Customising a Rank Cintel MKIII 16mm Gate to Regular 8 - Can anybody help?

Harry Laos · December 1, 2014

Hello

I have some spare 16mm gates for this old Telecine and I thought it would be cool to try to customise one for R8 or S8.

Is there anybody out there that can reveal the tricks in accomplishing this? :) Many thanks in advance!

Robert Houllahan · December 2, 2014

I have done this, it will require a 8mm sprocket of the proper diameter and number of teeth to be put onto the encoder sprocket shaft, a new castellated encoder drum with more teeth on the back and a new 8mm skid plate and lens. we had the encoder drums made at a machine shop out of brass and used a S8mm sprocket and lens from a Bolex projector. It can work and make ok SD scans.

Also the guys in LA that make our scanners will be offering a retrofit for the Cintel chassis to make it into a scanner.

Harry Laos · December 2, 2014

Thanks a million Robert! Great info! That's made my day :)

Will Montgomery · December 4, 2014

I had some R8 processed a couple years ago and not split so I could play with it on a Spirit 16mm gate. Besides the missing every other frame issue (each scan frame had 4 R8 images on it) there was a crazy enlargement of grain. I know that Paul at Cinelicous mentioned there was some serious adjustments to be made to properly scan 8mm on a Spirit; not just the gate. I know the Rank Cintel is a different beast but it may not be just hardware to be updated.

Robert Houllahan · December 4, 2014

Any Cintel MK3 or URSA or later with the Metaspeed Digital servo can be adjusted via the Metaspeed terminal to run just about any kind of film you can get to pass through the gate.

The Spirit is a more complex and difficult animal because it's a closed source servo and line scan.

Dennis Couzin · December 8, 2014

I had some R8 processed a couple years ago and not split so I could play with it on a Spirit 16mm gate. Besides the missing every other frame issue (each scan frame had 4 R8 images on it) there was a crazy enlargement of grain. I know that Paul at Cinelicous mentioned there was some serious adjustments to be made to properly scan 8mm on a Spirit; not just the gate. I know the Rank Cintel is a different beast but it may not be just hardware to be updated.

What do you mean by "a crazy enlargement of grain"? Is the number "2" crazy?

Since the Spirit is a continuous scanner, each of the four R8mm images within the 16mm frame will be imaged alike. To the extent that the scanner lens is sharper for the center of the 16mm frame than at its edges, each of the four images will show an asymmetrical falloff, but the same for each.

Perry Paolantonio · December 8, 2014

What do you mean by "a crazy enlargement of grain"?

My guess is that if the scan is done treating the film as if it's 16mm at, say, 2k, and the desire is to have a 2k scan of the 8mm frmaes, then each of those frames will need to be enlarged digital, post-scan, thus enlarging the apparent size of the grain.

Robert Houllahan · December 8, 2014

We have a number of customers who shoot R8mm and don't have us slit it (Stays 16mm) when we scan the film there are four pictures in the 16mm frame. This is not ideal if you are trying to scan each 8mm frame as the optics on the scanner are setup for 16mm.

I have always felt that the Spirit uses too much sharpening and obviously a 2K or UHD etc scan will look better.

David Cunningham · December 8, 2014

The spirit almost makes film like its analog video. You loose a lot of the film character in the sharpening especially if there is also noise reduction. The new systems like the Scanity (but who can afford to use it), monochrome multi-flash systems like the Director at MetroPost and Xena at Cinelab, and lastly the fast, low noise, low cost and high res Bayer systems like the ScanStation at Gamma Ray Digital are just so far above the rest and so affordable it just seems silly to deal with big and expensive legacy equipment like any Rank Cintel machine.