Films on scanned with Blackmagic Cintel

I am interested in knowing what productions have been scanned with the Blackmagic Cintel Scanner.

There have been many posts on Cinematography.com that suggests the quality is far inferior to the LaserGraphics ScanStation, Arriscan III, etc.
https://cinematography.com/index.php?/t ... er/page/4/
https://cinematography.com/index.php?/t ... ent-517078
"Until BMD loses the Sprockets and the bad 4K sensor with fixed pattern noise I would not call the BMD Cintel really a "professional" scanner. Also it is very much less than 2K for 16mm."

This is from the owner of Cinelab in MA.
"Ohh and the Blackmagic Cintel is professional in every way BUT the imager. It's 90% there... a very simple imager update will solve all the problems, now that they have a sprocketless version. “

The site says that for 35mm, the resolution is limited to UHD (3840x2160). Given that BMD create 12K cameras, I would hope that the sensor is upgradeable.

I am shooting film on my feature and I fear that purchasing the Cintel 2 for scanning will be a $30K boat anchor, if the quality is garbage like the above people say.

For what it’s worth, I own a Moviecam SL MKI, Arri IIC, Arritechno 35-90, Arri Alexa XT, a PL mount modified Pocket Cinema Camera 6K, Davinci Micro Panel, plus had an URSA, URSA 4.6K EF, and a few of the original Micro and Pocket Cameras. I have been pretty loyal to BMD, despite being stuck with some dead end cameras [hello, OG Ursa!] I edit absolutely everything in Davinci Resolve.

Thank you,


Todd

I have no idea what you're talking about, however, I just went to http://toddsines.com
Respect, brilliant ads etc.

For 35mm the Cintel captures in 4096x3072, but this of course includes overscan so for Super35 I believe the horizontal resolution (as for the effective image area) is just around 3840.

I believe that the George Michael documentary was scanned with the Cintel, though most (if not all) was 16mm.

Personally I only find the FPN to be an issue when scanning prints. Doing two-pass HDR scans solves the issue at the expense of the scanner being very slow (second pass is 12fps at max, making final scan taking being at least three times more time consuming). For negatives or low contrast duplicates it's not needed tbh. Optics are however a bit on the soft side but it still resolves good detail and fine grain.

Considering the price tag I do think that the Cintel is a very respectable scanner, but if you've got a project with a larger budget I think there are better alternatives. At the very least however it's great for dailies and off-line editing thanks to the Keykode reader.

There have been many posts on Cinematography.com that suggests the quality is far inferior to the LaserGraphics ScanStation, Arriscan III, etc.

Last I checked, an Arriscanner was north of $250,000, and a ScanStation is around $175,000. I think you're kind of asking, "hey, why isn't my Prius more like a Tesla Model S Plaid?" It's a whole different price category. I think the Cintel is a fine scanner for $30K, but it's not a Arriscanner or a LaserGraphics or a Kinetta or a Scannity, all of which cost about 4-5 times more money.

BTW, I've worked with film scans for more than 40 years (20 years in telecine, 20 years as digital files), and there's always qualitative difference between scanners. And there are some really bad ones out there -- most of which are no longer on the market.

There is a sub-US$15,000 sprocketless motion picture film scanner which is not intended to compete with the higher-end production scanners. The imaging is via a machine-vision camera head and third-party software.

It is used by institutions requiring digitisation of archives in-house or mom and pop home film transfer businesses.

It scans 35mm film. It achieves very respectable results with smaller formats and at 16mm film resolution, outperforms the Cintel in resolution but not in dynamic range. It also scans 8mm/Super8mm. Framing and focus are achieved by physically moving the camera head relative to the film plane, not by sensor cropping for smaller formats than 35mm.

They are made to order as batches in low numbers by the manufacturer, a film enthusiast who is basically selling on reputation, not by promotion or advertisement.

The product is vended under the rather curious trade name of Moviestuff Retroscan Universal.

A few old Steenbeck flatbed editors have been converted into scanner/telecines and Steenbeck actually produces a scanner as well.

DaVinci Resolve is used by users of the Retroscan, especially for stabilisation of images on film that has registered badly in the camera.

BM could do worse than embrace this product with a Resolve capture option but hopefully not predate on this small outfit or the developer of the software which runs it for the purpose of removing it from the marketplace.

I spoke to a tech at the Burbank BMD office yesterday, and while not clueless, he couldn't give me much information about it. He said that I should just try to find a lab or another user that's purchased it and ask about their experiences. He couldn't give me a list of productions using the Cintel, aside from saying that people like ESPN, NFL, and the Library of Congress have the Cintel, but listed no studios, etc. with it

I ask for real-world examples, because I found a Cintel II for around $24K, and I've got at a minimum of 4-6 features to shoot, ideally all on 35mm — 3 + 4 perf, no audio. I am not scanning archival footage, not dealing with warped, old film or trying to extract audio — but having a keykode scanner would be great. I relegate my digital cameras for tests or commercial work, but I'm use the Moviecam and Arri IIC + Arritechno cameras for features and special projects.

When I do the math on scans of vs. buying a scanner, the later makes more sense, but I don't want to also waste time nor money on something inferior. The Cintel is within my budget; the ScanStation, even at the Archivist level, it's tipping the scale [unless Steve from Galileo Digital comes back with an offer I can't refuse].

The Kinograph, while cheaper, seems way too fiddly at this stage for it to be a viable option. I mean — most of my stuff isn't even written yet, but I still think I'd be tweaking out on building the Kinograph by the time my 6th film is shot. The Retroscan Universal Mark-II seems to be limited by resolution, and also is geared towards the home movie / archival transfer cottage industry. Not quite what I'm after.

If you use the Cintel Scanner, would love to talk to you offline about your experiences with it if you prefer.

​

[James Little]

There are RAW ungraded scans on our website (non-HDR, so you can improve things even further doing HDR scans, our sample HDR scans are not the RAW ungraded versions) for this reason, so you can import them into Resolve and see what you think and make purchasing decisions.

As for user experience, we've never had any complaints there, it's simple and easy to use and fully integrated into DaVinci Resolve.

If you really care about quality, always scan the original negatives, as then the noise in the blacks gets inverted into the highlights and cinematic log curves squash it. PRINT films are the opposite, blacks remain black and get exploded by cinematic log curves.

[James Little]

o and one other thing, don't forget to put your timeline resolution to 4096x3072 when assessing!

o and one other thing, don't forget to put your timeline resolution to 4096x3072 when assessing!

Hi James, there have been plenty of complaints about the limitation of the imager — both resolution and Fixed Pattern Noise. Is the imager in the Cintel II upgradeable to a 6K imager with newer color science, etc to accommodate needs in the future?

Thanks so much,


Todd

[James Little]

Hi Todd,

such upgrade paths would not be supported.

You'd have to make the decision from the sample images on the website as they are indicative of what to expect.

Cheers

I ask for real-world examples, because I found a Cintel II for around $24K, and I've got at a minimum of 4-6 features to shoot, ideally all on 35mm — 3 + 4 perf, no audio. I am not scanning archival footage, not dealing with warped, old film or trying to extract audio — but having a keykode scanner would be great. I relegate my digital cameras for tests or commercial work, but I'm use the Moviecam and Arri IIC + Arritechno cameras for features and special projects.

If you're shooting brand-new features on film, you might want to consider having the company that processes the negative also scan the film as part of a package price. While the Cintel scanner is OK for this price range, for something really significant like a feature, I think you should at least do tests on much better scanners and see if the cost difference is worth it. I know for sure Fotokem in Burbank has a package deal for development/scanning for indie films, as does Colorlab in Maryland. Sometimes it's better to hire experts with tons of experience rather than doing it all yourself.

BTW, I know that the UCLA Film & TV Archive does have a Cintel scanner (maybe several of them) and they routinely use them to digitize millions and millions of feet of newsreels and other archival footage in HD, just so they know what they have. That way, they can at least locate very important interviews and historical moments, and then (if necessary) rescan the film at much higher-res on a wider-dynamic-range scanner, if the client wants the footage that way.

If you're shooting brand-new features on film, you might want to consider having the company that processes the negative also scan the film as part of a package price. While the Cintel scanner is OK for this price range, for something really significant like a feature, I think you should at least do tests on much better scanners and see if the cost difference is worth it. I know for sure Fotokem in Burbank has a package deal for development/scanning for indie films, as does Colorlab in Maryland. Sometimes it's better to hire experts with tons of experience rather than doing it all yourself.

Thank you both for your responses Marc + James. Seems very much like a dead end solution. I am going the DIY route after seeing some test footage from another user who built his own scanner and the results are amazing.