[Konvas] buying a 2-perf camera. finally! or renting one for the moment

[Sean McVeigh]

answers below...
> so having said that i would still have a few questions:
>
> what is the difference between a HD telecine and the DI route?
> isn't DI just 2k telecine (isn't 2K HD?) -> color correction -> print
> positive on film, am i missing something?
> why is the HD telecine cheaper than a DI then?
>   
HD telecine is typically an 8 or 10-bit 4:2:2 YUV subsampled video 
capture of your footage.  It typically runs at speed, and is captured 
on-the-fly.  Your image will be confined to the 16:9 aspect ratio.  I've 
gone this route before, and had pretty good results.  Please note that 
the type of telecine (flying spot, ccd, etc.) can have an impact on the 
quality of your results.  Also, find out whether the framerate is going 
to be 1:1, or an pulled-down rate (ie. 29.97/59.94), and whether you are 
going to be dealing with interlaced video or not.  Oh, and lastly, 
depending on the capture method, it may be going straight to a tape, so 
will be compressed from step 1 (though some shops will capture 
uncompressed footage for you).  Consider this like coupling an HD camera 
to a projector.

A 2K DI is typically scanned on a much costlier piece of machinery which 
works frame by frame.  The colour depth can usually be higher (10-16 
bits), and is typically 4:4:4 sampled (ie. no subsampling, unless you 
are dealing with a 2k-bayered sensor, in which case you are back to 
4:2:2) in an RGB colour space.  The numers escape me at the moment, but 
your typical 2K scan is around 2048x1556 or so, which, while not much 
larger than a 1920x1080 HD image, has the advantage of being able to 
capture full frames (a bonus for the anamorphic and super-35 shoots.. 
not so much for 2- or 3-perf).  Other advantages here are that you have 
the data in a format that your computer display is a bit more accustomed 
to (RGB vs YUV -- there are some losses incurred in converting between 
colour spaces), and that you are getting a higher colour depth, and 
guaranteed one image per frame.  Consider this like coupling a slide 
scanner or digital SLR to the negative.

Obviously one cost more as it uses rather costly equipment and can take 
a lot longer to run material through it.  Also make sure you understand 
your post-production path very well before choosing one or the other.  
Will you be getting delivery on HDCam?  Can the lab give you a hard 
disk?  Do you need to re-capture it from tape to the computer? etc.  You 
mentioned you want to do a DI, but is your intent to strike a film print 
in the end (favors the 2K route), or is your intent to distribute on DVD 
or tape or on the internet?  (favors the cheaper HD route).

>
> "The thing is though, that shooting with 2-perf, 3-perf, or even 4-
> perf, will still cost the same for telecine type transfers (taking
> your film footage to video). Since they usually transfer by the
> minute of video output, you're boned equally on all of them. "
>
> so if i do telecine, is it the standard to use the minutes of the
> video output as price reference? because we got a quote here and they
> calculated the telecine costs based on the whole material footwise
>
>   
Most labs will base this roughly on the run-time of the footage, and not 
it's physical length in feet.  ie. if it takes an hour to transfer your 
1000 feet of 2-perf, it also takes an hour to transfer 2000 feet in 
4-perf, and should cost you the same.  Some costs can be related to the 
number of feet of film, like the cleaning & prep before it goes into the 
telecine, so keep that in mind also.

> so what would be the cheapest way of doing 4perf at the lab? with
> telecine HD to hard disk i guess?
>   
Probably HD telecine straight to an HDCam tape or something similar, but 
then you need to get a way to ingest it into your editing system.  But 
if they capture to a computer instead of a VTR, then it may be cheaper 
to get it on a hard disk... as always, the answer is to talk to your lab.
And if your intent is to strike a print in the end, depending on the 
length of your film, it still may be cheapest to edit with DV off-line 
and then conform and strike a print... although if you are dealing with 
2- or 3-perf, then the DI may actually be cheaper than an optical 
blow-up pass.

Cheers,
Sean