Robert Houllahan

Well that basically is the end of that formula, I thought it was 2-gen compatible as one of the primary selling points. No digital information is neglect tolerant.

LTO gets used allot in banking and other financial record keeping and I would think medical records too, archiving film scans is just a side hustle for LTO. I think the multi gen compatibility is one factor in the expense. Production does not really use LTO I have had very few requests for LTO from new production, it is always on drives and how quick can you get it to me, can you upload 5-10000 ft of 4K scans? I get some people ask can you send them back on a CD? Not professionals tho. I have an LTO5 deck and should probably get something newer.

Ha sweet.

The Xena Lamp exterior is 4.5" x 3" X 3.5" the lamp aperture is 60mm x 66mm

I had a film come through the lab recently for scanning that was a B&W 35mm Czech picture, I don't have the cans and film here anymore but I am pretty sure it was in those cans with those markings. So I think the idea that this is B&W print stock is probably accurate.

Here are some more Arriscan Lamp pornos now that I am at the lab, gate removed.

Here is what is in a Xena RGB Lamp, you can see pads for the IR LEDs for use with a Monochrome Xena with the IR option.

Magic.

I am the kid who got a new piece of gear and took the covers off to see what is inside..... This is the SSP lamp innards as far as can be seen:

Here is what the Sphere looks like on the Arriscan it is inside the square box under the gate and it is on a mechanism which allows it to be flipped down. Yes the light source is inside the sphere and the LEDs are directed in a way that all the illumination is from the sphere which is coated in a special Barium Sulfate paint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrating_sphere https://patents.google.com/patent/US8009190 https://www.shopstellarnet.com/ic2-2-integrating-sphere/?variant=5&gclid=Cj0KCQjw166aBhDEARIsAMEyZh6zAkbm7RsLSDWeG_FDjGYOJ-sUHIUVH5u0SMHny5u0blHJEC0BM9waAnHNEALw_wcB

These machines are tools for work and not classic cars I would not characterize them as "collectable" really. Big post houses bought new scanners as new tech allowed for better and faster scans. I think Co3 was running something like fifty scanners at one time. I know they had more than a dozen "classic" Spirit SDC2000 machines in a room with suites upstairs in NYC when they were uptown. They also had Spirit 4K and Arriscan and maybe Northlight machines in other rooms for DI work. Postworks (used to be Technicolor-PW) in NYC has maybe ten spirits in the basement and two running along with a Scannity and Arriscan, if you watch "Succession" on HBO that is where it was scanned. So IDK who has the biggest pile of machines it is not me.

Yep those Holographic diffusers are likely the same ones in the Scan Station and Xena and maybe the HDS+ Kinetta etc. They do a good job and make for a much more compact lamp than a diffusion sphere.

We have done rewash on films that were night and day difference, something a ultrasonic clean could not even begin to get out. The rewash can kill and remove mold and to some degree soften and “heal” the emulsion. One film in particular for a big Scorsese doc was so severely damaged and had black mold splotches all over it making it really unusable even after ultrasonic. After rewash it had just the finest looking “cracks” where the emulsion had split I scanned it on the Spirit 4K everyone rejoiced. I am building a multi process rewash / backing removal processor out of spare parts. the Integration sphere is just literally what it sounds like, on the Arriscan it is a square box about 6-7” on the outside and if you look into the quartz window you see the interior of a white sphere. The LED array is not visible it bounces light into the sphere. The Scan Station and other scanners use a holographic diffuser which also works well. Look on Edmund optics for Holographic Diffuser and they have them in different degrees, its fairly expensive material.

Just about any film processor can develop Ultra-16mm without damaging the area between the perfs, I don't think any lab worldwide is running a Sprocket drive film processor at this point. I also don't know of any lab which does not have a Scan Station and scanning U-16mm is a pretty basic framing setup on the Scan Station. We often do 16:9 or 1.1.85 cropped scans of Standard 16mm and as long as the lens is good and the exposure is right they can look really fantastic.

I really like the Aputure 120d II I got it on eBay for much less than the retail, it is daylight but very nice fixture. I would look for some Kino-Flo 2 and 4 bank fixtures for soft light you can get both Daylight and Tungsten Fluoro bulbs and they are dimmable. Alost look at Ianiro RedHead PARs or Mole-Richardson Teeny, Baby etc. fresnels they are really solid and usually less $$ than Arris.

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.

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

I really like my Nikon R10:

Here is the Spirit 4K lamp and filter setup:

I find that most DP's will look briefly at the Kodak spec sheet but then do allot of tests with the stock and camera lens they want to work with. Also if they plan to do any push or pull processing etc. or other look creation work they test test test.

The Spirit (all versions) uses a Xenon lamp (700w on the newer 2K/4K) and it has a filter wheel and a few other filters auto drop in which alter the light before it hits the quartz rod to illuminate the line slit on the gate. These filters do not do RGB balance but are for different stocks like positive or negative etc. The color separation is done with dichroic filters on the CCD line arrays. There was a telecine made by Sony called the Vialta that initially had a Xenon lamp and a dichroic box like the B&H printer and a F950 3xCCD camera image head. I know they eventually went to RGB LEDs for the lamp house in a version upgrade. As far as I know that early Vialta was the only Xenon RGB balance-able lamp house scanner made. Everything else has been a hot lamp Xenon or Metal Halide (Northlight) etc or eventually individual RGB+IR LEDs The Arriscan has always been RGB+IR LEDs in a (beautifully made) integration sphere. The Northlight 1 and 2 eventually saw FilmLight make a RGB+IR LED replacement lamp. I think with the right high end RGB LEDs (maybe a mix of 2 colors of R and G ?) that LEDs work as all the scanners running these days (except the Spirit 2K 4K) are running some form of LED lamps. I am not exactly an engineer but nobody is complaining about Arriscan or Scannity scans color fidelity as far as I know. I was thinking that a newer daylight balanced Xenon equivalent LED film lamp might be a possible replacement for the Xenon lamp in the Spirit 2K/4K series scanners to keep these true RGB scanners relevant.

Here is the 16mm Xena Liquid Gate for example.

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.

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