Robert Houllahan

Rennie is working on the Xena software to do a base calibration, it is a manual setup now. The Sony Pregius and Pregius S 4K 5.4K and 6.5K sensors used in most scanners today are 12bit so 16bit Tiff or DPX is 4bits per channel of wasted empty space. If they do not have a proper Linear to Cineon Log space conversion for 10bit Log that is also a problem.

I have not used the Cintel but I have put allot of film through the very last generation Spirit 2K/4K and had the latest of the now very old Imagica scanners. Out of the two the Spirit far surpassed the Imagica as a data scanner but it was also an older noisier line scan sensor machine with a old hot Xenon lamp and somewhat limited dynamic range. My 2K / 4K Data Spirit had the newer PhantomII software similar to the Scannity but without that newer scanners LED lamp control and higher dynamic range. I retired my two running Spirit scanners and they are for sale. The Arriscan was (I think) the first of the really modern scanners which does really proper base calibration and delivers really true very low noise 16bit scans. There are no color grading controls on the Arriscan like on the Spirit or Imagica as they are not needed. When setting up a scan on the Arriscan the scanner RGB LED Lamp is calibrated to the clear part of the base of the film stock you are scanning, this procedure finds clipping for each RGB channel on the most trans-missive part of the film stock. In 2-Flash HDR the scanner does the first flash to this setting and the second flash at 10X the light. The Monochrome ALEV sensor is 14bit and the second flash makes a true 16bit scan that is virtually noiseless, or I have not been able to find sensor noise in color negative on the Arriscan. The full 0.0 to 3.4+ density range of color negative can be captured in this scan as Log 10bit or 16bit and then you have the full range to work with in the grade, no correction needed in the scan. The Arriscan can read the film Keycode and switch exposure calibrations on the fly in a scan roll. The Arriscan XT has a newer ALEV sensor and the Alexa is at the very top of the list for camera dynamic range so the Arriscan for some of it's fussiness it really the gold standard. The LaserGraphics Scan Station scanners work the same way as the Arriscan calibration does when doing a scan, the scanner runs a base calibration to maximize the dynamic range of the 12bit Sony Pregius sensor and then a second flash for 14bit which can be adjusted for time. For most practical purposes a 2-Flash Pregius Scan Station can capture the density range of the film, and then that gets graded after the scan with full range. If a scanner does not work this way by doing a film base calibration it is basically an obsolete machine built on far less than ideal methodology and engineering than is available today. I cannot imagine having to slog through trying to get the best scans out of film fiddle **(obscenity removed)** around with that kind of a scanner.

Yeah the idea of a data scan has always been to capture Dmax to Dmin and scanner manufacturers actually have DMax specs that the machine is known to be able to capture relative to DMin. Multi flash really helps with DMax up around a 3.0 but you should be able to capture negatives with the full density range on a data scanner with a low noise sensor. Windoze is fine it works well if you keep it from talking to home, I keep my scanners / recorders on an internal network and have several Mac Mini machines to do uploads etc. The only problem I have had r.e. OS stuff with the LG or Xena machines was a recent drive crash on one Scan Station which required a fresh install of Win10 and the LG software but that was a physical drive issue not the OS.

DFT has a 8mm gate for the Scannity now. As Perry said the older Director used a Sprocket and ACME/Oxberry style shuttle gate with no 8mm gate available. LaserGraphics might "upgrade" this old machine to a new 13.5K Director but they would likely only be able to use the chassis and maybe the platters and arms so it would probably cost near to as much as a new one.

That is a Bell&Howell Filmo 70. Fantastic camera I love mine.

All the major network TV 35mm and 16mm movies would be broadcast direct from a Rank/Cintel MK3 from about 82 ( or earlier maybe ?? ) on through to the 1990's. Local stations probably did not have real telecine unless they were big stations in major markets but the big three networks had rooms full of them and would play both 16mm and 35mm prints direct from the MK3 flying spot telecine to their affiliates.

Different less toxic bleach in processing.

Yeah almost everything in that time was scanned on the SDC2000/2001 "Classic" Spirit to 1080x1920 HD. The Spirit would be connected to a DaVinci 2K or Pogle color corrector and recorded to D5 or HDCam/HDCamSR tape. There was also the Cintel DSX or ITK Millenium scanners but they were fewer compared to the Spirit. 'Oh Brother where art Thou" was run on a SDC Spirit with Pogle to a DVS Clipster at 2K and that was very high end DI for that time. By the early to mid 1990's 4K pin registered scans were available from scanners like the Kodak Genesis or Quantel Domino system, scan times were 30s -3min per frame. They had massive fridge sized disk arrays in the mid 1990's for VFX shot stuff that were maybe a 1/4 or 1/2 TB of storage. I remember seeing a Quantel system at NYU in 95 or 96 that was a complete 4K scanner / VFX system / 4K CRT recorder for that VFX pipeline and it was massive and I think it had 500gb of storage.

Talk to Jack at Metro about the Director or maybe call Co3 NY or Postworks for Scannity or Arriscan scans.

I spoke to Jack at Metro yesterday and you should maybe reach out about a scan on his Director 4K it will be a excellent high quality true RGB scan and likely still offers the advantages of an RGB scan over the 6,5K Scan Station. Alternatively if you want to DM me I could possibly scan on my Arriscan although I would have to figure out a schedule as I am in the middle of a selects scan on a 50 lab roll feature film on the Arriscan. I would also say not to sweat the scanner too much as all of the machines in question make incredibly good scans. Rob "academically" surrounded by film scanners and a busy film lab Houllahan...

FotoKem and Co3 both use DFT Scannity and Arriscan scanners I do not think either company has any LaserGraphics scanners.

I know Metro has an older 4K Director I am not sure how that compares to the current Scan Station you could probably talk to Jack at Metro about that. New Directors use the 6.5K sensor but it is a monochrome one instead of color and has a piezo shift like the Arriscan to make 13.5K out of a 6.5K sensor. The older ones used a 4K monochrome CCD I am not sure how that performs but they did have 2-flash and 3-flash on them from the beginning. As for comparisons you will have a hard time finding any and the film I am scanning now did allot of tests they spent the time effort and funds to compare the results for their film. I know Co3 NY has an Arriscan and Scannity but I do not think they take smaller jobs. It really comes down to how much extra time and cost do you want to go to squeeze the very best out of the film and how much post finishing you plan to do to the film. The Scan Station does an excellent job and it is very consistent and every place has one or two of them so the cost associated is allot less than a much more costly and less widely available true RGB scanner like the Arriscan or Director.

I am doing a selects scan for a S16mm feature right now that did extensive tests on multiple Scan Station 65K HDR scanners and went with the Arriscan because it is a better scan for freshly shot negative. The Arriscan out performs the Scan Station in terms of detail and color accuracy at the expense of being slower and slightly less stable overall. The difference really depends allot on the final post pipeline and if the scan is for Web or TV or Theatrical. Almost all small post shops only have a Scan Station the Director or Arriscan are not really too commonly available.

Film scanning was R/G/B and sometimes IR from the very beginning. Currently any "Big" film you see will have been scanned on a true RGB scanner like the Scannity or Arriscan both of which can produce 16bit per color channel scans. One of the really big differences with a true RGB scan vs. a CFA scanner is the color accuracy and separation of the color channels. This tends to make scans which have better detail especially in denser areas of the negative. As for IR dirt map DICE it could have been a much more widely used and developed system in motion picture scanning. Kodak decided to charge incredible license fees for DICE in the past and that unfortunately kind of hurt the use of DICE. Subsequently not many post apps really fully developed more advanced tools built around the 2-bit dirtmap alpha channel available in DPX.

Just saw it today. Thought it was great and very entertaining loved the cast and the look is fantastic.

This was 1962 Plus-X negative and it was 80iso then so I did 2 stops and rated it as 20iso. I would either rate the 2009 Tri-X as on the box or maybe rate it under a half stop.

I rated it as 20iso

In my experience B&W films last really well and does Kodak even develop B&W Reversal? I used a 16mm 400ft roll of Plus-X negative for a music video I made for some friends band a few years ago and that roll had expired in 1963 and came out great. YMMV

Ah can't wait to see it this week.

Comparison is going to be a virtually impossible task as these machines which were the staple of the industry were designed for big facilities with engineering staff and cost a million or more dollars to buy and have allot of maintenance and power requirements to keep running properly, thus making them allot harder to find running today. As for references many many films were remastered on the Spirit 2K / 4K series scanner maybe between 2006 and today. It is and was a great high quality scanner but not quite as detailed or as low noise as it's successor the Scannity. It uses three 4K Kodak line CCDs and a big bright Xenon lamp and when all aligned and operated well it makes fantastic scans. I know from running the Spirit 2K/4K and the Arriscan and other scanners the differences can be pretty subtle or not noticeable if the scans are done right. The differences might seem more like a choice between Cooke and Zeiss glass or be nearly impossible to tell after the grade. Going back further to the Classic Spirit or Cintel flying spot scanners like the Millenium might have a more presence of the scanner in the scan especially on the classic Spirit as it is color sub-sampled but those machines from the 1990's are much much harder to keep running and why Steve at Mono No Aware took his Classic out of service for example.

There are a few places still running the "newer" generation 2K / 4K Spirit machines for archival work. I do not think anyone is running a Classic Spirit but it is possible that National Boston still runs their Shadow which was a "lite" version of the SDC2000 Spirit. Between the two Scan Stations the Arriscan and the Xena there was just no reason to try to keep the power hungry Spirit 2K and 4K going at Cinelab and while they make good true RGB scans the Arriscan Xean RGB or Scannity really far surpass them in terms of noise and stability. I was never really a fan of the older SDC2000 Classic Spirit and thought it usually made a kind of plasticy looking scan, the color channels are 1/2 sampled and only one line was 1920 pixels. I will be putting the Spirit 2K and 4K plus the parts machine up for sale in a bit.

I think that one is Orwo if I remember right. In our Allen linear machine processing we run F76 at 75deg 3min in a 150Gal dev tank with constant turbulation.

The Arriscan / Director / Scan Station / Xena all use pulsed RGB LEDs to expose the film to the area scan sensor. With true RGB scanners like the Arriscan the sensor is monochrome and the LED lamp pulses R/G/B up to 12 times for 6K HDR and the Director does that up to 18 times for 13.5K HDR and then these monochrome sensor scanners add one IR pulse for the dirt map. Scan Station uses a sensor capable of 30FPS and can run in 1-flash at 30FPS where the RGB lamp balance is set to the base and pulsed for each frame, in HDR it has a high exposure pulse and a low exposure pulse which captures the same film frame at slight different positions in the gate in continuous motion and the software combines them perfectly using LaserGrpahics seamless machine vision perf stabilization.

The latest generations of the B&H Panel printers with Michelson valves can make 1/10 stop RGB light value changes scene to scene and they are very much capable of being used to fully grade a film.

The Arrilaser V1 and V2 only record picture to intermediate or camera negative they do not record sound. Optical sound for 35mm has a number of possible formats 1. Dolby SR stereo analog. 2. Dolby Digital 3. DTS timecode 4. SDDS and out of these SDDS is not used anymore I believe. The sound track is recorded to 2374 or 2378 monchrome stock using a Westrex or newer sound recorder. For 70mm it is mostly answer printed but IMAX and FotoKem (I think ) have Celco Fury CRT recorders. Bell&Howell 35mm and 70mm panel printers are used to combine picture and sound elements onto positive print stock. Scanning tech has three major technologies, 1. Line Scan like the DFT Scannity which is continuous motion true RGB 2. Intermittent true RGB with pin registration and a monochrome area scan sensor with multi flash like the Arriscan or Director, the Arriscan uses a mechanical pin for registration and the Director is intermittent with machine vision registration. 3. Continuous motion with a color Bayer sensor like the Scan Station and others.