ideas, especially links to buy, let me know! 

19 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Everyone I know that has ScanStations has their own wet-gate solutions. Yes it's nice that FF has a simple solution that's designed from the get-go so you can use it right away, but it's really not as complicated as you're making out. If someone can't make their own I would question their ability to use it for consistent professional work.

I'd love to learn more about that, I haven't personally seen one. 

Remember, every minute you spend developing your own wet gate, is a minute you aren't billing clients. 

Where the FF didn't work well out of the box, the solution to make it work, has been very easy. They already had the solution, but they didn't know how to make it work properly, it's weird. Almost like they didn't understand it was a problem to begin with.