Cine Film Scanning
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Our Muller HDS+ scanner offers exceptional quality transfers and is equipped to scan Standard 8, Super 8 and 16mm film up to 4K. We offer 2K, 3K and 4K scanning services.
Our scanner detects the films sprocket holes with a laser for optimal flash and scan timing, creating a digital image for every frame of film with amazing accuracy and stability. It is designed without claws or grabbers so it's incredibly gentle on film and wont damage your precious emulsion. Furthermore each and every film is cleaned twice before scanning. We clean all film on our re-wind bench with Solvon film cleaner and conditioner. Solvon cleans and lubricates your film effectively and has anti-static qualities making it ideal for repelling troublesome dust particles during and after digital transfers. Our scanner also has sticky PTR rollers which removes any dust right before the capture is made. We have not encountered many films with audio strips over the last decade so for now we can only capture images and not sound. |
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Log Scans
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Colour grading is a very subjective area and we like to give our customer the option to have total creative control over their images. The log scan allows you to take full advantage of the extra vertical resolution offered at 2K, 3K and 4K. This extra vertical resolution lets you cram more pixels into your edit. The files have plenty of leeway to push/ pull the luma and RGB channels for flexible colour correction. Please download the log scan spec sheet to take full advantage of all the options available to you. If you don't send the log scan spec sheet with your film we'll just provide you with a 25fps, overscan, ProRes HQ file as this is the most popular option.
Below are examples of our 4:3 Log Full Overscan, Overscan and Crop options. The Full Overscan gives you the entire 8mm width. The Overscan gives you part of the sprocket and the Crop gives you image only. The Full Overscan is not possible at 2K.
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Resolution |
Aspect Ratio |
2K (2000x1500) |
4:3 |
3K (3000x2250) |
4:3 |
4K (4000x3000) |
4:3 |
Log Scan File Sizes
We can supply any log format required. The most common formats are either the original uncompressed AVI files straight from the scanner or a compressed ProRes HQ file. The AVI files are very bulky and difficult for most computer systems to play. If you do want the original AVI files you must send us a fast SSD drive for transfer. We'd recommend selecting a compressed format like ProRes if you haven't got a purpose built editing system. We can also send the ProRes HQ files over the web so there is no need to send us a physical drive.
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Corrected Scans
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The corrected scans are perfect for customers with limited editing experience. We do all that we can to give you the best image possible. This includes necessary scaling, cropping, speed adjustments and scene by scene colour correction. We get a lot of film with extreme over/under exposure issues and we always do our best to save the film digitally. We're very flexible so if you have any special requirements in regards to framing or aspect ratio just let us know on the corrected scan spec sheet. If you don't send the spec sheet with your film we'll supply a 16:9 HD or UHD, cropped, H.264 file at 25fps. The corrected cropped scan provides you with a polished viewing experience, just the way your film was meant to be viewed on a projector.
Corrected Scan File Sizes
We supply the corrected files in the H.264 format unless you specify otherwise. This is because it's a finishing format and video players like Windows Media Player, Quicktime and VLC can play them as we intended them to look. Because H.264 files are so small we can also send them via a download link so you don't need to send us a drive. If you request your corrected scan in an editing format like ProRes please remember that your video player software might not handle the colour well and we recommend you encode them to H.264 before sharing with friends or uploading online. We can also send you ProRes files as a downloadable link.
