Perry Paolantonio

9 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Well that basically is the end of that formula, I thought it was 2-gen compatible as one of the primary selling points.

 

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Not all sources are reliable. Ahem. 

Until LTO-8, the pattern was that the current version could read that version and two versions before it. It could write to the current version and the version before it. For example, LTO 6 could write to LTO5 and LTO6, and read LTO 4/5/6.

With LTO 8 they broke the pattern in order to continue with the trend of more or less doubling capacity with each generation. As such, you cannot read LTO 6 tapes in an LTO 8 drive. You can read LTO-7. You can format an LTO7 tape in an LTO8 drive to get about 9TB of storage space but that tape is then incompatible with LTO7 drives. 

LTO9 will read 8/9 and write 8/9. LTO 10 should Read 8/9/10 and write 9/10, etc. 

This is all very clearly spelled out on the LTO roadmap, and on the wikipedia page

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

Institutional...yes it seems to be more of an enterprise thing. Maybe if they were more easily connected via USB they would have been more popular with the average data hoarder.

That's not the market for these, never will be, will never happen. there are thunderbolt versions, though, but you pay $1000 more for that.

5 minutes ago, Robert Hart said:

If it is barium oxide, if you are a kitchen-table engineer with no PPE for yourself and your nearest and dearest, it may be very prudent to leave the stuff alone as it is apparently hazardous.

It's barium sulfate mixed with acrylic white paint. It's basically harmless. You can buy it at Amazon, in fact.

Heres the MSDS for barium sulfate.

LTO is a backup format. For our institutional clients, we usually deliver files on a hard drive, but some also want a set on LTOs for backup. They are very inexpensive on a per-GB basis, and highly reliable, and the file copy speed is on par with a good USB3 hard drive. We use LTO 4, 7, and 8 drives, and we use the LTO8 for our internal backups. I've got LTO2 tapes around here from around 2005, and the files on those are still accessible. 

No format is permanent and anyone looking to put files on something and leave it be for 10, 20, 30, 50 years is doing it wrong. It's all about periodic migration to whatever the flavor of the day is. LTO just happens to be the best of these long term solutions right now, with a clear roadmap and decent backwards compatibility (the transition from LTO-7 to LTO-8 notwithstanding). It's had a good run and I expect it will continue to for some time. 

29 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

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.

 

That's a lotta diodes!

the Northlight LED only had a few, but of course that was white light (and I'm guessing the four red ones were for IR). https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/northlight/options.php

I had a design for the Imagica rebuild I was doing a few years ago that looked a bit like the Xena, only I was using integrated RGB diodes: 

My current design for Sasquatch is a bit simpler, but they're high-powered LEDs and man, it's blindingly bright. 

27 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

This is the SSP lamp innards as far as can be seen:

I've gone that far too, on the full ScanStation. Question is...

18 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

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.

The ScanStation has an integrating sphere in the box under the diffuser. Since that's a bit of a black box (I mean, it's literally a black box on the outside, but I'm speaking figuratively here), it's unclear what the exact shape is (I've never take it apart but it was described to me as a sphere when I originally asked before buying the scanner). The holographic diffuser is above that, and then there's a mirrored trapezoidal space the light bounces around below the gate. All in all, it's very diffuse. 

The Imagica scanner we had used a holographic diffuser as well as a material that looked sort of like a traditional plastic photographic diffusion sheet. 

The Northlight, as far as I could tell, used nothing for diffusion, but I could be wrong. Scratches showed up clear as day on that machine. 

20 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Actually, I've received films scanned on a scan station that needed a wet gate and we've completely removed the scratches. So guess again. 

yeah, ok...

I always knew LA was a funny place. Didn't know the laws of physics don't apply there though. 

5 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Can the Archivist remove scratches in scan? 

Sigh. Neither can the rubbing alcohol "wet gate" in the HDS+ - that's simply not how wet gates work. But we've been through this before.

It may mask some things, and it definitely is a nice plus that it can basically clean the film as it goes through rather than in a separate pass (we use an Isopropyl-based cleaner for that and it does a decent job on most film except the dirtiest). But it's not a wet gate. It's just a gate that's wet. 

The ScanStation (and almost certainly the Archivist, though I haven't used one myself) has very diffuse light, I'm betting much better than the HDS+, and really doesn't need a wet gate as a result. All but the deepest scratches are taken care of by the diffuse light source. so are fingerprints on the film. We've tested it (load scrap film, lick your finger and leave a print on the film. then scan it and it's gone). 

16 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Does Lasergraphics offer a trade up program? From my understanding, they don't. 

Yes, they do. It's on the product page for all the non-Director pages. 

16 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Also the benefits of the Archivist over the HDS+ are limited

That's a ridiculous statement, sorry. 

10 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

A photog shooting a job does not use a 50mp camera and quote a price, then turn his camera's res down to 10 mp and charge less for the same job. Why don't scanning companies use the full res their scanner provides and just charge one price? Is there a good reason for this? Or is the reason $$?

Also, this is a terrible analogy. When you hire a photographer, you are hiring someone by the hour (even if it's a package price, they're figuring it out by the hour, most likely). You are paying for someone's time and skill. You are not paying because of the camera they use. And if you are, you're going about finding a photographer the wrong way.

The idea that anyone can buy a high end camera and take a good picture is ridiculous. I could give my mother my good DSLR and she'll still take photos of people with their mouths open, eyes half closed, and their faces partially cropped. 

This last notion extends to film scanning. There are plenty of folks out there with good film scanners who do bad work. We've re-scanned a lot of that stuff over the years. Just because you have a tool doesn't mean you know how to use it. 

9 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

I had read some pricing from a scanner company where they were using a Lasergraphics 5K scanner. If they turned down the res they charged less. 

Why?

Seriously? Time is money.

If you scan with the scanner in 2.5k mode you can get 60fps. If you scan at 5k it's half that speed. If you scan in 6.5k mode it's half that speed. So 2k = 60fps, 5k = 30fps, 6.5k = 15fps. If you have HDR then halve each of those numbers. 

If you're outputting a 2k file from a 5k can (Super2k) it still takes the same time to scan as a 5k scan does, it's just that the file the scanner generates is smaller because there's less data there. 

None of this takes into account file formats. If the client wants a 5k scan of DPX sequences, the scanner can happily do that at the rated speed. It will, however, take 10x longer than it took to scan, to copy the files off. 20x if the client provided a USB drive. 

5 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Because they can?

No. Because it costs more to work at higher resolutions at every level: scanning, file wrangling, rendering (if you're grading or restoring), etc. It's not a conspiracy or gouging (well it may be by some), it's because we also need to make a living, pay our employees, rent, electricity, insurance, shipping, internet, etc. 

28 minutes ago, Mark Dunn said:

He can answer for himself but I found Resolve very resource-intensive on an older machine, which is what Daniel seems to have. Translation: it didn't work. But I don''t think either of us is in the facilities house league.

I run resolve on a mid-2020 iMac, a 2019 Macbook pro, and we have it running on windows and linux as well. If you're doing lots of mattes, noise reduction, etc, then yes it's a resource hog. but for basic playback you pretty much just need to meet the minimum GPU requirements. His machine may not. 

An alternative (paid) is Scratch Play Pro. 

I assume since he doesn't have Quicktime, he's on Windows. So the obvious solution is to install Quicktime and use Quicktime player. It's free and will run on very old hardware. 

1 hour ago, Mark Dunn said:

May not be relevant to you, but VLC plays MOVs.

Not well though. It’s buggy software and we try to steer clients away from it. 
 

Daniel: you need to be working with real software. Resolve will let you change the frame rate as I described. It is free software. Try it.
 

Should work with tif. I don’t know about jpeg because scanning to JPEG sequences is not really a thing because it’s not a good format. 
 

Just now, Tyler Purcell said:

But unlike DPX where the playback frame rate is controlled by the editorial system, with Pro Res the frame rate is baked into the file.

No it’s not. What’s in the file is metadata. You edit that if you want or you can bring it into resolve (or premier or after effects) and just tell the application to treat it as if it was whatever frame rate you want. It maps them 1:1 so if you bring a 24fps scan into resolve, tell it it’s 16fps and then drop it in a 16fps timeline it’s as if you scanned at 16. 

You can override the frame rate for prores in the same way as for dpx

Just now, Tyler Purcell said:

With DPX scans, you can set the playback frame rate in Resolve very easily. 

It doesn't need to be DPX to change the frame rate. You can do it with ProRes files or most others as well. GOP-based files might not work properly (MPEG variants, for example). 

As you said, 8mm and 16mm (non-pro, old home movies) are typically 16fps. Sound speed is 24, so 16mm shot on better/newer gear is usually 24fps. Super 8 could be 18 or 24, depending on the camera. Some older commercial films were done at 20, but not home movies. And hand cranked film could be all over the place. 

The biggest variable is the camera. Most old home movie cameras (8mm, 16mm) were spring-wound. Those motors could easily fluctuate by a couple frames per second in either direction. Nobody is really going to notice that unless you're trying to sync it with sound. You'd set it to 16fps but it could be 15 or 17. or 16. or all three in the span of a few seconds.  

If people think they can tell some old home movies are off by 1 frame per second, I have a bridge I'd like to sell them. Or maybe some Monster Cable. 

Stock. I think. My ACL 1.5 has this handgrip. It's more comfortable than you'd think, since you you can adjust the angle. I always wanted a wooden handgrip like the Aaton though. 

Each of those slides holds a wratten filter that goes into the camera body behind the lens. 

On 8/18/2022 at 3:18 PM, Iolo Edwards said:

Hi Mark, The scans look different. The ones from the first lab look greyish and more like I'm used to seeing double-x and the 2nd lab scan look more sepia almost, which is what worried me. Especially after I tried to play around with the colour grade using fcpx - I'm by no means an expert at the post-production side tho!

This doesn't sound like a problem with the film, it sounds like a scanning issue. Most scanners are designed for color film, and use color cameras. If you scan B/W film in color mode, it's going to have a subtle color tint to it (just like if you printed b/w to color stock). The easy fix is to just make your scan monochrome in your grading tool. I'd tend to do that as a first step anyway, when grading b/w material. 

4 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

That will give the final word on whether it is the sensor in your scanner or not

No it won't. At least not definitively. It might tell you if the lens is broken, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here. 

As I mentioned above, the correct lens choice is dependent upon a number of factors, including the size of the sensor's photosites,  the area of the sensor as well as the magnification factor that's required. While you might be able to tell if something is grossly off with the lens by trying it on another camera, that doesn't sound like the problem here. Tyler has said that it's not as crisp as scanners like the scanstation, which has a more expensive lens as well as a more complex focusing/rack system for that lens.

I don't think this is a matter of the lens not working properly, I think it's probably just that it's the lens that fit FilmFabriek's budget and mechanical constraints, and it is what it is. 

19 minutes ago, Robert Houllahan said:

Scan Station P uses a Schneider 80MM F4 APO-Rodagon-N (Or APO Digitar) 

The full scanstation is different. Also a Schneider, but a Makro-Symmar. And the lens in our 5k was different than the one in our 6.5k, even though they're both the same basic model. We're using a very similar Makro-Symmar in the 70mm scanner, but there are real differences between revisions of the same model lens. According to Schneider, there is only one variant in their lineup that is suitable for the sensor, pixel size, and distance between film and sensor, for the 14k camera we're using -- and that all the others would be soft if used in that setup. A different sensor or different pixel size would require a different lens. (which is why the 5k and 6.5k ScanStations both had different variations of the same lens). 

The point of my post above is that the manufacturer's choice of a lens is partly about what's available, but every one of those companies picked their specific lenses based on the mechanical and magnification requirements, the sensors being used, the film gauges they're optimized for, etc. That comes down to math, not guesswork and assumptions, of which there's been a ton in this thread. Just because a lens is good in one scanner doesn't mean it's the right choice for another... (I also have a 95mm Printing Nikkor 2.8 like the one in the Xena and Arriscan , but it wouldn't work in our scanner due to mechanical and space constraints)

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

This is the problem with contacting a manufacturer directly, they are only going to discuss the options they manufacture, not options from other vendors. 

Then contact other vendors. I don't really see what the problem is here. You write one email and send the same one to 4-5 manufacturers and see what you get.

10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

My lens has a 6mm "makro" adaptor. I assume that's required to work with our scanner and absolutely could be a cause of the softness. Not saying the scanner is soft, it's just not crisp. 

Rather than guessing, why not contact a company like Schneider and ask for a recommendation? You will need to know the exact size of the sensor, the pixel size of the sensor (all available from the spec sheet), the distance from the film to the sensor, and the type of mount you're currently using. 

The calculation for a lens is just math. You pick the lens based on the enlargement you need, the space you have to work with, and the resolving power of the lens, factoring in the size of the photosites on the sensor. We chose our Schneider lens for our 70mm scanner after discussing with them exactly which model we'd need to cover everything from 35mm to 15p IMAX (it's a kind of macro/bellows setup with separate stages for lens and camera so we can move both camera and lens as needed). You can easily buy a lens with the same focal length, magnification factor and model name on ebay, but if you get the wrong version it's not optimized for the sensor's photosite. There are a lot of factors to consider and this problem could be resolved with a couple quick emails with a lens manufacturer. 

We also looked at lenses from Linos, Myutron and Nikon (Rayfact), but ultimately went with Schneider. All were helpful in choosing the correct lens (though Schneider was the most helpful), but you need to give them the right information. 

1 hour ago, Monica Rosselli said:

To delve into DPX even further, I managed to print one of the test DPX metadata with ExifTool; here they are:

 

That does not look like a file direct off the scanner. As you noted, it appears to have been exported from Resolve. You should ask for a DPX file direct off the scanner, and look at that. Perhaps they're doing a one-light grade in resolve and exporting DPX from that, which is why the file looks this way. In any case, ensure you have a DPX file made by the scanner software directly, and then look at the metadata. 

10 minutes ago, Monica Rosselli said:

Seems unlikely, there's something I must be misunderstanding. DPX file format, also if I remember well, should be a log encoding of linear values from any given digital sensor. What am I missing?

DPX can be linear as well. It's pretty flexible. You can even make YUV DPX files if you want, which are definitely not log.

Log scans exist as a way to match the characteristics of negative film to a digital format. Log simply isn't applicable to positive film. When you scan positive film to a DPX file, it's linear. If they're treating it as log (which is certainly possible), you would need to also interpret it as such upon playback. But they would be doing it wrong if they are.

My bet is that the specs are just incorrect or incomplete.