Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What are these spots?

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-25-2002, 06:35 PM:

I've been seeing these colored spots on Deluxe prints on
occasion:

This one is from Behind Enemy Lines reel two. It couldn't possibly be CAP code, could it? What's the deal?

--jhawk

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-25-2002, 06:51 PM:

That certainly looks like "Cap Code done wrong" to me. For some reason the labs like to put the cap code on reel 2 also. It looks like something was out of whack in the coding scriber.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-25-2002, 09:32 PM:

I suspect the CAP Code Printer accidently got knocked out of focus, or a different version of CAP code is being developed.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 585-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 585-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-25-2002, 10:31 PM:

Hmm. So I should followup with Deluxe, then? We've been seeing it maybe on 10% of our prints, and each time we've seen it has been a DeLuxe print. Does anyone have a recommendation of who to talk to?

--jhawk

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-25-2002, 10:33 PM:

Oh yes, another detail. This happens very infrequently within a given print. For instance, this was the only frame that had an issue on this print. I wasn't able to see any CAP coding elsewhere on the print, but of course, I'm not 100% sure what to look at.

--jhawk

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-26-2002, 09:47 AM:

Normally, theatres should report problems like this to their distributor contact, or to the film exchange. When details (title, print number, theatre name) are reported here on Film-Tech, I usually call it to the attention of the appropriate lab contact person.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-26-2002, 09:53 AM:

Thanks. Over here in non-theatrical land, our "distributor contact," (i.e. booker) is tends to be not-very-technical, and it feels like there's a lot of administrative distance between them and anyone at the Studio or Lab.

Still, I shall give it a shot and see where it lands.

--jhawk

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-26-2002, 01:15 PM:

Well. Picking up the phone and calling FOX did work a lot better than I expected (that Film Journal contact list is really quite handy). I supplied the above URL and gentleman I spoke with looked at it and seemed quite interested in following up with DeLuxe, so I'll keep film-tech posted on the outcome. While he couldn't give me specifics, given the information about which reel it was from, he was able to say that he thought it was extremely unlikely to be CAP code.

Has no one else noticed these spots on ocassion? Maybe no one on this web site actually watches their prints ;-).

--jhawk

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 02-26-2002, 02:40 PM:

It's been a long time since I saw X-Men in a theatre, but these same kinds of spots showed up (and looked very similar to the example above) in the scene where the senator is being transformed into a mutant. The spots were especially easy to see because the scene had so many bright, white images.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 03-11-2002, 11:58 AM:

I followed up with Fox. They say that deluxe does indeed claim that this is a CAP code, though it's clearly misprinted since it's not on the right reel, and it lacks an edgecode number which is supposed to be present.

I'll be sure to followup on future instances of this problem and see if I get similar stories.

--jhawk

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 03-31-2002, 11:53 AM:

John: Is this a photo or a scan? How'd you capture that image?

------------------
And, hey! Let's be careful out there.

~Manny.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-31-2002, 02:44 PM:

Looks like a scan from one of those 35mm negative scanners to me. You can get almost that good by taking a digital picture through a lens (75mm works good), but there is usually a little bit of distortion that isn't apparent here.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 04-01-2002, 10:45 PM:

It was scanned with a Imacon FlexTight film scanner at 1400dpi, downsampled to 720dpi, and then cut to the Film-Tech guideline horizontal resolution of 575 pixels. It's not just a negative scanner, it works fine for positive images, too.

If it had been a 35mm film scanner, you generally would not get the edges of the film, since they need something to grip the film by to scan the image. In this case, there is some distortion since the film was taped to the edge on the left and the right side bent a bit.

--jhawk

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 04-20-2002, 09:31 PM:

Well, saw some of these today on our print of Ali, on two adjacent reels. When I have some time I'll go and hunt them down and see what I find.

This is also a Deluxe print; how does one tell the difference between a Deluxe Hollywood and Deluxe Toronto print?

--jhawk

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-20-2002, 09:38 PM:

I'll have to take a couple of pictures, but a surefire way to tell a Toronto print is the two squares on either side of the title on the leader.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-21-2002, 01:05 PM:

Usually on the deluxe logo on the head leader it will say deluxe toronto or deluxe canada

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 04-22-2002, 12:30 AM:

>>This is also a Deluxe print; how does one tell the difference between a Deluxe Hollywood and Deluxe Toronto print?<<

The leaders are the dead giveaway. The Hollywood prints have the ColoReel® reel ID's in plain color with plain old boring 'block' lettering (and with the 'slashes' thru the letters at the tail) and the Toronto prints will have the ColoReel ID with the title printed in some cool 'font of the day'. They usually say 'Print Made In Canada' below the title as well. (and no slashes on the tail)

Look in the Reviews section for 'DeLuxe Hollywood Labs for pics of examples of both leaders.

-Aaron

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 04-22-2002, 05:37 PM:

These from Ali:

I find myself wondering if they're not defects, but if they're possibly supposed to be that ugly (?). Strange that they're on two different reels though. I shall followup and see what I find out.

--jhawk

Posted by Jacob Huber (Member # 1138) on 04-22-2002, 11:19 PM:

We had these hopefully faulty CAP codes on both of our prints of High Crimes (one of which has since left us). I certainly do hope this is not what a new CAP code is supposed to look like, if so, I don't know if I will be able to take it. BTW, they were only on one reel (second) on both prints.

Posted by Dan Spence (Member # 777) on 04-23-2002, 01:15 AM:

I also had them on my reel 2 of High Crimes. At least 4 times about 4 minutes apart each time.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-23-2002, 02:28 PM:

As I said: "I suspect the CAP Code Printer accidently got knocked out of focus, or a different version of CAP code is being developed."

Since these dots are evidently being printed on a variety of features, they are likely a new or supplemental version of CAP Code. The original version of CAP Code that I helped Kodak develop in 1982 had very tiny dots. Helped convict lots of film pirates without many people noticing they were even there.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by John Schulien (Member # 215) on 04-23-2002, 02:30 PM:

Seems like a sure-fire way to get people to "wait for the DVD" is to start delivering prints to theatres with what appear to be glaring, deliberate defects.