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Laser Graphic Director 10K vs 13K


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Hello, 

I am a little bit confused because when I am looking at a labs specs on their scanners they list down the Director as being 10K resolution. But when you go in the Laser Graphic website they list the Director as being 13K. 
 

Is the Laser Graphic 10K an older version to the 13k? If so is there a big difference between both of the, appart from the resolution? 
 

thanks a lot 
 

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1 hour ago, Boris Kalaidjiev said:

Do you think there is a big difference between them appart from a bit more resolution? 

The big imager is for larger film stocks like 65mm.

35mm can only reproduce around 5.5k, so even if you over scanned to 8k it would be way too much resolution. 

So no, I don't think it's worth the extra resolution for anything really. Even 5 perf 65mm color negative probably doesn't retain much more than 8k due to lenses alone. 

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I scan my Mamiya 6x7 negatives at 4000 DPI with my Nikon Super Coolscan 9000,  resultant resolution is approximate 8600 x 10700, I think in cinema terms that is 8K? Which is about the limit imo when I use a film like Provia 100 or Ektar 100 as 4000 DPI resolves their grain. Photo 35mm frame results in about 5K, but that is larger than a cinema 35mm frame.

But then focus becomes super duper critical, both on the camera and on the scanner. I can't imagine going beyond 5k on 35mm resolves much more detail.

Certainly diminishing returns.

Edited by Niels kakelveld
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4 hours ago, Niels kakelveld said:

I can't imagine going beyond 5k on 35mm resolves much more detail.

I agree. 4-perf 35mm is about 4K worth of detail unless your lenses are super sharp and you're using slow film stock. But it isn't about detail. It's about making a digital version of the negative that's as close as possible to the original.

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11 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

I agree. 4-perf 35mm is about 4K worth of detail unless your lenses are super sharp and you're using slow film stock. But it isn't about detail. It's about making a digital version of the negative that's as close as possible to the original.

There is certainly a case to be made of oversampling for archival material.

I got 8mm, 9,5mm and 16mm made pre, during and shortly post WWII, even some 8mm shot on the day of the Antwerp liberation. I have those films scanned at 4k overscan not because there is 4K resolution but I want to preserve as much of the film as possible for archival purposes.

And maybe at one point somebody makes a de-noise algorithm that detects individual grains and can use all that extra info.

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The Director 10K had a horrible imager, LaserGraphics changed it to a 6K Sony in 2019 while still calling it "Director 10K" (it could natively do higher than 10K with microscanning but they opted not to call it "Director 12K") so yes it will make a difference compared to which one it is. Now it appears they have a choice of different imagers.

Edited by Dan Baxter
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6 minutes ago, Dan Baxter said:

The Director 10K had a horrible imager, LaserGraphics changed it to a 6K Sony in 2019 while still calling it "Director 10K" (it could natively do higher than 10K with microscanning but they opted not to call it "Director 12K") so yes it will make a difference compared to which one it is. Now it appears they have a choice of different imagers.

This is becoming very confusing on knowing who has what. I guess most labs probably wouldn't have upgraded to the newer Sony imager yet. Why are you saying it was so bad? 

Sorry for the dumb questions just very new to film. 

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37 minutes ago, Boris Kalaidjiev said:

This is becoming very confusing on knowing who has what. I guess most labs probably wouldn't have upgraded to the newer Sony imager yet. Why are you saying it was so bad? 

It was noisy and had poor dynamic range. Basically they switched from CCD imaging tech to CMOS tech when CMOS just wasn't ready. It is now but wasn't then. Just make a small test reel and use it to test between your different options. Look for sensor noise, any artificial sharpening, and then test the dynamic range you have by doing grading tests. There'll be no way for an end-customer of a lab or post-production house to know exactly what they have unless they tell them, and how they're operated etc makes a difference as well. Dailies shouldn't need multi-flash HDR to scan well on a good Director.

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On 12/13/2022 at 7:34 AM, Boris Kalaidjiev said:

Is the Laser Graphic 10K an older version to the 13k? If so is there a big difference between both of the, appart from the resolution? 

The 10k Version used the same CMOSIS 5k sensor as the ScanStation 5k did. The difference is that the scanner used pixelshift to obtain the higher resolution. This allowed for a decent mix of speed and resolution. The issue is that that CMOSIS sensor had a lot of fixed pattern noise, and lower dynamic range than the Sony IMX sensors do. When properly tuned, and with HDR, the 5k sensor is not "horrible" - but it's not as good as the Sony. Our ScanStation got the upgrade from the 5k CMOSIS to the 6.5k Sony sensor a few years ago and we immediately saw two things:

1) With the Sony sensor, we could make noise free images of even very dense film without having to use HDR (2-flash) scanning. With HDR, the dynamic range is definitely extended further, though. 

2) With the CMOSIS 5k sensor, the overall dynamic range was lower, even in HDR mode. Lasergraphics tells me it's around 14-15 stops of dynamic range with the Sony 6.5k in HDR mode. With the CMOSIS, it's probably more like 12, but the extreme ends of this range are too noisy to be that useful. If the film is perfectly exposed, the 5k sensor is not bad at all, in HDR mode. 

It's worth noting that the Director can do 3-flash HDR as well, and that further reduces noise and extends dynamic range. My observations are based on the ScanStation. It's a different beast, and it's 2-flash, so results will vary. 

There was government-funded Czech TV study to find the best of the available scanners a few years ago. They compared the Arriscan XT, Director 10k, GoldenEye and Scanity. The resulting study is available for download on Lasergraphics site, here. I was at NAB in the Lasergraphics booth when they were scanning some of the test footage that was specifically commissioned for this shootout, and it was pretty impressive. The Director 10k did quite well, and I believe it was the scanner that Czech TV ended up buying. 

My guess (I don't know for sure) is that the 13k version is using the same 6.5k sensor as the ScanStation does, with the same method of pixelshifting that the 10k version used. This is not unusual (it's how the Arriscan did it too). If that's the case, then it's just going to be an improvement over the already good 10k version.

That being said, I think you'll find that there aren't many of these out in the wild (compared to machines like the ScanStation), and yes, you will need to ask which version is being used. They definitely sell a  lot more ScanStations than Directors. 

 

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It is worth noting that the Director is a "True RGB" scanner like the Arriscan etc and uses a monochrome sensor and multiple individual color captures. Bayer mask sensors do have allot of color channel cross talk which is made up for in math and that is not always perfect.

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1 hour ago, Robert Houllahan said:

It is worth noting that the Director is a "True RGB" scanner like the Arriscan etc and uses a monochrome sensor and multiple individual color captures.

Right. I should have pointed that out in my comment above. The CMOSIS 5k sensor is identical to the bayer sensor the ScanStation used, only without the bayer mask so it's monochrome.

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I am interested in the Director for scanning S16mm negs for an upcoming feature and not print film archival purposes.


I am a little bit confused between the 3 flash RGB and 3-flash HDR.

I guess the first one combines all 3 flashes and get the normal picture (I imagine it a bit as the old broadcast cameras that had 3 CCD Prisms) but if you wanted to do HDR does that mean it flashes 3 times “R” then “G” then “B” (to get more details in shadows, mid tones and highlights).

1) So for every HDR frame it scans it 9 times?

 

 

The lab that I am talking to has a Director 10K, I believe it is the old 10K the one that @Perry Paolantonio was referring to as having a 5K CMOSIS imager. I asked them about HDR and they told me that they can’t do HDR because they haven’t purchased the licence for it.

2) Does this mean that the Dynamic Range of the scanner would be very small and roughly how many stops would you think it is?

 

3) What other questions should I ask them about their scanner if it does or doesn’t do that are important for neg scanning? Because I am not sure what a Director’s basic package comes with.

         These are just specs I found on a website for a Director, stating Yes or No for each one. I am not sure if they come standard               with it or not and not sure if I need them or not.

-Kodak Infrared (IR) Digitall ICE Dustbusting (DICE)

-Diffuse Light to Optically Remove Scratches from Images

2D Optical Registration for Perfect Stabilization

-HEPA Filter

-Positive Air Pressure System

 

Sorry for the dumb questions I know its best to just do a test just trying to first get my head around all these scanners and all. 

 

 

Thanks!

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I didn't realize the Director was sold *without* HDR. I would ask them for a test of your material, and select clips that are very dense. This will show off whether or not the noise issues in the 5k sensor are going to be a problem. As Rob Houllahan mentioned, it's worth noting that while it is the same underlying sensor as the 5k ScanStation, the Director's sensor is monochrome - which means it has no bayer mask. This may improve the noise profile, so it's worth doing a test. 

Also worth noting - if they scan it at 10k but output it to something like 4k, you are likely to get a better result than a straight 4k scan. This is because of the oversampling, and it may overcome some noise issues as well. 

A 10k scan, with 3-flash HDR is actually 18 exposures per frame. This is because the camera's sensor is moved microscopically to achieve the pixelshift effect, and double the resolution. So you have three each R, G, B exposures (for the 3-flash HDR), times two, because you're making a 10k image with a 5k sensor. If the camera in the scanner is the same model they used in the ScanStation, but in monochrome,  it can do this at roughly 1fps, I think. Maybe a bit faster. 

I wouldn't get too into the weeds on the specifications of the scanner. A lot of that is irrelevant to you, as the end customer. What really matters is whether the image looks good so I would find some challenging footage and see what the results look like. 

 

Edited by Perry Paolantonio
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9 hours ago, Boris Kalaidjiev said:

I am a little bit confused between the 3 flash RGB and 3-flash HDR.

Just to explain what's happening: with a scanner like the Director, Arriscan, some of the Xena scanners and probably some others like the new DCS scanner, the camera is monochrome and each (color film) frame is exposed three times: once with red light, once with green light, once with blue light. These three channels are then combined into a composite color image digitally. 

HDR takes 2-3 exposures of the frame at different exposure values, to expand the dynamic range of the resulting image. 

A bayer sensor captures a color image in one exposure, but it's getting somewhat less color than a sequential RGB exposure like the scanners mentioned above are capable of. There are ways around this (such as oversampling and downconverting, which gets you very close to a true RGB image, but in a smaller resolution output). 

So a 3-flash HDR exposure with a bayer sensor is three images combined into one. A 3-flash HDR exposure with a scanner like the Director is 9 images combined into one: 

3 Red (at 3 different exposures)

3 Green (3 at different exposures)

3 Blue (at 3 different exposures)

If you're scanning using PixelShift to obtain a higher resolution, you double the number of exposures and it's 18. 

9 hours ago, Boris Kalaidjiev said:

-Kodak Infrared (IR) Digitall ICE Dustbusting (DICE)

You don't want this enabled, unless it's only creating a dust map for a software restoration system to use later. A dust map is made using IR light (another exposure) to make a map of physical dust and scratches on the film. Restoration software can use this to target fixes. Digital ICE (DICE), does the fix in the scan, baking it into the output file. This is not advisable, because you can't undo it, and it can screw up. 

Edited by Perry Paolantonio
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I always assumed that multi flash HDR was a base feature of the Director at least from the 5K/10K on and I feel that the 5K cmosis camera is realistically a 10bit camera so 2-flash would get you 12bit and 3-flash 14bit.

I got LG to sell me the 2-flash HDR for my 5K Scan Station "personal" mostly used for 35mm and that sensor is pretty poor without it, the 2-flash really fixes most of it's flaws.

I suppose the theory behind 3-flash is to attain 16bit precision from "cots" cameras which are mostly 12bit like the 6.5K Sony Pregius that replaced the 5K cmosis.

The Arriscan and Xena pin registered scanners do 2-flash RGB and the new DFT Polar 9.4K scanner does 3-flash RGB.

"Perhaps a substitute for HDR scanning is multi-sampling?"

Well as others have said it is multiple "samples" or exposures of the same film frame and sensor at different light intensities.

 

 

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18 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

So a 3-flash HDR exposure with a bayer sensor is three images combined into one. A 3-flash HDR exposure with a scanner like the Director is 9 images combined into one: 

3 Red (at 3 different exposures)

3 Green (3 at different exposures)

3 Blue (at 3 different exposures)

If you're scanning using PixelShift to obtain a higher resolution, you double the number of exposures and it's 18. 

On 12/19/2022 at 6:25 AM, Boris Kalaidjiev said:

A correction on this - PixelShift uses more than 2 images. Minimum is 4. Some cameras can do even more. An older Vieworks camera we have here can do 9 shifts per image to make a 14.6k image using a 4.8k sensor. So assuming the Director is doing 4 shifts, the number of exposures taken for a 3-flash HDR image of color film would be 36 (3 each R,G,B x 4 sensor shifts)

 

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1 hour ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

A correction on this - PixelShift uses more than 2 images. Minimum is 4. Some cameras can do even more. An older Vieworks camera we have here can do 9 shifts per image to make a 14.6k image using a 4.8k sensor. So assuming the Director is doing 4 shifts, the number of exposures taken for a 3-flash HDR image of color film would be 36 (3 each R,G,B x 4 sensor shifts)

 

I think for film scanning the Director and Arri work the same and do one X-Y shift for microscanning, two exposures.

The VieWorks does 4 quadrant shifts for 4 exposures.

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21 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

"Perhaps a substitute for HDR scanning is multi-sampling?"

Well as others have said it is multiple "samples" or exposures of the same film frame and sensor at different light intensities.

Yes, but if you didn't have the option of using different light intensities, I wonder if multi-sampling could be a decent substitute.

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