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Transfer 16mm material to ProRes


Ricky Dominguez

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Hi my name is Ricky Dominguez form Luna Films in Puerto Rico and we want to transfer all the 16mm material (22,620 ft) that was recorder for a documentary in the 90’s and I want your opinion in what is the best option that you recommend and why.


First we have 21,820 ft of negative material and 800 ft of positive from a workprint because the original (negative) material was lost.


What should we use to do the transfer, film scanning or telecine, witch one is better and why.


What machine would you recommend to do the transfer.


What size, 1080, 2K, 3K, 4K and why. Occasionally we will use the same shot as medium shot and then closeup, the documentary will be finish at 1080p so 2K and higher will be better to reframe.


We use FCP X so I think ProRes would be the best option but which one 422, 422 HQ, 4444, 4444 XQ


What company do you recommend to do the transfer and why.



As always the budget is limited so what would be the best price for a good quality film transfer.



Thanks for all the help.



Ricky Dominguez


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it is close to 10 hours of footage total? the best approach would maybe be to do a telecine transfer of all the material with keykode numbers, editing offline and then scanning selects to 3K or 4K using prores XQ, dpx or tiff. you can use cheapest format for telecine that way and telecine first light if money is a concern, to a easy format like fullhd ProresHQ or ProresLT.

 

I personally usually ask for fullhd or 2k technical grade prores444 or xq scan of all the shot material and finish the film from that fist scan but it is rather expensive for 10hours of material and if you want to do zoom ins in edit like you mentioned you will probably need at least 3k.

 

the third way would be telecine all to cheapest format, edit it, then negative cutting with keykode numbers and scanning the roughly cut negative. saves time in scanning but I don't know how cost effective it would be for the project. My approach of scanning all to the mid quality format the first time is practical if you have to later use lots of the same material for other projects. but it is more expensive as mentioned and you may still need to re scan the edit zoom pieces later anyway

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