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Dan Baxter

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Posts posted by Dan Baxter

  1. 10 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

    The picture quality at 60fps is not as good as the picture quality at lower speeds and if you're scanning film at that speed expecting good picture quality then you're using the machine wrong. And the sound will not be great at 60 fps from the hardware reader. Both of these caveats, Lasergraphics makes very clear up front.

    That being said, 60fps only works with lower resolution scans (2.5k or lower), and that means you're starting with way fewer pixels in the scanned image of the soundtrack. Half as many, in fact, compared to a 4k scan of the same film. That should have a negative effect on the sound quality. 

    FWIW, High speed capture should only be done in specific, limited circumstances: We only do 60fps capture when we're making low resolution access copies (and only that) of a large collection of film. Or if we're making a reference scan of a print that we're conforming high res A/B roll scans to - in that case the scan of the print is for our internal visual reference only, not a client deliverable. We don't capture customer work at those speeds because it doesn't look as good. 

    Of course, you'll likely get motion-blur and it's lower optical resolution as you say as well. But in situations where the video quality isn't essential 60fps is fine like making some quick proxies to check condition or to check what's on it for example.

    It's the situation that's been the case ever since the original 2013 ScanStation as you know as you had one. A few years ago someone I talked to sent their home movies to be transferred on an original ScanStation, and they came back looking awful and they complained so the scanning company did it again, this time properly (or at least to their satisfaction). Setting the scanning speed artificially slow on a 2K ScanStation probably wasn't very intuitive to a lot of operators, whereas the higher optical resolution forces slower speeds now and especially if the HDR module is engaged. I'm not going to mention that company on a public forum, but they clearly knew how to make their scanner do better work but it seems they'd give their clients low-effort work and if they complained only then would dial-in the settings properly and re-scan. That being said looking at their prices, they were clearly priced for low-end work so the fact they'd re-scan properly at the rates they were charging was actually a very good deal.

    Also people bring their attitudes towards photography with them, I had a discussion just last week with a family member regarding wedding photos and someone had brought up the fact that at a particular weeding the photographer used the flash in every photo and washed-out the skin tones. "Oh you can fix that in photoshop" one person said, and I tried to explain that's not the correct way to go about it because the dynamic range is finite: you need to get the best photo you can to begin with, not put in a poor effort and expect to "fix" it in post as that's just putting lipstick on a pig. Let's just say we fundamentally disagreed about what an acceptable photography service for a wedding is! So it may be that a lot of the companies that have these scanners are used to that kind of process where they don't work on getting the raw capture itself as good as it can be because they expect to do post-work on it and expect that they will "fix" deficiencies then and they may not even understand dynamic range properly.

  2. 15 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

    It is possible to enable the software reader on our system. It requires physically disconnecting the hardware optical track reader. The scanner's software only allows one type of soundtrack reader to be active at any given time. You cannot soft-switch between them. We don't usually muck around with the insides of the scanner unless necessary, but I will be doing this when I do some test scans for the blog post I mentioned. 

    Right, that's fine. You should test them both at 60fps as well if you're doing a comparison and see what difference you get.

  3. I'm really not interested in arguing Perry.

    On 9/20/2023 at 3:31 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

    The hardware optical audio module for the ScanStation is a line array camera (not the same camera that takes the image of the picture). It images the optical track as the film passes its gate.

    Right this is the same argument you made before. You can also put the same optical module that the ScanStation uses in a XENA or in a Kinetta or even in a Retroscan if you really want to, that doesn't mean they're all equal as there's more to it than that and audio is entirely different as well. A slight slant on the film and you're not capturing an accurate sample of the audio.

    On 9/20/2023 at 3:31 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

    You remember incorrectly - I never said that. The ScanStation has two options: the far superior hardware track reader, or the ability to read the track from the scanned image. It does not offer both at the same time, it's one or the other.

    Honestly, just ask LG to enable the optical sound extraction if it isn't enabled on yours then you can at least test it and come to an informed opinion on it and if you still don't like it and think its inferior to the hardware reader that's fine. I don't think that they disable it on new ones if you buy the hardware reader - why would they? You're obviously only going to use the one you think is better anyway and you already have the hardware reader...

    On 9/20/2023 at 3:31 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

    This feature is for the hardware track reader. I don't think it's available for the software reader (might be, but I can't test that as you can't have both running at the same time on the same machine).

    Yes it works with the software extraction, and it's listed on the Archivist page FWIW.

    • Upvote 1
  4. 1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    I can't say anything sadly. Been sworn to secrecy! 

    Oh, I might have to ask FF then myself, I'm happy to sign an NDA. The Archivist was definitely squarely designed to compete against it, that's why it landed at the same price-point (although now it's gone up by about $10K). Anyway whatever it is they will produce a good scanner, and hopefully it does provide the competition LG needs there.

  5. 7 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

    This is objectively false. Seriously, why do you keep posting this?

    We can agree to disagree instead of you always fighting over everything. You think it's perfect, and I think it isn't and it's hissy - end of story. I seem to remember you saying that ScanStations don't have software audio extraction - they definitely do and they recently added that "SoundView" feature to select the tracks precisely.

    7 hours ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

    What scanner does this? Telecines did this, but there hasn't been a need for it for years. Any late model dubber uses stepper motor control and runs at a fixed speed. xtal clocks govern the speed, so if you scan to a 24fps file and capture your mag at 24fps, they will sync perfectly. There will be no drift unless there's a problem with the machines, and no interlock is required.

    You can plug a dubber into a Blackmagic Cintel - are you not able to do it with a LaserGraphics as well? You're probably right that it doesn't matter much.

  6. On 9/7/2023 at 4:41 AM, Jeff Bernstein said:

    What an awesome thread. In the video "Got Memories Customer Testimonial Viewing 16mm Film from 1930’s being digitized", the technician at one point remarks : “God knows what this is [footage from 1936].”

    The ironic thing about that is that the customer was having videotapes transferred I think, not film. So he probably doesn't know anything at all about how film should look and would be easily impressed by seeing anything that transferred it in realtime.

  7. On 9/12/2023 at 12:15 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

    Yes, Retroscan pretty much is the only choice for 16mm on a low budget. 8mm is generally crap to deal with. With amateurs, they generally progress to 16mm after a little time...if they are serious So, when you acquire a 'pig in a poke' 16mm you have a better chance of getting something useable as opposed to 8mm.

    It really isn't, and for the quality it produces you may as well buy a refurbished Tobin.

    On 9/12/2023 at 12:15 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

    No, I'd never scan for $ and work on crap I don't like. Film is just one of the hundreds of areas I work in, although it is probably the biggest area of interest for me. I don't want a job as a film scanner...I just want to get scans of my films. Just as I don't want a job binding books, running a copy stand or doing post processing. I just do it because I have to. Now, when health was better, I liked pounding the pavement to do documentary photography. But that was about it for things I'd liked to do for $.

    Yes you keep saying this. I don't know what to to tell you - a $60,000 Archivist isn't going to fall into your lap without an ability to monetise its work.

    On 9/12/2023 at 1:11 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

    ''LaserGraphic's software audio extraction is really good.'' 

    Huh??

    I recall you had an argument a while back with Perry claiming Lasergraphics had poor audio?? Why the change in heart?

    ScanStations have two ways of digitising optical audio as explained on the website. There's the hardware/keykode reader but it's hissy and doesn't do a very good job really, but they also have software audio extraction and it's excellent and better quality than AEO light. LG recently added an option to manually select where the audio is captured from, refer to this image, I'm pretty sure that was only added recently and that before it was the user had no control over it. You can of course just also use AEO light, but again LG's software does a better job so there's really no need unless you scanned it silent or you used the wrong audio settings in the scan or something like that.

    You can also hook-up interlocking mag audio to scanners, you get your dubber and put the soundtrack on it and then get your scanner and plug dubber into the scanner and away you go and you get synced audio.

    By the way the HDR option is now listed again on the official LG website for the Archivist along with the misleading comparisons to Arri and to Scanity.

  8. 11 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

    Nice report Dan!

    Does Lasergraphics force the annual support contract on the buyers?

    No, but it's like buying a car. If you have a loan or a lease than paying the "extended warranty"/"service contract" is as mandatory as paying for insurance on a car. If you can afford to buy it outright you can refuse to pay the extended warranty, but that would not necessarily be recommended either as they will likely force you to put it back into service at huge cost if you ever need a major replacement/repair. Also the software updates will stop for anyone not paying it, so you have older ScanStations out there that may not even have the ability to scan to DPX or to Prores XQ because they have really old software.

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

    Retroscan?

    It is a nice scanner for $6K. I mean if that is all you got, it will give you 'something.' And something is better than nothing, generally speaking. When I bought mine, I sold off an old Harley Sportster, borrowed a couple of thousand from a friend and put the rest on my credit card. If it had a better sensor, it would be much better if all you needed was silent scans. Although you still have some jumpiness.

    They don't cost $6,000 anymore, you have old the MkI Universal. The new ones are sold as being 4K despite having a 2.5K Bayer-pattern camera, they have a relatively low CRI 90 light which is better than the light they had originally, but still 90 CRI - give me a break. There's issues with the quality of some of the parts, they also lack gates, they lack speed control, they lack the proper speed on 35mm because it photographs on each perf and then decimates 3 out of every 4 photos which is why 35mm is 4fps.

    It's more likely that you need a much better quality light rather than a new sensor in your MkI to improve the quality, although fitting in a light into the form-factor of the MkI looks difficult.

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

    With me it is never an option of working harder, scanning more films and making more $ to buy a better scanner. My Archive is open content, 'The 'Peoples' Archive'...and there is not much $$ in open content work...like none. But working open content gives me the freedom to do almost exactly what I like. I say almost, as sometimes to do a project justice I need to round it out with material that would not be my first choice of working on. But that is usually minimal. Another benefit is I don't have to worry about being cancelled because of prejudice. As long as it is legal...I do as I like. And even then, I push the envelope sometimes.

    You can monetise your operations, that's the only way to pay for a $50,000-$70,000 scanner which is what the Archivist currently costs depending on how you configure it (that's complete with the host computer read-to-go). To do professional work you're going to need to use the high quality formats... the 16-bit formats (DPX and TIFF), and 12-bit DNG and Prores 4444 XQ and that will cost more money as well as you have to build a RAID otherwise the host computer won't cope with the I/O and your maximum scanning speeds will slow down. LG can supply it set up or you can just buy 3-4 SSDs and build it yourself. And obviously you probably need another $10,000 computer for post-processing work.

    I know it can sound like I give LG a bit of a bad rap, but that's not really true. Even for $70K it represents incredible value and you'll beat the pants off the quality of the older $175,000+ ScanStations that have the lower-end imagers in it. 5K 16mm on the Archivist with HDR will be near indistinguishable to 5K on the full 6.5K HDR model ScanStation (i.e. the best ScanStation).

    FYI you can still buy refurbished ScanStation Personals from LG as well. So they have the option there for people that can't afford the Archivist but have enough for one of those (no idea what they're charging for them - you'd have to get a quote). They'll come with the latest software.

    On 8/12/2023 at 5:43 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

    Lasergraphics will still make a superior scanner no matter what. It's down to cost then and we'll see if FF can keep the cost low AND deliver a good product. 

    Yep, FF doesn't have the budget to compete on the software. People say that HDR is a game-changer, one thing that is even more important than HDR is the failed-splice recovery feature. When a splice opens the scanner stops and alerts the user that there's a problem - that's an absolute game-changer when virtually any other scanner would just let the film un-spool into a tangled mess on the floor. That and it cannot drop frames, whereas the FF can - fundamental problem with the HDS+ and hopefully that's been fixed in the upcoming scanner.

  9. Oh of course, according to Perry it's pure coincidence that I was right and my opinion at the time was invalid all because the sales agent told him something else. Honestly. ? You can't even concede when you were dead wrong and you make up a story about why you were wrong! "The Archivist had HDR option at the start, and then later they didn't, and then they changed their minds so now it does". That's a completely invented story that you've made up with no actual evidence, and it doesn't even fit all the facts either. The facts are this: you were given the wrong information and maybe you should blame the source of that wrong information rather than publicly blaming me for putting out misinformation!!!

    You could be right Perry, maybe the story you've just told is what really happened... but I'm entitled to my scepticism over it, it's called critical thinking. You could be reasonable and concede at least that much. Also:

    On 1/6/2022 at 3:27 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

    1) Looking at the web site, the specs, and the pictures of the machines they provide

    Both websites continue to claim HDR is not available on the Archivist. Screenshots:

    lW3lxf7.png

    Screenshot: Galileo Digital today 12 August 2023. Archive Link.

    y6I5VCm.png

    Screenshot: Lasergraphics today 12 August 2023. Archive Link.

    So how exactly does this fact fit in to your story?

    I'll put forward an opinion... LaserGraphics would put themselves into a far better position to wipe out Moviestuff and Ventura Images if they just 1. put out straight clear and accurate information, and 2.made it easier for small companies and startups to get a quote. On that second point they should have a clear upfront deposit amount stated that will get you started, and they should have someone that assists and guides you through getting a loan. Without this what you have is Moviestuff owning the narrative amongst their customers on what they should buy. The Archivist was designed to compete against the Filmfabriek HDS+, yet nothing on the website clearly explains the benefits over the HDS+, Retroscan, or Ventura Images scanners (and the legacy scanners like Tobins, MWAs etc). Or the Baby Kinetta. Their main potential customers with the Archivist is 1. Professional Companies that can see a space for adding an Archivist to their line-up of equipment, and 2. Small Companies using existing small format scanners (including archives, obviously hence the name of the product). The Archivist is not going to replace a ScanStation but it can certainly compliment one.

    3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    That's crazy, but it makes sense. Just run it through a machine that is real time sending it to DVD. It's the lowest cost, but in no way is it "restoring" the film at all. 

    The only reason they get away with it is because in their market they sit in the middle: there's people doing even worse quality work and charging more, and there's people doing far better work using better quality systems charging the same or even less (not just the scanning machine, but how it's used and the post-scan color correction, cleanup, stabilisation, etc). There's no way they don't know this, they go out of their way to delete comments that mention better scanning systems like LaserGraphics or Filmfabreik. Here's a guy putting out a similar message to his customers about how great the Retroscan is:

    18 minutes ago, Todd Ruel said:

    I don't think home movie scanning companies are their niche.  For instance, if you ever spend time on the Moviestuff Facebook forum, you'd see a lot of folks fretting about the cost of a Mark I or Mark II.  Or they're still using some of Roger Evans' even older machines.  Those folks are not even going to spring for a Filmfabriek HDS+ or a Baby Kinetta (both of which are mid-range compared to the wider scanner market).  And that means they're definitely not going to write checks for Lasergraphics' products.

    Oh yes I've read their Facebook group before and their forums. They believe everything Roger tells them without critical thought, and they have an echo-chamber reinforcing their beliefs.

    If you want to share your ideas with LaserGraphics about how to own that market you should go right ahead. Ultimately though, the way that people in that market will buy LGs is once they get word-of-mouth or they talk to existing people that are doing home movie scanning (or whatever other market traditionally considered non-professional) on full ScanStations, and especially from people that replaced Moviestuff scanners.

    1 hour ago, Todd Ruel said:

    The Archivist currently costs US $49,500 with no bells or whistles.  You get one gate of your choice and a basic PC with one PCIe slot.  It runs their latest software.  Everything else is optional.

    If LG makes an even more affordable scanner, then maybe it would be worth their time to increase their outreach to smaller companies.  But I don't see that happening in the short term.  But hey, I could be wrong.

    People have been replacing Moviestuff and other junky low-end scanners with LG scanners for many years, but that isn't to say that it's easy for them. It's a scary purchase, and getting accurate information isn't straightforward. Plus they come with an annual support contract that adds to the cost that you don't have to pay when going with a cheaper competitor including Filmfabriek. What would win them over and seal the deal is not necessarily the argument on quality but the productivity that it brings to the workflow. Remember, a 50ft 8mm reel will go straight on a Retroscan and not need any additional leader, to scan it on a ScanStation you will definitely need to add leader. So there's that obvious drawback there, minor compared to the benefits, but those that are worried about a purchase will think about all those drawbacks and whether it's worth it or not overall.

    Also, $50K for it is a bargain even if it's just for 16mm work. It'll beat the quality of all existing ScanStation Personals and full 5K ScanStations.

    • Like 2
  10. On 8/9/2023 at 6:22 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

    Do a blog on running the Lasergraphics. Don't wait for them. Everyone is on a different wavelength. 

    It won't matter. Most consumers aren't discerning enough to recognise when a company is cutting corners delivering a low quality service even if they have a social media presence, e.g. GotMemories:

    And note that they monitor their comments and delete anything that mentions better quality scanners.

    On 8/7/2023 at 1:20 AM, Todd Ruel said:

    The one thing I told Brett Maynard of Galileo Digital is that Lasergraphics really needs a social media presence so that they can directly address a lot of the issues that folks debate back and forth on this forum.  I think they really need to do this to dispel a lot of the rumors and conjecture that I read about here and in other forums.

    Well on the HDR issue I never once felt I was putting forward conjecture, I was always confident that my opinion was correct. It has now been vindicated. It was LG and GD themselves putting out incorrect information on it, so make of that what you will. I mean here's what Perry said:

    On 1/6/2022 at 3:27 AM, Perry Paolantonio said:

    Speaking of misinformation...

    The Archivist does not offer HDR scanning. A couple of the early machines had it before the configuration was changed. 

    ...

    ... If anyone is spreading misinformation, it's you. Instead of relying on a price sheet from last year that you know includes items that they no longer offer for the Archivst, you could have very easily determined that this is the case by either:

    1) Looking at the web site, the specs, and the pictures of the machines they provide

    2) Contacting Galileo digital to confirm

    I just did both of those things. 

    He accused me of spreading misinformation while he believed that Galileo Digital, the US sales agent, was a source of gospel truth!!! What a crock of shit, I didn't spread any misinformation. I wonder if Perry would concede I was right?

  11. 11 hours ago, Todd Ruel said:

    After starting out 6 years ago with a Moviestuff Mark I and then buying a Filmfabriek HDS+ 3 years ago, I'm now buying an Archivist.  I plunked down the deposit last week with Galileo Digital.

    Congrats! I hope it works out well for you once you get it.

    11 hours ago, Todd Ruel said:

    As someone who has seen the latest, greatest, up-to-date-ist price sheet, I can verify that Lasergraphics is definitely offering HDR scanning on the Archivist as a software option.  And I'm getting it.

    Of course they are, they let the cat out of the bag already and existing ones have it. Just be aware the software defaults to OFF anyway!

    12 hours ago, Todd Ruel said:

    I have learned the hard way that my previous scanner purchases required a lot of post-production work to make the scans acceptable.  I had to buy Diamant to stabilize them, because the Mark I did not do that.  I had to use AEO Light (which is a real godsend to those who have no other way to extract audio) to synchronize a usable soundtrack.

    LaserGraphic's software audio extraction is really good. And if I'm not mistaken they recently made some improvements to it as well, so if you have the latest host software from LG you have the best available. You can still use AEO light though if you need to. Another huge advantage for the Archivist is that you can purchase the magnetic sound heads. They were not available with the ScanStation Personals but they are with the Archivist.

    12 hours ago, Todd Ruel said:

    The one thing I told Brett Maynard of Galileo Digital is that Lasergraphics really needs a social media presence so that they can directly address a lot of the issues that folks debate back and forth on this forum.  I think they really need to do this to dispel a lot of the rumors and conjecture that I read about here and in other forums.

    Their issue in my opinion is that they haven't made it easy for small companies doing niche things to get the information that's right for them and then make a plan to purchase the scanners. EG home movie scanning companies. Most of them are too afraid to invest in the cost of a ScanStation or an Archivist or the FilmFabriek HDS+. As for the information, so far as I know Stefan himself is in charge of what's claimed on the official LaserGraphics website and that website could be a lot clearer about the capabilities and limitations of the scanners.

  12. 15 hours ago, Abel van Dijk said:

    One of them is scanning with Arri Scan XT DPX files in 2 or 4K, the other one is Scanning with the Lasergraphic Scanstation 6.5K in 4K in pro res 444 or DPX. 

    Ask the lab with the Arri to do 3K for you (that's the true resolution of 2K scanning without any down-scaling to 2K), as it's 16mm you might find this is the best option in terms of quality and value. 3K on the Arri should be higher true resolution and significantly sharper than 6.5K on the ScanStation, if the labs can show you SMPTE resolution film look for how many lines per millimetre is actually resolved.

    You can also get bayer DNG off the ScanStation instead of DPX and then do your own debayering, much smaller file size than DPX although the LG debayering is quite good so you may prefer to have their debayering baked in with DPX or Prores 4444 XQ. If you're using a ScanStation they can also make a proxy at the same time as the scan and that would allow you to check everything is fine quickly (2K or 1080p Prores HQ would be fine for the proxy as an example).

    I hope that helps!

  13. On 3/13/2023 at 7:03 AM, Robert Houllahan said:

    The Spirit is a true RGB scanner and there are two ways to make a true RGB scan, one is Line scan and the other is a Monochrome area sensor. At the time the Spirit was introduced there were no area scan sensors capable of 2K much less 4K and when these new generation Spirits were rolled out 7.5FPS 4K was about as fast as could be done, it is still a reasonable speed today.

    With CCD you mean, the first Arriscans which were contemporaneous with the Spirit 2K (although not previous model Spirits) had CMOS area sensors with a rolling shutter that weren't as good as CCD but came with 2-flash HDR to compensate for the lower quality of the CMOS sensors. I'm sure the quality didn't match at the time, but it was Arri's intention to improve their scanner over time so that it could and would later match and/or exceed the dynamic range that the CCD imager scanners produced. Adding the micro-scanning option would also have represented a big improvement as you can then get native 6K from the 3K sensors producing a true full 4K scan or a significantly nicer 2K scan as it would have helped compensate for sensor noise. Unless I'm mistaken I think all Arriscans came with 2-flash HDR and then when micro-scanning became available that became an optional extra option to purchase for the scanners.

    On 3/10/2023 at 12:34 PM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

    So pretty useless as-is for scanning?

    Yep.

  14. On 3/15/2023 at 1:39 AM, Jaehyun Kim said:

    hello

    I want to talk about scanning 16mm 35mm film.

    I scanned the film with a SCANITY SCNNER, LaserGraphics scanner, BLACKMAGIC SCANNER and ARRI SCAN.

    However, the results seem to be the best for "scanity" flat log scans. The sharpness is good and the film texture is visible.

    However, the result of working with LaserGraphics scanner is too soft.

    Any idea why?

    Please recommend which scanner can best preserve film quality.

    Let us know your experience.

    There's a lot of unknowns here. The Arriscans, Scanities, and LaserGraphics scanners all have artificial sharpening so you could be seeing the results of sharpening on their default settings. Bayer is much softer than RGB without sharpening, so the bayer scanners (Blackmagic Cintel and ScanStations) will be significantly softer compared with an Arri or Scanity or Director (you didn't specify if you used a LaserGraphics Director or one of their Bayer scanners). With the continuous-motion Bayer scanners - and this counts for all of them including Kinetta, DCS Xena, etc - the speed of the scan can also make it lose detail due to motion-blur. There's also several different models of each of the scanners you mentioned, and they can be configured in different ways or have different options as extras that are purchased by the owner.

  15. 2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    I actually like the Cintel a lot, but that imager is a deal killer. It's the opposite problem we have with the HDS, which as an excellent imager,. but lacks in other areas.

    Even with a good imager, 16mm is still below 2K resolution don't forget.

    2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    I kinda dig the sliding doors, but yea I agree it could be smaller. One of the benefits is that you can hang it on the wall. That helps people like myself because desk space is an issue, but wall space is seemingly endless. 

    Well there's the problem, the sliding doors look "cool" but in practise they just get in the way.

    Do you actually know anyone that has it wall-mounted? It's not a TV, it weighs a LOT! That's some serious loading capacity for a wall to hold (60 kg/132 lb unloaded, and up to 70 kg/ 155 lb loaded with film). If you have hardwood studs, or steel frame walls (your commercial office space might have that, usually residential won't) then you might be okay, I would not attempt it with regular timber studs.

  16. 4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    Oh I would not buy a current Cintel. I do know they have a new imager version coming out hopefully next year. 

    Then why did they release the Cintel Scanner G3 HDR+ with the current imager? Blackmagic should get rid of the sliding doors so it takes up less room, just plain hinged cabinet style doors like everything else would be sufficient.

  17. 13 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    I don't even have the physical space to own one either. So there is that matter as well. 

    Well if space is an issue it can double as your rewind/inspection table. Blackmagic Cintels take up more space - almost 2x as much (I just looked it up - Cintel is 2010mm/79" wide and ScanStation 1190mm/47"), and you just said a few posts back you'd buy one if they bring out a model with a camera that fixes the FPN (they do have a new model the Cintel Scanner G3 HDR+, and it still has the same imager as all the other ones FYI). That makes no sense, how can you have room for a Cintel but not for a ScanStation?

  18. 4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    Actually, I'd argue that many shops like our friend Robert's, Color Lab, Kodak Atlanta, The Negative Space, Gotham, etc... if you called them and had a bunch of negative to scan, that .20 - .30/foot rate would not be far off the mark. Outside of us, I know three other shops in LA who charge exactly what we charge which is .25/ft for 4k S16. Where those deals are kinda "insider", everyone who works in the system knows about them. 

    That's just Bayer though, once you get to RGB you're paying .80/ft+ and for good 16mm it will make a huge difference no matter what anyone with a Bayer scanner tells you.

    As for the deals being "insider" the people I have have standard rates and sometimes they may have to charge a bit more to make it profitable, or they can choose to cap their rates and do some jobs at a loss, and often they can come down on their published rates. It all depends on the amount of work involved with the job. For example, some people are set up to handle really bad film - badly warped, brittle, etc, but most are not.

    2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    No, I'm simply using the terms ya'll have used so many times to denigrate others who can't afford quarter of a million dollar solutions. 

    I'm pretty sure Perry purchased his ScanStation as a 2-gate small format one, same as many other companies do - eg MemoryLab. If you were buying one you could do the same, except make it 35/16 as it's 8mm you don't want and you can buy the 8mm gate later if need be (plenty of people do this). I don't know Tyler, every time you mention the price on them you leave out the intricacies with actually budgeting for one without going into eyeballs of debt. It'd modular - you don't need to buy what you don't need. Yes everything is expensive, but there's serious R&D in it that as you mention is missing in the FF's 16mm scanner.

  19. 10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    Why do you think the shitty shops are in business using Wolverines? There are dozens of them nation wide and I know many owners myself thanks to Facebook and they charge pennies on the dollar and clients are obviously happy enough! 

    It's because their customers don't know where else to go, and those places are masters of the grift. Also they're run by people (the "mom and pop" crowd) that would be too frightened to invest in something that costs $40K or more, even $12K is expensive to them. On top of all that they may even genuinely believe the quality is professional. Roger Evans consistently feeds them this story, he refuses to acknowledge Filmfabriek as his real competitor for the home movie market (or Kinetta that has I believe a similarly priced scanner for 16/8), and instead consistently tells them (incorrectly) that the Lsaergraphics ScanStation is $250,000 giving them the impression that they have no better option if they can't afford that.

    By the way - there are "home movie" people who do spend $13,000+ buying brand new Moviestuff Retroscans just to scan their own family archives, including just for 8mm. The reason they buy them is because they don't know Filmfabriek exists - it's a Dutch company and not exactly a household name, but the Pictor appears to be aimed at them.

    10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    We just can't run a business when we have to stare at the scanner at 3fps (the fastest you can run with a wet gate) waiting for the film to break due to fragility (another issue the HDS+ has). It's 3x the amount of work and again, the clients generally have no idea what they're talking about and would be fine with a 5 blade projector shot from a screen with a 4k camera. As you said, all they want to see is their dead relatives. 

    If it's about drying time, why not try adding "air knives" to dry the film? That's how the film gets dried with actual wetgate systems.

    14 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    The difference is that my OCN scans don't need to be wet gated or babysitted. 

    Well that's another important difference between a Filmfabriek and a Lasergraphics. If a splice opens on a LG the scanner halts and alerts the operator "hey come and fix this before you continue". As far as I'm aware you don't need to babysit them and you can multitask.

    4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    Oh so you prep, clean, wet gate and post cleanup every roll you scan? I've never heard of such a thing.

    I have it's called archival scanning.

    4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    So you'd charge me the same rate if I send you a brand new cleaned, prepped roll of color negative per foot, then you would for old home movies? 

    I obviously can't speak for Perry, but the way it works with some places that specialise in archival scanning is they might have a standard price say something around .80/ft for 16mm that covers everything: cleaning, minor repairs, and 2K scanning including a simple "wetgate" if required with isopropyl or film-guard (or whichever chemical they choose to use) and/or a damage matte (with 4K being extra, but 2K RGB is above UHD for 16mm as it is). If a company is set up for archive scanning then of course they can charge less for dailies and make it profitable. Archives might have scanners, but they don't have perc converted ultrasonic cleaners so just cleaning the really filthy film is going to take them forever, even ultrasonics can't do dirty dirty film in just one pass.

    5 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    For the record, I'm friends with many archives up and down the coasts, they all have their own staff and machines. Finding an archive that has the funding and hasn't already been scanned or who doesn't have their own machine, is not easy, we've tried. In fact, there are people lurkers reading this right now, who have tried as well. 

    You don't have an RGB scanner though. You'd need a better scanning system than what the archive has available to purchase for themselves.

    3 hours ago, Robert Hart said:

    If anyone has invented a wet-gate for the Retroscan Universal Mark II, I am all ears. It could be doable by re-routing the path through the existing rollers, with hollow pillars through the tank for mounting to the existing guide threads and working out a way to project the light pin through the fluid or if the lightpin itself can swim without harm. 

    Yeah that's been done. Which version do you have - there's two?

    RUMkII-v1.0.thumb.jpg.e9d737fa0e0a0f924e823f76de490ea2.jpg142759924_mark_ii_3k_film_scanner(1080p).mp4.thumb.jpg.432b670b60427939fbec691e41d05d0a.jpg

    On the first version you'd be able to fit in little "wetgate" sponges like the pictor, but that probably won't work for the second version. The second one you're probably better off applying an even coat of film-guard using a Film-O-Clean (or modified Kelmar) prior to scanning.

  20. 19 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

    While a relatively small percentage of the film we scan is home movies, we treat those films with the same respect as we do films coming from world renowned museums and film archives. It doesn't matter if you send us a 35mm camera original cut neg, a truckload of outtakes from a documentary, or your great aunt's 8mm films from the 50's. They are all equal, and we handle them all with the same care, regardless of the gauge or content. Your idea that someone's home movies aren't as important and that the customer "just wants to see something" is not only misreading the market, it is, quite frankly, offensive. 

    See we do agree on something, although I wouldn't use the word "offensive" I'd just say it may demonstrate the difficulty those customers face. However it's long been the case the post-production scanning houses only cater to one type of client. FWIW I do not share your view that Tyler is "arrogant". Stubborn perhaps, but not arrogant.

    5 minutes ago, Perry Paolantonio said:

    I'm breaking my rule and responding to Dan because this is misleading. Cleaning PTRs is not a big deal and it's not time consuming.

    This is all well and good, but the guys I know with ScanStations like yours don't use the PTRs, they bypass them, which the scanner is designed to allow. They clean the film first, so PTRs don't really help especially at 7fps or faster. Let's call a spade a spade here - if you're putting film that hasn't been cleaned on it you're probably doing an "evaluation scan" so running at 30-60fps to see what's on the film and you don't need PTRs for that. Maybe if you have to slow down to 2fps you may want to use them to remove ambient dust collected.

    FYI I could point out stuff you've said that's misleading like microscaning taking just two exposures. Microscanning was developed for scientific imaging not film scanning, it only works with monochrome cameras, and to make the matrix with the sub-pixel imager shift takes nine exposures to get to 3x the resolution (or four exposure to get to twice the resolution as used in some film scanners). So you take a 1.3K imager, 9 exposures, it's now 4K. Film scanners that do this so far as I know started with 2K-3K imagers and did only 4 shifts at incredibly high speeds. If you did it with Bayer, well:

    BG
    GR

    Would become:

    BBGG
    BBGG
    GGRR
    GGRR

    So it wouldn't work. So to correct you: if a Director is doing microscanning and 3-flash HDR on colour film it's 36 total exposures and the damage matte would add either 1 or 4 extra exposures (I'm not sure whether it would be microscanned but a 1-bit damage matte definitely does not have HDR exposures). Assuming it is microscanned though, an assumption, that's a total of FORTY exposures per frame.

  21. On 12/19/2022 at 8:19 AM, Andrew Wise said:

    But just looking at the price, would one say it’s about half the cost of an Lasergraphics archivist (happy to be corrected, I’m not 100% sure on the price)

    The pre-pandemic prices were €30K for the HDS+ which is supplied without a host computer, and USD $40-60K for the Archivist depending on the options with a host computer. So yeah, once you add all the sound heads, both gates, etc etc it gets pricier, but most 8mm film is silent, so if it's for 8mm the price is similar. That said, the resolution is also lower - the advertised 2.5K resolution for 8mm on it will have tons of overscan, even the ScanStation only gets about 3K horizontal resolution for 8mm I think when you use "6.5K" there's just that much beyond the image area in the overscan you need to crop.

      

    1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    Yes, I was just saying it's a pain for home movie clients because the path was so long. You can't just "thread up" a roll of film, it's impossible 

    Well you CAN and believe me people will do it - it'll result in loss of frames. However you're overstating this: you need to clean the film first anyway unless you want to give someone a scan that has dirt all through it, so you can add leader to each side at the same time you do that - or just build up to whatever the maximum length of the scanner is and break-down afterwards.

    1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    Your clients are fine with a camcorder shooting the film being projected on a wall.

    No they're not, one of my mates has re-scanned home movies that were transferred that way. You're right though that many of them may tolerate Retroscan transfers.

    1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

    My clients are working on stuff seen on broadcast TV, theatrical, streaming platforms, etc. I've done half million dollar commercials on our system and we're doing a multi-million dollar feature right now. So we're not even on the same planet.

    Yeah that's right, the home movie client might tolerate you dropping frames, or even scratching/damaging film as they probably won't know, but no professional client would tolerate either of those things.

  22. 3 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

    ..but you haven't seen my gates NostradamusIf you are referring to the Kinograph thread - everything on there is super old.

    I'm just going by what you shared there and on here, although true I can't see the full gate in the video.

    3 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

    Soon it will be only PTRs without the 2 metal tension rollers. Tension will be integrated in the main rollers. PTRs are designed to take out dirt particles not add them like the "friction rollers" example you linked to. My transport is like the Kinetta which is a great machine. Of course you need to keep the PTRs clean and give them little baths in soapy water from time to time.

    You're supposed to clean the PTRs between every full reel that goes through them, that's the problem with PTRs. I'd refer you to page 57 of the Blackmagic Cintel manual which clearly states this. The operator is supposed to swap them for clean ones between each reel. You're right that on many scanners you're forced into using them (in addition to the capstans), but that's a design flaw really IMO, especially for anything below $100K in price or anything faster than say 2fps. Both the Blackmagic Cintel and the Kinetta have four that you can't bypass for example, and the FilmFabriek HDS+ has some as well. If they get old and film slips on them and there's abrasive dirt on them it can cause cinch damage (basically, the abrasive dirt will scratch the film). Really it would also be best to do it with the capstan rollers as well, which is mentioned on page 58 of the cintel manual.

    Of course anyone can choose not to clean the PTRs between each scan, but then what they'd be doing is skipping the manufacturer's recommended maintenance, which is not a good idea with PTRs.

    Dry PTR cleaners can sometimes do little but transfer dirt from one frame onto another. You should examine a dirty film sometime and run it through your scanner twice in succession and you should see it happen if the film is long enough.

  23. 10 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

    45K for a film scanner that scratches film is unacceptable. I feel bad for Tyler having to build a new gate for his commercial scanner and having to figure out how to make it more stable. 

    I don't think you realise how much the commercial stuff costs - you can pay $40K just for a replacement gate for some of them, whereas we're talking a product that has a gate that retails at under $1000. I think that was a one-off, but even with commercial equipment the owner needs to properly test it with junk film before they use it with real film. Telecines, projectors, platter systems, the Xetron Loop-Matic™, dubbers, scanners, film cleaners, processors, printers and cameras - anything that you can put film through. If you don't want them to scratch, damage, or ruin film they require you test them periodically and do the required maintenance work. Some of them require modification from their original design, here's an example. The "friction rollers" will press dirt into the film, that's one way dirt becomes embedded in prints - they're run through that system hundreds of times when played in the cinema and at the end they can have embedded dirt in them that you can't get out with cleaning alone. I'm sure that there's similar examples of lab equipment that does it to negatives as well.

    11 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

    Most likely, it's just a bad design. My gates are very reliable.

    They're definitely not a bad design, I've seen the design and the prototypes. You have a gate that appears to have no warped-film clamp, whereas the ones I'm talking about are specifically for warped film so it will get warped film very flat without having to clamp up and down like previous commercial scanners did. The design wouldn't fit your form-factor though as they're specifically designed for the Retroscan Universal MkII so you'd need to design your own if you wanted that ability. With that said we're still looking for a fabricator that can make them, do let me know if you have any leads or ideas there. The parts are so tiny that many of them can't do it (think 16mm and 8mm gates).

    11 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

    The design is ready for 2400' platters but I'm still using a prototyping frame. Swapping to larger platters takes 2 min with a screwdriver and approximately 20min to run the tuning/calibration motor sequence. The software and tension sensors do the rest. 

    Ah okay, good to hear. Don't get me wrong, it's a very nice design and you've got the same imager that all the current 5K commercial scanners use (including by the sound of it Filmfabriek). The design itself though is impressive as most people that build something similar from scratch end up making a film-shredder. Would your design work if the PTR rollers were removed and replaced with regular steel rollers?

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