35mm Scanning: DIY vs A Professional Service

[SUP3RDeathStar]

For those who have scanned 35mm film, have you done it yourself or do you have an outside service do it professionally?

For those who've done it themselves: what is your process?

For those who've had a professional service do it: any specific service you would recommend?

[deleted user]

I scanned a few single 35mm trailer frames with a 35mm home scanner. Completely impractical for anything longer, as it takes about a minute to scan a frame.

[Valeyard]

There's a write-up on the process of building a scanner from a projector:

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/How-to-...e/id/45977

The first step would be buying a projector, ideally one that has been recently serviced/restored as you want it in as good condition as possible.

[Valeyard]

Where did SUP3RDeathStar go? There are services we can recommend, but we don't name labs publicly.

You can also learn more about the DIY approach on the Kinograph forums... as you see you can even build a scanner completely from scratch and use the open source software. I am under the impression at the moment though that you would be better off paying a couple of hundred bucks to get the professional software supplied with $50,000+ scanners

[deleted user]

SUP3RDeathStar has been absent from Blutopia too, probably has other stuff to do in his life right now, I dunno.

[SiriusGen]

For those who have scanned 35mm film, have you done it yourself or do you have an outside service do it professionally?

For those who've done it themselves: what is your process?

For those who've had a professional service do it: any specific service you would recommend?

I have all three 35mm trailers for Terminator 2 Judgment Day, and had them professionally scanned. It was fairly expensive for just one guy doing his own project!

I used cinelab.london

They ultrasonically cleaned the film, Spirit scan to 4k, DPX image sequence, optical audio track separately and transferred to a HDD I supplied.

They offered a 4k scan service with separate RGB and intensity scans, but again, far too pricy for a hobby project.

"2k or 4k scans are via our Arriscan which is a 6K pin registered frame array scanner. The film is advanced a frame at a time into the gate where pins then locate into the sprocket holes and the image is locked into position. The film is then exposed sequentially with an RGB and infrared light source and twice at two different intensities to provide a high dynamic range scan. The Kodak Digital-ICE infrared pass provides an error map of surface blemishes present on colour negative and print stocks whereby these defects are automatically corrected.

This isn’t very forgiving of anything other than perfect neg though, so as I’m assuming your copies are pos, that is to say ‘prints’, then a better option may be via our Spirit 2k or 4K, which is the  industry standard in line array CCD Telecine Scanners".

So I went with the CCD spirit option.

[poita]

We have scanning facilities in Europe and the US for 35mm and 16mm if anyone needs professional work done. We are certainly cheaper than cinelab

[poita]

We are looking at opening up 2.5K scanning (which honestly exceeds most release prints resolution, and is way higher than 1080P, especially for scope prints) on the Arri for collectors for a flat rate, about an 80% reduction in the standard commercial rate. This would give far better results than single flash "4K" scans on bayer based equipment. We have just purchased another Arri and are commissioning it in early December, I'll keep everyone posted, but I have been working to having an option for print owners to get access to high end equipment.

[Valeyard]

We are looking at opening up 2.5K scanning (which honestly exceeds most release prints resolution, and is way higher than 1080P, especially for scope prints) on the Arri for collectors for a flat rate, about an 80% reduction in the standard commercial rate. This would give far better results than single flash "4K" scans on bayer based equipment. We have just purchased another Arri and are commissioning it in early December, I'll keep everyone posted, but I have been working to having an option for print owners to get access to high end equipment.

That's fantastic news! UHD is the maximum resolution you can work with in the free version of Resolve anyway, meaning you can work with your your source files at 2K full aperture or 2.5K/3K (with sprockets so you can crop to 2.5K full aperture), but without commercial tools there's little benefit to having a 5K source file as you would need to stabilise to the sprockets and crop to 4K full aperture using free imaging software first instead of video editing software. And then you still need to downsize that to UHD max anyway in Resolve.

Also poita, I was interested in your thoughts regarding Cinelab's statement regarding the Arri's ability to handle prints "This isn’t very forgiving of anything other than perfect neg though, so as I’m assuming your copies are pos, that is to say ‘prints’, then a better option may be via our Spirit 2k or 4K, which is the  industry standard in line array CCD Telecine Scanners." Going by SiriusGen's blog he had the T2 trailers scanned either in early 2014 or in 2013. I know the Arri has been improved upon by the company over the years adding more options like a sproketless film path etc, could you tell me why their Arri didn't handle prints well at that time?

[dbear]

We are looking at opening up 2.5K scanning (which honestly exceeds most release prints resolution, and is way higher than 1080P, especially for scope prints) on the Arri for collectors for a flat rate, about an 80% reduction in the standard commercial rate. This would give far better results than single flash "4K" scans on bayer based equipment. We have just purchased another Arri and are commissioning it in early December, I'll keep everyone posted, but I have been working to having an option for print owners to get access to high end equipment.

Sounds intriguing, are options for 16mm scanning being considered as well?