serious critique of TRANSFER HOUSES

[Justin Lovell]

alright here goes..

everyone has left their 2 cents somewhere on this forum about different labs for transfers. This topic is going to touch on them all!



My experience is with EXCLUSIVE in toronto.

EXCLUSIVE: Great for developing b/w film stocks. Not really impressed with the transfer that i got of some 7240 ekt. that I had shot. Low contrast, flat color rendetion, and it is not a wet gate transfer (from what i can tell, i had lots of scratches that ran through the length of the film that came up in the transfer).

On the plus side: Exclusive offers to do transfers for $30cdn/ 10 mins of footage, so if you don't have a lot to transfer it is a cheep means of doing it.

Their transfer is done using a 5 bladed shutter projector.


DOES ANYONE HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH THESE LABS?

FLYING SPOT
SUPER 8 CINEMA
MOVI-E WORKS (?)
CINEPOST
FILM AND VIDEO TRANSFERS INC. (THE TRANSFER STATION)

Looking for the best price for the best quality xfer (obviously )

best,

jusetan

[MovieStuff]

Looking for the best price for the best quality xfer (obviously )

Don't know about the price but Flying Spot does the best job with Super 8 that I've seen. The Transfer Station also does really good work.

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

[unxetas]

haven't used any of them (or any others as a matter of fact) but from all the stuff I've seen here at the forum, The Flying Spot examples were the best Super8 stuff I've ever seen..


I think.. lol

[Justin Lovell]

Cinepost offers a pretty good rate, 135/hour on their scanner.

and their work seems pretty good (it's quite a bit cheeper than flying spot which is $300/hour last i checked).

their service seems pretty similar, any other opinions?

The transfer station seems like they would do a great job, but i've never worked with them...

all my work is shot SUPER DUPER 8 at 24fps, so i'd need to find someone who can support that.. i know flying spot and cinepost can support that.

jusetan

[Nigel]

I have used Cinepost for a long long time now. They do great work. Flying Spot has a top notch thing going but I hesitate to do anything with them right now due to pricing.

Here is my logic. I send all my Super8 to DigiBeta. No matter what I am limited to DigiBeta's maximum qualities...These are within the scope of CinePost and they charge half the price. If I were going to go to HD that would be another story. But, I'm not.

Good Luck
PS--I haven't had a decent run of S8 since last fall when I did 30 rolls of 7274 200T.

[teadub]

I used Cinepost last month for a super 8 project I just finished. They did a great job, and they were very helpfull. I would highly recommend them.

I am under the impression that Flying Spot has better equipment, and that they have the ability to do "film scans" not just telecine. But their prices are cost prohibitive at this point. Especially considering I do most telecine to DV anyways.

[Justin Lovell]

transfer station claims that they'll give you the best quality or your money back..

"We offer a 100% money back guarantee that you won't find the same quality transfers at the same price anywhere! "

http://www.thetransferstation.com

sounds like a good thing, but is their quality going to be better than cineposts?

jusetan

[Nigel]

Flying Spot can not do scans...HD 4:2:2 is as good as it gets from them which is really nice but It isn't log based 2k 4:4:4 data files.

Good Luck

[Justin Lovell]

just spoke with the transfer house...

they seem to have a very good system there.. DOUG has made specific modification to his rank scanner to give a much sharper image transfer for super 8.

Not sure if i should spend the extra cahs on getting a digi beta xfer or if i should just stick with the min-dv format...


any other thoughts?

jusetan

[teadub]

Flying Spot can not do scans...HD 4:2:2 is as good as it gets from them which is really nice but It isn't log based 2k 4:4:4 data files.

Good Luck

Hey Nigel, do they have a Spirit or a Shadow? Who does film scans on super8, anyone? I guess it's kinda silly anyways. Thanks.

[Nigel]

They have a Shadow...

I don't know of any place doing 2k Scans(Of Super8). Like you said it would be kinda silly.

Good Luck

[MovieStuff]

transfer station claims that they'll give you the best quality or your money back..

"We offer a 100% money back guarantee that you won't find the same quality transfers at the same price anywhere! "

http://www.thetransferstation.com

sounds like a good thing, but is their quality going to be better than cineposts?

jusetan

Well, everything is relative. I mean, PC Magazine did a story about transfers and did a test between our DV8 Sniper-Pro and CinePost's Rank Turbo. The article can be found here:

http://www.moviestuff.tv/whats_new.html ... 20Magazine

If you look at the side by side comparisons, our Sniper-Pro looks pretty good. But I think that has as much to do with CinePost's operator than anything. I mean, I know the quality of our Sniper unit and there is no way it can match the potential of the Rank Turbo, but whether the operator took advantage of that potential is the issue. Likewise, when any transfer house makes a guarantee about their quality, there are so many variables that can affect the final outcome that you really have to take such claims with a grain of salt. After all, the only way you'd know if someone else could do better is if you pay them to transfer the film, as well. Not many people working in Super 8 are going to pay two Rank houses to transfer the same film on the gamble that one is going to refund the transfer fee!

Roger

[T-Scan]

I have been using Flying Spot. great transfers but expensive. i'm curious to see what I can get from Cinepost for half the cost. can anyone post stills of 7217/18 transferred by Cinepost?