During the last 2.5 years I have created the CineScanner film scanner and the CineMaster control/restoration software (Windows). The system is now completed. This is a rundown of what the system does.
What it is
CineMaster is the Windows program that drives the CineScanner. Together they scan small-gauge motion picture film in real-time, frame by frame, read the soundtrack in sync with the picture, and turn the result into a modern video file. You can scan straight to a finished master, or capture once and do the clean-up, color and encoding afterwards without running the film through the machine again.
Film formats
- Regular 8 mm
- Super 8 mm
- Pathé 9.5 mm
- 16 mm
- Super 16 mm
The scanner (hardware)
Frame registration: choose laser (sprocket less) registration or classic sprocket-hole registration.
Capture area: Framed, Overscan, or Full-frame — full-frame includes the area beyond the image (sprocket holes and edges) so nothing is cropped off.
Wet gate: an alcohol-based wet gate to suppress the appearance of surface scratches. Alcohol flow, applicator and pump are adjustable, with a drying fan, and Auto / Manual / Off modes.
Gentle film handling: selectable film tension (200 g, 260 g, 330 g, 430 g, 500 g) and winding speeds from Min to Max.
Motion control: frame-accurate transport with Capture, Shuttle (1-250 fps fast preview forward/reverse), Wind, Seek / Go-to-position, and single-frame stepping. Motorized camera and lens positioning, zoom, focus and an optics-calibration routine.
Connectivity: connects over the network (IP address); scanner Wi-Fi can be set up over Bluetooth from within the software.
Camera and image capture
Basler 4K industrial camera. Video output at 1K, 2K, 3K or 4K.
Capture frame rates of 16, 18, 24 or 25 fps with sound, with optional frame-rate conversion between the scanned rate and the target rate. Up to 30 fps scanning without sound.
Full camera control: exposure, gain, electronic shutter, black level, white balance (automatic, one-push, or manual red/green/blue gains), color-temperature presets (3000 K, 5000 K, 6000 K, 6500 K), gamma, contrast, saturation, hue, brightness, sharpening and noise reduction, horizontal/vertical flip, choice of dimoraic method, and pixel format / bit depth (8, 10 or 12-bit).
Sound
Magnetic tracks (mono and stereo) and optical tracks, read in sync with the picture.
Optical sound can be read by density or by area, whichever suits the print.
Audio restoration and clean-up: de-hiss, noise reduction, de-click, de-ess, de-hum (50 Hz or 60 Hz, with phase invert), distortion removal, SMPTE playback EQ, low-pass / high-pass / notch filters, per-channel level, and picture-to-sound sync adjustment.
Live monitoring and scopes
Live video preview with focus assist and auto-focus.
Parade (RGB waveform) scope, waveform display, histogram, zebra (exposure) warnings and false-color view.
Audio level meters (two channels) and an audio waveform display.
Picture clean-up, restoration and color
These can be applied live during a scan, or as a separate pass on a file you have already captured:
Sprocket based stabilization — vertical, or vertical and horizontal, using sprocket/frame detection.
Image based stabilization — vertical, or vertical and horizontal, using image content.
Dust and scratch removal, including fill-in (inpainting) of the affected areas.
DE flicker to even out brightness pulsing between frames.
Noise reduction (two methods) and sharpening (unsharp mask / Laplacian).
Chromatic aberration correction and vignette correction.
Auto exposure with manual EV trim.
Color grading: lift / gamma / gain / offset, white balance, and per-channel adjustment.
Film handling: negative, positive or black-and-white; output in Rec.709 or Rec.2020; log options (S-Log3 or Cineon log) for grading in other tools.
Output — file formats and codecs
Mastering: Apple ProRes, Avid DNxHR and GoPro CineForm.
Lossless / archival: FFV1, HuffYUV, and H265 lossless.
Delivery: H.264 and H.265, including hardware-accelerated encoding on NVIDIA (NVENC) and Intel Quick Sync systems.
8, 10 or 12-bit; 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color
Output resolution from 1K to 4K, aspect ratio 4:3, 16:9 or the source ratio, with optional matting.
Audio: PCM, AAC, MP3, AAC, Flac, in various quality settings.
How you work with it
One-pass: scan straight to your chosen final format.
Two-pass: capture once — for example to a lossless or mezzanine file — then re-open it later to grade, restore, adjust sound and re-encode, all without touching the film again.
Projects: create, open, save, rename (support multiple files). Full configuration stored with the project
