John Paul Palescandolo

David, when you sent your film around to all those places, were you paying for the scans? I'm sure you could arrange a free test of the Scanity. I liked my Director scans from Metro Post better than my Scanity scans from Nice Shoes, but it wasn't exactly a fair comparison. While I had asked each lab just for a one minute, HD test at 23.98 fps, there were seemingly two misunderstandings, tho neither truly negative (no pun intended). Nice Shoes did deliver an ungraded, one minute, ProRes 422 HD test at 23.98 fps. The 4-perf Super 35mm aperture was also cropped to 1.78:1, which I had wanted, but instead of transferring only one minute, they transferred all 1200' feet I'd given them. I can tell you that the Scanity has a lot of resolution. So much, in fact, that I was getting moire patterns over certain patterns when I played the footage back on my MacBook Pro. However, once I zoomed into 100% in Final Cut, the moire disappeared. Metro Post did deliver a minute test, but instead of just scanning to HD, they delivered a 2K ProRes 4444 ungraded scan and a 2K ProRes 422 HQ graded scan, both at 24 fps. Perhaps it was the 2K scan, or the grading, or both, but what was supposed to be a direct comparison isn't really that anymore. Below, I'll post a comparison between the Nice Shoes and Metro Post scans. The Nice Shoes scan comes first and since it was delivered ungraded, I graded it myself in Final Cut. To make the Metro Post scan, which comes second, match the Nice Shoes scan more closely, I used Compressor to crop it to 1.78:1, I converted it from 24 fps to 23.98 fps and also from ProRes 422 HQ to ProRes 422. The grading that Metro Post did definitely looks more natural than the grading I did to the Nice Shoes footage using Final Cut. You have to watch it on YouTube to view it in 1080p.

The triple flash HDR is aimed at print and reversal films? So, is the Director more apt to handle print and reversal films than a Scanity? According to Lasergraphics, the ScanStation's dynamic range of 3.6 does exceed the Scanity's of 3.5, which is the dynamic range that Paul reported measuring. Maybe what we need here is a test done between all three machines - Scanity, Director and ScanStation.

A lot of you have probably seen some of my recent posts on here. I'm working on having my 16mm and 35mm film from my student days scanned, now that the technology is available. I had some test scans of my 35mm film performed at two labs in NYC - Nice Shoes, which uses a Scanity and Metropolis Post, which uses a Lasergraphics Director. In short, both test scans looked really, really nice, although while I had hoped to compare two HD scans, the test scan from Metropolis Post looked nicer. Why? Well, their scan was done at 2K, but also with the ungraded file, a graded file was delivered. Alright, so I realize that both scanners are excellent and I can't go wrong either way, but when a lot of money is being spent to scan film, I like to know some more of the nitty gritty tech specifics. From a previous post about scanning 16mm at 4K, someone suggested I do a search for posts where Paul from Cinelicious makes a great case for scanning 16mm at 4K. While I was unable to find that specific post, I did find other info where Paul mentioned that in his tests, the Scanity was found to have a dynamic range of 3.5, while Kodak Vision 3 stocks generally have a dynamic range of 3.1 - 3.3. So, that got me thinking - what is the dynamic range of the Lasergraphics Director, especially since it has the triple-flash HDR? Curious to see if Paul had tested the Director while deciding which scanner to purchase, I emailed him. In his response, he said that he did not test the Director at the time, but their new triple flash HDR has really stepped things while it is impressive, he has not measured the dynamic range of the scanner. Still curious, I reached out to Perry at Gamma Ray Digital up in Boston, whose facility recently acquired a Lasergraphics ScanStation. He was kind enough to reach out to Lasergraphics and they responded that the dynamic range of the ScanStation is 3.6 and the dynamic range of the Director, with triple flash HDR turned on, is 5.6. Lasergraphics also said that: [...] it is important to establish that the actual dynamic range of Kodak Vision 3 stocks is actually about 2.3 under the most extreme over-exposure conditions (i.e. highly overexposed negative film). For technical details refer to: 1. The Kodak Vision 3 specification sheet: http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/TI2647.pdf Refer to page 4 Sensitometric Curves. Remember to subtract out the "base" (i.e. the minimum density, DMin) before measuring the total density range. The total range is DMax minus DMin for each color separately. 2. Kodak cooperated with Lasergraphics and other vendors to establish extended density range scanning specifications. Refer to the resulting Kodak white paper: http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/ExtendedDensityRangeScanning_022309.pdf This paper establishes that density range (DMax - DMin) of 1.85 is the DPX standard and is sufficient for most scanning (page 2). Under extreme conditions, the range can be expanded to 2.37 (page 3, paragraph 5) Basically, what I take away from this is Scanity or Lasergraphics Director, they're both great and the results you get out of it will not only depend on the quality of the film being scanned, but also the person performing the scanning and doing the grading, etc. Now, the question, at least for my 16mm film, is resolution vs dynamic range. I'd say it's better to have more dynamic range than resolution, but is my film so grossly mis-exposed that I need the dynamic range of the Director? Probably not, but who knows. Anyways, I just wanted to put this information out there, for all to have.

Thinking more about oversampling 16mm at 4K, it does make sense. I use a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 for my 35mm and 120 film from still photography. The scanner can pass over each frame 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x or 16x. I've never done a comparison, but the more passes the scanner does is supposed to help with the quality of the scan, render things more accurately, etc.

I did do a search for Paul making a good case for using 4K for 16mm. I couldn't find anything specifically about that, mainly just posts on how the Scanity outperformed every other scanner that it was tested against. Is there a post in particular you were referring to?

I know Cinelicious just did the transfer, as part of the Criterion Collection, for the Blu-ray of Christopher Nolan's Following. That transfer was done at 4K, despite the output being Blu-ray. There must clearly be an advantage, even if it's only a small one.

All interesting info to hear. I contacted the one lab who quoted me 2K prices for 16mm and asked if they could adjust their quote for 4K 16mm. They use a Lasergraphics Director and this was their response, which was quoted from the owner of Lasergraphics: We do not have 16mm 4K because nobody has EVER asked for it. There is a good reason for this: There is absolutely no 4K information on 16mm film. Think of it this way: the pixel size of 4K on 16mm would be 3 microns. That (i.e. 3 microns) would be the equivalent of 8K on 35mm. As you know, there is no information at 8K on 35mm.

Thanks for expanding upon what I'd written, David. Speaking of 4-perf Super 35, does anyone really shoot that anymore, compared to regular 4-perf 35mm? I just had some scanning tests run on my thesis film from grad school. One of the labs who was running a test called me and asked how my film was shot, so that it could be properly set up on the scanner - 4-perf Super 35 or standard 4-perf 35mm. I actually had no idea, so I sent them a screen capture from the original NTSC transfer and they determined it was 4-perf Super 35. I've never done any anamorphic work, but one thing I do remember people saying is that anamorphic lenses distort easily, so it's best to shoot tests with them first against brick walls or graph paper to measure the distortion. Regarding the Alexa, I've never used it, but I was under the impressesion it was had a 16x9 sensor - do they make 4x3 sensors for it as well?

Shooting anamorphic will use the most amount of your negative. This was a bigger concern back when film stocks were grainier and not made as well the ones today. Shooting Super 35 and then cropping to anamorphic will get you more footage from the same roll of film, but you'll be making your anamorphic print from less of an exposed area. However, now that film stocks are of much higher quality, cropping from Super 35 to anamorphic is less of an issue, especially with DI's.

My color correction skills aren't the greatest because I've never had to grade an flat scan before. The HD scan I received was ungraded and I did some color grading on it and it looks pretty good. The 2K scan was given to me with a graded, ProRes 422 HQ file and an ungraded, ProRes 4444 file. I haven't been able to match the ungraded 2K file to the graded one tho. I wonder if Quicktime movies, despite being flat and ungraded, lack the latitude to work with? I haven't yet decided if I'll go with DPX files or 4K Quicktime files, but color grading is part of the pricing I've been working on. It's just a question of what will be graded - 4K files, 2K files, etc.

First of all, just to be clear, I had the all tests run on my 35mm film. The 2K test scan was done on a Lasergraphics Director. The HD test scan was done on a Scanity. I had told both labs to just do an HD scan, but I guess there was some confusion. One lab did a 2K scan instead of HD, while the other lab did a full HD scan of everything I brought in, which was three 400' rolls of 35mm. I'd heard great things about the Lasergraphics director and the Scanity and the goal of these tests was to determine which lab and their coresponding machine would do the 4K scans. Of course, now I'm comparing 2K to HD, which isn't exactly a fair comparison.

The two labs that I'm trying to decide between, one told me that I have enough combined 16mm and 35mm film that there won't be a price difference between having a 2K or 4K scan. The other one currently quoted me for 4K 35mm and 2K 16mm. I asked them for a revised quote to include 16mm 4K. On the low end, the price difference between the two labs is around $500, providing the one that gave no price difference for 4K only needs two hours for certain tasks, as compared to three, and also provided that I don't supervise the transfer. On the high end, if I end up supervising the transfer and the time estimates are on the higher side, it'd be around a $1,500 difference. If I get a 4K scan as a digital negative, is it best to have that 4K file delivered as raw or graded? I don't really see myself going back to a lab in years to come for any conforming services, which is why I've more or less ruled out having DPX files made. I'm also trying to decide between a Scanity vs. a Lasergraphics Director. I told both labs that an HD test was just fine. One lab delivered an HD test, while the other delivered a 2K test. Suffice to say, the HD scan looks great, but the 2K is just wow, so we'll see how the price quotes come back.

Hmm, how do you mean that it depends heavily on the footage I'm talking about - is that in regards to whether or not I could natively edit 4K? If so, what would it depend on? In regards to Windows vs Macs, I already have all the editing software for Mac. I do know Macs are more pricy tho. If I did have a 4K master and then a 2K file for editing, using Final Cut or Premiere, could I conform the 4K file to match the 2K edit? That would be provided that the lab grades both the 4K and 2K files. The 2K files I just got back yesterday, the lab gave me ungraded raw files at ProRes 4444 and graded ones at ProRes 422 HQ. I couldn't get the raw file to match the grade the lab did, but then again, I'm not an experienced colorist.

Why not edit at 4K? Well, I doubt I have the hardware, for one thing. I currently have a 17" MacBook Pro with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3. I plan on getting one of the new MacPro's once they are released in December. Rumor has it that they will be able to edit 4K video, but will they be able to handle 4K natively, or will they require a lot of add-ons and upgrades? I'd be editing using Final Cut. I just got back a 35mm test today that was done at 2K and my MacBook Pro has no problem handling the 2K files, both in Final Cut and played externally in Quicktime.

I'm just wondering if a 4K scan for regular 16mm film is overkill. My intended output is just Blu-ray and I wouldn't be working natively with the 4K files in Final Cut, but rather the 2K or HD files that are made from the initial supersampled 4K scans, which would be done on a Scanity. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to edit from 2K or HD Quicktime files. The main reason I'm asking is because I have enough film where the lab told me that there won't be a price difference between 2K and 4K, so I figure why not 4K?

I'm looking for input on having my motion picture film negatives and positives professionally scanned in HD for purposes of preservation and maybe even recreating them in HD. I'm wondering which places people may recommend to have film transferred at. I've gotten a few quotes so far, which I'll share below. Please chime in on whether you think the lab is reputable and whether their prices seem reasonable. Also, I'm looking for info on what kind of transfer to have done. Some places have quoted me for 2K scans for both 16mm & 35mm, others have quoted 3K for 16mm and 4K for 35mm. I'm also looking for advice on the best format to have them transferred in - ProRes 422, ProRes 444? Is it best to have everything scanner at 2K or 4K and left in that format, or downscaled to 1080P after? John-Paul This is my quote from ColorLab: Total Footage = 3,400 Total # of reels = 4 Film Prep Ultrasonic Cleaning - 3400 feet x $0.07 per foot = $238 Film-to-Tape Mastering HD Spirit Telecine Bestlight Transfer (16mm) - 1400 feet x 0.45 per foot = $630 HD Spirit Telecine Bestlight Transfer (35mm) - 2000 feet x 0.18 per foot = $360 Reel Changes = 3 x $25 = $75 HDCAM Tape Stock (BCT-64HDL) = $90.42 Digitize HD Files on a Hard Drive - 1 hour x $300 per hour = $300 Subtotal - $1,693.42 10% Discount - $169.34 Total = $1,524 This is my quote from Cinelab: Cleaning Ultrasonic Film Cleaning and Video Prep of 16mm and 35mm films - No Charge Scanning DCS:XENA 3K Pin Registered Data Scanning of 16mm 1,800 x 0.40 = 720.00 Scanning DCS:XENA 4K Pin Registered Data Scanning of 35mm 2,000 x 0.20 = 400.00 Reel changes Reel Changes 4 x 25.00 = 100.00 Setup Scan Xena Scanner setup charge 1 x 50.00 = 50.00 HD Recording Direct to Portable Hard Drive Recording/Laydown Fee 1 x 50.00 = 50.00 Encoding Encode to Final Cut ProRes or Avid DNX file format - 16mm 1,800 x 0.10 = 180.00 Encoding Encode to Final Cut ProRes or Avid DNX file format - 35mm 2,000 x 0.05 = 100.00 Total = $1,600 And my quote from Video Film Solutions Film Leader and Cleaning (if necessary) = $0.06 per foot x 3,800 feet = $228 1800' of 16mm transferred on Spirit 2K to HD $0.22 per foot x 5% student discount = $0.20 per foot = $360 2000' of 35mm transferred on Spirit 2K to HD $0.09 per foot x 5% student discount = $0.08 per foot = $160