Uncompressed S8 transfers really work

[npcoombs]

I just received a film by Gavin Lim which was transfered with an uncompressed 8 bit PAL transfer by Spectra - all I can say is wow!

It seems twice as sharp as anything else I have received so far. The stocks he shot were Velvia 50D and v2-200T, they both appear razor sharp and the film looks like a slightly jittery 16mm film.

This was sun-saturated Singapore, but still the uncompressed transfers seem worth it.

[avortex]

Mmmhh... any stills? Sound interesting.

[npcoombs]

[narri]

Holy cow. I'm no expert, but that looks very good. How much does that service cost? I tried looking it up without really getting any smarter.

[christoph]

the irony is that they show severe compression artifacts (check the RGB channels or look at the redlight for example) which means it has likely been dubbed to DV or you compressed the hell out of your jpeg stills (unlikely)

you can have very sharp transfers to DV, and you can have soft transfers to 10bit uncompressed, the machine that is used is much more important than the codec used.
++ christoph ++

[Evan Kubota]

I have to agree with christoph - you just wouldn't see the blocking on the red lights if it were actually 10 bit. Did he give you the footage on a miniDV tape or ship a drive to you?

Anyway, it looks good. Better than my recent 10-bit transfer from Cinelab (I think they turned the grain reduction up too much, as there is no visible grain but it's somewhat soft).

[BigBeaner]

Are those blocks visible with the video in motion?

[avortex]

Wow! Resolution is excellent... Compression artifacts and RGB noise is present but they show an excellent sharpness.

[christoph]

I have to agree with christoph - you just wouldn't see the blocking on the red lights if it were actually 10 bit.

actually the originaly post states it's 8bit.... but the blocking isnt a result of bith depth (and we canNOT see a difference between 8bit or 10bit unless one performs some major color correction anyway) but rather of compression. two different things altogether.
++ c

[mattias]

I have to agree with christoph - you just wouldn't see the blocking on the red lights if it were actually 10 bit.

he said it was 8-bit. but it's certainly not 4:2:2 either but 4:2:0. or even 4:1:1 resampled to 4:2:0 from what i can tell. great sharpness and colors though.

/matt

[steve hyde]

...the images show compression artifacts because .jpg is a compressed image - in this case 716 X 574 px.. A raw 8bit image would be much larger.

Steve

[christoph]

...the images show compression artifacts because .jpg is a compressed image - in this case 716 X 574 px.. A raw 8bit image would be much larger.

yeah, but you have to compress the hell out of an image like this to get an jpeg file with such obvious blocking artifacts - and those are usually less regular. (and the file size suggest only about 1:7 compression).
but a png or tiff file would certainly clear this up.

++ christoph ++

[npcoombs]

I've sent Gavin an email to ask him to confirm his workflow.

I received a disc labeled 8-bit uncompressed film and presumed he had carried across that standard from his transfer, although thinking about it it is perfectly possible that he upscaled from DV, although I can't see what the advantage of this would have been?

Whatever the case his shooting and Spectra's transfer have produced some remarkably crisp images, which are far better than what I have seen CineLab deliver.

My experience with Cinelab is that all their transfers tend to be a little soft.

[ccortez]

I have to agree with christoph - you just wouldn't see the blocking on the red lights if it were actually 10 bit. Did he give you the footage on a miniDV tape or ship a drive to you?

Anyway, it looks good. Better than my recent 10-bit transfer from Cinelab (I think they turned the grain reduction up too much, as there is no visible grain but it's somewhat soft).

You saw this from Cinelab in 16mm transfers, or S8? I should get something back from them this week, and I really hope it doesn't look like that b/c I don't mind grain but I HATE soft.

[Evan Kubota]

Super 8. The 16mm has always had pretty sharp, visible grain.