DVCAM is 4:1:1 in the U.S., and that's a shame for a film transfer, especially if you're outputting to DVD later.

Once it's in DVCAM, that color information is gone. You can get some satisfaction from putting the DVCAM footage on a 4:2:2 timeline and using a chroma smoother, search previous posts here for info on this.

Who did the transfer? Did they have a 4:2:2 format?

As said above transferring to DV25 in NTSC you will loose quite a bit, getting the transfer done to 4:2:2 would help, most transfer houses can go direct to disk, using say the BMD codec which Vegas can read.
A lot also depends on what type of transfer was done, single light , supervised etc. In other words doing the CC as the film is transferred is a whole different game to doing it once it's video.
Bob.

RE: the transfers
Film to video is all about the transfer equipment and the transfer colorist.
Do NOT retransfer - while all this about 4.1.1 and 4.2.2 and 4.4.4 is valid - no normal human will see the differnce on a "regular" TV screen.
Cut your short - if it's good, it'll work. If it's not, you've learned a bunch of lessons for the next one., without wasting the time or the money for a retransfer.
If it's "the greatest video ever made in the history of mankind" you MAY want to retranfer your selected takes (I wouldn't).
Once again - It's all about Concept, baby.

About the NAB classes - I've learned tons of stuff at every one I ever attended - either hard core techniques or that wonderful feeling of motivation. If you can afford the classes, take them.
If you know little about lighting, I'll be teaching them on April 24th in the afternoon (look up Vic Milt) - you'll definitely learn some weird stuff that you can use, and it's always fun to see what trouble my smartass mouth will get me into.
If you are having trouble with greensceen, I'm teaching a great intro to that subject as well.
BTW - I don't get paid by the student FWIW.
best,
v

while all this about 4.1.1 and 4.2.2 and 4.4.4 is valid - no normal human will see the differnce on a "regular" TV screen

???
If you render DV 4:1:1 to DVD 4:2:0, you get 4:1:0 color sampling, i.e. you keep 12.5% of the original color information on the film. Chroma smoothing in the encoder helps make this a little bit less than a total disaster, but why give up so much of the nice original film quality?

BTW - I don't get paid by the student FWIW.

Is it OK to bring an apple for the teacher?

:O)

You are absolutely correct... and next time he will know exactly what to ask for... Thanks for the input.
v
apple... good

I've got to disagree with Victor (and myself) on some of this and say 'it depends'.
Story (read concept) can be the most important part and yes that's what deserves the primary focus or it could nothing and the image itself is what needs the primary focus.

Take 'The Usual Suspects'. Could have been shot on VHS without making a shred of difference.

On the other hand take 'Dances With Wolves'. What's the story here, 'Man spends too much time in wilderness and goes tropo'. That's it, just saved you the price of a cinema ticket. Not really, the images on the big screen are a vital part of the story, without them the story is nothing. Same goes for 2001, LOR etc.
In many works the image IS the story, for TVCs and MTVs the image and its quality can be almost the whole story.
In this specific case if they spent the serious dollars shooting 16mm it's very possible they thought the image quality was an integral part of the story, or they were just insanely rich.

Bob.

farss is right...
chico what's your story???

but even if he just finished "Winged MIgration", I'd do the cut first before committing to a retransfer.

see how the concept is working...
we can alway say, "Cain't wait to see the final transfer..."
or (often).."Hey... that looks great".

But I'm in the same biz as everyone else, so...
anyone here have actual side-by-side test or experience - of the same footage transferred 4.1.1 vs anything better?? (Guesses don't count - we can all guess.. |:>))

v

Do I have actual tests?

No.

However I've reached a conclusion based on some experience.

I've made a lot of DVDs from DigiBetacam masters, that's 4:2:2.

I used to ingest at 4:2:2 and encode from that, big files and lots of time involved.

Ingesting the same material at 4:2:0 via 1394 and encoding to the DVD specs 4:2:0 (which is different to DVs 4:2:0) I really cannot see a difference.

However everyone who works in NTSCs 4:1:1 gets a noticable improvement starting from 4:2:2 and then encoding to 4:2:0.
My conclusion from that is if you're working in PAL land and going out to DVD the added hassle of 4:2:2 may not be worth it unless you're doing extensive CC or CK work, all my stuff is already graded. In NTSC land things are very different.

Starting from 16mm, transferring to a Cineon DI and grading that would produce a HUGE difference compared to grading an untimed DV transfer. Just don't try doing it in Vegas!

Well actually I can speak from experience, I've been transferring 35mm film (slides), at 14bit sRGB , what can be done to the image compared to what you can do with CC and DV25 is just chalk and cheese stuff.

There was a recent post here about the guys shooting '24', they're bumping the neg 4 to 5 stops up in post, push DV 1 stop and things get pretty nasty.

Sorry this is mostly anecdotal.

Bob.

The transfer should have been done by a professional lab with colour grading, for the difference in cost between a cheap and a proper job would have been small compared with other production costs. However this is a producer's decision and not one for the editor, as is the question of having the film rescanned.
At this stage the material needs to be edited. As editor you must make the producer aware of her/his options and any potential additional costs in editing incurred by those options. Note that your edit logs with timecode can be used by a negative cutter to cut the original 16mm prior to a quality transfer, so a complete reworking isn't necessarily the most economical way forward. Considering the questions raised in this project, you're unlikely to do more than a rough post production on the present material unless the producer decides now that the image quality is satisfactory, so costs/workflow are to be agreed before you go further.

Just for the record...
what is the ultra-best film to Digital transfer process going today - feature film level??
Names, places, cost??

The best film-to-digital process today is Spirit 4K, available at a few post houses in New York and Los Angeles (and a few places overseas).

This is overkill for 16mm though, as the resolution can't reach 4K.

The 3 levels for film DI today are HD (1920x1080), 2K (2048x1536), and 4K (4096x3112).

The cost varies a lot based on how much time needs to be spent on the scanning (fitting the electronic dynamic range to the optimum place on the film's gamma curve).

It's not hard to spend $200K on a feature film transfer though.

DI prices are coming down pretty quickly though, based on a major upswing in its popularity which allows the substantial equipment cost to be written off over more hours of usage.

===============
I agree with Bob on the 4:1:1 to DVD experience. I tested this before deciding on a new broadcast camera.

After seeing 4:1:1 and 4:2:2 side-by-side, encoded to 4:2:0 for DVD, there was no question for my purposes.

4:2:2 instead of 4:2:0 is a closer call for DVD use, but there is a more substantial difference there when keying greenscreen footage.

Coursedesign -
Great Info!

Now if you were planning a low budget feature, as I'm sure many of our readers are...
what camera, FPS, special setting, and transfer facility would you be considering?
HDV?
and for the bigger dreamer... HD?
and finally super 16mm or true HD rental?

v

Pro 8, good choice of stock and pretty cheap all round, that's if you want it to look like film.
The company in Hollywood who rent the cameras I think have packages that include the transfers.

Bob.

If I was shooting a true low-budget feature today, I would consider HDV with a Redrock M2 cine adapter first. Could argue about Sony, Canon, or JVC; would depend on the scenes to shoot.

60i->24p conversion using Magic Bullet Suite (not MBE) is very decent, ditto for ReelSmart FieldsKit+Twixtor.

I haven't tested shooting at 50i and converting this to 25P labeled as 24P, with the audio slowed down 4%, but this should be even better.

Transfer facility for output to film? Arrilaser (now that is really a "laser printer", isn't it?), first candidate, looks good, but there are some other options that I'll check on with a very experienced feature film DP friend of mine.

"True HD" for a low-budget film? XDCAM HD would be a step up, as would a Grass Valley Infinity, when these become available.

Mo' true than that? There are more than four hundred F900s in L.A. alone, but they are still renting for about $1K per day less discounts.

You could just make a small hole in the enclosed lensmount cap to use it as a pinhole lens.

Or would you like a box of primes with that?
Add another $1K per day.

Not low budget unless you could do an Alfred Hitchcock level of pre-production planning and shoot everything in 1 or 2 weekends. Don't forget the 5 ton grip truck, and the Chapman crane you'll no doubt be seduced by. Oh, and an ARRI Gear Head (the smoothest tripod head, but maneuvered with handcranks like an anti-aircraft gun, this takes serious training).

I still think Varicam footage looks more filmic than the basic F900, but it is of course 720p instead of 1080i. (The F900/3 and the F950 are over the budget horizon.)

Super 16 can be a very attractive option. I'm shooting an S16 short film in August, with an Aaton camera. Now that camera is a truly beautiful work of art, even before the sprockets start moving. S16 lenses are less expensive, and there are some decent ones to be had. That footage will go to DI, expecting good results.

#1 rule is to avoid the infamous Angenieux 12-120mm zoom that was #1 on ENG cameras in the 70s (they make good props though).

The optical quality wasn't a major consideration at that time, since it was just going to news quality NTSC broadcast. Sort of like today's cell phone video from foreign wars (well, you get the idea).

For S16, my DP friend says the best film stock is a new Fuji emulsion, and he says this based on very thorough testing.

For low-budget DI you better be prepared to spend some time negotiating the price though. A HD scan would save a fair amount of money compared to a 2K scan, you could get this done in NY or LA, don't know about Florida.

Note that the DI file will by default be a 10-bit DPX, that's a 10-bit log file format that is about equivalent to 12-14 bits linear. So get a decent color timer to color correct/exposure adjust the footage and pick the optimum 8 bits out of those before letting Vegas touch it for online editing.

The Pro 8 suggestion sounds interesting too for low budget. I have some old S8 reversal footage shot with a Beaulieu 5008S that looks pretty stunning, wonder how much negative emulsions have improved since then?

You won't be doing much rack focus though, it's not easy to avoid having "infinite" DOF with this very small format.

of course you are loosing quality vs the max resolution/color space that 16mm is capable of providing ...
but do you need it or does it fit your budget??
16mm to dv25 is good - much better then any SD hand size dv25 camera can do ..
16 to digibeta is very good- better then any size SD video camera.
16 to HD/2k excellent ...
bottom line always comes down to $$$$ .. it seems the persons you are editing for made a decision to go dvcam= a good & value decision.

are persons going to notice the difference between 4:1:1 vs 4:2:2 = well that depends on the persons and the project. if you are doing special effects work you will notice the difference .. infact you would notice the difference while you edit /view the project... viewing up to 25" monitors = maybe a few can see .. viewing in FEET ( as in digital projection) YES you can see the difference bewteen a dv25 clip and a dv50 clip ..the larger the image the more the difference can be seen.

seeing how the project is already transferred i would stick with dv25 ..

i sometimes transfer to dvcam, sometimes to digibeta and other times to HD or 2k files - it all depends on the project.
i just had some super8 transferred to digibeta and then a dvcam copy made to edit. the digibeta is excellent .. the dvcam is good - where you see the difference is on edges = the dv25 always has stair stepping. rotoscoping comes out much better & easier on the dv50 clips.. same with chroma keying ... but again the dvcam is good and i could finish the short using it BUT to me it was worth the extra 30hr for digibeta ...

db,

Who did your S8 transfer to DB?

my 1st choice - film & video transfer inc in LA area ( S8 -180 hr to digibeta, 150 to other formats) = they do excellent transfers. they can handle tape splices. wet gate for all formats. also excellent rates on tape to tape formats. IE: dvcam to digibeta = 40hr
http://www.thetransferstation.com/

and i also use cinepost in atlanta ( 180-220hr to digibeta , 135-180 to others)
wet gate for all formats.. i wouldn't send film that has allot of tape splices.
http://www.posthouse.com/

Thanks!

You guys are great -
now, for the "back end" - getting that HiDef footage back onto 35mm for commercial projection.
I'm budgeting a feature (still trying to think about the various shooting media, etc - clearly 35mm is still king - but I SO want the HiDef to be usable) -
so what's the story on the Digi to film conversions?
And what do you all think the bottom line should be - film or digi or is there even any sense to consider HDV - this for a planned theatrical release.
what do you all think?
v