Any new developments with the FilmFabriek HDS+?

[Tyler Purcell]

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

We charge for scanning by the foot. If your reel arrives prepped from a lab, you pay the per-foot rate. If your reel requires prep, you pay an extra $5 to prep the roll plus THE SAME per foot rate, yes. If your reel requires cleaning, you pay extra for cleaning. We recommend that newly shot film is prepped and cleaned at the lab, since that's just best practice. 

So $5 per 50ft to joint it to a larger reel or $5 per entire reel built? 

Your scanning rate is the same per foot no matter the format? 

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

If the film has an unusually large number of bad splices, then we confer with the client and will fix them all, for a small additional fee. But we do splice repair as a matter of course when prepping old film. It doesn't take that long, it's simply not worth it to get all nickle-and-dimey over something so trivial unless the film is literally falling apart and it will take someone more than 30 minutes to fix it. That happens sometimes (we just did this with an old 16mm workprint with maybe 100 splices or so that had to be replaced), but it's rare. You make it out like all home moves are like this - most, the vast majority - are not. 

Yea for our restoration jobs, we've found half or so had bad splices that needed to be repaired. We do charge the clients separately for that work. 

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Hollywood is not the center of the universe and is not representative of the hundreds, if not thousands, of film archives around the world. UCLA is a unique archive in its scale and the type of collection it has (and FWIW, we have scanned film that lives there, though for a filmmaker, not for the archive - they don't scan everything in house). Some of our archive clients own perfectly capable scanners, ScanStations even, but continue to bring work to us because of the quality and turnaround times we offer. Sometimes it can take months to get something done internally because of bureaucracy and budget machinations.

They also don't necessarily scan film that is being stored there by 3rd parties. We've scanned a few rolls stored there because the client wanted to see what was on the film and UCLA refused to help them. 

The other problem is the staff aren't necessarily trained well, so the scans they get aren't really reflective on what a proper technician can get out of the scanner. I'm not shocked they'd want to go elsewhere. 

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Only the archives, and collectors of specific kinds of movies (prints, or in some cases things like Super 8 concert footage), want to keep them separate. We are almost never asked to return the film in the original boxes, but we always return the boxes with cross-referenced numbers for the film on the reels. 

So far every archive we've done, wants the film back in the original containers. We have a system for it, but the process can be very time consuming.

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

You absolutely do, and are, shunning home movies. You just did it in this very sentence. My point here is that you're treating small gauge film as if it's a second class citizen in the film world. That's wrong. It's not, and the people who own that film, even if they're "just" home moveis, are as interested in seeing high quality transfers of it as anyone. They deserve, and get, the same treatment we give any of our commercial clients. 

The 8mm and Super 8 formats are totally garbage formats. Kodak can't even cut the perf's properly for gosh sakes, not that it even matters as the pulldown claw doesn't fit the perf, but it's a horrible design.

What matters is the content on the film and we treat it with great care, including wet gating and doing full restoration.

It's just MUCH more fragile than 16mm, you have to be very careful with it.

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Just a thought, but maybe you're having a hard time trying to sell scanning services because you're using a completely inappropriate machine for that task, while simultaneously telling the world how bad it is and that it scratches your film!

I've only run one ad for 2 weeks over the 18 months we've had the scanner. We did garnish a few clients from it, but it was mostly tire kickers. I don't have time for that stuff. Professional clients know what they want, they have a budget and our speciality is fast turn around at a reasonable price. 

Where I agree, we'd probably get 20% more work if we had a scan station, but we'd have to charge .60/ft to stay in business, where everyone around us is charging between .20-.30/ft.

Our machine has a really good imager, arguably with less problems than the 5k imager in the Archivist. So the benefits of getting an Archivist are very limited. We will never be able to afford a full on scan station unless it was used and we were able to get a business loan. Then again... is it worth the 20% increase in business?  

I'm hoping Blackmagic releases a new scanner at some point that actually works. I'd prefer to go that route because it integrates much nicer in our workflow and with a decent imager, it would be a nice scanner. We would absolutely invest in something like that. 
 

[Tyler Purcell]

16 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Failed splices in camera negative, including 50 year old A/B roll cut neg like the one we have on the scanner as I type, are so rare I can probably count on one hand the number of times we've had to deal with that. If you're having this problem with newly processed film, you need to talk to the lab. Either that, or the scanner is putting too much tension on the film. 

Oh it's all old negative, most was in that 30+ y/o range. 

It was quite common for negative cutters in the past to not re-splice after they pulled selects out of negative rolls. They'd throw either paper tape on it, or a very lame one side splice, which very easily falls apart when not stored properly. Seeing as the temperatures in Los Angeles are "crispy", it's hard for owners of negative to properly store, unless they have money. So most archive film we get, was horribly stored, extremely fragile, mostly bad splices due to baking and requires a lot of restoration work. 

It's rare and I mean super rare to work with "archive" material and run it off without any issues. I honestly can't think of a single time that's happened. It's always missing leader, on small rolls that need to be assembled, bad splices, missing splices, bad perfs, loosely wound (needs to be rewound or will cinch on the scanner) and/or very scratched and requiring wet gate. 

This is why I keep saying, Hollywood is a different place. 

Newly processed film runs off perfect every time. We work directly with Spectra and Fotokem to provide a seamless workflow. 

16 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

We deal with failed tape splices on workprint and on home movies occasionally, but most of them go through the ScanStation without issues. Those that do fail, only require that you fix the splice and press a button, and the Scanner will figure out where it is and resume the scan (a feature exclusive to Lasergraphics scanners, I believe). We mostly see this with old presstape splices on 8mm because either the adhesive failed or the person who applied the splice only did one side, or didn't burnish the tape enough to really get good adhesion. Even so, this doesn't happen that often. maybe once every few months we'll get a reel that's just riddled with bad splices and like I said earlier, we confer with the client and if they approve we fix it and bill them for the time it took. 

The cement splices are the ones that fail for us. My personal films with press tape haven't been too bad, but the older cement splices have been horrible. Obviously, the single sided spices which have been baked, fail as well. None of my personal films had any issues because they've been stored properly. 

The auto splice detect feature is nice, but the splices for us fail as the film comes off the reel, not as it goes through the scanner. Once the tension is lost, the film stops scanning immediately. You also can't watch what you scanned as it's DPX files, so you have to open Resolve, load the file up and find out where you last were. It's extremely frustrating and time consuming. We always go through archival material before we scan these days, but sometimes still miss bad splices still. 

16 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Honestly this is not the major profit-killing problem you're making it out to be. If your scanner is having this problem this frequently, I'd question how much tension the scanner is putting on the film. 

We run the tension very low on archival film, it's not that much actually. Having used 5 other commercial scanners, I can attest to how low the tension is on the FF, it's very good on film handling actually. The Spirit for instance, puts WAY more tension on the film then our system does. 

[Tyler Purcell]

9 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

It's because their customers don't know where else to go, and those places are masters of the grift. Also they're run by people (the "mom and pop" crowd) that would be too frightened to invest in something that costs $40K or more, even $12K is expensive to them. On top of all that they may even genuinely believe the quality is professional. Roger Evans consistently feeds them this story, he refuses to acknowledge Filmfabriek as his real competitor for the home movie market (or Kinetta that has I believe a similarly priced scanner for 16/8), and instead consistently tells them (incorrectly) that the Lsaergraphics ScanStation is $250,000 giving them the impression that they have no better option if they can't afford that.

Yep, this is the problem. I talk to them all the time and they show me the shit they make and when I show them what we can do, they literally can't tell the difference OR they say "home movie clients can't tell" and ya know what, they're right. 

9 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

By the way - there are "home movie" people who do spend $13,000+ buying brand new Moviestuff Retroscans just to scan their own family archives, including just for 8mm. The reason they buy them is because they don't know Filmfabriek exists - it's a Dutch company and not exactly a household name, but the Pictor appears to be aimed at them.

Yea, I've seen this for sure. I've talked to them and am always blown away by how much they spend on that piece of junk. 

9 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

If it's about drying time, why not try adding "air knives" to dry the film? That's how the film gets dried with actual wetgate systems.

It would be cool to do that. We really want to build a box around our system with a vent so we can try different chemical cleaners. The alcohol isn't very good, it leaves streaks on the film, even with the highest quality lab grade alcohol. 

9 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Well that's another important difference between a Filmfabriek and a Lasergraphics. If a splice opens on a LG the scanner halts and alerts the operator "hey come and fix this before you continue". As far as I'm aware you don't need to babysit them and you can multitask.

The splices open up as the film comes off the reel on the FF. So it's tricky. 

9 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

I obviously can't speak for Perry, but the way it works with some places that specialise in archival scanning is they might have a standard price say something around .80/ft for 16mm that covers everything: cleaning, minor repairs, and 2K scanning including a simple "wetgate" if required with isopropyl or film-guard (or whichever chemical they choose to use) and/or a damage matte (with 4K being extra, but 2K RGB is above UHD for 16mm as it is). If a company is set up for archive scanning then of course they can charge less for dailies and make it profitable. Archives might have scanners, but they don't have perc converted ultrasonic cleaners so just cleaning the really filthy film is going to take them forever, even ultrasonics can't do dirty dirty film in just one pass.

This is kind of how we work. We don't pre-clean archive work unless it's really old and already known to be dirty and we just tell the client it needs the work done. We always test a few rolls first, see the condition before we even quote the client because reality is, with archive, ya just don't know. It's a crapshoot, sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's not. 

We always scan in 4k DPX, that workflow is pretty seamless and we can't get much faster by scanning in 2k unless we switch to a different lower quality codec. 

[Perry Paolantonio]

3 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

So $5 per 50ft to joint it to a larger reel or $5 per entire reel built? 

No. We charge $5 to prep a single reel. We charge $15 to consolidate 8 reels onto a 400 footer. Both prices include splice repair if necessary (usually not necessary), leader, and basic inspection. It takes all of 10 minutes to string together 8 reels. I don't see why you think this is so difficult. 

6 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Your scanning rate is the same per foot no matter the format? 

No. I never said that. 

6 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea for our restoration jobs, we've found half or so had bad splices that needed to be repaired. We do charge the clients separately for that work. 

Restoration is our primary business and we've scanned millions of feet of film. And bad splices are rarely a problem. 

7 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Only the archives, and collectors of specific kinds of movies (prints, or in some cases things like Super 8 concert footage), want to keep them separate. We are almost never asked to return the film in the original boxes, but we always return the boxes with cross-referenced numbers for the film on the reels. 

So far every archive we've done, wants the film back in the original containers. We have a system for it, but the process can be very time consuming.

Please read what I wrote, and then what you responded to. the first three words in my post, in particular. 

For home movies, nobody wants their films separated, except in cases where the film is of some specific significance and they want to keep it apart from the other reels. This almost never happens with home movies, which was the context of my post. Please stop cherry-picking what I'm saying because you're taking everything out of context

10 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

The 8mm and Super 8 formats are totally garbage formats. Kodak can't even cut the perf's properly for gosh sakes, not that it even matters as the pulldown claw doesn't fit the perf, but it's a horrible design.

What matters is the content on the film and we treat it with great care, including wet gating and doing full restoration.

It's just MUCH more fragile than 16mm, you have to be very careful with it.

First, they are not garbage formats. That attitude, and several posts in this thread, make it pretty clear that you don't consider small gauge film worthy of the effort. Well I guess that's your prerogative, but I think it's a pretty bad attitude. 

Super 8 is a format that was built for convenience, not quality. 8mm film actually looks very nice (usually better than S8) because the cameras and the transports are better. They are not "MUCH more fragile" they are simply smaller. They are the same film, cut to a different size. 

And as for the S8 Perfs, you are again spreading bad information. The perfs are cut to the specifications of the format, likely using the same equipment they were using in 1965. We have scanned some of the first Super 8 films made, from the mid-60s, and they exhibit the sawtooth-pattern behavior we've talked about here in other threads. That is not "incorrect" it's by design. In projection, you don't really see that weaving so much. When scanned (something Kodak's engineers in the 60s probably never imagined), using a different mechanism than projectors and cameras use, the problem will manifest as lateral weave. But this is easily fixed simply by emulating the edge guide in the camera, in software. This is what the ScanStation does, and we get nice, steady images out of the machine for S8. If your scanner isn't doing something similar, it's doing it wrong. It's that simple. 

 

16 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Our machine has a really good imager, arguably with less problems than the 5k imager in the Archivist.

the Archivist does not use the CMOSIS 5k imager that the SSP and the ScanStation used for a while. I believe it's the same family of Sony sensors as the full ScanStation uses, just at a lower res. Don't confuse the two. I don't think Lasergraphics has used the CMOSIS sensor for a while now. 

 

19 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I'm hoping Blackmagic releases a new scanner at some point that actually works. I'd prefer to go that route because it integrates much nicer in our workflow and with a decent imager, it would be a nice scanner.

they won't. it took them years to release a minor iteration to the scanner that basically improved the light source to try to overcome the noise. It's a poor design.

20 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Where I agree, we'd probably get 20% more work if we had a scan station, but we'd have to charge .60/ft to stay in business, where everyone around us is charging between .20-.30/ft.

There's so much about this that makes absolutely no sense I don't even know where to start. So i won't. Enjoy complaining about your HDS that is simultaneously garbage and the only machine that can possibly fit your business model. 

[Perry Paolantonio]

30 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

It was quite common for negative cutters in the past to not re-splice after they pulled selects out of negative rolls.

So you're talking about outtakes. Yes - what you describe is fairly common. But most film we get from archives has already been re-attached with normal tape splices and the paper tape removed. We have seen what you described, and we simply fix it (though more often than not, the paper tape holds just fine and it scans without issue). There are rarely more than a few of these in a typical 1000' reel. Again, it's not really a big deal and not all that time consuming. While one reel is scanning, you can easily prep 5000 feet of film at the table next to the scanner including multiple papertape splice repairs.

 

30 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

The cement splices are the ones that fail for us.

I literally cannot remember the last time we saw this happen. I just asked Benn, who does 99% of our scanning, and he can't remember having seen a failed cement splice in the 8 years he's been working here. 

 

30 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

The auto splice detect feature is nice, but the splices for us fail as the film comes off the reel, not as it goes through the scanner. Once the tension is lost, the film stops scanning immediately. You also can't watch what you scanned as it's DPX files, so you have to open Resolve, load the file up and find out where you last were. It's extremely frustrating and time consuming.

I don't think you understand how that feature works on the ScanStation. it doesn't detect splices. if the film breaks, you fix it, press a button and it figures out where you were and continues. You do nothing but press a button. 

That being said, resuming a scan of DPX files that failed is even easier than a scan to a containerized format like a quicktime file. If your workflow doesn't allow you to resume a scan easily simply by starting where it failed, I don't know what to say. Resolve should have nothing to do with it. looking at the file should have nothing to do with it. You just tell it to start from the frame you want it to start from and let it run. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Perry Paolantonio

[Tyler Purcell]

9 hours ago, Andrew Wise said:

Who does this? I’d never just take a 3 inch reel out of the paper bag and put it on the scanner. You add leader, clean,  fix crap splices, load it on a larger reel with larger hub diameter.

Which is pretty time consuming. 

9 hours ago, Andrew Wise said:

Yes I wet scan pretty much every home movie I scan. It’s very rare to get perfect, untouched film. They all have projector scratches and emulsion cracks

Exactly, and the wet gate does work well. 

9 hours ago, Andrew Wise said:

with 8mm, I can run run wetgate at arpund 18fps if I have the AC on dehumidifier and have a strong fan blowing over the film path after the gate. 

When I did my S8 home movies, I still ran it pretty slow, but you're 100% correct, you can run it WAY faster. 

I like that fan idea, I'm gonna work on that, thanks. 

We normally run 16mm wet gate at 3fps because of the drying issues. I have found it leaves streaks no matter what we do tho. You have to run it through the ultrasonic bath before you re-scan to get rid of that. 

9 hours ago, Andrew Wise said:

that’s incredible you paid off the scanner with one job. You should have a few scanstations by now right? Why are you even bothering with the HDS

I don't think we'd get more clients with a scan station. 

To get the big jobs in LA, you need to be a bonded and insured facility, nobody will trust a small home brew place like ours. So we'd be doing the same work we do now honestly. The benefits of the scan station would be limited when you have competitors charging .20/ft with the same equipment right around the corner. I can't buy a scan station and charge .20/ft, it would be more like .60/ft and that's a lot of money in LA. That's higher than all the labs outside of Spectra, who has a Scanity and does a great job. I mean, if we had a Scanity, I'd get a lot more work, but it's half a million dollars! hahah. 

I've learned, you can't have identical equipment to your competitors. The fact we have a different machine, that has a very different look, is actually a benefit to us. It's not the same as a Scan Station, or an Arriscan or a Scanity for that matter. Some people really like the look of the FF scanner. When we do camera negative, it really works well. The Sony imager is very good, excellent dynamic range for a global shutter camera. It saves our asses all the time, with ZERO FPN and no digital imager noise. The only downside is that it COULD be crispier, which is something I haven't really spent money or time trying to fix. We add a bit sharpening to our own productions. 
 

 

[Tyler Purcell]

31 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

No. We charge $5 to prep a single reel. We charge $15 to consolidate 8 reels onto a 400 footer. Both prices include splice repair if necessary (usually not necessary), leader, and basic inspection. It takes all of 10 minutes to string together 8 reels. I don't see why you think this is so difficult. 

Ah got ya, that makes sense. 

31 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Restoration is our primary business and we've scanned millions of feet of film. And bad splices are rarely a problem. 

IDK what to say. Only thing I can think of is that people just don't store film well here and it dries out much faster due to heat. IDK how many people ship you film across the country, but nearly all of our archive work is from CA. 

31 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

First, they are not garbage formats. That attitude, and several posts in this thread, make it pretty clear that you don't consider small gauge film worthy of the effort. Well I guess that's your prerogative, but I think it's a pretty bad attitude. 

First, complain to Kodak about their perf cutting. If they don't care about cutting good perfs, making cartridges that don't stick and jam, then it's really not a decent format is it? 

Second, just because it's a garbage format, doesn't mean the material within the format, has no value. I can complain about how shitty it is all I want, because it is shitty, but our job is to retrieve the information within. 

Third, of course it's more fragile than 16mm, it's 1/2 the size. Most of it is also old reversal stock, so it's already very dry. It also has much smaller frames, so anything that goes wrong, you lose many frames not one or two like on 16mm. 

31 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

The perfs are cut to the specifications of the format, likely using the same equipment they were using in 1965. We have scanned some of the first Super 8 films made, from the mid-60s, and they exhibit the sawtooth-pattern behavior we've talked about here in other threads. That is not "incorrect" it's by design. In projection, you don't really see that weaving so much. When scanned (something Kodak's engineers in the 60s probably never imagined), using a different mechanism than projectors and cameras use, the problem will manifest as lateral weave. But this is easily fixed simply by emulating the edge guide in the camera, in software. This is what the ScanStation does, and we get nice, steady images out of the machine for S8. If your scanner isn't doing something similar, it's doing it wrong. It's that simple. 

The super 8 format uses lateral guides to register, not the perf. The pulldown in the camera is very small and only touches the bottom of the perf, same goes for the projectors. 

I own 7 super 8 cameras, I've shot with 5 of them in recent years, 2 of them re-built recently. The format is nothing like it was during the Kodachrome days. So if you're doing restoration on old film, yea no wonder it's all good. We're scanning new film mostly and it's so bad today. ?

31 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

the Archivist does not use the CMOSIS 5k imager that the SSP and the ScanStation used for a while. I believe it's the same family of Sony sensors as the full ScanStation uses, just at a lower res. Don't confuse the two. I don't think Lasergraphics has used the CMOSIS sensor for a while now. 

It's not clear this is the case. 

31 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

they won't. it took them years to release a minor iteration to the scanner that basically improved the light source to try to overcome the noise. It's a poor design.

I'm pretty connected to BMD, they are coming out with a new scanner. 

The gentlemen in the UK who developed the software side of the scanner abruptly died a few years ago. This, plus some issues internally, shelved the project for a while. They're back at it now tho, with a new imager coming out soon hopefully. The light source fix is quite good, but as we all know, the imager is the problem. 

31 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

There's so much about this that makes absolutely no sense I don't even know where to start. So i won't. Enjoy complaining about your HDS that is simultaneously garbage and the only machine that can possibly fit your business model. 

The business in CA is .25/ft for fresh OCN. You can't charge the rates you do, it's just not possible, too much competition in that space. Heck, just look at The Negative Space in Denver, she charges .20/ft on a full scan station. How do you compete with that? She does excellent work as well. Again, the fact you have clients that will pay your rates is insanity. It shows that people just don't know. They just assume you're the only guy who can deliver that quality and it's blatantly wrong. 

[Tyler Purcell]

42 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

So you're talking about outtakes. Yes - what you describe is fairly common. But most film we get from archives has already been re-attached with normal tape splices and the paper tape removed. We have seen what you described, and we simply fix it (though more often than not, the paper tape holds just fine and it scans without issue). There are rarely more than a few of these in a typical 1000' reel. Again, it's not really a big deal and not all that time consuming. While one reel is scanning, you can easily prep 5000 feet of film at the table next to the scanner including multiple papertape splice repairs.

OCN rolls, but yes, you understand these issues. 

The paper tape doesn't run through our scanner unless it's butt perfectly. Most of the time it's not, they overlap and it catches on something and tears. The good news is that you can see those, so fixing them is quite easy. 

The problem is when you have single sided splices which again, have been baking due to poor storage. I think a lot of what you get has been stored properly. 

42 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I don't think you understand how that feature works on the ScanStation. it doesn't detect splices. if the film breaks, you fix it, press a button and it figures out where you were and continues. You do nothing but press a button. 

Oh I get it. I've seen the marketing videos. 

42 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

That being said, resuming a scan of DPX files that failed is even easier than a scan to a containerized format like a quicktime file. If your workflow doesn't allow you to resume a scan easily simply by starting where it failed, I don't know what to say. Resolve should have nothing to do with it. looking at the file should have nothing to do with it. You just tell it to start from the frame you want it to start from and let it run. 

That's good to know. 

[Robert Houllahan]

"

9 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

the Archivist does not use the CMOSIS 5k imager that the SSP and the ScanStation used for a while. I believe it's the same family of Sony sensors as the full ScanStation uses, just at a lower res. Don't confuse the two. I don't think Lasergraphics has used the CMOSIS sensor for a while now. 

It's not clear this is the case. 

It is.

I got one.

It is a even newer gen Sony camera than the 6.5k one and it is excellent, extremely low noise and higher resolution than the 5k cmosis.

The JAI Spark with the CMV20000 is 5120 x 3840.

The New Sony in the Archivist is 5.4K x 3.8k

 

And if you can find anyone who has been more of a pain in Stefan and LG's butt about sensor noise on the Scan Station with the 5K camera than me you should buy them a donut and a coffee.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Robert Houllahan

[Robert Houllahan]

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

The business in CA is .25/ft for fresh OCN. You can't charge the rates you do, it's just not possible, too much competition in that space. Heck, just look at The Negative Space in Denver, she charges .20/ft on a full scan station. How do you compete with that? She does excellent work as well. Again, the fact you have clients that will pay your rates is insanity. It shows that people just don't know. They just assume you're the only guy who can deliver that quality and it's blatantly wrong. 

In all deference to Nikki I am sure she is nice and thorough (we just ran some B&W for her) buying a machine and immediately undercutting everyone else with the same machine's prices is IMO not the best way to start a business. I am sure this can work for a while if you have a scanner in your house and it is just you and a partner running it as a personal enthusiast venture. Start adding cleaners and film processing in a residential neighborhood etc. etc. etc.

The Scan Station's ubiquity has largely made film scanning a commodity as DaVinci Resolve has for color grading and there are shops who use Resolve and charge bargain prices and shops that charge top dollar. And there are shops with Nucoda or Baselight etc.

Racing to the bottom of the price scale is not a great thing and there are many many pro and other clients who won't work with the "cheapest" shop because they feel like something is wrong when the price is too low.

[Perry Paolantonio]

8 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

The Scan Station's ubiquity has largely made film scanning a commodity as DaVinci Resolve has for color grading and there are shops who use Resolve and charge bargain prices and shops that charge top dollar. And there are shops with Nucoda or Baselight etc.

Racing to the bottom of the price scale is not a great thing and there are many many pro and other clients who won't work with the "cheapest" shop because they feel like something is wrong when the price is too low.

This is not unique to film scanning. I have been through this with nonlinear editing (Remember when Media 100 and Avid systems were close to $100k? FCP and Premiere killed the high end editor market). Yet we still have professional editors.

And optical discs (Our Spruce Maestro DVD Authoring system was $20k, used. DVD Studio Pro and Encore killed the DVD Authoring market - for a while: flooded it with people who had no idea how to make a legal disc, because the cheap software allowed you to do things that would break on some players. They eventually came back to us to have the work done right and the work only dropped off when people stopped wanting optical discs).

And like you said with color grading - it wasn't that long ago that a Resolve system was about $100k and required a rack full of hardware to run. I'm rendering out a bunch of stuff behind this browser window on a cheap iMac right now, in a $250 version of Resolve. And I know many talented colorists making a healthy living off of what is basically free software. Not because of the tools they have but because of the body of work they've produced and their experience.

It has happened on the production side too - who'd have thought you could buy a decent 4k digital cinema camera for a couple grand, just 15 years ago? Now everyone has a 4k camera in their pocket at all times.

In all cases, the people who know what they're doing are the ones who survive. We still have professional cinematographers, who are able to work with whatever cameras they're given. We still have editors and colorists. Hell, we probably still have DVD and Blu-ray authors ...somewhere.

The ones who have survived and are thriving are doing so because they adapted and dealt with the changes to the market. Services that focus primarily on lowering prices are often the first to vanish once the bottom feeders below them start undercutting their low prices. Eventually, there's nothing left to undercut so something has to give.

Racing to the bottom on pricing is a losing game for everyone (Service providers and customers alike) because the market gets flooded with newcomers who lack the experience and knowledge necessary to do a good job. That leads to customers having to re-do bad work, and service providers having to deal with all manner of BS. You have no idea how many phone calls and emails I get from customers who got bad information from the internet from supposed experts who have only been at it for a little while. Seriously, sometimes it feels like half my day is spent explaining how what they heard somewhere is wrong. 

 

 

[Perry Paolantonio]

18 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Again, the fact you have clients that will pay your rates is insanity. It shows that people just don't know.

First, I need to point out that our rates are pretty middle of the road even though you keep insisting they're high. I don't believe you for a second that the "going rate" for 4k scans in CA is $.25/ft (I'm assuming 16mm here). Maybe with a deep student discount, or a negotiated price for a large production. But certainly not for anyone walking in off the street.  

That said, it's not insanity that people pay what we are charging, which again, isn't high. And it's not that our clients "don't know," it's precisely the opposite. It's that our clients know exactly what they're going to get from us -- they're going to get high quality work, fast, and that we stand behind it. They feel they're paying a fair price for the experience and expertise we bring to the table. A business model that relies on undercutting the competition is unsustainable. It may work for a while, but those prices will eventually have to go up as overhead costs go up, for example.

And as Rob said, a lot of customers will be turned off by low prices, and simply not take their work there. 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Perry Paolantonio

[Robert Houllahan]

1 hour ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

First, I need to point out that our rates are pretty middle of the road even though you keep insisting they're high. I don't believe you for a second that the "going rate" for 4k scans in CA is $.25/ft (I'm assuming 16mm here).

I cannot see that being the case either I am sure FotoKem is not charging $0.25/ft for 4K 16mm scans on the Scannity.

Neither is Pro8mm on their Scan Station.

[Tyler Purcell]

13 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

In all deference to Nikki I am sure she is nice and thorough (we just ran some B&W for her) buying a machine and immediately undercutting everyone else with the same machine's prices is IMO not the best way to start a business. I am sure this can work for a while if you have a scanner in your house and it is just you and a partner running it as a personal enthusiast venture. Start adding cleaners and film processing in a residential neighborhood etc. etc. etc.

Oh I wholeheartedly agree. It's part of the reason we didn't go for a more standard machine. Having something different, with some unique features that very few people have, is why we went this way. 

The cost to open up a lab in Los Angeles is an impossibility and the problem is that once you have a footprint, everyone will fight to put you out of business. The great thing is that the labs support us because they know we aren't taking business from them, because we really aren't. We also give them a lot of business. 

13 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Racing to the bottom of the price scale is not a great thing and there are many many pro and other clients who won't work with the "cheapest" shop because they feel like something is wrong when the price is too low.

Yep, I agree. I think we're gonna re-examine our prices when we launch our new website in 2023. I do think low pricing doesn't look favorable. People will pay if they like your work. 

[Tyler Purcell]

4 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

First, I need to point out that our rates are pretty middle of the road even though you keep insisting they're high. I don't believe you for a second that the "going rate" for 4k scans in CA is $.25/ft (I'm assuming 16mm here). Maybe with a deep student discount, or a negotiated price for a large production. But certainly not for anyone walking in off the street.  

Actually, I'd argue that many shops like our friend Robert's, Color Lab, Kodak Atlanta, The Negative Space, Gotham, etc... if you called them and had a bunch of negative to scan, that .20 - .30/foot rate would not be far off the mark. Outside of us, I know three other shops in LA who charge exactly what we charge which is .25/ft for 4k S16. Where those deals are kinda "insider", everyone who works in the system knows about them. 

This is why I keep trying to explain to you; if the clients you are charging a "decent" rate for, knew there were cheaper alternatives, that deliver identical quality, wouldn't they just go for them? It's why the home movie market is such a shit show, because they don't know anyone. They see a pretty website and send their film off. 

I guarantee you, if we had a real website with SEO and social media presence, we'd be inundated with work. I don't advertise at all, it's 100% word of mouth and of course, the stuff my friends shoot and we still always have stuff to scan. I don't want to be a big name, once you raise flags, you are "competition" and then, you are not really liked anymore. I love being a boutique who focuses on camera negative AND restoration work. Yes, we are going to have a better web presence in 2023, so we will see how it goes. 

4 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

That said, it's not insanity that people pay what we are charging, which again, isn't high. And it's not that our clients "don't know," it's precisely the opposite. It's that our clients know exactly what they're going to get from us -- they're going to get high quality work, fast, and that we stand behind it. They feel they're paying a fair price for the experience and expertise we bring to the table. A business model that relies on undercutting the competition is unsustainable. It may work for a while, but those prices will eventually have to go up as overhead costs go up, for example.

I don't even know what you mean by this statement.

So a random person you've never met calls you up to get work done and they know what they're getting? 

I understand that former clients who keep sending you work, understand, but how does some random bloke off the street know? Outside of a good website with decent SEO, honestly how do they know? You don't even have a calculator on your website on how much it costs to work with you. To me, that alone turns people away. People want to see pricing, they want to know what they're getting themselves into. I guess the old adage; don't tell them and they'll call to find out more, kinda plays in your favor? 

Undercutting is not a good business model. Our pricing was based on what other people in the area are doing. Where it's true, they don't particularly advertise those prices, they have a lot of repeat business and you have to steal that business to get it? A fancy website doesn't cut it in Hollywood. It may for super 8 people, but not for people who are in the know. 

Also... and this is kinda of another important point, you've been in business for 22 years.

With no real website, no real internet presence or SEO, no real business model to speak of, working out of a broom closet, we've been able to somehow pay off our scanner,  buy cameras, make films and capture dozens of long-term clients who continuously send their film to us.

SO even with an arguably shitty scanner, even our OCN clients, love the results. Thus proving, people just do not know, period. They don't! Which is kinda my whole point. 

Do you think anyone watching the final product actually cares what the film was scanned on? No... they don't. The majority of clients just want to see their films. Talking them into higher resolution or "restoration", is a salesmen job, not necessarily what the client wants. If they can afford it, then bravo ya got a sale. 

So they only reason anyone cares is because someone one has told them to care.  

4 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

And as Rob said, a lot of customers will be turned off by low prices, and simply not take their work there. 

If they don't see results, sure! 

If they see results, it's a whole other story. 

[Perry Paolantonio]

This is truly a massive waste of my time but I'm just sitting here right now waiting for someone to show up. so...

 

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

5 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Maybe with a deep student discount, or a negotiated price for a large production. But certainly not for anyone walking in off the street.  

Actually, I'd argue that many shops like our friend Robert's, Color Lab, Kodak Atlanta, The Negative Space, Gotham, etc... if you called them and had a bunch of negative to scan, that .20 - .30/foot rate would not be far off the mark.

I mean I literally said that and you repeated it as if it was your argument. 

 

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

So a random person you've never met calls you up to get work done and they know what they're getting? 

Most of the calls we get are from people who have seen my posts here and on other sites, heard about us from another customer, got a recommendation when calling one of our film archive customers, or sent an inquiry through our web site and we discussed their needs and made recommendations based on their budget. I would say that if someone contacts us out of the blue, somewhere around 60-75% of the time we end up scanning their film. They almost all say it was because of the help they got and that other places they called didn't seem to want to be bothered with them. 

 

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

You don't even have a calculator on your website on how much it costs to work with you. To me, that alone turns people away.

In most cases I also prefer when pricing is out front and transparent. But you know what? pricing a scanning job is complex. We offer bulk discounts for large orders. We charge different prices based on gauge and resolution and file format. If the film needs color correction, you simply cannot accurately estimate that with a calculator, because it entirely depends on the nature of the film (Is it an art film with cuts every 3 frames for 30 minutes? or is it a film with long slow takes? those make a huge difference in grading time). Is the film A/B roll cut neg? are these uncored, bipacked outtakes with synced mag track? I mean, all of these things are very specific and some people just don't know the terminology so you need to walk them through it to even figure out what they're going to bring you. Most jobs we do would wind up with higher pricing if you tried to figure it out with a generic footage calculator. Plus, programming something that complex is a significant task if you're going to do it right. Could it be done? sure, probably. But we ask that people describe what they have and what their end goal is, and we make recommendations and send them pricing. Usually via email, and usually within minutes of getting their initial inquiry.  

You can't call a carpenter and get an estimate on putting an addition on your house over the phone or on their web site. You will not find a mechanic who will tell you up front exactly how much it will cost to fix your car. For precisely the same reasons. 

 

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

SO even with an arguably shitty scanner, even our OCN clients, love the results. Thus proving, people just do not know, period. They don't! Which is kinda my whole point. 

I'm flabbergasted by this statement. I mean, you're basically saying you're knowingly offering services on a scanner you call "shitty" but it doesn't matter because they won't know the difference. I mean, wow. Ok. 

 

 

[Tyler Purcell]

10 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Most of the calls we get are from people who have seen my posts here and on other sites, heard about us from another customer, got a recommendation when calling one of our film archive customers, or sent an inquiry through our web site and we discussed their needs and made recommendations based on their budget. I would say that if someone contacts us out of the blue, somewhere around 60-75% of the time we end up scanning their film. They almost all say it was because of the help they got and that other places they called didn't seem to want to be bothered with them. 

I'd say 9 times out of 10 this is the same with us. If someone finds us, they usually go with us. 

The problem is, not having an internet presence, leads to people questioning the company. I guarantee you, everyone you've talked to, first visited your website. 

We do get a lot of random calls and I probably blow at least two hours a day answering calls, e-mails, social media DM's, etc. Where it's not exactly a full-time job right now, it could be very easily if we wanted. But don't for the reasons aforementioned. 

10 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

In most cases I also prefer when pricing is out front and transparent. But you know what? pricing a scanning job is complex. We offer bulk discounts for large orders. We charge different prices based on gauge and resolution and file format. If the film needs color correction, you simply cannot accurately estimate that with a calculator, because it entirely depends on the nature of the film (Is it an art film with cuts every 3 frames for 30 minutes? or is it a film with long slow takes? those make a huge difference in grading time). Is the film A/B roll cut neg? are these uncored, bipacked outtakes with synced mag track? I mean, all of these things are very specific and some people just don't know the terminology so you need to walk them through it to even figure out what they're going to bring you. Most jobs we do would wind up with higher pricing if you tried to figure it out with a generic footage calculator. Plus, programming something that complex is a significant task if you're going to do it right. Could it be done? sure, probably. But we ask that people describe what they have and what their end goal is, and we make recommendations and send them pricing. Usually via email, and usually within minutes of getting their initial inquiry.  

Sure, but you're talking about restoration clients who have a lot of random shit to deal with. 

Gosh we've gotten so many of those. "Here is the 35mm magnetic soundtrack, here are 3 shitty elements, mix and match until ya get a good version, good luck". We charge by the hour for all of that work. There is no "scan per foot" rate anymore. In fact, the only time we've done restoration work with scan by foot, is with people who just want to see what they have on the film. Even then, it's been a nightmare compared to a nice fresh roll of OCN. 

10 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I'm flabbergasted by this statement. I mean, you're basically saying you're knowingly offering services on a scanner you call "shitty" but it doesn't matter because they won't know the difference. I mean, wow. Ok. 

No, I'm simply using the terms ya'll have used so many times to denigrate others who can't afford quarter of a million dollar solutions. 

[Dan Baxter]

4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Actually, I'd argue that many shops like our friend Robert's, Color Lab, Kodak Atlanta, The Negative Space, Gotham, etc... if you called them and had a bunch of negative to scan, that .20 - .30/foot rate would not be far off the mark. Outside of us, I know three other shops in LA who charge exactly what we charge which is .25/ft for 4k S16. Where those deals are kinda "insider", everyone who works in the system knows about them. 

That's just Bayer though, once you get to RGB you're paying .80/ft+ and for good 16mm it will make a huge difference no matter what anyone with a Bayer scanner tells you.

As for the deals being "insider" the people I have have standard rates and sometimes they may have to charge a bit more to make it profitable, or they can choose to cap their rates and do some jobs at a loss, and often they can come down on their published rates. It all depends on the amount of work involved with the job. For example, some people are set up to handle really bad film - badly warped, brittle, etc, but most are not.

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

No, I'm simply using the terms ya'll have used so many times to denigrate others who can't afford quarter of a million dollar solutions. 

I'm pretty sure Perry purchased his ScanStation as a 2-gate small format one, same as many other companies do - eg MemoryLab. If you were buying one you could do the same, except make it 35/16 as it's 8mm you don't want and you can buy the 8mm gate later if need be (plenty of people do this). I don't know Tyler, every time you mention the price on them you leave out the intricacies with actually budgeting for one without going into eyeballs of debt. It'd modular - you don't need to buy what you don't need. Yes everything is expensive, but there's serious R&D in it that as you mention is missing in the FF's 16mm scanner.

[Tyler Purcell]

54 minutes ago, Dan Baxter said:

That's just Bayer though, once you get to RGB you're paying .80/ft+ and for good 16mm it will make a huge difference no matter what anyone with a Bayer scanner tells you.

I pay less for RGB scans then Bayer scans. Tho I've never asked for RGB and HDR so there is that. 

54 minutes ago, Dan Baxter said:

As for the deals being "insider" the people I have have standard rates and sometimes they may have to charge a bit more to make it profitable, or they can choose to cap their rates and do some jobs at a loss, and often they can come down on their published rates. It all depends on the amount of work involved with the job. For example, some people are set up to handle really bad film - badly warped, brittle, etc, but most are not.

Well yea,  for restoration work we charge by the hour, not by the foot. 

54 minutes ago, Dan Baxter said:

I'm pretty sure Perry purchased his ScanStation as a 2-gate small format one, same as many other companies do - eg MemoryLab. If you were buying one you could do the same, except make it 35/16 as it's 8mm you don't want and you can buy the 8mm gate later if need be (plenty of people do this). I don't know Tyler, every time you mention the price on them you leave out the intricacies with actually budgeting for one without going into eyeballs of debt. It'd modular - you don't need to buy what you don't need. Yes everything is expensive, but there's serious R&D in it that as you mention is missing in the FF's 16mm scanner.

Still, you're looking at over 120k with 2 gates and the 6.5k imager. 

I don't even have the physical space to own one either. So there is that matter as well. 

I don't mind re-engineering the FF, we're so damn close to make it work, it's kinda frustrating. The backend workflow issues like DPX to Pro Res and such, does not bother me. Even the softness of the scanner, isn't a big deal. 

[Dan Baxter]

13 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I don't even have the physical space to own one either. So there is that matter as well. 

Well if space is an issue it can double as your rewind/inspection table. Blackmagic Cintels take up more space - almost 2x as much (I just looked it up - Cintel is 2010mm/79" wide and ScanStation 1190mm/47"), and you just said a few posts back you'd buy one if they bring out a model with a camera that fixes the FPN (they do have a new model the Cintel Scanner G3 HDR+, and it still has the same imager as all the other ones FYI). That makes no sense, how can you have room for a Cintel but not for a ScanStation?

Edited December 23, 2022 by Dan Baxter

[Tyler Purcell]

Oh I would not buy a current Cintel. I do know they have a new imager version coming out hopefully next year. 

But the reason is so simple, the Cintel's integration with Resolve makes it a very powerful tool. 

In the end, we would make the scan station work IF we had a big enough job to warrant getting one. I wouldn't buy one unless we had that nut covered by a single big job. It's possible, we have done the math, we know how many feet we'd need to scan to make it happen, just like how we paid off our HDS so fast. It's really down to clients and what new ones we can score next year with a real website, much better name recognition and hopefully a few products to sell. 

[Dan Baxter]

4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Oh I would not buy a current Cintel. I do know they have a new imager version coming out hopefully next year. 

Then why did they release the Cintel Scanner G3 HDR+ with the current imager? Blackmagic should get rid of the sliding doors so it takes up less room, just plain hinged cabinet style doors like everything else would be sufficient.

[Todd Ruel]

On 12/21/2022 at 12:25 PM, Robino Jones said:

I can't find pricing on Dustbuster+, may I ask how much the software cost? 

Robino,

For anyone else also reading this, HS-Art based in Austria makes Diamant (a full suite of film restoration tools) and DustBuster+, a stripped down set of film restoration tools based on Diamant.

I went back into my records and discovered that they billed me $1440 back in 2015 for the USB dongle and a year's worth of service and support.  If you wanted any software updates past your one year, you would have to pay them for another year's service contract.

At the time, I was furious about this price.  I couldn't understand why they charged outrageous sums of money like this.  But gradually, I came to understand that this business model is similar to a specialized equipment manufacturer like LaserGraphics charging a service contract to maintain and improve the product that you bought.

The nearest comparison I can think of (in consumer terms) is Topaz Labs.  They make software that improves photography and video resolution.  Once your yearly subscription has expired, you get to keep the software you already have.  But unless you renew your service contract, you won't get any additional software updates.

I have two DustBuster+ USB dongles.  The license is on that dongle.  I plug the dongle into my Mac in order to validate my license for the software.  If I lose that dongle, I have to buy a new dongle for whatever their current price is.  

HS-Art's service contract is a different price.  It's slightly lower.  When I renew, they send me a new script that I have to run in Terminal on my Mac Studio to update the license on the dongle.

It's almost 2023, so I imagine their DustBuster+ price is higher.

If you want to contact them, try Walter Plaschzug at plaschzug@hs-art.com.  Walter will give you a quote and answer any sales questions that you have.

Good luck!

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

Then why did they release the Cintel Scanner G3 HDR+ with the current imager? Blackmagic should get rid of the sliding doors so it takes up less room, just plain hinged cabinet style doors like everything else would be sufficient.

Honestly, I can't quite figure them out. All I know is that I spent a few hours with one of their engineers recently and he said they've been working on a new scanner for a while now and just haven't released it yet. 

I kinda dig the sliding doors, but yea I agree it could be smaller. One of the benefits is that you can hang it on the wall. That helps people like myself because desk space is an issue, but wall space is seemingly endless. 

I actually like the Cintel a lot, but that imager is a deal killer. It's the opposite problem we have with the HDS, which as an excellent imager,. but lacks in other areas.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Tyler Purcell

[Dan Baxter]

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I actually like the Cintel a lot, but that imager is a deal killer. It's the opposite problem we have with the HDS, which as an excellent imager,. but lacks in other areas.

Even with a good imager, 16mm is still below 2K resolution don't forget.

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I kinda dig the sliding doors, but yea I agree it could be smaller. One of the benefits is that you can hang it on the wall. That helps people like myself because desk space is an issue, but wall space is seemingly endless. 

Well there's the problem, the sliding doors look "cool" but in practise they just get in the way.

Do you actually know anyone that has it wall-mounted? It's not a TV, it weighs a LOT! That's some serious loading capacity for a wall to hold (60 kg/132 lb unloaded, and up to 70 kg/ 155 lb loaded with film). If you have hardwood studs, or steel frame walls (your commercial office space might have that, usually residential won't) then you might be okay, I would not attempt it with regular timber studs.