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Topic: Transfering VHS to 35mm/70mm?

Thomas Dieter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 234
From: Yakima, WA
Registered: Jun 2004

posted 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?

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 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!

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Thomas Dieter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 234
From: Yakima, WA
Registered: Jun 2004

posted 10-02-2005 05:44 AM

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

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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 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.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 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.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-03-2005 11:30 PM

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

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 10-04-2005 12:13 AM

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

SHIT!!!!!!!

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 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 ]

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Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 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.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 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]

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 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.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 10-05-2005 05:15 PM

Probably that crappy Ektachrome E160 stock.

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David Favel
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 764
From: Ashburton, New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 10-06-2005 03:41 AM

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

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 10-06-2005 04:44 AM

Filmed on tape?

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

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 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.

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