This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] 35MM transfer to HDCam 29.97Psf Blended Yucky Frame?

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Re: [Avid-L2] 35MM transfer to HDCam 29.97Psf Blended Yucky Frame?

My assumption is that given our delivery is 1080 29.97P that is what they requested the transfer be done to. With that said as Mr. Jay pointed out it should have gone to 2:3 or 2:2:2:4 in the transfer process. Given what I've learned from the Network QC folks they don't accept 2:3 anymore so 2:2:2:4 is what should have been done. I just don't understand what process they did to achieve this result.

In this day and age I would think it would be simply thread up the film and stick an HDCam in and the transfer goes in real time. Or is it now a more common practice to telecine to a file and then use that to make the tape. Certainly back when men were men and Avid was just how I felt about my career and not the editor I used the Telecine would have gone straight out to the tape deck. And of course this material is supposed to be the highlight of the show and they want it to look great. For a 35MM transfer I don't see the quality in the actual image either on my scope the material goes from 100 mV to maybe 500mV for the entire transfer. Nothing is even close to a full range image. I know it is an old film but even so I would think the telecine transfer would have adjusted even a one light setting that made the footage be close to full range in Rec 709. WTF????

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <cutandcover@...> wrote :

I definitely don't have more telecine chops than you, but can tell you that unequivocally this transfer was botched. If you transfer 35mm film to HDCAM, there is almost never a reason to do it any other way than slightly slowed to 23.976 and recorded on tape that way. Done. No frames are harmed in the process. Even if film was shot at higher speed, it should still be transferred to tape at 23.976 or 24. Someone either specified an incorrect transfer or goofed in making the transfer. I can't see any other way about it.

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 11:49 PM, John Moore bigfish@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Working on a project where they had a 35MM print transfered to HDCam as 29.97 Psf. Upon inspection the footage on tape is 4 good clean progressive frames then on split blended merged yucky frame. On the bad frame both Psf fields are blended. I'm curious how this cadence of error every 5th frame happens. I'm told this was a 35MM to HDCam transfer. From that I would expect it to have 2:3 pulldown or if it was requested that it be transferred to 29.97P it should have a 2:2:2:4 cadence. The every 5th frame bad frame is a blend of the preceeding and following clean frames. How can this be considered an acceptable way to transfer a film print? I'm use to strange things on stock footage that was poorly reprocessed into progressive from who knows what but this is a brand spanking new film transfer. Can someone with more telecine chops explain to me what they did in transfer land?

John Moore Barking Trout Productions Studio City, CA bigfish@...