What format to telecine on

[amoviebyjeff]

I apologize if this topic has been discussed before (i searched), or if these questions are completely moronic, but I'm trying to get a grasp on the telecine process.

I just had five rolls of 64t developed, and they look great through my projector. I am planning on using Spectra for the telecine, but am not sure which format to have my film transferred to.

Is there much difference between Beta SP, DV Cam, DigiBeta?
I'm sure there's a difference, but is it noticeable when working with Super 8?

Or should I just have them transfer the film onto my external drive? Maybe the compression is good though, since the files won't be so large.

Sorry for all these questions guys.

Link to spectras telecine page:
http://spectrafilmandvideo.com/Telecine.html

Thanks,
jeff

[downix]

The difference is in what you have to read them. The DigiBeta is slightly higher quality, and yes you can see it, but I'd imagine the hard drive would give the best quality. I'll be calling up Spectra now to see about doing that.

[Patrick]

Regarding Betacam Sp and DVCAM, It's debatable which offers better quality. Though personally, I think Beta Sp looks better. Though that's comparing video camera footage using those formats to record on. Hard to say if there will be much difference when transferring super 8 to either format. Regardless, Digital Betacam offers the highest quality of the three tape formats you mentioned. If you telecine to Betacam Sp, remember that this is an analogue format so at some point, you'll have to convert the footage to digital if you want to edit it with NLE software.

Some people in the industry will criticise you if you telecine to DVCAM and sway you to telecine to Digital Betacam instead, arguing that Digibeta has greater colour space than DVCAM. Though such people work for companies who have huge budgets that allow them to use that option as part of their normal workflow. I think film footage transferred to DVCAM looks fine and Ive seen some great examples of that posted on this site. Really, it all comes down to your budget. Telecining to Digital Betacam is astronomically expensive. Part of the huge cost is renting out the equipment to edit your footage. DVCAM would be a much cheaper and more convenient option as a telecine format.

I believe it's still early days for companies to telecine to external hard drive. I havent read many comments about this option - there may be advantages and disadvantages.

[steve hyde]

...Digibeta, BetaSP and DVcam basically all look the same when you are projecting in the cinema. Digibeta will buy you a little wiggle room in post if you decide to do any chroma work, but of course the best practice is to make sure your colorist understands what you want at transfer time then you don't have to worry about video color correction.

Best practice is to transfer to Digibeta and ask for a DVcam dub for off-line editing. This way your transfer is archived on Digibeta and when you have a film that you want to promote in the festival circuit, you can conform your edits to Digibeta and create a Digibeta exhibition tape.

These days a lot of people are capturing the Digibeta files to hard drive. This way you can just take your hard drive somewhere with a Digibeta deck and lay off the files to tape.

As always - best to have a conversation with Spectra to work out a strategy for your project.

[Will2]

Best practice is to transfer to Digibeta and ask for a DVcam dub for off-line editing. This way your transfer is archived on Digibeta and when you have a film that you want to promote in the festival circuit, you can conform your edits to Digibeta and create a Digibeta exhibition tape.

Exactly. Another practical alternative now is to go uncompressed to hard drive or data DVD then re-compress to the codec you'll use in editing. This can always be outputted to DigiBeta if you need it for festivals or something else... plus, who has a $100k DigiBeta deck laying around for home editing?

If you're paying top dollar for a transfer, get it transfered to the best format you can or plan to work with. You can always make DV dubs or recompress to another codec as needed.

[DonFito]

I'd recommend a direct to hard drive, 10-bit 4:2:2 uncompressed QuickTime file. You can manipulate this format in Post to a significantly higher degree of flexibility than any of the tape formats mentioned, and it requires no technical knowledge of postproduction to manipulate it.

[blanka]

my 2 cents -

get a digibeta of your film then con someone into digitising this to a hard drive @10 bit 4:2:2 then edit and master.

I have had a bunch of harddrives crap out on me in the last few years (all lacie)
and if your drive goes down you can allways go back to the tape.

It may not be the cheapest but its the safest, and loosing data is nearly as traumatic as getting a box of records stolen.

If you go down the hd only route, buy a cheap big usb2 drive and dupe that data as soon as you have it.

[adamgarner]

I will second the Uncompressed to Hard Drive vote. I have my films transferred at Pro8 in HD to a hard drive. The colors and the definition are unbeatable.

With a 10 bit uncompressed 4:2:2 image, you will have more latitude in post. I typically re-compress footage to ProRes for NLE on FCP. Works amazing, but be prepared to have quick computer. Uncompressed footage is a large load for most systems. You'll want a lot of storage for it. In HD my footage was about 400G for 40 minutes of footage.

The results are unbeatable though. You wont be disappointed.

[amoviebyjeff]

Everyone, thank you for your input.

If I had the money, I would have transferred to Digibeta or hard drive, but, alas, there just wasn't enough change in the couch cushions to come up with that kinda dough.
So instead I transferred my five 64t reels to DVCam, and let me just say that I am very happy with the results. (transfer done at http://www.spectrafilmandvideo.com)

(search my other post for my initial, and sadly disastrous transfer experience)

I cut together a very short clip (20 sec) of my footage, and thought I'd share it with y'all. I plan to make a longer video, but I wanted to test out how it would look on Vimeo...the video being 480mb, with the max allowed being 500.

Link:
http://vimeo.com/1131640

Again, thanks for the tips.
-Jeff

[adamgarner]

Seems to look very nice!

Pointer : Before you upload footage to be watched on a computer (on vimeo, your website, youtube, whatever) make sure you de-interlace it. All computer monitors are progressive scan. Uploading interlaced footage gives those irritating scan lines which suck.

Also, try and compress it. I uploaded an HD 2.5 minute music video and it was only 160MB. Try and use h.264 compression next time and you can fit more footage to show off. Plus you wont have to use quadrants, which I think takes away from what is probably astounding footage.

I'd love to see it without the quadrants. I'm considering getting some footage telecined at spectra. Would you be willing to upload this sometime? I'm tired of spending 500 bucks an hour at Pro8, even though the results rule.

[BBF]

That looks a hundred times better than what homemoviedepot gave you. Definitely would like to see it full screen.

[DonFito]

The transfer looks great. DVCAM is a solid tape medium, and you can still do color correction to a good degree.

You can improve the sample you uploaded by removing the pulldown. If you're using Final Cut Studio 2 you have all the tools needed, just look up "pull down removal" and follow the steps outlined. Your DVCAM footage is most likely 3:2 pulldown. If you are using a different software see what the manual says.

If you'll be outputting your edit master back to tape there's no need at all to do "pull down removal".

[Will2]

That looks a hundred times better than what homemoviedepot gave you.

One of my first transfers once I got back into film like 5 years ago was with Home Movie Depot. It was a Tri-X reel and it came back with tons of dust bunnies and hairs. I loved it. Coming from plenty of video work at the time it was all that I could have hoped for. Now I've come to appreciate a clean transfer, but sometimes a little dirt on black & white is perfect.

[JhnZ33]

I don't think Homemoviedepot actually "cleans" the film they transfer. They use PTR rollers ahead of the gate from what I've seen. When you're milling out as much film transfers as they are, you really don't have the time to chemically clean all the film.

JP