Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Transfering VHS to 35mm/70mm?

This is topic Transfering VHS to 35mm/70mm? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Thomas Dieter (Member # 2507) on 10-02-2005, 04:59 AM:

Naturally, I know the answer to this question, but I was just curious how much it would cost to have a video transfered to 35mm or 70mm for personal viewing?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-02-2005, 05:28 AM:

Once I had an episode of Wheel of Fortune I taped on VHS in EP transferred to 70mm for personal veiwing. They forgot to take out the commercials like I told them to! Made me mad. But come to find it looked even worse on 70mm than on VHS due to the missing fields and frames. Detail was lost. 70mm film running at 24 frames per second simply is not in the least bit capable of retaining ALL of the visual data that is on a VHS tape, which has 60 different pictures per second.

That'll be the last time I spend $15,000 on an episode of Wheel of Fortune, I tell you!

Posted by Thomas Dieter (Member # 2507) on 10-02-2005, 05:44 AM:

[Eek!]

My word, 15,000$ on one half hour episode of Wheel of Fortune. I wonder Vanna White got a cut of that?

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 10-02-2005, 08:19 AM:

Joe,

You should have used 30-fps original Todd-AO format for that. You do have access to a good set of AA-II's, don't you?

Vanna is VHS/EP would be just AMAZING!

O/T here...have you ever heard of the Merv Griffin BIG HEAD theory? Merv is supposed to believe that people with big heads look best on tv. Both Pat and Vanna were selected with that in mind.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-02-2005, 09:35 AM:

Figure $100-400/minute for the negative, depending on the equipment used and quality of the final product (you get what you pay for). You will also need a soundtrack negative and then will need to have a 35mm print made in order to show the result. You could also have the 35mm negative blown up to 70mm, but I can't imagine why you would want to do this (the 1.33:1 image inside the 70mm frame wouldn't be much larger than it is on a 35mm frame, and there wouldn't be any resolution improvement given a video source).

Tape->film never really looks good (even high-def tape looks soft), but can be useful for including archive material in a longer film. Otherwise, it is usually more cost-effective to shoot film from the beginning than it is to shoot tape and transfer to film.

I am currently working on a short film and briefly looked into the costs for shooting on video. The camera rental is fairly expensive (assuming Beta SP or Digi-Beta or similar professioanl format), and the editing equipment is also mega-expensive to rent. I found it to be cheaper to shoot 16mm and have a blowup made later. The end result will look much better, too.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-03-2005, 11:30 PM:

I thought you had a set-up for doing this in your basement Joe.....

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-04-2005, 12:13 AM:

quote: Mark Lensenmayer
You should have used 30-fps original Todd-AO format for that.

SHIT!!!!!!!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-05-2005, 10:36 AM:

Much depends on the way you have the video transferred to film. Simple CRT (kinescope) recording is the least expensive. High end CRT recorders (e.g., triniscope) like the Celco or Solitaire are more expensive. Laser recorders (e.g., Kodak Lightning, ArriLaser) are the most expensive.

http://www.celco.com/Technology.asp

quote:
Never before has a film recorder been capable of achieving images of the highest quality at an incredible speed of one second per frame, making CELCO’s new FURY the fastest film recorder on earth. This changes the rules for imaging facilities allowing massive digital film productivity. The FURY dramatically reduces the cost per frame, enabling a new era where all films will have a digital master negative.

http://www.cinesite.com/?1231&0&2421

quote:
The Lightning recorder's technology is unique in that it uses red, green and blue lasers to expose negative film. The three lasers write directly to each color layer of the intermediate stock. This combination produces images of unparalleled sharpness and color saturation. The system's 10 bit (per color per pixel) log space retains all the film's enormous density range, while the lasers' extremely wide dynamic range ensures that the quality of the new negative is absolutely optimised

http://www.arri.com/prod/digital/arrilaser/index.php

quote:
The ARRILASER bridges the gap between digital film production and analog film projection.
It is the first cine film recorder to use three solid state lasers as light source, setting a new standard in productivity and reliability, significantly reducing the cost of recording digital images onto film.

For VHS video quality, a simple kinescope recording is probably more than adequate.

[ 10-05-2005, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: John Pytlak ]

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 10-05-2005, 11:19 AM:

In the upcoming DVD release of "The Concert for Bangladesh" (1972) from Warner Music, there is a featurette that talks about how they transfered the original 16mm concert footage to 70MM for theatrical release. Warner Music has cleaned up and restored the concert, it looks & sounds great.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-05-2005, 01:52 PM:

quote: Bill Gabel
In the upcoming DVD release of "The Concert for Bangladesh" (1972) from Warner Music, there is a featurette that talks about how they transfered the original 16mm concert footage to 70MM for theatrical release. Warner Music has cleaned up and restored the concert, it looks & sounds great.

Shows the kind of quality even 16mm camera film could produce decades ago. And today's Kodak VISION2 Color Negative films are so much better! [thumbsup]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-05-2005, 05:00 PM:

The "cartridges" that go in my coworker's 8mm film camera seem to produce some craptastic results. Can't remember the make of the camera or the film.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-05-2005, 05:15 PM:

Probably that crappy Ektachrome E160 stock.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 10-06-2005, 03:41 AM:

Wasn't Monty Python at the Hollywood Bowl filmed on tape & transferred to 35mm?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-06-2005, 04:44 AM:

Filmed on tape?

Don't most movie directors still videotape their movies on film these days?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-06-2005, 05:40 AM:

The Kodak VISION2 Color Negative Films (200T 7217 and 500T 7218) offer excellent image quality in the Super-8 format. Two B&W reversal films and Ektachrome 64T are also available in the Super-8 format.

The E-160 and VNF films were old technologies, and quite grainy.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-06-2005, 12:04 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Don't most movie directors still videotape their movies on film these days?

Absolutely! There's also a convenient rewind button a projectionist can hit to back up the movie a few minutes for a customer that was in the potty.

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 10-06-2005, 03:57 PM:

I'm a bit amazed that anyone would want to transfer the 3 MHz (at most) jittery luminance with time-base error and roughly 300 KHz color (incoherent carrier) onto any kind of film medium.

Except maybe for an artistic effect? Maybe in a few years there will be software to split a high-definition signal into Y, I, and Q components, quantize to 480 scan lines and limit the Y component to a horizontal resultion of 3 MHz, then soften the color to 300 KHz, then introduce random time-base error into the whole thing. Just so it will look like VHS, much like some scenes in movies are made to look like old scratchy 8mm films.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-12-2005, 06:48 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
Probably that crappy Ektachrome E160 stock.

I asked and he said it was Kodachrome 20 and 40. One is for inside, the other for outside. Evidently he doesn't have one for tents and garages. Anyway they are crap.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-12-2005, 08:53 PM:

There has never been a K20 for Super 8mm, only regular 8mm, but regular 8mm cameras did not use cartridges. Your friend is weird.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-12-2005, 09:16 PM:

I NEVER said he was my friend.

Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 10-13-2005, 11:15 AM:

There's never been a Kodachrome 20. It was Kodachrome 25 (asa).

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-13-2005, 12:04 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
regular 8mm cameras did not use cartridges.

There were a few that did, but they were never very popular. They looked rather similar to the Kodak 50 ft 16mm magazines, but smaller, with two apertures through which the film was exposed. These were covered by a metal shutter, which was opened by turning a square pin between them.

I've used the 16mm magazines in Bell & Howell cameras a few times; they wotk ok, but are difficult things to load in the dark.

By far the worst gauge for odd loading systems was 9.5mm.

The original Pathe Baby camera took a 'charger', which held about 30 ft. of film, and looked something like a Fuji Single-8 cartridge.

After this they brought out the 'P' type charger, which was similar, but slightly larger. Later still came the 'H' type charger, which was smaller again, by having the take-up roll expand into the space vacated by the feed one, a bit like a miniature Arri 400 ft. 16mm magazine. None of these systems used sprockets, they just drove the take-up core, and the claw pulled the film off the feed roll.

The Webo-A camera was quite nice, I've got one, but it took a 50 ft. magazine which was, I think, unique. It was a rectangular thing, rather larger than the chargers, and the intermittant movement was built into the magazine, not the camera.

Some cameras took 50 ft. or 100 ft. daylight loading spools, which were exactly like the 16mm ones, but narrower of course. Even the square hole was the same, rather than the fitting that 9.5mm projectors use. There were even one or two models which took large rolls on a standard core, like 16mm.

All of these systems were used by Pathescope, and there were other makers who used their own systems; the Midas combined camera/projector for example took something totally unique.

All of the chargers and magazines were re-useable, and today you can still buy 9.5mm stock to re-load them. Unfortunately, all of them seem to be very prone to jamming.

How on earth this situation came about, I don't know, but I can just imagine the problems of a not very knowledgeable 1950s nine-fiver going to his local photographic shop and trying to buy film. The gauge could give good results, but much of the equipment, especially the projectors, was badly designed. There are still active 9.5 film makers, and a society for them, Group-9.5. web page I used to be a member, but dropped out when I was too ill to get to meetings, and now I just don't have the time.
They don't only screen 9.5mm film, but also 8mm, Super-8, 16mm, 17.5mm, 28mm and 35mm. That's not a bad range, is it? I think they've also demonstrated the very short-lived 9.5mm duplex widescreen format, but I haven't seen that. It was a system using horizontally running 9.5mm film with special perforations, which was passed through the camera twice, and then slit into two 4.75mm strips for projection.

The fact that 9.5mm is thill with us over four decades after Pathescope ceased to exist says something about film: It's a simple technology in which it is possible to improvise. For example, the slitting and perforating of camera stock is a one-man operation carried out somewhere in France. It is actually made from Fuji unperforated 35mm slide film, and the total quantity produced is very small. It is imported into this Country in 500 ft. rolls, and can be bought in that form, or as short reloads for chargers and spools. Just a few rolls are imported each year, and I don't think much more is used in France. It would be difficult to support obsolete digital systems on that scale.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-13-2005, 03:33 PM:

You guys are all talking in the past-tense. He is buying this stuff NOW.