Super8 to Cineon (was: 100D downhill clip)

[christoph]

Perhaps I should open up the following in a separate thread?

yes, you probably should ;)

That is, I was wondering if you apply Cineon filters in Adobe Premiere for S8 Vision negative stock?

you should only do that if the original footage is saved in logarithmic encoding

I am presently fascinated by Cineon logarithmic DPX files which interperts light values similar to negative film. No clipping. And other attributes.
Are you aware of anyone that is able to directly scan S8 film to Cineon/DPX files? I suspect they would be massive.

i've done a lot of tests with that and decided to use this solution for myself. once my transfer system is getting out of beta i might considering offering it to others as a service.
the file size depends on the scan resolution, mine will do true 1.4K 10bit RGB log, which results in 5.2MB per frame, or about 7.3GB per minute at 24fps (as a comparison, HDV uses 190MB per minute).
still, this is quite doable though with todays off the shelf hardware, specially if using proxies to edit. the biggest problem is proper color management and workflow, which very few people really understand.

In fact I must upgrade my 4 year old PC to handle the CPU instruction set necessary for the latest Adobe Premiere CS3 w/ Cineon.

premiere doesnt support true cineon or dpx files.
[edit:]just checked the documentation and it says you could use cineon sequences, but so far i havent been able to work out how. both cin and dpx refuse to import:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro ... 939Aa.html

you could either use 10bit mov files with logarithmic encoding and apply the cineon converter to that, or if you're interested in a proper film workflow the solution is to edit the footage using video proxies and online it later with the original .cin/.dpx files using a program that is meant to work with true log files, like after effects or shake. speaking of which, apple seems to have completely discontinued shake last week, i'm really sad about this as it is one of the best applications i've ever used. on the plus side, adobe really beefed up after effects a lot, and it's the only application that can do proper color management without expensive extra hardware. very powerful stuff, but also quite confusing sometimes.

++ christoph

[Nicholas Kovats]

Thanks for starting this thread, Christoph.

But you are way ahead with your experiments and need to explain such things as "editing with video proxies".

What setup are you utilizing to transfer S8 film to output as "1.4K 10bit RGB log"?

Regards,

Nicholas K.

[Nicholas Kovats]

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cineon, i.e.

"Thus, Cineon files are assumed to operate as part of a reproduction chain keeping whatever values are originally scanned from a negative or positive film"

and

"The original Cineon color data metric printing densities were based upon 5244 intermediate film. Conversion of Cineon Printing Density (CPD) to Status-M can be estimated with a 3x3 matrix or by using tables contained in the Kodak 'Digital LAD' document. This document shows a specific relation between Cineon Code values and Status-M densities."

Have you been able to collate the various Super 8 reversal and negative stocks with Cineon Printing Densities?

[christoph]

you are way ahead with your experiments and need to explain such things as "editing with video proxies".

this has not so much to do with my experiments but with the general way things are handled in a DI (digital intermediate) workflow.

the problem is that a normal editing sequences is meant to work with video files. it can't handle image sequences natively (or if so with very poor performance), and much less so in a log format. so when you're in the editing stage, you dont want to be rendering all the time, you want to use the time making decisions on story and timing etc.
that means if you have your files at high resolution cineon files, it's best to create a copy in an easier to handle format. in the editing process, this is often called an offline, in the vfx world proxies.

this has the advantage that you can work very fast and can do everything in real time (and that you dont have to worry about complicated display LUTs etc). once everything is finished, you can relink your edit to the original full quality footage. this is then called an online which you can apply your color correction t and render out.

all that said, cineon or dpx files are really mainly meant as a way to make a digital negative for a cinema print later (thus the name DI), they are pretty much useless for a video screening because the gear wont be able to handle the extra information anyway. in fact, in that case you're usually better off transfering to a high quality video codec, because it's easier to handle. chances are even that you get better colors because you're not prone to conversion errors.

What setup are you utilizing to transfer S8 film to output as "1.4K 10bit RGB log"?

i use a high resolution machine vision camera. basically all cameras using CCDs capture in a linear format, because that's how the chip (which is still an nalog device) reacts to light. it gets then digitized and processed. in a normal video camera, this is done internally by converting to an gamma corrected video color space which is in 8bit 4:2:2 Y'CbCr. this is convenient because it will automatically display well on nearly every device meant for video (and even reasonably close on computers).

on my system i convert the 12bit linear output to 10bit 4:4:4 RGB in log encoding as this is a very good way to keep all the dynamic range and color information of a film scan. however, it will look like crap on a normal monitor and you need a LUT to view or convert it. the premiere cineon converter is a simple but rather crude way to do this.

++ c.

[christoph]

"The original Cineon color data metric printing densities were based upon 5244 intermediate film. Conversion of Cineon Printing Density (CPD) to Status-M can be estimated with a 3x3 matrix or by using tables contained in the Kodak 'Digital LAD' document. This document shows a specific relation between Cineon Code values and Status-M densities."

Have you been able to collate the various Super 8 reversal and negative stocks with Cineon Printing Densities?

well, this part is very complex and the any good implementation is hugely expensive and needs regular calibration - not to speak of that every post house has it's own little tweaks and bugs. so it's best just to keep things consistent on your end and then bring that data to the place which films out your negative and makes your print and make sure that what you have seen on your system is matched by their system (which shouldnt be too hard if you've done things properly on your side).
things are getting better lately with color management but as mentioned before it's pretty complex and i've seen quite a few project where everything got screwed up in the last step.

++ c.

[Mitch Perkins]

That is, I was wondering if you apply Cineon filters in Adobe Premiere for S8 Vision negative stock?

you should only do that if the original footage is saved in logarithmic encoding

We've just started using PP's "Cineon Converter" effect on the negs, telecined real-time (20fps) as avi files.

Works like a charm, as long as you get enough light on the film in the first place (during exposure), and then telecine the footage really washed out and milky.

This is not to diminish the excellent technical discussion here, but simply to let those who can't (or don't want to) follow it know that this effect is somewhat of a "silver bullet" for the negs........

Mitch

[Nicholas Kovats]

"on my system i convert the 12bit linear output to 10bit 4:4:4 RGB in log encoding as this is a very good way to keep all the dynamic range and color information of a film scan. however, it will look like crap on a normal monitor and you need a LUT to view or convert it. the premiere cineon converter is a simple but rather crude way to do this."

From what I understand Cineon evolved into the now industry standard DPX format and the file formats are almost identical.

I found this DPX utility viewer for Windows, i.e. http://djv.sourceforge.net/. I was then able to view this original 35mm color negative frame in the native 10 bit log DPX format, i.e. http://www.lasergraphics.com/us/files/d ... ample1.zip

It seems to work with LUT (Look UP Tables) and according to a user, quote"...It's ability to write out proxy footage."

How does it compare in your view to Adobe Premiere Cineon Convertor?

[Nicholas Kovats]

I found this nifty little KB on DPX and Log image formats, i.e.

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/motion-picture.php

[christoph]

From what I understand Cineon evolved into the now industry standard DPX format and the file formats are almost identical.

yes, DPX is basically cineon image data wrapped in a container to hold timecode and other information like extra channels which are important for todays workflows.

I found this DPX utility viewer for Windows, i.e. http://djv.sourceforge.net/. I was then able to view this original 35mm color negative frame in the native 10 bit log DPX format, i.e. http://www.lasergraphics.com/us/files/d ... ample1.zip
It seems to work with LUT (Look UP Tables) and according to a user, quote"...It's ability to write out proxy footage."

looks like a pretty capable app (albeit with a crude interface on osx).. but here you already start to see the problems with these kind of things. you'll probably see a rather high contrast yellow image (at least if the win version is similar to the osx version), while in fact you should see a lower contrast yellow image. you get a reasonably close view if you click on image->display profile->show.. and change the gamma slider to 2.2. but this *still* isnt a really accurate representation of the frame, and even though the app has a "load 3D lut" option, it's very unlikely that it uses the same format as your scanning/outputting company, and even if it did by a lucky chance, you'd still need to have a fully calibrated monitor solution.

as said before, if you know what you're doing you can get away with a normal calibrated consumer monitor and have the company who does the filmout match what you want, but it's far from trivial.

How does it compare in your view to Adobe Premiere Cineon Convertor

well, i would have to use and test it a lot more to know for sure... but i guess you have better bets with premiere as it inherits part of the guts of after effects (which is still your best choice for these kind of things if you are on a low budget imo).

I found this nifty little KB on DPX and Log image formats, i.e.
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/motion-picture.php

yes, it's a nice introduction, but do do get a few things wrong (like the inaccurate use of the term linear) and again this app doesnt take into account the whole color management problem.

all that said, 90% of the people out there edit their DV material on systems with inaccurate colors as well and they didnt die from it ;)
++ c.