I started to look at professional capture of cine film in 2004 with the purchase of the standard definition “Moviestuff” equipment which was capable of creating an image that was 720 x 576 pixels. This was fine for people who wanted a transfer to DVD, but it also meant that computer file production was also limited to 720 x 576, trapped in Standard Definition!
So virtually all of my work between 2004 and 2009 was to DVD. Then I bought the mightily impressive “Memory HD” from CTM Debrie of Paris which enabled me to make images that were 1920 x 1080 and I started to not only make DVDs but also Blu-Ray discs for the first time. It was in 2009 that I made more discs than I ever had done. Or since. Making well over 700 unique labels for either DVD or Blu-Ray.
Contrast that with just 83 labels last year. In 2020 I upgraded to the fabulous “Scanbox 4K” also from CTM Debrie. This new beauty is routinely making beautiful 2K images which are 2048 x 1500. Why would you want to sacrifice that quality to have a 720 x 576 DVD…..
Google searches for “Cine film to DVD” are keeping pace with searches for “Cine film to digital” but once we get chatting on the phone customers see the benefit of 2K images as computer files that they can edit, stream, upload and send to anyone anywhere in the world free of charge. This is borne out by the fact that I have only made 1 (one) DVD from cinefilm in the last 8 months.
Time has moved on for the dear old DVD and it has not been kind. Certainly where cine film is concerned. The Scanbox 4K as the name would suggest is making terrific 4K images out of 9.5mm and 16mm film. These images are 4096 x 3000. Unimaginable to the consumer only a few short years ago.
Blu-Ray never really caught on so I still don’t expect to be making many of those in the coming years having made only a few hundred in the last decade.
I expect the trends to continue and pretty much 99% of the cine film archives I save from this point on will be straight to 2K digital computer files.