Robert Houllahan

22 hours ago, Todd Ruel said:

Two questions:

1)  Does it work?

2)  How much would you charge to build and sell me one?  (Unlike the folks on the Kinograph forum web site, I have no desire to DIY.  Not my area of expertise.)

I am not sure if I have the parts or time to build another one of these right now.

It works and we use it for prep in the clean cube at the lab.

18 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

The main reason is that they were (1.) designed for restoration and (2.) far too slow to use something as fast drying as Isopropyl.

The HDS+ solution on the other hand is designed not for professional restoration but for home movies.

I would recommend you get a Neil Research Labs cleaning machine (Film-O-Clean).

I built a bench top cleaner similar to this with a set of PTR rollers and a Anti-Static brush.

It does not take the place of a "real" cleaner like a Lipsner XL1100 or a full immersion ultrasonic cleaner.

If you are mixing powdered then that mask is fine as you just want to ensure that you do not inhale any dust.

We mix liquid chemistry at Cinelab under a vent hood so no masks are really needed for that with proper ventilation.

So the FF HDS+ "Wet gate" is a set of rollers which applies the Alcohol to the film on both emulsion and base just before the gate?

What are the rollers made of?

Full immersion liquid gates do not contact the film in the picture area like any other scanner these days.

Bleach exhaustion / oxidation IMO.

This is the step in the Reversal process that is usually this issue esp with the way the bleach can "go flat" relatively quickly.

2 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

Scanning is essentially printing. For it to work, the liquid has to have the same refractive index as the film's acetate base. Scanners that use proper wet gates, typically use perc for that reason. The Arriscan uses something different, I believe, but I'm not sure what it is. They just say "Specially developed"

 

You're correct. I should have specified that I was talking about typical scratching, not the really deep stuff. Though even that only works to a point.

There are two ways to make a "Wet" gate.

1. Some kind of wiper or roller that wets the film before the gate and then either enough time or a air knife to dry the film before it winds after the gate. This method has been used many times for many years going back to SD Rank Telecine. It works, sort of, and the liquid is not consistently applied nor really "thick" enough all the time.

2. Full immersion in liquid where there is a pump system to constantly circulate the liquid and enough depth so the optical properties work well on the base and the optical glass window is out of the image plane. This works exceedingly well and can fully fill in even the worst base scratches.

One of these methods is relatively easy to impliment, one is much more expensive and complex.

The advantage of a well done liquid gate scan is not just reducing the restoration seat time so it can be spent on other work but also to make the scratch removal consistent. As in if you send work to one artist with a good eye and skills you get good results, if you send work to a restoration mill with a ton of noobs their scratch work might be all over the place.

YMMV.

Kodak at one point spent a zillion dollars experimenting with this and concluded that silver and flesh was the only way it works.

Truly re-animation by alchemy.

27 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

 

It's not on the Lasergraphics scanners because there would be no point. A wet gate would be useful as a cleaning tool. it will not make a difference for scratches, which is the main point of it. Lasergraphics integrating sphere diffuses the light in such a way that the light never refracts off the scratches in the first place so they're naturally concealed. 

Well that is a bit of a big stretch of the imagination IMO all these new scanners feature excellent light integration spheres and very finely controlled LED lamps.  The SSP uses the same LED lamp as the SS and I have seen plenty of bad base scratches which the lamp did not conceal.

A full immersion liquid gate with Perc or the Engineered fluid that Arri or DFT uses will completely fill the base scratch and make it truly disappear. There are large upfront costs to running a full immersion scanner with chemistry but the back-end is consistently and in scan removed base scratches.

Liquid gate does not do anything for an emulsion scratch but those can be "healed" with a rewash step in a specialized rewash and polishing processor. That has the advantage of also killing and removing allot of mold and other artifacts in a much more deep cleaning step than a basic cleaner can do.

I have saved some extremely valuable film for clients of important historical stuff with a rewash and it took minutes and healed over some of the scratches and removed some truly hard to deal with stains mold and artifacts before the scan even happened. cost was very low compared to hours of computer restoration time.

YMMV

27 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

There are three scanners, the Lasergraphics ScanStation, the ScanStation Personal (no longer offered), and the Archivist (not a ScanStation, even though it shares a lot of DNA).

I believe all the LG machines use the same basic modules for transport and lamps as far as I understand it. They are all very similar or near identical machines similar to how a Spirit HD, 2K and 4K (last model) are all the same and different features are (mostly) unlocked with a software key. I think this "modular" build process allows for uniform parts and the very high reliability of hardware and software across their machines.

As with many professional products you buy the features you want in a modular machine, the machines are not "crippled" you are just paying for the features you want.

27 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

I don't know the exact camera model.

I think it is a Sony Pregius IMX387 which is 5472x3048 and has the same 3.45u pixels as the 6.5K camera.

The line of Sony Pregius 3.45 micron backside illuminated global shutter cmos sensors are really excellent and they are also used by LG Kinetta Xena and Film Fabriek in the 4K IMX253 which is 4112x3008.

On 12/30/2021 at 11:41 PM, Todd Ruel said:

Wow.

Despite someone's very strong opinon to me that the Archivist would supersede/replace the Filmfabriek HDS+, I think I'll stick with my HDS+.

 It's not a dumbed-down version of a better machine.

That machine does not have machine vision GPU perf registration which alone puts it in the same category of scanner as the BMD Cintel.

The LG Archivist (Like the Scan Station Personal I have) runs the same software as the full Scan Station and most of the features which Scan Station has are also on the Archivist.

If you want or need professional tools for running a business then these machines costs are pretty reasonable, remember that the Spirit 4K I have cost $2M in 2009 so the $50K or even the $190K for the Scan Station is a comparative bargain. Also the service contract cost is reasonable if it is a primary machine and having it down will cost the business allot of revenue.

On 12/24/2021 at 11:01 PM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

 

Thanks for all the replies! 

I'm on the road, so will digest more when I get some time.  I'm not looking for the best scans. Im just looking for decent scans. Almost all the film I get is poor to just fair quality. And some is downright terrible as terrible can be. I'm looking to improve on my 2K Retroscan's output, with an easy to use 16mm scanner that has sound capabilities and is reliable. 

 

I don't think you can go wrong with the LG Archivist if your needs are good 16/8 scans it will vastly outperform the Retroscan and with the new Sony Pregius 5.4K sensor that LG is using the pix quality will be very good and low noise.

Scan Station is also a easy to use machine with pref-stabilization and sound reading while scanning plus many other features that the RetroScan and FilmFabreik cannot match.

The Scan Station is a exceptionally reliable machine with very stable software.

A couple of points / observations.

1. Service contracts are usually based on a percentage of the machine's sale price and the level of service.

The Arriscan XT is about 300,000 Euro and a fully kitted our Scan Station is around $190,000 and a DFT Scannity is $1M

So the relative cost of an annual service contract seems to be in line for each machine and the expected level of hand-holding and "bespoke" service.

2. As a owner of a Scan Station "personal" which has the stupidest moniker for a scanner to date, it is unfortunate and a IMO mistake on LGs part to not make a new fixed camera module to replace the poor quality 5K CMOSIS camera. This is LG's business decision and the SSP has run very well for us and is good for scanning prints not so great for negatives.

I think LG has concentrated more on selling scanners and scanning speed and machine reliability than on pix quality overall and they have left many machines in the filed not upgraded and I am not sure if they care. I know of a Scan Station at PFA which has a CCD that shows obvious tap balance lines in almost all of the scans. I have also had customers send in film which was scanned on the 5K Scan Station that showed obvious FPN and the scanner operator told those customers that it was in their film. Allot of people sold the SS 5K as being perfect when it was not and then quickly jumped on the 6.5K Sony camera s soon as it was available as it fixed the poor quality from the 5K one.

So that is part scanner owner not caring but also part LG not engaging on upgrades for older machines.

Now that the Scan Station and Archivist have better Sony Pregius cameras the FPN (Also a big issue with the Cintel) is basically gone. Also a lack of understanding by scanner op's (as Perry said) on the very basics seems to be a problem as LG has sold so many of these scanners (I would not be surprised to see one pop up at my local 7-11) and they are pretty simple to use but not always to get the best scans from. I know with my SSP I always setup focus and do a custom base cal to try to minimize or eliminate the FPN from the 5K CMOSIS chip. Some noob or part time scanner ops might not even know enough to see there is an issue.

I think Stefan always hated the SSP and decided not to put any interest into it, I feel they could have called it the Scan Station Dailies and put a bit more into the machine and then all the Kodak owned labs might have those instead of the Cintel machines they run. I wonder how they will do with the Archivist and it is interesting that they announced a 35/16 machine and then quickly withdrew it for a 8/16 only model. I also think if Blackmagic puts a bit of interest into a revamp of the Cintel with a 5K or better sensor and perf stabilization they could really hold LGs feet to the fire.

Scanning is only going to get cheaper and faster with CFA based scanning, then there will be some room in the high end for machines which are true RGB and have the better color reproduction and offer stuff like liquid gates.

Not really the best option is to overscan and then fix in Resolve after the film is scanned, and if you have 6464x4860 pixels it is fairly easy to select a custom area to make sure any framing jumps are covered to fix without loss of resolution in the final.

Most of the scanners lock onto the perforation(s) to stabilize as if the scan was pin registered.

Yeah that is a really nice sound reproducer and would take allot of work to hack into a scanner.

If he has the Sondor scanner it would be the better bet to mod into a newer faster scanner system.

Possibly for a hand crank ?

I get more and more requests every day for recording digital onto 16mm and 35mm for scan back.

I have been expanding my Film Recording department.

I talked to the manager of NY Lab when I was there before the Pandemic Plaguepocalypse and he said they had run about seven million feet in that lab location alone.

I would think based on the amount we run at Cinelab and the other labs around the world they probably make 40-50M feet of vrious ECN stocks every year.

According to the 2017 Kodak price list the P-200 cleaner is $37,500.00 USD

FYI.

1 hour ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

 

Is that a cheap one Robert? If so, what does a state of the art model cost?

I am not sure what you mean by "Cheap" I think the P200 is at least $50K but I have not priced one out, most film machines are in the $50K - $250K range as they are low volume engineered and produced products.

Kodak / PhotoMec have the PF200

http://www.photomec.co.uk/our_products/p200film-cleaner/

I know a few post shops that have them.

A XL900 or 1100 will probably run you $10K or more these days if you can find one.

We have lots and lots of 16mm in the lab getting souped and I think it is just a case of high demand outstripping supply for now.

Hopefully Kodak can catch up I have been hearing that 7219 is about two weeks out from customers talking to Kodak.

B&H had some but I think they sold out quickly when they reopened after the holiday.

Depending on the scanner they might have just left a software switch flipped, so it would not matter Pix quality wise, this is possible on a machine like the Scan Station or Xena that has a "flip horizontal" button in the setup.

A DFT Spirit 4K Arriscan or other machine that uses mechanical sprockets or pins cannot really be loaded backwards like a Scan Station could be so again if ithe pix is flipped it was a software choice.

So IMO if you flip it back in edit it should be fine just check that you are seeing grain finely scanned to be sure.

Yes LaserGrpahics had an extensive line of CRT based film recorders for both still work and motion picture, it was only a few years ago that they stopped making some really high end motion picture recorders and concentrated on building scanners.

13 hours ago, Dan Baxter said:

I think that film has between 13-14 stops of dynamic range in it according to Kodak? Capturing the most out of the film's dynamic range and getting the full detail out of the dense areas in the film is the main benefit as I understand it for the newer machines with the modern sensors doing HDR scanning.

I know Kodak had stated it was as high as 16 stops at one point and I think it sort of depends on stops over grey vs. under and you can overexpose negative quite a bit and still get something from those hilites, but that does present a challenge to digital scanning as the hilites in a negative tend to intersect with the shadows in a digital sensor and that is where digital sensors tend to have the most noise.

One of the nice things about the Spirit 4K is that is has a very bright 800W Xenon lamp (which has an elaborate system to remove the heat) and a valve on it so you can really put allot more light through the film than most LED lamp sources on newer scanners. I have had work in that was intentionally overexposed 5+ stops for the look and been able to get some really nice and unique looking scans from that on the Spirit.

On 8/22/2021 at 7:39 PM, Dan Baxter said:

There's a pricing sheet here with all of Arri's products on it including Arriscan XT. It's €284.000.

Some of the other info - there's many different model Arri's it changed a lot over time, that's also true of the Lasergraphics Director and the Scanstations. The HDR comparisons on the Lasergraphics site are way out of date they look like they were done about 10 years ago, the benefits to multi-flash HDR scanning will be different now to what they were then.

I think the camera + lens is about $8K retail. But there's also the newer Sony Pregius S IMX530 5.3K cameras and they're a bit cheaper. You are right though, even with exactly the same camera in another machine like a XENA it seems it's difficult to match the quality and performance of the current Scanstations. Also what they charge to upgrade the older models is outrageous really, a lot of companies and archives will have spent an awful lot on their scanners and just not have it in the budget to upgrade the camera modules for what they ask.

I paid about $9K for the 6.5K camera and a CoaXpress frame grabber. the 5.3K Pregius is the same pixel as the 6.5K and the 4K ones in that line so results should be similar but fewer pixels.

I thought the ArriXT was more and I see there is a "reasonable" price for an update to the original machine, it is a great scanner and a true RGB scan with the excellent ALEV sensor.

A two flash HDR on a 12-bit sensor based scanner gets 14bit precision not 16bit but some of the latest Pregius and Starion Sony sensors are 16bit A to D now and likely have good noise so realistic 16bits being obtained, the 14K rolling shutter Sony is 16bits for example.

In spooling down 400ft rolls to 100ft rolls the typical procedure is to wind the roll down from the head onto the second rewind then spool it back onto 100ft daylight spools so the 1R is correct, so it would be EI and this is done with the film wound from top to top of the rewinds.

Winding from head to tail and then back would not be necessary for 2R film but would be the standard procedure.

To wind the film EO you would have to wind the film from top of one rewind to bottom of the next to get the emulsion to face out on the reel, a big difference from winding from the top of one rewind to the top of the other.

When using old stock like this you really have to check the film and make sure the original roll and the spooled down daylight spools are showing emulsion in before shooting.