Dan Baxter

On 5/29/2025 at 10:38 PM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

No one is scanning anything noteworthy to share with us?  Too bad.

Well you can't expect people to be sharing their client's work etc here (unless it's archiving work publicly uploaded), here's some 28mm film that was shot in 1916:

Obviously that's a print not the original negative, the negs are probably long gone by now!

On 4/24/2025 at 3:01 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

I was told that camera is identical to the original 4k Blackmagic camera. Not sure how true that is, but they did not develop the imager at all. 

Yes, they should have updated the blackbox by now. Imagine how many 2k scanners were thrown in the trash for the same reason? 

If you mean the 4K production camera from 2014/15, that has a rolling-shutter. Yes it may be the same CMOSIS imager, but it's in completely different camera with a global shutter.

On 4/24/2025 at 3:01 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

I'm not gonna sit here and say their imager is good, because it's not even in HDR mode, but I have been pretty happy with the results over the years, if you don't actually care about getting 4k out of it and understand its limitations. 

Well, "understand the limitations" is half the problem IMHO. It's never going to be the workhorse machine that a LaserGraphics is, nor is it specialised for restoration. I think you could say that it was a good scanner when it hit the market for dailies work, but I don't think you can really say that now. There are so many other 35mm scanners on the market, I personally don't see Blackmagic lasting a lot longer in the market unless they come with a complete redesign. The new Korn Manufaktur Filmscanner supports 6K for 35mm, 6K for 16mm, and 4K for 8mm (spec sheet), supports 9.5mm now (17.5mm is listed as supported on the spec sheet but can't be ordered through the website) and does optical and magnetic audio as well. It's also capstanless as well as sproketless (direct-drive film transport). I don't know what the price on it is, but according to the specs it only scans to 12-bit DNG which is a good choice for a new product with a Bayer sensor. Even the Cintel can't do that, it has to go to .CRI. Obviously I don't know anything "real-world" about it in operation.

On 4/24/2025 at 3:01 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

I was told multiple times by several people at BMD, over multiple years at going to dozens of events related to this industry, the entirety of the process is done ON SCANNER. They proved it by going into the real-time logs and showing that Resolve is literally doing nothing when scanning. I also asked them why their stabilizer tool doesn't work anything like the scanner tools, to which they said "because it's all done on scanner". Now, obviously playing back the file is different, it does use a tiny bit of resources when doing so because well, the CRI files are compressed. I know the CRI's are not stabilizing in playback. 

You can dump out the raw JPEG tiles and read the metadata for yourself from individual .CRIs using this app (Windows-only). I don't have any CRI files myself, but you can email me some if you prefer and I can open them myself.

Yeah Resolve doesn't do any work while scanning as you say, but it does the work when opening the files. The pixel-shift for optical stabilisation is in the metadata, so it's already calculated on scanner, but my understanding is the tiles themselves aren't yet shifted. I could be mistaken as you'd need to dump the raw JPEG tiles to check.

Anyway it's not surprising that it works the way it does, if your host computer meets the bare minimum specifications then running any additional tasks would risk dropping frames.

Thanks for the clarity!

19 hours ago, Gautam Valluri said:

There is also a vast network of artist-run film labs where you can develop your own film: www.filmlabs.org

There's a heap of labs missing from your website (and some of them aren't actually labs either). In the US and Canada you can add: Film-Tech, Kodak Lab NYC, Cinelab, The Negative Space, Frame Discreet, and there's a bunch of LA labs like Fotokem, MTI Film, Pro8mm, etc.

I'd also make the point that many of the film companies are run by people with a love/passion for film whether they're artists or not. 🙂

On 4/20/2025 at 6:26 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

It's an FPGA based system, so the bandwidth of the system is limited, that's why they can't just change the way it works. They would need to change the FPGA entirely, which means updating everything including software. This is the trap they got themselves into when developing it in the first place. They're still using TB2 for transferring data, which is extremely slow compared to the modern TB5 120Gb/s protocol which they would probably move over to with any new hardware.

Well I wouldn't call it a "trap", that's how most scanners worked and it's why upgrading or changing the optical module costs $90K+ in some of them. I'm sure some of it was existing Cintel International IP too.

On 4/20/2025 at 6:26 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Na, PC's are horrible at this work because they're just using raw power to chew through processes. FPGA's are night and day better, it's why everyone uses them for cameras. You can buy specific FPGA's built for tasks like processing the bayer imager and encoding the raw file. Those tasks in of themselves done via software, require MASSIVE power. Have you worked with Red Raw 8k before? It'll gobble up half your GPU just playing back at full res because there is NO optimization. Scanners like the Scan Station have/had (not sure if they've updated this or not) two dedicated GPU's, to do what a basic modern cinema camera does in real time at 80fps. It's just a cost reduction method.  Blackmagic's concept is lightyears better, but they are using decade old tech, that's the problem. I'm not sure how the Director works, but the spirit, scanity, imagica and arri scan, do "nearly" everything on the scanner. 

You should look up the costs involved to replace one of the logic boards in a Spirit or a Scanity before declaring it the superior design. There are advantages and disadvantages, and if you're using an 8K CCD line sensor for 1080p, 2K and 4K then of course you want to stack it in the scanner and down sample - but that design is obsolete. All the new scanners use area sensors, and they are all able to make use the full resolution of their cameras. As you say the only limiting factor there is the bandwidth for the raw data flow.

The FPGAs/logic boards in video cameras are generalisable. In other words, you can use the same (or nearly the same) components in a heap of different products. The scanner-specific tasks like perf detection and stabilisation to the perfs are not of any use to any other product. The pixel-shift stabilisation isn't done in hardware anyway, the calculation for it is done in hardware but that is stored in the .CRI metadata and then Resolve does the actual stabilisation.

You're also more dependent on the manufacturer with the logic boards. If they leave the market, or don't provide support, then you need access to another machine to copy the "software" off the FPGA to repair your own one.

14 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I mean, BMD built their FPGA based scanner a decade ago, if you're saying a decade old scanner is going to deliver images comparable to a modern one, that's up to you. But generally the imagers are the issues and if you want a better imager, you need a whole new system; computer, software, imager and back end (network) to really "update" anything anyway. So the fact you can't update an FPGA easily, is irrelevant when everyone is buying all of those bits every decade anyway. 

The only reason Blackmagic has a custom CMOSIS 4K camera is because they wanted a 4K CMOS camera for their machine in 2014, they wanted it to do 24fps, and they wanted to sell it for $30K retail. Those goals are the limiting factor.

They've never sold the machine-vision camera retail for other applications. I imagine the next one will be exactly the same - they may use a better sensor, but they won't sell the camera itself retail. That's not a clever design when they can use an off-the-shelf product instead. And they're not going to sell it as a product because they don't compete in the machine-vision camera space and that market is already very competitive.

I don't know how you can say that the noisy CMOSIS cameras sold in a brand new scanner in 2025 is acceptable. LaserGraphics moved on from the 5K CMOSIS that they were using almost six years ago. Kinetta and DCS support what the customer wants and Filmfabriek uses Sony Pregius S. Blackmagic are quite literally the only scanner manufacturer that is still using an optical module from 10 years ago in brand new scanners.

7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I was told most of the debayer happens in the magic black box on scanner. It's similar to how BRAW works. It's why there is little to no way you can make adjustments AFTER you've scanned. The finished CRI file has your look baked in, there is no magical headroom or changes you can make post scan, like you can with any other raw file type.

Whoever told you that was probably making assumptions. How do you do "most of the debayer" inside or outside? You either do it or you don't. The CRIs are 12bit encoded using JPEG-SOF3 (lossless), not debayered, and not pre-stabilised either - they contain metadata for the frame-by-frame pixel shift to be done in software. So they're really not doing as much as you think they are inside the scanner.

In saying this, part of the core issue is that basically nothing supports .CRI other than Resolve. If Blackmagic delivered .DNG instead they'd solve a lot of problems, but they chose to use their own propriety/not-well-documented format.

7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Actually, it's literally just switching the optics. The reason why they can't have users do the swap, is because there is calibration involved and supposedly it's "burred" in the scanner, so they don't think it's something users can swap. I had a lengthy talk with their engineer at NAB 2024 about this, as it was already done and working at that point. It's saw it running at NAB 2024.

Well of course there's optical calibration involved when the optics are changed, but are you saying they don't have a simple piece of software to recalibrate the machine? What happens if your scanner can't focus correctly at the moment and requires recalibration - surely the user can contact support and be talked through how to recalibrate their machine's optics?

7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea, they're using the full imager, they're just shooting the perforations, so the usable image area is of course less. The scanner works no different in S8 mode then 35mm mode, it's using ML to stabilize using the imager's data. It does this IN HARDWARE, not on the GPU of the client system like many scanners do. This way, they send a pre-stabilized image to the client system, which then dumps it to a drive. All of the corrections and adjustments the user makes, is done to the actual scanners hardware in real time, the stream off the scanner is fixed. This way of doing things, where brilliantly simple, also leads to major issues when you want to upgrade or change anything. This is the reason why BMD have been delayed on their new imager scanner. I have been told YET AGAIN, the new imager is on its way, but not to expect it anytime soon. They're now expecting 2 year lead time. 

That's my understanding too, but "in hardware" is still software in a chip on a logic board that can be updated when necessary.

I do not think they can support any other camera with the existing hardware, if they change the camera they change more than just the software on the logic boards which means you're buying a new scanner.

7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

This way of doing things, where brilliantly simple, also leads to major issues when you want to upgrade or change anything. This is the reason why BMD have been delayed on their new imager scanner. I have been told YET AGAIN, the new imager is on its way, but not to expect it anytime soon. They're now expecting 2 year lead time.

I wouldn't say that approach is "simple", I would say that bypassing a stack of logic boards and having a beefy host PC take over most of the computational tasks simplifies a lot of the design. The only thing the hardware needs to do is protect the film and its own hardware if the host computer crashes or does something unexpected. The preference now with most of the other machines is to do the complicated computational tasks in the PC.

I think that from Blackmagic's POV there's a certain amount of the computational tasks need to be done inside the machine in order to lower the hardware requirements to that of an average PC. A big selling point was that the customer can plug it into a Macbook. I doubt there's any appetite to take what already works inside the machine outside of it and give it to the host computer if they don't have to. Any additional CPU and GPU resources can be spent doing other things.

The 4K Director is CCD so it's different tech entirely. The new ones are CMOS which make them much faster.

Company3 has Arris I think. 2 flash on an Arri is as good as it gets in terms of dynamic range. Prints rarely have 4K resolution in them, but as you say they are much denser than negatives. When you say you have a "pretty dense" print - do you mean more dense than you'd normally expect in a projection print?

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

From what I gather, Cintel keeps beating a dead horse. Cintel needs to make a copy of the Lasergraphics Archivist. They need to offer sprocket less transport and digital registration. They need to offer a warped film gate. They need to make it in China or Taiwan to keep costs low. (But I guess that option has drawn to a close with the recent developments in D.C.) It needs to be 6.5K and offer top shelf sharpness and dynamic range. It needs to sell for $29,995.00. It needs to come with comprehensive video instructions on DVD or a thumb drive. It needs to come with a standard film sample so the customer can achieve what the engineers show as best scan examples.

All these unrealistic expectations. Blackmagic have just increased the base price from $32K to $35K, the hardware audio reader adds $4K to that price. I don't see them going back to $30K.

They already have "sproketless transport" and what you're calling "digital registration".

As for doing everything else a LaserGraphics can do - that's unrealistic, and you can already buy an Archivist so what's the point? If Blackmagic produced a product that does everything an Archivist can do it would surely have to cost $100,000 retail not ~$40K which is significantly more than the Archivist.

They have great documentation, there's no problem there at all.

On 4/15/2025 at 12:17 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

They made a slight alteration to the magnifying optic, which allows them to use the full imager for S16mm formats. They then made a slight change to the software which allows a crop-in for 8mm formats. It's not a new scanner at all, zero major changes made. 

There's obviously a bit more to it than simply changing the optics as the 8/16 model drops support for 35mm entirely. If it was as simple as offering a second optics module to put into an existing scanner then they wouldn't need to sell it as a separate product.

Also they're not actually using the "full imager" for 16mm either. If they were then 16mm would work the way that 35mm works on the 35mm Cintels where only half the perfs are visible:

The only reason not to do this would be if the 16mm optical perf registration doesn't work, meaning that it relies on seeing the full perforation for 16mm optical pin registration. You'd expect that'd be the case for the 35mm scanner, but there's no reason for it to be the case for a 16/8 scanner that is truly designed for 16mm.

As you say, there isn't any major changes made to accommodate this, and I suspect the reason why is that the 16mm and 8mm optical perf registration use the same logic and the R&D budget doesn't allow them to do it differently just for the 16/8 model.

That machine was obsolete when it was new.

It's a line-sensor machine, but its line-sensor is only 4K which wasn't the industry standard for "4K scanning" and they're notoriously unreliable. I can't think of a later machine that was line-scan, unless we're talking something that already existed like the Scanity, but as an entirely new product/model to the market I think it may have been the last one? The limitations of a fixed line-sensor design are well documented (and CCD vs CMOS).

Honestly though Daniel, it would take you a few seconds of work on Google to get the answers you want. On Digital Vision's own website the latest software release for the Goldeneye scanners is 2018.1.004 released on 2018-03-12. That's seven years ago and Digital Vision is a post production software company.

On 2/14/2025 at 6:32 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

I've been working on a similar test, but more technical, using density testers, measuring MTF, using all 3 major formats (s8,16,35) and multiple scanners; Arri Scan XT, Scan Station and Scanity.

I'll send you an email, I'd like you to send some test film over to a friend of mine to compare ScanStation-to-ScanStation sometime. If you have any 17.5mm film that would also be of interest for a test.

On 2/14/2025 at 12:21 AM, Karim D. Ghantous said:

There is a very good chance that I’ll be able to fund it later this year. I presume that the total cost of this project will start at $20,000. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s higher. The one thing I cannot do is make a promise at this point.

The scanning itself should be relatively cheap, if not almost free for this type of project - the costs involved would more be in getting the film sent out. Unless you're doing an unrealistic volume of film for these tests of course - ideally you collect all your test film including SMPTE resolution film, colour density film, etc and then make sure it's clean and then send it out. You should also have something in rough condition that will benefit from wetgate scanning. Send me a DM please because I'll let you know some good companies abroad who might be interested in participating.

Where that might not be the case is where you have older model scanners. Now, personally I think you should look to include scans from the JAI 5K ScanStation and the JAI 10K Directors if you can find any and the companies will participate (heck even the CCD ScanStations as they still exist too). There's an incorrect perception by the public that all the companies that advertise they have a LG, Arri, or DFT all have the latest models, however that's often not the case.

I think $20,000 would be enough to get what you're wanting. Reciprocal access to the test scan DPXs and DNGs would go a long way to showing the companies how their own scans compare to others. If we need to build a website, that's easy and doesn't cost much.

On 2/14/2025 at 12:21 AM, Karim D. Ghantous said:

The final product will be a fairly sizeable collection of files (mostly DPX), ungraded and uncorrected. This resource could help DPs and directors save time and money. It might even catalyse enthusiasm for film.

Any of the Bayer scanners should look to scan to camera raw or to DNG. You can scan to both DPX and DNG at the same time on a ScanStation it's just a higher data flow, that way you have LaserGraphic's debayering in the DPX and then the DNG that can be debayered separately. There are companies that use their own in-house debayer algorithms too.

On 2/15/2025 at 12:21 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

None of that matters. Either something is feasible for a sale price or not Dan. $22K for a tabletop 8mm scanner is too high, Dan. If they would lower the price they would sell more and make it up in higher sales volume.

Again, if you think that's too high then you should engineer and build one yourself instead of publicly slagging off the manufacturers that so far as I can see are doing their level best at their price-points.

You clearly do not understand how a film scanner works. You seem to think it's just a camera pointed at the film. 1. how do you move the film past the camera? 2. how do you trigger the camera? 3. how does your illumination work? 4. how do you get the film flat for capture? 5. how do you get a stable scan? 6. how do you focus the camera and get perfect focus? 7. how much workload is the host computer capable of? 8. what about audio? 9. anything you design now needs to be archival, you cannot build something rough on film like your Moviestuff Retroscan.

There are existing "scanners" at the sub-$5K price point anyway. Here you are: https://en.film-digital.com/sets and you can even hook up a cheap iPhone or DSLR to them. I won't bother explaining the drawbacks - but what they're doing is using an existing mechanical solution to solve some of the design issues I talked about above. Blackmagic still works on a similar principle with their Cintels too - hence why you see a glacial pace of development. Do you understand the distinction? To make the changes to a Cintel that people expect (eg replace the camera) Blackmagic would need to replace the logic board that handles the raw camera data inside the machine itself - not just update the capture software. That's how most of the old machines work, and not just scanners of course but also the film cleaners, processors, printers, projectors etc.

Filmfabriek, Arri, LaserGraphics, DCS, etc. design their machines to be upgradable, aka "modular". Most of the companies that built the power-hungry machines have left the business because it's not cost effective to run a machine with heaps of logic boards in it compared to the more simple ones hooked up to powerful host computers.

7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

It will be expensive tho, closer to $50k my guess is. But if it works well, I will absolutely buy one. 

Tyler, what's the price on the Spinner S2 do you know?

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

If Cintel made a scanner like the LG Archivist for $20-25K, then you would have something. But the bottom line is; selling film scanners does not seem like a growth biz to me as it revolves around film. Even so, that fact has not helped me out one bit over the years acquiring an affordable half-ass decent scanner.

The Archivist is a ScanStation with bits removed/replaced. The only reason LG can sell it at all is because the ScanStation exists and they were able to cut it down into a cheaper product. It works on the same software, functionally the same transport module, etc.

No, there isn't just like there isn't one for the Arriscan, the DFT Scanity, etc. You can read the specs here.

On 1/19/2025 at 6:59 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

FF seems to have purchased another company (name I forgot) and those scanners DO look identical. 

Here's the story with FF: https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/filmfabriek/ The scanner you mean is the Müller HM73, the first model made by the late Daan Müller. FF were set up to commercialise the project/make it a commercial reality, but according to the webpage he unfortunately passed away about a year into that partnership.

Good stuff guys. Such a waste to have used "film-chains" given the costs involved to shoot, process, and print the film in the first place, and they're obviously not capable of proper color correction for broadcast. I guess that would be less important for TV shows compared with movies where dark scenes need to be boosted up for a lit-room, and obviously running those Rank Cintel Mk3 telecines would have a cost a fortune compared to them.

12 hours ago, Ravi Kiran said:

In the early 2000s, were TV shows shot on film using different scanners than feature films going through DI's?

Yes correct, very different. The entire process is described here:

https://www.adapttvhistory.org.uk/16mm/

This is how a TV telecine works:

That's a negative on the telecine, but when they were in full use the normal thing would be that the TV studio would have a 16mm TV print for the show that is printed specially for telecine transfer (low-contrast and without subtitles or things they want to add electronically to the broadcast tape). The entire color correction is done by the telecine technician as you see above, and I believe they were actually called "colorists". They transfer the film to broadcast tape (NTSC or PAL), and the broadcast tape can be edited separately after transfer. For example you could remove a scene to make it shorter to fit a 30 minute time-slot with all the commercials you're packing into it. Another issue with TV shows is that by 1987 in the US they preferred to edit their shows on tape and not on film creating the problem that their film-shot TV shows then had to be standards converted from NTSC to PAL resulting in aberrant quality.

To address this specific issue the DEFT (Digital Electronic Film Transfer) device was invented. You can read the patent the Snell & Wilcox operator's manual and also see the Doom9 thread and 1990 New Scientist article. Official launch was either 1989 or 1990 and they cost about $500,000. There are DVDs, VHS, and LaserDiscs from that time that used DEFTs to convert NTSC to PAL and it leaves behind a very distinctive artefact pattern. Unlike what's described in the patent but is described in New Scientist, the PAL tape deck was modified to run at 47.952Hz instead of 50Hz, about 4% slower and in-sync with the NTSC deck, achieving the 4% speedup/slowdown when going between formats. It could cope with orphaned fields and was highly lauded when launched.

The Prisoner (1967) was shot on 35mm, it would have gone through the reduction printing to 16mm for TV and then those TV prints would have been stored with the broadcasters and temporarily transferred to broadcast tape via telecine for broadcasting. Clearly by the late 80's the cost of broadcast tapes was lower than 16mm telecine, so by 2000 they would have transferred stuff once and then keep the broadcast master tape handy for the re-broadcasting, and only rely on the 16mm copy if necessary.

What's really worth saying is that the telecine process itself lasted from the 1960's when it was first invented all the way through to the 2000's - so that was a very long time and reflective of the limitations of videotape and standards conversion between NTSC and PAL. The major difference between that process and "digital scanning" is that there's no computer involved - you're transferring directly onto electronic tape, not a hard drive. And of course, you'll scan the original cut camera negative if available - so for the Prisoner that's 35mm film and not the 16mm low-contrast prints made for telecine.

Ask questions, do your own research, find someone who's already doing what you want to do and befriend them if you can. Identify the skills you already have and build on that.

On 10/9/2024 at 9:46 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

I have a short piece I need to cut out of a DVD and post. Some guys worked on 65mm and 70mm Apollo 11 film. They said they built a scanner doing 8 K and 16K. 

If you mean this:

That is not a NASA rocket, it's a US military intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch printed on US Military 10-perf 70mm film. That scanner is purpose-built for formats that nothing else really scans (mainly 15-perf IMAX). It would have been printed off a 10-perf 65mm negative.

1 hour ago, Florian Noever said:

What I still don't get is how for example the Scan Station has an Area Scan Sensor but is able to do continuous scanning, is the light source generating powerful enough flashes for very short exposure times to scan continuously? Do the Scanity and Arriscan use flashes as well, or continues light?

They all flash, like this:
https://moviestuff.info/moviestuff-_mark-ii/
(That shows a FilmFabriek Pictor). Extremely short exposure, and running the film too fast will blur it of course.

The Arriscan has a rolling-shutter camera, I think it's now the only scanner with one, everything is global-shutter. So it has to hold the film very steady to do its thing, and it flashes multiple times per frame to get its scan done. The light has a glass integrating sphere.

On 11/8/2024 at 8:27 PM, Florian Noever said:

Hello everyone,
My name is Florian, I'm studying cinematography at the Film Academy Vienna in Austria. I am currently working on my bachelor's thesis, which focuses on working with motion picture film in a digital environment. I’m very interested in film and its processes, and I've had the chance to gain some experience shooting short films on 16mm and 35mm.

The goal of my thesis is to create sort of a guide to help film students understand the current technical possibilities for working with film. However, I’ve found it challenging to find specific information and reliable sources, so I thought it might be helpful to reach out to a forum with members who have years of experience working with film.
The information I’m seeking includes:

• Technological Advances: What new technologies (both software and hardware) have been developed since the 2000s for working with film, both on set and in post-production?
• Film Developing Equipment: Have there been advancements in film developing machines? Are new machines still being manufactured, or is the industry relying solely on existing equipment?
• Industry-Standard Scanners: What scanners are currently considered industry standard, and why?
• Practical Resolution Limits: What is the practical resolution limit of modern Vision3 stocks? (I plan to conduct my own resolution test, but I’d love to hear personal insights from professionals.)
• DI Processes: How does a film DI (Digital Intermediate) process differ from that of a fully digital production?
• Print Creation: What machines are used to create film prints from a digital master?

I realize this covers a broad range of topics, but if anyone is willing to share their knowledge or point me toward useful resources, I would be very grateful. I think this could be a fantastic place to gather insights that aren’t readily accessible elsewhere.

Thank you in advance for your help!
All the best, Florian

Hi Florian,

I don't work in the industry - but in terms of the film machines I'd say you should make a list of them. Film processors are getting thrown out by labs that are closing, you can still get rebuilt processors through MMT (and ultrasonic cleaners). I'm not sure who else is still doing it. Film printers, you'll need to speak to a lab about how printing works. Technologically the film cleaners have moved off Trike (the manufacture of it was banned under the Montreal Protocol), most of them use either Perc or 3M/its replacement, but the best cleaning solvent now is Isopar-G. The new Cinetech Hydra cleans with Isopar-G. Rewashing is how you get embedded mold out of the film, and rejuvenation machines of the past turned out not to be very archival so you need a lab that knows their stuff. For projection you can still get new portable 35mm projectors manufactured through Cinemec the cleaners for projectors are the Kelmars (they have 35mm and 70mm ones) or the Film-O-Clean for small-format. You can get the media pads for them through Film-Tech and also Film Guard in the US, there's other products available as well (Isopar-G for example - it's faster drying but Film-Guard is designed to be slow drying). Projectors shifted towards platters, and before the platter system was invented this giant contraption was conceived of:

Now you can use either platters or big huge reels (6,000ft and even larger). You can read more information about the Loop-Matic in the youtube video description.

The telecines and scanners have changed enormously since the 60's. This is a demonstration of how a telecine used to work:

More information here. The Rank Cintel "Flying Spot" telecines/scanner used a CRT light source. The next generation of tech moved to Xenon lamps, and then after that to LED. The LED lights in a current professionally manufactured scanner will flash once for each exposure - that's true whether it's R/G/B like an Arriscan, Director, DFT or Bayer like a ScanStation or Blackmagic Cintel. They have different diffusion methods to get the light even, some have glass integrating spheres and some have integrating cubes (light directed up through diffusion material. Prasad now sells the QUADRIGA INSPECTIONscan, and it's a unique device in the market in that it's designed to do film inspection work that is normally laborious for staff. The newest model Cintel from Blackmagic has an inspection option (to make the base damage visible) - but it can't scan edge-to-edge. The InspectionScan makes a damage report including shrinkage finding new damage since the last time it was inspected etc.

Now, the scanners. Blackmagic and FilmFabriek make retail product scanners. That's not the same as the other companies, the other companies are making specialised professional-use equipment. So while the imaging tech etc may be similar now, their capabilities are vastly different. That's why some people purchase a cheaper retail product device and are disappointed when it doesn't work the same way as a much more expensive device that carries a monthly support contract to pay. So when you hear people say "Blackmagic need to change the sensor" - it's true it has a noisy 4K CMOSIS chip camera in it, but it's the only machine-vision camera they make and the only one that will work with it - their products are not designed to be modular. Modular means you can change something in the future, eg put that new brighter light for the latest G3HDR+ model into an older one - that can't be done, and neither can the camera. So even if they change the camera in the next model you need to buy the entire scanner - ~USD $35,000 all up, you will not be able to buy the camera itself and install it as some people expect.

FilmFabriek is different and you can read their story here. They were always designed as "modular" but retail - so no ongoing support contract to pay.

The Home Movie to VHS transfer market from the 1980's onwards used Elmo Telecines, and those were replaced starting in 2005 with Tobin Cinema Systems devices and you read that history here. Urbanski Film can service them now in the US for enthusiasts who like old tech and want to have them running, I'm not sure who services Elmos and Tobins in Europe. MovieStuff entered the scene as well, but those devices made by Roger Evans were different. Roger was a part of the DIY scene as was the late Daan Müller who invented the precursor to what is now the FilmFabriek HDS+, and Roger's goal was to go to frame-by-frame digital 8mm sacrificing quality to achieve that goal. For some reason some of the home movie scanning people purchased them, probably because they didn't realise that an Elmo or TCS TVT-8 is what they wanted (they go straight to NSTC or PAL no computer needed). These days there's a company called Film-Digital that sells those projector-mechanism telecines.

When you hear people say that the Blackmagic Cintel just needs a new camera and will be like a ScanStation, there's a lot they're not saying. So here's a photo for reference:

That shows the complete Euro Format kit for the LaserGraphics ScanStation. The gates/skid plates for 9.5/17/24mm and the tri-format rollers for the Euro Format. You take all the normal 35/16/8 tri-format rollers off the front of the machine and then put those on, and you put in the appropriate film gate. That one film transport module (the motor) supports 35/24/17.5/9.5/8mm - six different film gauges all at once. Blackmagic Cintel 1 and 2 (the sproket transport ones) can only do 35mm and 16mm, and the capstan model ones can do 8mm but at very modest resolution. Hopefully the photo gets across a thousand words to explain just how different they are (the retail product devices and the specialised professional-use equipment).

Blackmagic's Cintels are still professional devices however, some facilities have them sitting right next to the top pro tech gear. For what they can do they're a complete bargain, that's why I think it's unrealistic to think Blackmagic would want to change their business model with it - doing that now would leave behind many of their customers who rely on them. Libraries, Archives, etc.

At the very top end you have the Arriscan XT which can even do wetgate scanning, the DFT devices, and LaserGraphics sells the Director. Mid-range you have Kinetta, DCS Xena, the ScanStation and its derivatives. For inspection work you have the Cube-Tech QUADRIGA INSPECTIONscan, it is very expensive, Filmic Technologies sells a device with similar goals in mind for 16mm only - and that's through the regular sales agents (Urbanski Film in the US, Gencom in NZ, etc). I fear that if people compare the price of a Filmic EZ16 and an QUADRIGA INSPECTIONscan they will make the same mistake that some people have made when comparing the price of a Blackmagic against something else. If you want to see how they work you need to go somewhere that actually has one and see it for yourself, or get the manufacturer to show it to you. That way you won't have incorrect expectations/assumptions.

So in summary, I'd say the changes in telecines and digital scanners if we're talking specifically from 2000 through to 2024 would be that: 1. it's no longer just for television use and for Hollywood special effects and early digital restorations, 2. the next market was post-production more widely and then the Archive market, 3. the devices have become more specialised and more capable in what they can do, 4. the cost of the devices has come down substantially, 5. there's many different companies making them. 35mm specifically that's Blackmagic, Digital Cinema Systems, LaserGraphics, Arri, Digital Film Technology, Kinetta, and Cube-Tech.

On 11/25/2024 at 7:01 AM, Florian Noever said:

• I know that scanners either stop at each frame for digitizing or continuously scan. Are there specific terms for these types of movements? Do the Lasergraphics scanner stop at each frame, or do they continuously scan?

• From what I found, only the ARRISCAN provides pin registration, while the Scanity and Lasergraphics scanners use optical perf registration. Is that correct?

The Arris have a sproket-drive transport modules for 35mm and 16mm. They also have a capstan-drive/sproketless one, but it will slow the scanner down a bit to use it. For normal use you'd use the sproket transport. But remember, the Arris, LaserGraphics and DFTs out there in the real world are very different to each other - those companies have improved and changed their designs both in terms of hardware and software compared to their earliest models.

Yes, the film transport modules have changed significantly since 2000. Older scanners had what are called "projector loops" in them and that was so that the film would be held steady in the gate while in continuous motion that's also required for sound readers. Intermittent-motion scanners can't really do audio except by image extraction which obviously won't work for magnetic sound. Note that the Director which is intermittent motion and full R/G/B sequential can't do magnetic sound, but the ScanStation can. So that's one advantage of continuous-motion. I don't know what the normal industry terms are, I'm outside of it - but projector loop, film transport module (see photo), sproket drive, capstan drive, direct drive, intermittent motion, and continuousness motion would be the terms I would use.

As mentioned above that one transport module does 6 different film gauges all at once - that's a significant difference between it and a professional device from 2000. A Rank Cintel in 2000 could do 35mm, 16mm, and perhaps 8mm but most of them wouldn't have been capable of 8mm. No Euro-Formats etc. You had to feed it low-contrast film only or you'd crush the detail - so negatives and what are called "TV prints" or low-contrast prints for telecines. Now you can put normal contrast and even really contrasty prints through the modern scanners and they have the ability to get excellent shadow detail. That's important for archives, libraries, home movies, and even professional restorations where you might want to scan a reference print for color grading the camera negative, or where you need to use a print because the negatives are gone or are incomplete.

My best,

Daniel

Your scanner runs on Windows 10 so you could always use its computer.

It might be possible to write a Python script for use in Fusion on MacOS, but I'd hardly say that would be easier than using Avisynth+ for which there's a very good front-end, and plenty of peer support. For any other alternative ideas the best place to ask would probably be on the Video Help forums. The issue you have is that there's really only so much you can do with ffmpeg, Resolve etc. What you're wanting to do is simple in terms of writing it out as a flowchart or pseudocode, but a bit complicated for most video editing software to handle. On the other hand pseudocode can be directly translated into a workable script. See example pseudocode below.

Load clip
clipA = crop frame A from clip
clipB = crop frame B from clip
clipC = crop frame C from clip
clipD = crop frame D from clip
Interleave frames from clips A, B, C, D.
Output result

It should be relatively simple to do it in a scripting language (ie Avisynth+).

On 7/17/2024 at 2:57 PM, Todd Ruel said:

That doesn't make any sense to me.  I could consider image stabilization to be a post-processing step.  I could consider audio extraction to be a post-processing step.  Indeed, both of those are post-processing steps for other film scanners like Filmfabriek and Kinetta.

Says who that image stabilisation belongs in post-processing? There was a trend away from the "telecine process" where the transfer goes straight to broadcast tape/finishing format. Most of the pin-registered machines don't even show the perfs in the scan/transfer either as they used the full width of the sensor for the picture. Image stabilisation in-scan is part of the optical pin registration, LG calculate how much the frame has moved between frames to correct for the next capture. The better the optical pin registration is the more stable it should be in-scan, requiring you do less in post.

The number of different audio formats (whether hardware or software based) also gives them an advantage over competitors. Software audio extraction on a LG is better quality than AEO Light as you may have discovered if you've done some tests.

On 7/17/2024 at 2:57 PM, Todd Ruel said:

My main point was to ask:  why can't the Cadillac (or insert your favorite brand of luxury car here) of film scanners become a McLaren by adding a super exclusive feature like processing vintage Kodacolor?  The answer is still the same:  too little content to justify the expense of development.

They're not a film restoration software company, they're a scanner manufacturer. Arri and DFT also don't write Kodacolor decoding software. Doing it the way you're thinking would bake it in to the scan, meaning you can't go back to the start and start-over if you discover a better process in the future for the decoding.

On 7/11/2024 at 2:20 PM, Todd Ruel said:

I'm guessing that's why Lasergraphics has not created some sort of $11K software license for this like they did with 2-Flash HDR.  Too much work for so little content.  Also,  results are unpredictable, because the condition of the source material is unpredictable.

It's not really their job to offer software that does things in the post-processing step as the scanner manufacturer. A $20,000 software licence to make this?

Not sure who would buy it.

It's good you identified the person working on it, that's where that work belongs. In the hands of someone capable taking it on as additional work for the sake of preservation.

8 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Those blokes back then would be blown away how good stuff is today, they would have hung up their lab coats and started working on other stuff. LOL 😛

Oh agreed. This is actually a 2015 re-enactment of the telecine process for television:

With plenty more information about it on the website here: https://www.adapttvhistory.org.uk/16mm/telecine/

11 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Still, those poor Elmo projectors being trashed like that, so sad. I can't imagine using them for this work, horrible. 

Well that really is all they could use back in the 1980's-1990's for the "home movie" market. Telecine prints for television were printed specially low-contrast so that those Rank-Cintel telecine machines like the one above could do a broadcast-quality job. The Elmo systems only had to be basic VHS quality.

Anyway, the market moves on. Maybe someone will see this thread who has "scanned" their home movies with Got Memories and will send you some for a re-scan. 😛