Firstly, the United States is not the center of the world, and film distribution patterns may differ elsewhere.
Secondly, you are a highly skilled professional with top-tier equipment, and many institutions entrust you with their films. It’s possible that individual customers feel more comfortable going to smaller local shops.
Do you have data on your competitors?
On what basis do you claim that the distribution figures are the same across the USA and globally?
If a company like Moviestuff (though perhaps not the best example) sold a large number of machines, it wasn’t solely to digitize 50% of 35mm films. This suggests that other businesses in your country may have different format distributions.
Looking at digitization companies in Europe, many—including major players like ‘FamilyMovie,’ ‘Mes Films de Familles,’ and ‘For Ever" don’t even offer 35mm digitization, and some don’t support 16mm either. If 35mm accounted for half the market here, wouldn’t they have invested in scanners for it?
Additionally, independent and institutional cinema has a much smaller presence in Europe. Large film archives often have in-house digitization departments, both for cost reasons and because of subsidies.
I’m not saying the US is the center of the world. But you’re saying that Super 8 is 80% of the film out there, without qualifying where “there” is. I’m asking where these percentages are coming from? Is there a source, or are just estimating?
I eliminated 35mm, 9.5, 17.5, and 28mm from my estimates, which are based on 12 years of data and millions of feet of film scanned, making for a decent dataset. Eliminating those gauges leaves 16, Super 8, and 8mm. I don’t have a good breakdown on how much 8mm we do vs Super 8, because we charge the same price, and until recently we used the same line item in our invoices. Going forward we can generate reports from our invoicing software that will give us some more granularity, but I don’t have enough of that data yet. What I can say is that 8 and S8 account for about 50% of the small gauge film we scan. The other 50% is 16mm and Super 16.
Most small film scanning services I’m aware of offer either 8/16 or 16/35. It wasn’t until relatively recently that machines like the ScanStation came along that could do all three gauges.
But all of this is kind of moot for the current discussion. Matthew has already said that the scanner will be 16/35. The whole goal of this project from the beginning (what? 15 years ago?) was to make an affordable scanner for a film archive. Supporting really small gauge film like S8 and 8mm is a massive challenge because they’re a lot harder to do in some ways. I think it’s smart to keep the focus on 16/35, and let 8mm come later in a different machine, using as much as you can from the 16/35 design and adding to that as needed.
A kit will certainly take out quite a bit of labor from assembly and test and as a consequence, cost. I think, in some ways there is a reasonable corollary to the LitePlacer, which is an open source PNP machine (PNP is a pick and place machine for putting the little components you see on most modern PCBs. Virtually all the components in LitePlacer are off-the-shelf, but to replicate that as an individual would be a lot of work for little benefit.
I think a 35/16mm is in a different realm than an 8mm machine. it probably makes sense to not try and build an all-in-one, particularly give the performance requirements between the two. You are either way over-built for 8mm or underbuilt for 35mm.
Matthiew will make the decision, it’s his scanner.
Personally, I would have chosen an 8mm/16mm scanner, as it covers a larger segment of the market I’m familiar with (especially in Europe—do you know where that stands, friolator ?).
I don’t think it’s significantly more complex from a technical standpoint, but that’s for you to decide.
Wishing you all great design work!
P.S.: In three days, I’ll be celebrating 11 years in business and 283 km of digitized film!
I’m focused on those because the films I want to scan are in those formats. See the “About” page on the kinograph website. There are plans for an 8/S8 machine. If the community decides they want an 8/16 hybrid, we can do that, too! No one is imposing limits here, only providing starting points from which we can build together.
That is exactly what I am doing. Maybe I’m not communicating that effectively.
There are already a number of solutions for 8mm, Filmfabriek sell an affordable dual-8 scanner (Pictor/Pictor Pro) with options for sound and good support from the manufacturer without a costly support contract to pay. The majority of the 8mm market that think a Pictor is too expensive are satisfied with existing cheaper options, and barely any of them actually want a DIY device. For those that do want a DIY device, Film-Digital sell DIY kits for R8, S8, dual8 and 16mm and they can transfer sound.
So, in my opinion a dual8 Kinograph is not required at this time, and the market for it would be vanishingly small.
Perry’s company (Gamma Ray Digital) is a relatively small digitisation house, it’s not a huge company.
Most of the companies you’re looking at don’t know much about film. Some of them are focused on things like video tape preservation (VHS to digital etc) and offer film as a side-hustle, but use anything from a $300 Wolverine clone to projecting it and filming it, Elmos and Tobins ($3,500-$6,000) and other “projector telecines”, MovieStuff devices ($3,000-$11,000), Filmfabrieks ($11,000-40,000), LaserGraphics ($50,000+), or they send out the film jobs to another business partner.
They’re not the best examples to use as anything higher than $5,000 is too scary for most of those “mom and pop” companies to invest in, and especially if it only represents part of their “media digitisation business”. If they do know what they’re doing, then most of those companies you’ve mentioned will know which labs/professional/semi-professional companies they can use.
My proposal was for an 8 AND 16mm scanner.
Prices for the Picto Pro start at $12,000 and it only processes 8mm, not 16mm.
For a multi-format printer, you’re looking at a minimum of $20,000
Film Digital only offers kits for modifying old cinema projectors. The operation of these systems is rather hazardous and the lifespan of a second-hand projector is uncertain.
This is not a good example
??? I’ll leave it to you to really examine the equipment that these companies have. In terms of volume and equipment, it’s a far cry from the local shop, yet none of them process 35mm
This is not the case. What they typically do is to modify a projector, and either do frame-by-frame or realtime video (syncing the projector to the video).
Lots of examples on youtube, reddit and facebook.
Even the cost of these kits is high, compared to the components of a DIY stop-motion scanner.
From what I see in other forums, there is plenty of takers for an 8/16 all in (camera, lens, scanner, and computer) at or under $2000 cost.
Can it be done for under $2000? In stop-motion, yes. Rough cost estimate of components on what I built is under $900 (used enlarger lens from ebay $60).
And let’s not ignore than there are some good designs already published. Gugusse Roller which will do 8/16/35, or Tscann 8mm which does only 8.
There is also plenty of new 8 film being shot, and even old home film has taken a cultural and artistic significance.
Yes I understand. That’s what the Müller HM73 was that ultimately led to the Filmfabriek HDS+.
What’s wrong with that price? If you make a $5,000 dual8 Kinograph at $5,000 that’s a gap of only $7,000 between the DIY device and the exiting professional one.
Those two companies are using MWA scanners that don’t support 35mm. The Pictors are less expensive than those.
Not sure, but it says CCD so it’s an older scanning system - possibly MWA or an early Filmfabriek.
I’m not sure why you’re brining up those companies though, a DIY device is not suitable for that work. You can run DIY scanners alongside commercial ones but they don’t replace them as they’re more labour intensive. The companies you linked to are not the target market, unless they just want something for occasional 35mm work or something like that.
The main types of people that will want a Kinograph at the moment are libraries, archives, schools, other non-profits/departments with film and individuals with a volume of their own film. Once the Kinograph exists and is built as a product, that’s when their needs will become clearer and where the the problem-solving for the device begins. Then it will take many years of work to develop it so that it rises above being a bare-minimum scanning device and starts to meet the needs of its users. As an open-source modular project it will safeguard the technology for the future and improvements/new modules can be implemented over time. Remember, there could come a time where the commercial scanner manufacturers determine it’s no longer commercially viable to remain in the market. That may not happen for 30-40 years, but by then the Kinograph might be the device that can replace those systems. But that’s a long way off, the focus needs to be on the here-and-now and getting the basics done and then spending the next year or two refining those basics (eg skid-plate/gate design, new roller designs, etc).
Sure, but those are the minority.
What people say and what they do tend to be two different things. I don’t know where they pull these unrealistic figures from. They may be looking at the projects you’re linking to (as well as your own) not understanding the limitations that have been built-in to them. But in any case, why would Kinograph need to duplicate what is already available in the way of the T-Scann 8 or the Gugusse Roller?
I’d also note that the T-Scann 8 uses electrical tape for dust removal, which is not a cleaning solution that is safe for film, and therefore does not align with the ethos/goals of the Kinograph. Here’s a MWA cleaner that uses media pads:
The goals of the Kinograph are not the same as the goals of those “sub-$2,000” projects. With the Kinograph the goals include open-source, modular, and accessible. Anything RPi based is lacking in modularity, and converting a projector lacks both modularity and the open-source development of modules. In terms of cleaning, IMO we don’t want to just see PTRs and PTR sleeves - there’s no reason you can’t develop buffer-roller cleaners or media-pad cleaners into the system itself and then you can have the option to use Kinograph as a cleaner or as a scanner or doing both functions at the same time.
The other thing already mentions is the speed and efficiency of the device. The stepper-motor designs you mention are cheap, but they’re also very slow. That therefore works against the goal of accessibility. That’s not just a matter of principle, the types of people who want a Kinograph (libraries, archives, schools, etc) can’t afford to be paying an employee to scan film at speeds below 1fps, no matter how cheap the device is those speeds effectively make the device inaccessible to those markets. In other words, the Kinoraph can’t cater only to the individuals with too much time on their hands, doing that would make it inaccessible to everyone else.
Well certainly everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.
As I said these figures are from what I built
I am not recommending any DIY design, only saying that the fact that these are available cannot be ignored. And one can find fault with any design, including commercial scanners. For example, Blackmagic 8mm resolution.
That seems to be your opinion. Gugusse meets all three.
Well that depends on your definition of accessibility. A $12,000 scanner is not financially accessible to many institutions.
Edit: the steppers are not the slowing component. The speed -and need to stop-motion the film- is an inherent limitation of lacking global shutter and lacking high frame rate at the sensor ($50 for HQ).
Actually, it is the opposite. Slower scanners need less attention. Reel replacements are less frequent. Part time attention provides these institutions the ability to not need a full time dedicated person per scanner.
I’m not sure why you say stepper motor systems are inherently slow. That doesn’t make much sense. Even for 35mm film running continuously at 24 fps, that’s only about 600 mm /second. If the tensioner roller is only about 15mm in diameter that’s less than15 rev/s or 900 rpm or 1,800 steps / second. Not really that hard to achieve with even a NEMA 17 stepper (and not have too much torque falloff). Yes, stepper motors ultimately are slower than servos, and the small NEMA 17’s typically spec’ed out are a bit wimpy, but this application is well within steppers capability.
Years back MWA sold a sprocket less 16mm telecine (I believe it was only standard definition at the time), and it was common to see them at trade shows.
Cleaning spools system were then commonin videotape cleaners, at the same shows.
Yes, but your project is not a Kinograph. If people want to build a dirt-cheap Raspberry Pi scanner they can already do that.
I think we’re talking about two different things here. I’m just saying that sub-$2K including the host computer is wholly unrealistic for the Kinograph project, not that it can’t be achieved at all.
You talk about facts vs opinion. All the low-end 8mm work going back to the 1980’s (home movies to VHS) was done on Elmo projector-telecines, and what replaced them was the Tobin Cinema Systems devices that cost $3,600-$3,800 each per format. So the cost of one TVT-R8 and one TVT-S8 in 2006 was $7,200 in total. With inflation that’s equivalent to $11,000 today. So I would respectfully disagree that the Pictor is unaffordable to the bulk of the 8mm market. I think that’s more of an incorrect perception, and more reflective of the market wanting to spend less than it is their ability to do so.
Of course that’s not to say it’s affordable to everyone, but I think we can say it’s affordable to the traditional 8mm market at least.
I’m not trying to argue with you, I think we’re talking about two different things. We both agree that the RPi designs like the Gugusse Roller and the T-Scann 8 cost a lot less than $2,000. People can build them now and they have plenty of resources to help them. My point was that an 8mm Kinograph does not have a lot of space to exist at the moment because you’ve already got options in the sub-$2K space that the Kinograph can’t/shouldn’t occupy anyway, and you have the Pictor which is a very good design and an already established product at an affordable price.
That video is on one of the websites @Roland linked to, I’d never seen that cleaner before either.
You and I are on the same page. I think it’d be great to see cleaning modules developed for the Kinograph. I’d envision clean-only, scan-only, or clean+scan. That’ll be a bit down-the-track though as you need the bare bones system itself functioning before people can add/develop modules for it.
@filmkeeper
You’re telling us that you can easily invest $12,000 (or rather, closer to $15,000) in a small machine that only scans 8mm.
If your annual revenue exceeds $70,000, you’re right—this won’t be a financial issue.
However, depending on the country and its standard of living (rather than the quality of the work), markets can vary in size and profitability.
Owning a $150,000 machine won’t significantly expand your potential customer base.
In this industry, supply does not create demand.
The Kinograph, therefore, will be a 16mm and 35mm machine.
I hope this decision is based on the realities of your market rather than the number of films in these formats sitting in your garage.
Now, enough talk—we need to move forward, because at this point, there’s not much to see.
@matthewepler it would be good to define the target customers/users for the Kinograph 2.0 scanner. For myself I occassionally scan super8, regular8, 9.5, 16 (single,double) and 35mm. Speed is not an issue, I can live with 2fps, quality is important. I prefer to use a RPI HQ camera with DS8 software. With DavinciResolve Studio I manage to transform these DNG captures into an acceptable video quality. Probably I’m not part of the Kinograph 2.0 target customers/users but would like to continue to use this forum to exchange knowledge and experience.
In the near future I will join the Filmmuseum Düsseldorf Archive where I’m able to work with and discover the “high-end” equipment.
May I suggest you read the Kinograph Design Goals?
I do not see anything indicating 8mm is out of the picture. And the price ranges of the Piktor -or the equivalent Piktor Pro- are clearly above the Kinograph stated cost goal.
Which project is “a Kinograph”? Until it is defined -and documented- what it is, nothing is.
@filmkeeper my takeaway from this back and forth… you are very defensive on maintaining a the price level of 8mm at the level of the Piktor… not sure why.It seems that you have in mind -as you say- a market, which one would understand as a commercial target segment.
Maybe not your intention, but it is coming across as “the Piktor or nothing (is good enough for 8mm)”… or that you have a vested interest Filmfabriek.
By the way, there is talk of other high-quality commercial 8mm scanners (probably at a similar or higher price range to Piktor/Piktor Pro). Kinetta made mention in its forum of the idea of an 8mm new scanner.
Rather than a “market” I see use-cases, rather than “target customers” I see user-profiles (both financial and technical).
I have collaborated with Kinograph -at no cost to the project- because I did not see it as a commercial enterprise. At the time, maybe others did not see it that way. @matthewepler has reached the same realization, and made it clear when articulating his new direction for the project as a non-for-profit at the youtube townhall link to relevant portion.
For the student-artist community shooting new Super-8, and other non-profits exploring novel 8mm, a $12,000 8mm scanner is not financially accessible.
The use-case for a sub $2000 scanner may not be commercial scanning services, although many are already providing these services with even lesser quality commercial scanners, plenty of examples at this Facebook group.
