Paul Korver

Any thoughts Rob? I noticed in some other post that you were offering 1080 Pro Res dailies which I can only assume is an uprez from your Capernicus. I know you're a smart guy. What has been your take on the quality of your uprez? Is it 422 or 444 to start? And were you able to get from 525i to 1080 23.98psf on the fly?

Thanks for the kind words Bruce and Hunter. And your tech expertise Rob. And your sincere feedback Saul. I appreciate the honest discussion about what we're up to with our "Diamond Clear HD". After a year of being in business it definitely has it's place in the market and we've been getting great feedback from a lot of people who appreciate access to a good-looking, progressive, 1080p HD picture at SD prices. We feel like it's a great option for people shooting projects that are either meant for small-screen where budget is a concern (music videos, commercial reels, docs, PSAs, industrials), or for indie features that have yet to get a distribution deal. Our ProRes 422 HQ workflow allows them to transfer ALL their film at a dailies price, but what their left with after editorial is a no-hassle, no-offline, conform-free HD final timeline that stays above HDCAM resolution (Pro Res 422 HQ is 10-bit lossless 1920x1080 vs. HDCAM which is 8-bit lossy 1440x1080). Because we also deliver frame-accurate quicktime files with embedded timecode that matches the "punch" on each reel... indie filmmakers who are lucky enough to get a distribution deal preserve their ability to go back and do a 2K or 4K DI by exporting a C-mode EDL (ascending timecode based edl) from their editing timeline. Because seriously... who wants to keep track of keycode on a floppy disc they got from telecine? Some post houses still do this! Its so 1995. Does anyone out there even have a floppy drive anymore? That's hilarious and bass-akwards if you ask me. This workflow also allows us to really excel at mixed media projects as we're very "direct-to-drive" savvy and can output any flavor of video to drag-and-drop film footage allowing render-free mixed media timelines when mixing film with footage from the HVX, EX1/3 etc., at any format, framerate or compression codec. In terms of the picture quality those who have the money to be concerned with 444 or SR should look elsewhere. It's a 422 HD signal that's being uprezzed with pull-down removed on-the-fly and is generally 90-95% as sharp as a true HD scan from a Spirit or other HD scanner. I will say that I got completely obsessed with finding the best possible uprez scenario before putting together this system. First there was the source signal. Tests uprezzing from 422 2.3:1 compressed D-Beta looked like garbage and were full of artifacts. In fact even 422 uncompressed signals showed compression artifacts that made it unusable (as an end product) to my eye. I knew I wanted to find a 444 signal that was oversampled if possible. That's when I discovered the Diamond Clear card and specifically sought out an URSA Diamond that actually had a Diamond Clear card in it which was difficult. (Saul, you may be interested to know that not all URSA Diamonds are created equal) Strangely, not all URSA Diamonds have the oversampling "Diamond Clear" (aka "DAV") processing card that oversamples the image to help with moire. In fact most do not. Most have have Scandal instead which does not oversample the image but twists it instead. When RIOT was selling their last 2 Diamonds one had the Diamond Clear card and the other did not. I bought the one with Diamond Clear card and Spectra got the other. Second was the uprez processing. (Rob, you may be interested to know we're not using Teranex) Being nearly broke I tested all the lower-end uprez solutions from KONA, Blackmagic, the Teranex Mini, and Cobalt Digital and found them all lacking either in picture quality or their inability to identify A-frames on the fly and remove pull-down during transfer. Some had subpar picture quality, and they all were limited in that they could only get from 525i to 1080i (not 1080p) due to the complicated task of a-frame buffering & identification. Finally with a lot of trial and error, a better uprez card, and a complicated combination of SD and tri-level sync generators, I was able to find a more expensive uprez solution (about $15K) that got me a 1080p (or 720p) signal that my conscience would allow me to charge money for... A signal I would be happy with for the price.... and "Diamond Clear HD" was born. I hope this wasn't TMI... Just wanted you to know that more thought went into developing this than sticking a Teranex Mini or KONA card on the end of any old SD telecine machine. Looking forward to working with you guys in the future... which by the way won't always be an uprez out of my converted garage :) . We're just getting started. I expect we'll offering a higher-end 2k & 4K data-based workflow in a "real" facility the coming year... but we'll be keeping our Diamond Clear to continue to support people who like that workflow and price point. Best, Paul

Just bought a clean A-Minima package and could use another mag. Thanks! -Paul

We did not machine out the maximum on each side. We did go a bit more that 7mm... 7.5mm each way to give us some "cushion". There are edge code issues and also with daylight spools there is often a bit of side burn that prohibits going edge to edge. There is also shadow vingetting that encroaches into the 1.85 area but not the 1.78 area... so really for a Scoopic there's no reason to try to go wider than 7.5mm. Not sure what you mean by "longer format". It's important to distinguish between shadow vignetting and sharpness vignetting. To me shadow vignetting is very distracting as a sudden dark corner will pulls my eye from the subject. Sharpness vignetting for the type of work I do with my Scoopic can add to the vibe of the image and I quite like it. There is some shadow vignetting that encroaches into the corners of a 1.85 frame at certain focal lengths (but not at 1.78). But if you crop in to 1.78 there is no shadow vignetting throughout the entire standard 1.5-7mm zoom. There is some sharpness vignetting in the corners of even a 1.78 frame. This doesn't bother me at all... but it might bother you. It's subtle but you should be able to see it in the sample footage. I think it becomes most pronounced at longer focal lengths (75mm). Hope that helps. Good luck with your conversion! -Paul

Hi Neil, I made one for a 1014xls... needed to get the camera in some tight spots for the "go mobile" (new camera car) featurette on the Bourne Supremacy DVD (see shots from taken from car floor). I forget what brand of spy camera it was. I can check. It was a black square cam that had interchangeable lenses that I mounted to the eyepiece (with velcro!!). With a bit of trial and error with the lenses I was able to find one that matched the Canon's ground glass perfectly. I also rigged it for steady cam work with the video tapped image going to an LCD mounted on a glidecam 2000. In the end I didn't use the steady cam config very much because I didn't go as far as creating a way to pull focus remotely. If you have more money than time I would consider selling the setup... It works great. Best, Paul

Hey Joe, I shoot with Scoopics all the time and agree it looks like a loose pressure plate. It's a common mistake to clean out / check the gate and forget to screw in the pressure plate which will cause footage to look like that. Open the Scoopic and you'll see spring loaded pressure plate right behind the gate... it should be tightened down with the finger screw and locked tight on the gate when positioned properly. Best, Paul

Yeah you're right Will. And since a new S16mm Spirit gate costs $150,000 I think you'll find Spirit owners reluctant to experiment with a mod to support a relatively rare format like U16. My gate substantially less than that so it was a risk... but it made sense for me to get a second gate and have it modified. The first half of U16mm demo clip on our site ( http://www.cinelicious.tv/?page_id=39 ) shows how with the new U16 gate mod we get much wider view of the 16mm frame (with sprocket holes visible). This also opens up some cool "effects pass" work (where you see the frame edge and sproket holes) that can't be done on normal 16mm & S16mm gates. -Paul

Yes we can Evan... however, it depends on your Ultra 16mm camera. The Scoopic does vignette ever so slightly in the corners at certain zoom lengths which edges a tiny bit into the corners of a 1:85 aspect... but at 1.78 it's clean all the way through. So for an Ultra 16mm Scoopic we're recommending full-frame 1.78 HD transfers. There are other Ultra 16mm cameras that don't have this issue which we could transfer at 1:85. Call Bernie at Super 16mm Inc who would know best about other cameras. -Paul

Good to know Rob. Yeah... we had bad results with bigger labs (Fotokem, Deluxe). Alphacine's came back clean as a whistle between the perfs. Good to re: your U16mm gate. Not a lot of support for it out there right now so the more options the better! Best, Paul

Hi All, I've seen a lot of Ultra 16mm discussions on this board... most of it hypothetical. We decided to dig into it at Cinelicious so for the past few months we've been R&Ding an Ultra 16mm Mod for a Canon Scoopic (I'm an avid Scoopic shooter). We also had a gate made for Ultra 16mm telecine. Then we had issues with processing... turns out not all labs rollers are created equal. Some labs scratch/rub the area between the perfs ruining the Ultra 16mm image. Finally... we found a lab who's processing is clean & we've got the whole workflow down from acquisition through post and after few months of trial and error the results are in and looking gorgeous. A native widescreen 16mm image that's perfect for HD and doesn't break the bank. Can you tell I'm excited? There's more info and HD sample footage on our site (www.cinelicious.tv) under Services>Ultra 16mm. Enjoy! -Paul