Film Direct to DVD Bad....

Post by **leighp** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 6:12 pm

Cheeky

Post by **Patrick** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 2:28 am

I am always amused by transfer houses that brag about quality but don't deliver the goods. My first transfer was done by a local company with very cheap rates and the quality was horrible - just about every thing that could possibly go wrong, went wrong. There were major problems with contrast, in some shots the colours were very dull and in other shots, colours were washed out. All of my footage had been tripod mounted and the horizon kept level but in the transfer, the ground was tilting diagonally! Actually, in the very beginning of the video, a title appears on the screen 'Another quality product from K------e' and the wording is also tilted!

Post by **T-Scan** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:21 am

My first and last experience with a "home movie to DVD" cost me $85 for 1 roll of K-40 to be transferred to DVD and a music track added. the price was more than advertised.. and the quality was HORRIBLE. color washed out, and the film was filthy on the transfer.. like they didn't clean their equipment ever. I didn't know better before the experience, but that was the clincher to get a WP. in which the WP has paid for itself 5 times over by now if i compare to those rates and crappy results, from the local transfer house/bathroom wall.

Post by **Patrick** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 12:04 pm

It still confuses me why some people who want to have their home movies from the 60s and 70s telecined don't care about the quality of the transfer. They merely seem to be content to see their relatives and kids on the TV screen, regardless of the hideous colours and poor contrast that makes it look like a nuclear explosion has occurred.

Post by **Uppsala BildTeknik** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 12:16 pm

Perhaps most people donÃ‚Â´t know it can get any better?

I know a big magazine in Sweden is making a big test on filmtransfers from different companies, perhaps this will be an eye-opener for people.

Some of my customers are very aware of the quality issues, one even sent rolls to 3 different companies to make his own tests. And some say "See if you can get anything from these rolls, they are so old..." and they were from the early -70, hell I have transferred film from the -40 and it still looked OK!

Kent Kumpula

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:40 pm

I'm really glad to see that someone is doing a test. I hope they include the Los Angeles film transfer labs including Pro-8mm - Burbank, Yale Labs North-Hollywood, and Film & Video Transfers, Northridge.

Post by **Uppsala BildTeknik** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:44 pm

I really donÃ‚Â´t think so, it is a test for Swedish home-movies and sending your film to Los Angeles seems pretty far....

Kent Kumpula

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:52 pm

It would make for a better headline.

Swedish Home Movie Transfer Quality vs HOLLYWOOD!

Post by **Uppsala BildTeknik** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:56 pm

Yep, "Sweden beats Hollywood" and "Uppsala is the new film-metropol, everybody is leaving Hollywood in search of fortune in Sweden"

I can see it coming, better get ready.... :lol:

Kent Kumpula

Post by **Dave Anderson** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 2:29 pm

Uppsala BildTeknik wrote:Yep, "Sweden beats Hollywood" and "Uppsala is the new film-metropol, everybody is leaving Hollywood in search of fortune in Sweden"

I can see it coming, better get ready.... :lol:

Kent Kumpula

This will then be followed up by an entire website tutorial at http://www.film-to-video.com:

"The real Truth why Film-To-Video beats Hollywood and even Uppsala" -- did I mention that DVD is not good for archiving purposes?

--------------------
Dave

Post by **Uppsala BildTeknik** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 4:08 pm

"The real Truth why Film-To-Video beats Hollywood and even Uppsala"

Hah, you are right! Why didnÃ‚Â´t I see THAT coming... He will be the end of us all and be the only one left in filmtransfer business.
And he with his vast knowledge of everything will rule the whole earth! :lol: :lol: :lol:

YouÃ‚Â´re killing me! :lol:

Kent Kumpula

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 7:39 am

These two quotes from the site are a bit over the top...

"No we don't have a "little bitty camera" on a "little bitty flat bed" that slowly transverses each "little bitty fame" of your film --
and nobody else does either. MYTH: That kind of technology does not exist -- contrary to what transfer mills want you to believe."

and....

"No transfer methodology exists that slowly tranverses each frame of film"?8O

If Roger reads this I fear Roger may disappear into thin air. 8O

-------------------------
"We specialize in the digital restoration of
Old and/or Damaged Film.

The true test of a great Digital Master,
is quality, so resolute, so color rich
that you could re-create 8mm film from the digital master
to rival your original 8mm film. "
-------------------------------

Has he ever actually tried to make a new film master from his digital master? Do NOT buy a parachute from this guy, thats all I can say.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:08 pm

Alex wrote:
Film-To-Video states:

No we don't have a "little bitty camera" on a "little bitty flat bed" that slowly transverses each "little bitty fame" of your film --
and nobody else does either. MYTH: That kind of technology does not exist -- contrary to what transfer mills want you to believe.

No transfer methodology exists that slowly tranverses each frame of film?8O If Roger reads this I fear Roger may disappear into thin air. 8O

I feel so faint.... like, like I'm wasting away......

Yes, I was highly amused when he recently added that to his site. I guess having over 1000 units out there has impacted his "market share". His diatribe certainly seems bitter, doesn't it?

Ironically, though he denies the existence of frame by frame scanning technology, he still claims

Proprietary Frame-for-Frame High Speed Image Scanning
With 2 "Full Frames" of "High Resolution" "Digital Video" for every frame of your film.

Which, of course, means that everything will end up running at 15fps.

Alex wrote:
Film-To-Video states:

We specialize in the digital restoration of
Old and/or Damaged Film.

The true test of a great Digital Master,
is quality, so resolute, so color rich
that you could re-create 8mm film from the digital master
to rival your original 8mm film.

Has he ever actually tried to make a new film master from his digital master?

The implication would make it seem so but we all know better. While I find nothing wrong with ordinary 720x480 DV for video viewing, it is hardly what I would call "high resolution", as he boasts on his website.

In fact, there are a number of questionable statements on his site. This one seems to, again, refer to my WorkPrinter units:

We DO NOT capture to a computer first and then make you master DVDs -- with all the artifacts, etc.-- giving you a 2nd generation Digital Master (or so they call it).

and this is one of my favorites:

As you know, Digital "copies" are NOT 100% one to one, bit to bit, copies --many digital CODECs (software that COdes/DECodes your video signal) have artifacts especially DVDs and Master Tapes that are created from cheap computer CODECs.

Damn those cheap computer codecs, anyway! ;)

More troublesome is how he warns his potential customers about companies that play games with the term "digital video" (as it relates to DVD masters) but then plays the very same game, purposely confusing DVD and DV master tapes. It makes me wonder if he really has any idea how formats like miniDV, digital 8 or DVcam really work? I may not have a degree in computer science but I know I can capture to the computer digitally, run that signal via firewire to a digital tape and then run that tape via firewire back to the computer and I perceive zero artifacts are degradation of the image. I mean, if there are any, I certainly can't see them and I'm certain no one else would, either. Considering the quality of his sample image, I can't imagine how any of this would really matter, anyway.

Alex wrote:Do NOT buy a parachute from this guy, thats all I can say.

If you do, you'll get a reallllllllllly long set of instructions to read on the way down that tells you everything about how great your parachute is, why everyone else's is bad but absolutely NOTHING about how your parachute works.

At least he offers a money back guarantee on the chute. ;)

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

Post by **Patrick** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 4:48 pm

If you think that's amusing, I was talking with a guy who operates a telecine service and he claims that 16mm film has the same resolution as VHS.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:33 pm

MovieStuff wrote:
Alex wrote:Do NOT buy a parachute from this guy, thats all I can say.
If you do, you'll get a reallllllllllly long set of instructions to read on the way down that tells you everything about how great your parachute is, why everyone else's is bad but absolutely NOTHING about how your parachute works.

At least he offers a money back guarantee on the chute. ;)

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

By the time one has read all the instructions one will have "landed".