How to Transfer Video to Film
How to Transfer Video To Film
A White Paper
By Chris Athanas
• Introduction
This is one of the most curious, strange, hotly debated and confusing topics in video production. Some of the information is very technical, obtuse and seemingly based in ancient religions given all the dogmatism, misinformation and differing opinions about what works best in a given situation. It can be very frustrating to find out what works best for your particular case, but this is the nature of this process. Keep in mind through this journey that transferring video to film is an art, not a science! This paper is intended to give as much information as possible about this imperfect art, and describe an understandable process, although almost anyone involved can give completely different advice - and still be right! Lets start with the basics - video and film cannot be more different. This is the underlying difficulty when trying to convert one to the other. Both formats for images have been around for a very long time (over 100 years for film, and nearly the same for video). They are, by their very nature, strongly entrenched in their respective camps, and only choose to visit each other on the unhappiest of terms... The only truly common thing between these two very different technologies is their purpose - to capture, store, and playback images based on a shared psychophysical property – the eye and brain perceive smooth motion when images are viewed sequentially at a speed above 20 pictures-per-second. The technology for motion-picture film came about first mainly due to fact that an "off-the-shelf" technology existed at the time - still-image photography. Film has stayed pretty much the same as when it was first invented - a lens focuses light onto a sheet of chemically treated material, and the light changes the special chemicals in a predictable way, and reproduces the same light signature through a variety of methods (like a projector). Video came about later under quite different circumstances, and for different reasons. Video was intended to transmit images over large distances using existing radio technology. Storage was not a consideration at first. It was intended as a new way to distribute images to many different locations simultaneously. Film, by comparison, is not good at this. With film, the people had to come to the images. With video, the images came to the people. • So, What Exactly Makes Film and Video different? There are several key differences between film media and video media. It is important to understand these differences as it will help you better understand the issues that you will be dealing with when transferring video to film. • Media Types First and foremost, film and video use very different media storage types. Film is its own media storage type, as the image information is coded directly in the emulsion on the acetate. Video, on the other hand, is a signal standard, and can be stored in many different types of media such as video tape, CD-ROM, DVD or as digital information in a computer memory. Given these characteristics, film is firmly rooted in the physical/chemical domain whereas video is squarely planted on the electronic/ephemeral realm. Film needs a lot more care to process, as each step deals with physical material. Video needs more equipment to modify, but that equipment makes the process of handling video much easier than film ever could. Video is never handled directly, film is always manipulated this way. Due the physical and labor intensive aspects of film, it is an expensive medium. • Chemicals versus Electronics Film is an acetate-based, emulsion-coated strip with perforations along the edges used to make moving photographic images. The images are exposed to light with a camera. Film is also used to display images by projecting the developed film through a film projector. Film uses photo-sensitive chemicals coated on the surface of the film acetate. In black and white film, there is a single layer of acetate that responds to the overall visible light spec-trum. On color film, there are usually three layers of acetate, each corresponding to different areas of the spectrum, specifically the red, green and blue primary colors. Film scetate is the only true film storage medium. These photo-sensitive chemicals capture images using microscopic granules of metallic silver of various sizes. Motion picture films consist of silver-halide crystals dispersed in gelatin (the emulsion) which is coated in thin layers on a support (the acetate film base). The exposure and development of these silver crystals create the images. In color processes the silver is removed after development. The color dyes form clouds centered on the area of the developed silver granules. The crystals vary in size, shape, and sensitivity and are randomly distributed in the film emulsion. During image exposure, some of the crystals will be made developable and others will not. This process of development is called "creating the negative". From the negative, a print will be made which is used in projection. Development does not change the position of a grain, so the image of an evenly exposed area is the result of a random distribution either of opaque silver particles (black & white film), or dye clouds (color film), separated by transparent areas. Although the viewer sees a granular pattern, the eye is not necessarily seeing the individual silver particles, which range from about 0.003mm down to about a tenth of that size. At magnifications where the eye cannot distinguish individual particles, it sees these groupings of particles as areas of contrast. As magnification decreases, the eye increasingly sees larger groups of spots as new areas of graininess. The size of these groups gets larger as the magnification decreases, but the average contrast (the difference between the darker and the lighter areas) decreases. At the lowest magnifications, the graininess disappears completely because no granular structure can be visually detected. On the other hand, video primarily uses an electronic charged-coupled device (CCD) to capture images. A CCD is made up of thousands of tiny solid-state image sensors. Inside a high-quality 3 chip camera, a prism splits the image from the lens into three light paths. Each has a CCD with a red, green and blue filter over it. The image of the scene is focused onto the light-sensitive surface of the CCD, and builds up a charge pattern corresponding to the brightness values in each area of the scene. This pattern is periodically “sampled”, recorded and reset at a rate of 1/60th of a second for NTSC and 1/50th of a second for PAL. The signal is sampled line by line, in a long sequential stream of signals. This stream is then recorded in a similar fashion to video tape. To play back, the stream is picked up from the videotape (in a similar manner as it was recorded). The stream of signals is then sent to the television screen using electrons hitting a phosphor screen, displaying the image. • Frames versus Interlacing A film image is captured in the exact same way as when you take a picture with a still photography camera. The entire frame is captured all at once using a purely chemical process. There are no discrete samples, there is no linear signal. The image is sampled at the resolution of the microscopic grains embedded on the film. Film usually captures the scene at a rate of 24 frames per second (fps). The entire image is exposed and recorded on every frame. Video, on the other hand, records half of the image every 1/60th of a second. This odd way of recording an image is due mainly to historical reasons. When video was first invented in the late 1920’s, the phosphors that were used to make the first television sets were too slow to respond to a full frame of video every 1/30th of a second. So they compromised using the alternating scan-line method. We must live with this compromise today, even though the phosphors used on today’s TV sets are of much higher quality and can easily respond to images of much higher rates (like your computer monitor). • Oh Yeah, What About Resolution? Resolution refers to the number of individual "samples" that are available in a recording medium. In this case, it does not refer the the "fidelity" or the amount of information stored at each sample, only the number of samples. Video stores the image in discrete steps called “pixels.” The NTSC standard for video capture is 640 pixels by 480 pixels. D1-NTSC records at 720x486. D1-PAL records at the highest video resolution 720x512. There are newer formats that capture at larger sizes, but this is the current standard. Film has no such restrictions, and is captured at the resolution of the microscopic grain, and is a much higher resolution medium than video. This resolution is different depending on the size of the film (35mm, 16mm or 8mm) and the quality of the film stock. 35mm stock has the largest imaging area (1225 square millimeters), and has a much higher resolution than 16mm stock (256 square millimeters) or 8mm stock (64 square millimeters). The resolution is directly related to the number of light-sensitive crystals present in each square millimeter of film. The larger the film, the more crystals. Film resolution, if compared to video, is much higher. The discernable resolution exceeds 5000 x 5000 pixels for a 35mm print. Human vision thresholds are much lower than this, approximately 2500 x 2500 pixels for a 35mm print projected in the average theater. Therefore, many hollywood producers have decided to render most film-output frames for high-tech features at 2k (2000 x 2000 pixels for a 35mm print). Therefore, video will look a bit grainy an "pixellated" no matter how high the resolution of the final film output. This is just part of video to film transfers, no matter the resolution or quality of the video you start. There are some services that "up-res" the video image to higher resolutions, for example taking a 480 line image to 1152 lines. This is usually done through a process called "bilinear interpolation", which essentially blends the fields smoothly. New lines are created between 2 previous lines. This will often create a smoother look, but it will still look somewhat pixellated. A side note about costs - there is no difference in the physical quality of the film-stock footage between these formats. The transfer costs are much higher as you go from 8mm to 16mm to 35mm. The costs are different because of the different applications of the formats. Commerical hollywood uses the 35mm format, and the independent/small venues use 16mm and the home consumer uses of 8mm. A video image is recorded line by line, from left to right and from top to bottom. These left-to-right lines are referred to as “scan lines.” Video "interlaces" a new image with the previous image, alternating between even and odd scan lines. Because of this, you never see a full frame of the scene at any one time. You rarely notice this fact because the images are updated so quickly. This interlacing technique was a "hack" because of the poor quality of early television sets which had much slower light-response and decay rates due to the inferior quality of components and poor quality of the phospor coatings used on the televison tubes. Today, modern TV sets can easily handle progressive (non-interlaced) images, but all the other technologies around television creation, storage and broadcast are built on this outdated "interlace" technology. High-definition Television (HDTV and derivatives) promises to replace much of this in the not-to-distant future with "progressive scan", which is the way your computer monitor works. But for now, we must live with the "interlaced" format. • Oh That Tricky Timing Problem When film is encoded to video, the timing difference between the 24 frame per second film and the 60 field per second video becomes a serious problem. It turns out that you cannot simply film a video screen. This is because the formats are playing back their frames at different speeds, and at an awkward ratio. This ratio is 3:2. So, to evenly record film from video, the video must be played back at a speed just-right for film. The most common solution to this problem is called “3:2 Pulldown”. This technique interpolates and changes the 60 field-per-second video in a special way to simulate 24 frame per second film. CineLook uses the built-in After Effects “3:2 pulldown” option to perform this task. Refer to “3:2 Pulldown” section in the After Effects manual for a more complete discussion of this feature for After Effects. Some people get confused about the 29.97 Frames-per-second video. This strange frame rate is due to audio-synchronization and field-timing characteristics. This topic is beyond the scope of this paper, but you should be aware of it. • Film Projection versus Video Playback Film must be developed in the same way that photographs are developed. Film is slightly different in that instead of having a print made, a transparency is created. This transparency is then simply spooled in sequence onto a film reel. To play back a film, this reel is fed through a film projector which projects the film transparency using a strong light source onto a highly reflective screen. The full frame image is reproduced, one frame at a time at a rate of 24 frames per second. To play back video, the video signal is transferred from the medium (digital storage, tape, radio waves) to a video display system. The majority of display systems in use today use large phosphor-based electron beam tubes. In these systems the video signal drives a scanning electron beam. The electron beam is controlled by a set of powerful magnets. The beam scans from left to right, top to bottom, skipping every other line. The screen of a television picture tube is made up of three separate patterns of phosphors, which glow red, green and blue when struck by the scanning electron beam. The brightness of each phosphor area corresponds to the video signal strength at that point in the picture. The eye blends the tiny phosphor points together, so that the separate red, green and blue images mix, and form a natural-color picture. Alternate horizontal lines of the image sequence are updated every 1/60th of a second. Now that you understand the key differences between video and film, you can better understand the issues involved, and get better results for your video-to-film transfer. • Transferring Video To Film The process of transferring video to film is commonly known as a "Film Blow-Up". Essentially, a blow-up is when you project a lower-resolution image (video or film) to a much higher resolution medium (film). A blow up can refer to going from 16mm film to 35mm film, or from video to film. For video-to-film, there are several different systems that do this and each system uses a different technology. It must be noted that none are perfect, and all have their pros and cons. But all these systems share the same purpose - to get video images onto film. The basic process goes like this: you send your video tape or digital files to the transfer facility, they do a process based on one of the systems below, and they send back a negative or print of your film. • The Systems There are essentially three different video-to-film transfer devices: Film Recorders, Kinescopes and Electron Beam Recorders. Each has their positive and negative aspects, including quality and (most noticably) costs. Here's a run-down on each technology. • The Film Recorder On the high-end are "Film Recorders" that reproduce the highest quality electronic image on film, typically from digital files that were filmed live or created on computers. They boast vertical resolutions of 2000 or 4000 video lines (called 2K and 4K, respectively.) There are two basic technologies: 1) Film Cameras that shoot hi-res monochrome CRT (high quality video screens) through red, green and blue filters, and 2) red, green and blue micro-lasers that scan an image on the film's surface without the use of lenses. This laser technology was adopted from the pre-press printing industry, which has used this technique for over 10 years to make seperation sheets for large presses. CRT-based systems are made by Management Graphics (product name "Solitaire") and Celco. These devices cost between US$150,000 - US$300,000. They are relatively slow, 15-40 seconds-per-frame for a 4K output image, and cost several dollars per frame. Laser systems are made by Eastman Kodak (product name "Cineon Lightning"). Eastman is getting out of this business (as of Oct. 1997), but their systems are still in use and work well. Digital Cinema Systems (product name "Lux") and Pthalo Systems (product name "Verite"). These devices cost between US$500,000 and US$1,000,000, record at 6 seconds per frame. They are faster and brighter that CRT systems, but at a slightly higher cost starting at several dollars per frame. Hollywoods EFILM, which commissioned the development of the Lux recorder (EFILM and Digital Cinema Systems share the same parent company) charges a discount price of $3,000 per minute - which works out to be about US$2 a frame. Granted, there will not be many 90-minute video-sourced productions that will undergo a US$270,000 film-transfer, but a short 10-minute film could be done for US$30,000. The film recorders were designed for outputting to film images created on film in the first place. Therefore, they output only to 35mm. The large per-frame costs and high-tech results are on frequent display in effects driven blockbusters like Titanic and most digital effects-driven hollywood movies. The process works like this: To get your video transferred, you will need to send your videotape or electronic files to the facility. They open the files or digitize the tape on their computer, then feed the images a frame at a time into the film-recording machine. The film recorder will then film-capture each frame with a specially-modified film camera to a film negative. The facility will give you back (depending on the facility) either a film negative or a print (with or without sound), or a combination of these. For a film negative, you will then need to add the sound tracks and a get a "print" made. The sound tracks will need to be transferred from your video tape or digital files to magnetic film (yes, magnetic film). The magnetic film will then need to be "optically" transferred to a negative. A film lab or the facility will then combine the film negative and the optical-sound negative to create a master negative. A print will be made from this negative. The print is what you will actually project to the audience. • The Kinescope The history of transferring video to film is actually older that the history of videotape! Film was the first and only video-recording medium until the late 1950's, since videotape didn't exist in the early years of NTSC broadcasting. During that time, TV production centers in New York worked with network TVR (television recording) departments, using local film-labs to process the tv-generated footage. These early systems used a real-time transfer deviced called a "kinescope", which is basically a small, very sharp monochrome video monitor photographed by a specially designed film camera whose shutter and relatively fast frame rate were electronically synchronized to match the NTSC video frame rate (29.97 fps). The kinescopes also dropped selected fields to produce a 24 frame-per-second film (actually 23.98 frames per second) and eliminating the visible "roll bars" that normally occur when filming TV screens. Early kinescopes were both 16mm and 35mm. When color became practical, hi-resolution Sony Trinitrons(tm) and other high-quality monitors were substituted for the monochrom CRT's. Today, 16mm kinescopes remain in use because the costs are low and the results are actually quite good. DuArt Video in New York uses a 16mm Kinescope loaded with ordinary color negative film-stock. The charge US$75 per minute which also includes the negative and a timed (color corrected) composite print along with the sound-track. To create a 35mm at DuArt an additional 35mm blow-up is required, which is rather costly. At their standard (book) rate, it's an additional approx US$4.00 per second which includes the necessary optical track and check print. DuArt also offers 35mm transfers via a Solitaire film recorder, and at the lower 2K resolution costs about US$1.50 per frame for 10 minutes. Film Craft Lab in Detroit offers a variation of the kinescope called a "triniscope" (a Teledyne CTR III.) The triniscope features three small monochrome CRTs, each covered with a red, green or blue filter, whose images are super-imposed by a prism and aimed at a synchronized film camera with a faster-than-normal frame rate. It's main quality is increased sharpness and excellent light output, plus 16mm and 35mm transfers are possible by simply switching cameras. For a 16mm transfer and a composite "one-light" print, Film Craft charges US$95 per minute and for 35mm the charge is US$230 per minute. This includes a stereo sound track. These prices do not include the negative or optical sound track, both of which must be purchased for an additional approx. US$.70 per second in 16mm or US$1.30 per second in 35mm. Many producers choose to do one-stop shopping, as this reduces the amount of potential problems. Film Craft allows you to create the print from the negative "in house", meaning at the facility. To get your video transferred via a kinescope, you will need to send your videotape or electronic files to the facility. If you send electronic files, they will open the files on their computer-based editing system, and create a video tape (some play directly from the computer, saving a generation). They will then use the kinescope with the built-in film camera to create a film negative. The facility will give you back (depending on the facility) either a film negative or a print with sound, or both. For a film negative, you will then need to add the sound tracks and a get a "print" made. The sound tracks will need to be transferred from your video tape or files to magnetic film. The magnetic film will then need to be "optically" transferred to a negative. A film lab or the facility will then combine the film negative and the optical-sound negative to create a master negative. A print will be made from this negative. The print is what you will actually project to the audience. Some faciities offer storage of the negative and sound. This is not unusual, as if you need extra prints of the film, they can quickly provide it. Also, these facilities have special rooms for storing film negatives for long periods of time. It may be impractical for you to provide this, and you will probably want to keep your film for longer than a few years. Also, the less the film-negative gets handled, the lower the chance of having it lost or damaged. • Electron Beam Recorders The electron beam recording (EBR) systems are the top-of-the-line systems for transferring video to film. EBRs function like CRTs, but instead of shooting a beam of electrons at a phosphor coated screen, they fire electrons directly onto unexposed film, which is held in a vacuum. The film is black & white because electrons dont have color, only intensity. Three exposures must be made for each frame of color, one for the red, green and blue components of the image. These three seperate exposures are re-printed through red, green and blue filters on an optical printer (a mechanical film-compositing device) to yield a color negative. One aspect of EBRS is a real-time transfer at a parallel rate of 72 black-and-white frames per second, or 24 color frames per second. There are very few facilities that use EBRs. A very few number of these machines were made in the early 1970's by 3M Corporation. Most of the machines are now owned and operated by the former Image Transform, now part of Four Media Company (4MC) in North Hollywood. 4MC's EBRs transform 16mm only. Both 16mm color negatives or 35mm color negatives are made on an optical printer, the latter via a 16mm-to-35mm blow up. 16mm transfers are US$180 per minute, and 35mm go for US$395 per minute. Costs of the color negative and optical sound track are extra, approx US$2.15 per second for 16mm, and US$2.35 per second in 35mm. The other major player that uses EBR technology is the Sony Pictures High Definition Center (SPHDC). The facility opened in Culver City back in 1991 to create new methods of video-to-film transfers. The have a unique system based on non-real time, pin-registered 35mm EBR to transfer 1125-vertical line resolution HDTV images. Sony's EBR outputs three black-and-white seperations per second, which equals one color film frame. their color correction and switchers are all HDTV compliant. 525-vertical line resolution images (NTSC Video is 480) are up-converted to 1125-line HDTV, the line-doubled again to approximated 2K output. Not surprisingly it is rather expensive. The costs are high, around $7 per second of video, print only.For a 16mm output, they reduce the 35mm negative on an optical printer. According to SPHDC's Miskovitch, his services lie between EFILM and 4MC. There are many other systems that people cook up with their own techniques, including computers, scanners, modified off-the-shelf components and video projectors. The Texas Instruments Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) is a new chip with 500,000 16-micron mirrors that act as pixels or colore light when refelected through a red, green and blue filter wheel. Some people are using this chip that is included in some higher-end projection systems to create video-to-film transfer solutions. Cineric has created a new system based of proprietary methods. They use Solitare film recorders but found a need to have a lower-cost alternative. In 1997, the developed a new video-to-film process, based on a system that uses a Silicon Graphics workstation to "up-res" the video images to "1K Plus" images, and convert 29.97fps to 24fps and eliminate interlace artifacts. Cineric charges $400 per minute, the same as 4MC, but with added benefits. Namely, the producer receieves the negative and the print. Cinerics new system is 35mm only, and will do 2 minute tests for $100 (Betacam material only). Contact David Tamés there for more information. • The Good, The Bad, The Ugly OK, so the technical stuff you have a pretty good idea about, but how does this stuff LOOK? The only way to truly know is to test it. The Sales staff at DuArt, Film Craft and 4MC do tests for producers at nominal cost, and possibly gratis. 4MC charges $500, whether it's 16mm or 35mm. Tests are essential because this video-to-film thing is something that everyone does differently, and no one fully understands all the methods, and because of the commercial nature of this business, it will be difficult to ascertain if the solution that one company promotes will be the solution for you. For example, if you shoot film and expose your subject in a certain way, you get an expected result. You cannot change the grain or detail or otherwise adjust the parameters of the film-stock, as those aspects are created in the film-emulsion at the factory that manufactured the film. But with video, you can change all kinds of features in the video camera. With film, you must adjust these parameters with a film-timer (a "Colorist") and your color decisions are locked into the film print, which appears basically the same in any movie theater. The color is fixed in the emulsion. Video has no "inherent" color, it's up to the equipment that records and plays back the signal to decide what the colors should be. Different equipment will produce different colors - like CRTs, Video Projectors or LCD screens. Different recording equipment will capture images with different qualities. It is impossible to try to predict what will be created from a video-to-film transfer, especially when you take into account the diverse video-to-film technologies, and their respective pros and cons. Tests are crucial to find out what works best for you. • Cost Comparisons Please be aware that we do not endorse or recommend any specific facility or process. This list is intended as a starting point for your own research. Please do not contact DigiEffects with questions about these facilities or their respective process. Please contact the facilities directly. DigiEffects cannot answer any questions concerning this list, so please dont ask! Facility Process Format, Length & Prices* Neg/Sound/Print Included? [--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------] DuArt Kinescope 16mm only 10min=US$750 90min=US$6,750 Yes/Yes/Yes CRT Film Recorder 35mm only ** 10min=US$29,600 90min=$Must Call Yes/Yes/Yes Film Craft Teledyne CTR III 16mm 10min=US$950 90min=US$8,550 No/Yes/Yes 35mm 10min=US$2,300 90min=US$20,700 No/Yes/Yes 4MC Electron Beam 16mm 10min=US$1,800 90min=US$16,200 Extra $/Extra $/Yes 35mm** 10min=US$3,950 90min=US$35,550 Extra $/Extra $/Yes Sony Hi-Def Electron Beam 35mm Only 10min=US$6,480 90min=US$58,320 No/No/No Soho Digital Electron Beam 35mm Only 10min=US$call 90min=US$47,250 yes/yes/yes *Prices are before tax plus various other lab charges. Contact facilities for complete pricing. These prices are subject to change without notice. Please use this guide as an estimate only. **35mm must be blown up from 16mm transfer. • Tape to Film Facilities NTSC to Film Four Media Corporation (4MC) North Hollywood, California 16mm & 35mm 818 985 7566 Tel 800 423 2652 Toll Free 818 980 4286 Fax http://www.4MC.com BBrooks@4MC.com e-mail Contact Beverly Brooks Sony Pictures High Definition Center Culver City, California 35mm Only 310 280 7433 Tel 310 280 4389 Fax http://www.spe.sony.com/Picture/Hidef/sphweb.htm schvatza@ix.netcom.com e-mail Contact Michael Schwartz or Don Miskowich
Soho Digital Film www.sohodigital.com Contact: Brian Hunt or Nick Paulozza Will do 1 min. mos tests for a nominal fee that would be credited toward a full job. A full 90min feature would average US$525 per minute Including neg, mono optical and release print. 1-888-764-6344 or 416-591-8408
DuArt Video New York City, New York 16mm & 35mm 212 757 4580 Tel 212 333 7647 Fax lyoung@duart.com e-mail Contact Linda Young Film Craft Lab Detroit, Michigan 16mm & 35mm 313 962 2611 Tel Contact Dominick Troia (No e-mail or Website yet) Cineric, Inc. New York City 35mm Only 212 586 4822 212 582 3744 info@cineric.com e-mail
PAL to Film
Peter Lemmen Condor Postproduction / DigitalMedia Willemsparkweg 80 1071 HL Amsterdam Netherlands phone +31 (0) 20 6712600 fax +31 (0) 20 6713766 Email peter@condor-post.com http://www.condor-post.com
Hokus Bogus ApS Pilestraede 6 DK 1112 Copenhagen K Denmark 16mm & 35mm +45 3332 7898 +45 3332 8848 Fax soren@hokusbogus.dk e-mail Contact Soren Kloch
Four Media Corporation (4MC) North Hollywood, California 16mm & 35mm 818 985 7566 Tel 800 423 2652 Toll Free 818 980 4286 Fax http://www.4MC.com BBrooks@4MC.com e-mail Contact Beverly Brooks Cineric, Inc. New York City 35mm Only 212 586 4822 212 582 3744 info@cineric.com e-mail http://www.cineric.com/
Colour Film Services (CFS) London, England 16mm and 35mm +44 181 998 2731 Tel +44 181 997 8738 Fax Contact Fred Weinal or Chris Rawson Cinema-L Filmtransfer Vienna, Austria 35mm only +43 1 667 1086 Tel +43 1 667 1092 Fax Contact Rudolf Linshalm Swiss Effects Zurich, Switzerland 16mm and 35mm +41 1 302 3151 Tel +41 1 302 67 fax Contact Rudi Schick Guertler InterMedia Munich, Germany 35mm +49 89 62 181 400 +49 89 62 181 444 Contact Stefan Waizmann VideoPrint Ottobrun (Munich), Germany +49 89 609 6015 +49 89 609 5927 No Contact Known Contents ©1998 Chris Athanas
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Thanks for your excellent article on video to film conversion! The only complaint I have is that you left out Film Team, in Austin, TX. They seem to be becoming a bigger player in the indie market for Mini-DV to film conversions, and it would be interesting to discover what process they are using, as opposed to the processes being used at 4MC, Sony, DuArt etc. I've heard people comment that their results are as good as Sony's, but they only charge about $20,000.00 for a 90 minute conversion... Here is a clip from their brochure: --- Your broadcast video master is captured with a DPS Perception card and converted to a sequence of high-resolution computer image files. If you provide us a DV tape, we read it in directly. Then, using a state-of-the art Silicon Graphics computer system, Interlacing defects are removed to achieve a film look and then the images are re-sampled at 24 frames per second. Finally, each movie frame is scanned at 1024 x 1280 resolution (twice the resolution of kinescope transfers) onto 35mm Kodak 5245 or Fuji F-63D motion picture film. The negative is processed and printed onto color print film with a wet-gate contact printer. >How your sound is transferred Your video's stereo soundtrack is recorded to 35mm optical stereo with Dolby-A noise reduction, with the optical recorder sync-locked to video time code. The result is compatible with monaural systems, Dolby Stereo, or Ultra-Stereo systems. >Synchronization Your video must be edited into 10-minute "reels," or segments, with head and tail beeps ("2-pops"). The head beep will be used to line up the 35mm optical track with the picture. We can also prepare your video for transfer on our computer editing system. >From what I can gather from this brochure write-up, they are using the same technique that Sony uses, with different branded equipment.