[Tig] Any telecine vs. scanner (was spirit vs Arri)

[Joe Owens]

Although the goal is the same, they are wildly different.
But consider that an emerging budget trend appears to be Spirit Dual- 
Link 1920x1080 to 4:4:4 HDCamSR...
However, back to the technical discussion.
One system depends on motion to form the image one line at a time,  
the other depends on the lack of it to generate a whole frame at a  
time.  So for this reason the weave signature on Arri is dramatically  
lower as well as reduced pumping (vertical geometry errors).
The Arriscan is now offered with a not-quite-8-frame per sec, 1K,  
single-flash mode for quasi (proxy?)-dailies, which makes it almost  
(if not equal, in practice) competitive with telecine session  
efficiency.  I'm thinking about booking time 3:1 to do sync dailies  
with a normal telecine, which, in effect, produces an 8fps overall  
average rate of film travel.
The largest quality differences in the overall end result arise from  
the dynamic range that the Arri is able to achieve with their high/ 
low illumination scheme and the fact that the image sensor is a 3K  
CMOS with roughly the dimensions of a native 35mm frame.  If you go  
really slow (whoops, I mean "really-not-quite-as-fast"), you can do  
the intra-pixel jog that stitches 4 scans of the negative up into the  
6K world.
As far as RGB filtering goes, the Arri generates its light from LED  
sources, tightly controlled in terms of single wavelength and  
intensity -- its not just a "white" bulb.  The individual illuminant  
LED's are managed to achieve the required densities to match your  
stock.  One claim that Arri makes in this regard is that the neg is  
actually exposed to less light using this method and although this  
might not be an overriding concern in a majority of cases, it might  
contribute to the archive life-cycle of the stock.

And the Arri transport mechanism itself is probably wildly over- 
engineered.  Not just Mercedes... AMG Mercedes.... mil spec...

No, I don't work for them, but I'd consider it.
And we haven't even touched on a CRT flying spot... or is that  
worthwhile?  I see diTTo is solid-state, so is that an indication?

Joe Owens
Presto!Digital Colourgrade
302-9664 106 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta T5H0N4
+1 780 421-9980
jpo at prestodigital.ca