Robert Houllahan

I have a 2 disk 1Tb Firewire800 disk on a G5 which we use scopebox (www.scopebox.com) to capture 10bit uncompressed SDI with a Decklink SDI card never had a hiccup with this setup. -Rob-

Maybe something for Clive Tobin? a Board update? Just thinking out loud. -Rob-

I have found this to be Very True! I cringe whenever somebody asks me to do a Keycode transfer to MiniDV and then try to talk them into DVcam or BetaSP both have locked timecode and are real robust pro formats. The other issue with MiniDv which crops up from time to time is "deck" incompatibility (or camera) as many people use cheap consumer DV cameras to capture to their editor and not all of those $300 camcorders are aligned right. -Rob- -Rob-

I think you find DvcPro 50 more in the "video" world than the film/post world because while it is a good format it is still only 8bit and fairly compressed. Also if you buy every deck out there you will go bankrupt trying to stay current with all the formats. -Rob-

You do not need a expensive specialty raid, a pair of drives striped together on the Firewire800 bus will be able to handle uncompressed 10bit SD video. Dv50 will work with a single drive but maybe not if you fill it completely. -Rob-

How would you rank the following in quality of video for a transfer? MiniDV DVcam DVCPRO These three formats all have Identical video quality (4:1:1 8bit 25mb/s) the only difference is in the mechanical robustness of the format and better timecode handling. NO Picture quality difference! DVCPRO 50 This format is 4:2:2 8bit and will have noticeably better quality than the standard DV compressor, I believe it can be transported over Firewire into FCP,etc. at it's native 50mb/s quality. DigiBeta Digibeta is 10bit 4:2:2 and less compressed than DVCPRO50 and is generally the gold standard in SD videotape, this is a SDI based format and is generally ingested over SDI to an uncompressed disk. Would any of this matter if it is going in through Firewire? Would there be a noticeable difference after loading it into my computer or would that negate the value of such formats? Would I have to get a better capture card for it to be worth doing anything other than MiniDV? Except for DigiBeta which should be ingested over SDI the other DVC based formats should not lose quality over firewire. If you ingest DigiBeta through a converter which goes from SDI to Firewire (DV25) you will lose a significant amount of quality! -Rob-

I think this is why the Eyemo falls into the category of "specialty" camera and not something to use where you need exact framing. I converted mine to a Nikon mount and basically have three lenses for it, a Peleng 8mm a Nikon 18mm and a Nikon 28mm. Great for a wide shot in a spot you cannot get to or a wide angle timelapse shot with a animation motor. -Rob-

I think there are 2 approaches used these days SD and HD. For SD only transfer either you take a 4:3 extraction from the 1.66 frame or you do a 16:9 transfer and sets will automatically (if setup right) display either 4:3 or 16:9 depending on the screen viewed on. For HD post Super will generally be transfered to 1080p in 16:9 and then a 4:3 center extraction can be taken out for SD broadcast. I think this is mostly how sporting events are done. For narrative work you could do a 16:9 HD and 16:9 SD which on 4:3 sets will leterbox. There are a million variables in this and it depends on what the creative/producing team want the film to look like on different sets especially considering how many 16:9 sets have been sold in the last 10 years. -Rob-

Correct, the Arri LCC system will control speed, shutter angle, iris, focus, zoom and allow programming of ramps and such I used it on a 535 a long while ago but I do no think it can control a older camera (like my LTR) but maybe speed on a Xtr. -Rob-

I saw a Nikon to Eyemo mount adapter recently and I have pictures which I will post next week, I did not think it was possible but there it was.... -rob-

We have two, I generally thought that Keylink was the Aaton brand name for their Keycode reading system. As opposed to say an Everetz keycode reader. -Rob-

I am completely wrong, I still have Josephs footage on the G5 at the lab and it's soft in the middle and I did not transfer it right. I have turnaround time problems with super8 which I am trying to solve, We get pushed up against allot of deadlines and I think we need to extend our turnaround times so we can allow for people to plan accordingly. I really do not want to let anything leave that's not right. I thought this job was a different job, where the focus was way out on allot of the shots, I'll certainly refund the transfer and offer to do it right for free... I certainly would like to have a Nice Super8 department and I am putting a second suite together right now which will be dedicated to Super8 and reversal. I need to get someone to play colorist. I have put my ugly mug on this fourm and I'll be happy to take whatever abuse is properly accorded me. -Rob-

I transfered some "Max8" widescreen super8 color negative for Justin some time back,I do not know if he has figured out a color negative scan yet or not. I thought his transfers that he had on his website were very good looking. There is some difficulty with properly compensating for the orange mask in negative and the softer nature of the emulsion when using a film chain style system. A scanner will use a specialty camera which is feeding a some kind of computer system with High speed data, when you use a video camera (either over DV, Component or SDI) the signal processing makes it nearly impossible to compensate for the nature of negative stocks and this is why you would use a "real" film scanner or telecine, in additional to the gentile film handling and crystal locked speeds of a digital servo. -Rob-

Cintel machines are still made today, The DSX and Millenium machine lines are their current CRT Based Products. I have seven DAV shading boards for our Cintel TurboII/DAV these have both black and white shading unlike the original rank boards which only have white shading. Also the original MarkIII line did not shade Super8 and had to be modified to use a shading board for Super8. Older Cintel MarkIII telecine's were almost entirely analog devices, from the servo to the scan generator I have replaced every system in our Turbo with 1998 to 2001 era components this includes the servo whichis a Metaspeed, the entire Video section which is all HD bandwidth DAV stuff, the scan generator which is DAV Digital and the framestore which is 444 10 bit, many of these systems are either adjustment free or have greatly simplified and more reliable adjustments. The last of the Turbo MKIII telecine systems were sold along side the URSA series and had similar reliability and very high picture quality, esp with a new tube and PMT's We thought about a URSA but the cost was higher and they are less serviceable than the turbo's and except for the later Diamonds, etc. picture quality is similar. I am a Rank technician by default, not choice, and if the newer machines were constant "tweekers" like the old analog ones were I would have thrown them in the Charles by now. We go through tens of thousands of feet a month on these machines with no breakdowns and just simple routine maintenence. I am re-working our #2 suite now and plan to add a DaVinci 888 to it. Last words on the Rank for me is that they can make a very good SD picture if they are late era machines (around the end of the 90's beginning of the 2000's) and are reliable and cost effective. Time to move on to some kind of scanning in the future. By the way DAV became Nova Telecine (www.telecine.com) they make what is supposed to be a excellent CRT HD/2K telecine/scanner now. -Rob-

Joseph you are going to have a tough time with that film because your CAMERA was out of focus. BTW we run 10bit SDI direct out of the Rank/Color Corrector into a G5 with a blackmagic card, NO Firewire,No Analog Component conversion, No Compression. We process and transfer tens of thousands of feet of 8mm film every month, and that is just 8mm, 99% of our customers are very happy with our service and quality. Again Joseph your camera was out of focus you can tell this because the grain in the image is sharp. If you called us we would be happy to make an accommodation for you on your next order once you straighten out your technical problems. -Rob-

No problem, we are always trying to improve this department and I think we have come a long way since we first setup transfer about 5 years ago. Telecine is a very tough department we work very hard to make everything that leaves the lab look as good as possible of course not everyone can come in to sit in on their transfer so not all expectations are always met. I am looking at some newer gear and anticipate that we will be adding newer services sometime this year. We added super8 transfer on the rank early last year and that's been very popular. As I said too I am shooting a feature picture in NY/NJ and we could transfer on the rank at Cinelab but we are going into MI post in Manhattan to work on a Spirit/Pogle setup (probably about $2M in TK gear) so I am well aware of the difference :D -Rob- "wears both Filmmaker and Lab hats"

I do not think anyone does, The problem is twofold, HDV is really two incompatible formats (JVC and Sony) and none of the decks for HDV have any "real" I/O on them. The only interface for HDV is firewire which is fine if all you want to do is remain in a closed HDV loop but it does not allow for HD-SDI ingest from a telecine or a "real" hd deck like Hdcam or D5. I thought about trying to get film to HDV but in order to do this I would have to transfer to Disk, uncompressed, and then up-rez and then down convert to through the HDV compression scheme. I think you might want to think of converting your HDV footage into a more workable format on your machine (Uncompressed HD or DVCproHD) and then get your film transfered to disk uncompressed and add all of the footage together on your timeline. This will also allow you to do much more post manipulation on your footage where if your working in HDV compression the picture will crumble quickly under any real color manipulation or keys. -Rob-

The only info I really have to give right now is that I got the camera and I have a Aaton to Arri-B mount adapter. I started the process of tearing down the Filmo and preparing to change the mount, machine the gate and sprockets, etc. I went through this before with the Eyemo I reworked, I will post photos as I go. -Rob-

I figured that not all filmo's are double claw/sprocket camera's I was surprised when this one showed up in this config. I do not think it is all that old it looks almost the same layout as my Eyemo with the 8-48 fps selector and the motor drive in the same place. As to the conversion I am doing it, with the help of our machine shop. The owner of the C-n-C shop we use is a neighbor of one of the Cinelab partners and they make all kinds of cool stuff allot of aerospace (they have parts on the ISS) so working out camera parts (and telecine gate parts) is not much of a challenge for them. I made up all of the specs and brought them a Nikon mount and the front of my Eyemo and in a week the two were melded perfectly. -Rob-

Even with a brand new CRT and an experienced colorist, an old Cintel will not perform very well. This is true, however if you have a Cintel with all of Dave Walker's parts in it (basically a SD Nova in many ways) it will make a picture which is very close to a Ursa and very good. Never heard of the Copernicus color corrector, but I doubt it will be able to do any power windowing. For that you need Pogle or DaVinci, basically. The Copernicus was made in 2000 and does have power windows, you could also use a Baselight or Scratch or any number of other tools other than the standard DaVinci or Pogle options. Most lab telecines are quite poor, since they at best are there to transfer one lights. Most of the ones I've encountered are horribly poor - grainy s**t-transfers that you could have done better yourself by pointing a DV camera at a screen. Maybe that is so in the UK but here in the US if you cannot produce good looking work people will go elsewhere. Also, without being to prejudiced, a colorist who's stuck at a lab that hasn't got a proper TK dept, is probably not that good. There's generally this old approach at labs that if you have some experience with film grading (timing), you're somehow qualified to do transfers on a telecine as well. The two have nothing in common. Well I do not want to say anything negative here but if you think that is true you have been working in video color space too much, try making a film with a print. Also I am 33, so I have not had time to learn the old approaches yet. I am making a feature film in NYC right now and I am also finishing a 7 min. short both are narratives, the short is a traditional film cut on a steenbeck for a film finish, the feature we are working in video, for now, on a Spirit. I also work at and part own this lab, I take picture quality pretty seriously. Also I recommended that Elliot might want to work on the DaVinci if he wants to do allot of power window FX but he did say he was on a budget so...We could say that he must do a 4k pin reg Northlight scan and work on a Baselight8 but he would not get past the first few frames when his credit card melts. -Rob-

I am currently converting a Filmo to a Super16 camera with a Arri B-Mount. As the Filmo arrives from the factory it has double perf sprockets and a double pulldown claw, definitely will not accept single perf stock. -Rob-

Anybody with a Rank Cintel telecine should be able to transfer 16mm optical sound, in sync and in real time to DV. Debenham is in Pittsburgh and has a rank they are a good outfit. -Rob-

yes we do, I was kidding about raising the prices.... :D -Rob-

Hi Elliot The URSA is a later model Rank flying spot telecine, we have put almost all of the "aftermarket" mods available into our turbo rank and I am generally very happy with the picture but the Diamond will be a bit better, to be honest. As for the Copernicus vs. DaVinci I believe Finish has a 2K Davinci which has many more power window type features than the Copernicus does. I have used both the Davinci 2K and Pogle platinum (both with Spirit telecine's, me operating) for my own film work and they are very powerful colorist's tools, they also cost quite a bit. I use the Copernicus almost every day it is a great all digital 10bit 4:4:4 color corrector and it does have power windows but they are neither as flexible or as powerful as the newer machines. We keep our supervised rate reasonable on this machine. I feel it allows many people, who would not otherwise have the opportunity, to experience the process of working in a telecine suite. That said I am shooting a feature film in NYC and NJ, roughly 100k ft. of super 16 and some 35. We are processing all of the negative here at Cinelab but the transfer is being done at MI post in Manhattan on a Spirit so...... :rolleyes: Feel free to contact me at the lab and get other opinions as well, we would be more than happy to process your negative for you and get it to Finish if that is what you decide to do. -Rob-

My upstairs neighbor is going in for breast cancer in a few days, she's 33, cancer is a insidious and difficult to understand disease, it never seems fair. Modern meds have yielded some amazing results....Best wishes. Houllahan