Telecine

Converting your 8mm or 16mm films to digital video . . .
requires three basic steps for a DVD data disc viewable in QuickTime:
Send your film . . . Pay the fee . . . Receive your DVD

As with the other production services I have provided to my clients during the past two decades, my goal is to keep this process as simple as possible for the customer while providing an excellent quality digital video version of their film(s).

For this service I have designed and constructed systems for telecine (the term which describes the transfer of motion picture footage to another type of video medium). The quality of results I am currently achieving with these systems is the culmination of over thirty years of experience working with film and video fine tuned by three years of directed research and development. My goal was to create an efficient method for telecine in order to provide a reasonably priced service for people with home movies, archived film collections, amateur filmmakers and for professional movie and television producers needing digital dailies. The service was initiated in September, 2009.

These are the basic services available:

(1) Cleaning and lubrication of film with the industry standard cleaner FilmGuard.

(2) Telecine of Regular-8mm or Super-8mm from reels containing prints of up to 400 feet of film.

(3) Telecine of Standard-16mm or Super-16mm from cores containing prints of up to 400 feet of film, or reels up to 2300 feet.

(4) Creation of a DVD data disc of the telecined footage as QuickTime files, viewable on computers with the QuickTime video player.

(The file type is DV/DVC-PRO. However other types of compression, including Apple H.264, can be supplied if preferred.)

(5) Creation of a DVD video disc which is playable on standard DVD players and Blu-Ray disc players.

(6) Additional copies of a DVD data disc or video disc for a small per-disc fee.

(7) Capture of sound from a 16mm print which contains an optical soundtrack. Logic Pro is used for this process. The resulting audio file is monophonic. The soundtrack can then be synchronized with the telecined film using Final Cut or other non-linear editing software.

These are the fees for basic services (with reference to the categories above):

(1) 5-cents per foot. No charge when film is submitted for telecine. Film cleaning is always done before telecine unless otherwise requested by the customer.

(2) 15-cents per foot of film. Minimum order is $10.

(3) 15-cents per foot of film. Minimum order is $10.

(4) DVD data disc is no charge with a telecine order. Maximum data content per disc is 4.4 GigaBytes, which is approximately 20 minutes of footage in DV/DVC-PRO format.

(5) Creation of a DVD video disc (which holds up to an hour of footage) is a $25 fee in addition to any telecine fees.

(6) Additional copies of your DVD data disc or video disc are $5 per disc if requested at the time of the initial order.

Additional copies can also be made at a later date, but in that case the charge for the first copy is $25 and each additional copy is $5.

(7) Capture of optical sound is 10-cents per foot of film. The resulting digital audio file(s) will be included in a separate folder on the DVD data disc. Note that this may reduce the number of QuickTime video files that can be written to the disc. If preferred, we can use Final Cut to synchronize the soundtrack with its motion picture and create a QuickTime video file with sound. This synchronization service is $1.00 per minute of footage, and it helps preserve the number of QuickTime video files that can be written to the disc.

A Few Details. . .

It is important for all telecine customers to understand that the quality of the final result is always dependent on the quality of the film footage itself and the physical condition of the film. For example if you can view the Regular 8mm demo at the top of this web page, you will notice a bit of fuzz in the center at the bottom edge of the frame. This was debris stuck in the gate of the movie camera being used, and it is not possible to eliminate this type of problem without a great deal of specialized editing which is very time consuming and, as a result, quite costly. But this type of problem certainly does not prevent a customer and their family from enjoying the opportunity to watch their films again in the more convenient format of a DVD. By the way, that demo is compressed a great deal down from the original DVC-PRO file using Apple's H.264 codec (which is an excellent compression scheme for video). The original film print was apparently properly stored, because it was 46 years old at the time it was telecined.
Film prints should always be handled with care and stored in areas of moderate temperature and moderate relative humidity, although cooler than moderate is a better climate for film than warmer than moderate.

Many people are not aware of the types of problems that arise in film media over time, even when it has been properly stored. These problems are likely to affect the older types of film prints that were made before the introduction of better film bases and emulsions (Kodak Safety Film is an example of a major improvement in film types). However any material degrades over time, and combinations of materials will always modify over a period of time. This may be a good thing for many food recipes, but it's not a good thing for audio and video media. In film the changes can be very pronounced and easy to see, but often they are so gradual as to be barely perceptible. A very common modification that occurs to older film is a pinkish or even red shift in the appearance of the image. This affects color motion picture film as well as color film used for the capture of still photographs. A slightly different, but related type of effect occurs to monochromatic (black and white) negatives and prints. To borrow a theory from physics and cosmology, the expansion of the universe is observed by sufficiently distant stars and galaxies showing redshift corresponding to the rate of increase of their distance from Earth. It is an indicator that a star is going away, and the analogy with your film is that its image is going away, too! Now would be a good time to capture and preserve it with current digital imaging technology.

We are currently providing telecine at Standard Definition quality level (720x480 total pixels), NTSC color, DVC-PRO. We have plans to begin providing High Definition telecine in the near future, and this will be announced at this web site. Producers shooting sound-speed footage are welcome to send an audio CD of their dialogue and/or ambient sound which I can sync with the telecined footage, provided a visible/audible sync mark (such as a clap) is provided. I am also well practiced with use of the color corrector in Final Cut. Sound and color correction services are done at my standard hourly rates. - Call to discuss the details. (901-385-0236)

Also please be aware that we do not accept any nitrate-base film for telecine. It is dangerous to handle and is illegal to ship through most shipping agencies.
The customer is responsible for all shipping charges. We use UPS for return shipment of films and discs.
All customers should fill out a Telecine Order Form to submit with your order.

In other news, we are set up for digital capture of 2.25" square color transparencies. This type of slide was available from Kodak in Ektachrome and Anschochrome and as "Easy Mount" slides from Craftsmen's Guild in Hollywood, CA. We continue to provide excellent capture of 35mm color slides as well.

Feel free to email me, Jeff Scott Rust, for further details. Or call at 901-385-0236.