SCANNING GUIDELINES SEPTEMBER, 2006 INTRODUCTION All current 16mm and 35mm formats can be scanned. In the latter case this includes all frame sizes from 2-perf (techniscope) up to 8-perf (vistaVision). Our "Northlight" scanners can accommodate 2K, 4K and 6K frame sizes in 10bit/log cineon or DPX formats. When we supply "2K" it is created using our special super2K software. This downsizes from a 4k scan, by means of algorithms developed in-house, to maximize the final image quality with particular emphasis on the requirements for visual effects. This includes special care with regard to "aliasing" so that the best possible blue or green screen composites can be achieved without the necessity of relying on 4K scans for "difficult" shots or of adding sharpening (detail enhancement) to standard 2k scans. To ensure a timely turnaround incoming material should be in sealed film cans marked clearly on the outside with a roll number, source name, show name and with any other information that can help us recognize the roll and determine its contents without opening the can. A full contents list within the can is also very helpful. Please note that Cinesite accepts negative on the understanding that a safety Inter Positive has been struck from all material to be scanned. Film being submitted to us for scanning needs to have the required frames clearly specified. This can be done using any one of three systems: 1 framecount (see below) 2 keycode (see below) 3 timecode (see below) Our preference is to have all all three specifications in one file so that we have the means of double checking that everything is as it should be. Without a keycode it is impossible to definitevely identify a given frame on the film. FILE FORMATS AND HEADERS Once an image is scanned it has to be put into a data file. This is the computer equivalent to putting a drink inside a container such as a can. Just like a "can" has to have information on the outside so that the user can tell what is in there, a data container has information describing the contents. This is known as metadata and is contained in the "header". In the early days of digital film, Kodak created a range of products under the "cineon" brand name and devised a file format (or container) to function within that system. This was known as the "cineon" format and represented by the extension ".cin" after the file name. The cineon format was originally designed for a specific set of equipment and circumstances. When cineon had been adopted by the industry in general Kodak cooperated with an SMPTE committee to rationalize it into an international standard format for motion picture data exchange. This is known as ".dpx", has the identical image information coded in the same way and is the file format we would recommend. Both formats are used to store 10bit/log images but in the cineon format only keycode information can be included in the header. In DPX, 3-perf can be handled through the use of perf offset instead of frame offset, the file size is slightly smaller, and yet, the header can contain BOTH the keycode and the timecode which is much better for modern applications. With this information encoded in the header it is possible to track a shot throughout the post production process and at any stage relate it back to the original film roll (keycode) or telecine roll (timecode). The cineon/DPX 10bit/log format is becoming a problem in that some modern film stocks are capable of exceeding its limits and therefore will eventually have to be replaced by some other more flexible container. The current best contender is "open EXR" although like, for example, the TIFF format used in still photography it has a number of variables and therefore needs very careful control to be applied throughout the process if it is going to be used successfully. The image can simply be related to the shot it belongs to by choice of an appropriate name. Please note that in the creation of file names we cannot accommodate the special characters reserved by operating system use so please do not use "," "." "(" ")" "'" ":" ";" or spaces. If elements of the name need to be split up then the best character to use is the underscore "_" (e.g. name_part_one_and_part_2 ) although hyphens are acceptable also. see also ###link to document: DPX smpte standard ANSI/SMPTE 268M-1994 cineon : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cineon dpx : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DPX open/exr: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenEXR For many applications, such as auto-conform and DI or digital mastering systems, it is necessary to have timecode and perhaps keycode too, so it is often advantageous to have both incorporated in the header. To do this it will therefore be necessary to have keycodes and timecodes provided with their relationship and synchronism clearly annotated. Keycodes are specific and only one keycode could belong to a given frame whereas timecodes are relative and therefore must be clearly specified. The best system is for editorial to supply a list with the timecode "in" and "out" points and the keycode "in" and "out" points specified along with the film roll number and shot name for each event to be scanned SEE: electronic scan submission example (this is in the Downloads section of the Scanning and Recording website section). ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS Assuming that working electronic lists are available, then film should be supplied head out if cleaned immediately before delivery for scanning, or tail out, if supplied without previous cleaning. If the film needs to be manually set-up then it should be supplied head out. For Visual Effects (VFX) exact "in" and "out" points will usually be chosen, but sometimes, for VFX and always, for DI, it will be necessary to incorporate "handles". This means that extra frames are scanned before (head) and after (tail) the specified frames from the EDL. This is because once the shot is seen on a larger screen there may be a requirement to alter it slightly by a few frames - it also allows for further editing after the shot has initially been selected. There are two ways of incorporating these - either the handles are added on to the scan submission so that it shows exactly what is to be scanned or, it is provided as a separate project wide preference and therefore added to all shots. Thus it might be stated that 8-frame handles are to be added to all shots (apart from single frames used for reference). In this case a shot with duration 120 frames would actually be scanned for 136 frames - starting 8 frames before the specified "in" point and ending 8 frames after the specified "out" point. It is most important that it is made extremely clear whether handles are already incorporated in the submission or that we are to add them as standard for the job. It is normal procedure to scan full ap, academy or 'scope. Although the film might be shot, for example, in widescreen academy (a 1.85:1 slice across the sound image area) or super35 (a 2.35:1 slice across the entire width of the film) it is generally preferred to scan the entire area so that there is additional image both above and below the "active" picture area. This can be useful for limited reframing of problem shots, for "safety" so that there is image enough to fill less wide formats (such as TV widescreen of 16x9) or to provide the extra image necessary to allow stabilization techniques to be used on unsteady images without having to unnecessarily zoom in. SEE: formats list (this is in the Downloads section of the Scanning and Recording website section). Modern film scanning systems are designed to digitize masked negative or inter-positive colour stocks (i.e. where the entire film has an orange appearance). To scan unmasked print or black and white stocks requires the machine to be modified, both physically and in software, so plenty of notice is required if it becomes necessary to work from such source materials. We are happy to write out the scanned image files to media supplied, or, to provide new media at an extra charge. Although some organizations still use data "tape" based systems such as DTF our recommendation is to used hard disk storage to move data about from one facility to another. Firewire and USB are both fine for this although the newer versions of Firewire 800 and USB2 are much faster and therefore help get you your material that little bit faster. 2K is around 12.5MB per frame and 4K is around 52MB per frame. So, for example, a 200GB firewire disk would have a capacity of around 16,350 2K frames or about 4,000 4K frames. To put this into perspective the former would be equivalent to around 11 minutes or a 1,000ft roll as projected in older cinemas which still use changeovers. Any brand of hard disk is fine but the one most commonly used in the film industry is LaCie which has proved to be very reliable and reasonably rugged http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/range.htm?id=10036 Where images are required to be shunted around the world in a big hurry then we can move them electronically via the internet. We can push material to a distant server or set up a local server from which the material may be pulled. For long distances the former is preferable because it means that, for instance, if going to California we can write the data onto the distant server during the day so that when its owners arrive in the morning the material is already sitting there waiting and as it is on their server is pretty quickly available to view.