American Cinematographer - May 1999 - 116

From Film

to

Tape
much of the

1 PORTABLE TELECINE

ment

Peter

color-processing equip¬
analog to digital. Notes
Swinson, market-development
from

director for Cintel International, "In

Although not a traditional
telecine

machine,

Los

Angeles-based MaestroWorks
provides
an
extraordinary
portable telecine for use on loca¬
tion. The CineMaestro Telecine

an entirely selfshippable telecine

is

System

contained,
device based

the film-chain

on

concept. Utilizing a KEM flatbed,
the CineMaestro

mounts a 650-

line resolution
camera

three-chip CCD
place of a viewing

in

and controls the film's

screen,

movement

via

incorporated

an

computer system. With the
CineMaestro, an operator can

printed dailies onto any
tape medium, or directly into an
Avid-type editing system with an
automatic database compilation
capture

the

as

film

Contained in

transferred.

is

one

rack-mounted

AKS airline

shipping case, the
system is ready to go wherever
the
production goes. The
Maestro has been utilized

such

feature

films

on

1989,
was

launched the Ursa, which

we

entirely digital. Prior to that, the

color channel

[in the Mkllls] had

been

analog. On the Ursa, just after
the CRT scanned the film image
[into the PMTs], we immediately
converted that information to digits,
so

the entire color channel and all of

the color-correction

was done
digi¬
tally. The Ursa was then capable of
outputting digital information as a
4:2:2 signal."

The
remains

"4:2:2"

term,

(Y) and color difference
(chrominance) components (R-Y
and B-Y). For every four samples of
Y, there are two each of R-Y and B-Y,
nance

which

comprise the color signal. This

capture standard is the basis of the

(ITU-R) standard-definition

601

digital signal.
"We then

came

[four samplings of luminance (Y)

Confidential, A Simple Plan,
Mouse Hunt and, most recently,
Forces of Nature.
This system is comparable

and chrominance color difference

as

the Swiss-made Sondor OMA-

Telecine, which was also a selfcontained, rack-mounted telecine
S

that

driven

by a variablespeed servo-controlled motor. A
halogen lamp illuminated the
film while a rotating 24-facet
prism reflected the moving
was

frames to

a

2/?>" CCD

With either system,
of

camera.

the capturing

printed dailies from remote

locations in the

editing room
provides the production team

with considerable

flexibility and

convenience.
-

Jay Holben

a tube-grain corrector that
completely eliminated the problems
of added phosphor grain. These

innovations also had the incidental
benefit of

greatly extending the

machine's CRT life. The TWiGi also

compensated for the tube-burn
effects that had plagued earlier
systems. Over time, an electron beam
can "burn in" the
phosphors on the
CRT and cause a disproportionate
aging of disparate areas of the tube,
producing visible light and dark
patterns. This effect is then seen as
uneven

illumination

To alleviate

across

the film.

this, the CRT system

incorporates "burn correctors"
electronically compensate for
discrepancies in phosphor burn. A
separate photomultiplier is used to
monitor the light output from the

which

entire face of the CRT. Variations

are

reported to a shading-correction
system, and are electronically
neutralized in the final video image.
In addition, the phosphors of the
CRT have their own grain character¬
istics which can be imposed as noise
on the video
image. In advancing the
technology of the early Ursa
telecines, the TWiGi also greatly
improved the components dealt with
these problems.

(R-Y and B-Y) ], as well as full-resolu¬

ITK's SCAN'd AL deals with

tion RGB, rather than the half-reso¬

yet another problem inherent in

lution chrominance of the

converting

Ursa.

tronic

original
Subsequent to Ursa Gold, we

introduced

the

Ursa

Diamond,

which had the same basic functional¬

film image to an elec¬
aliasing. If the
film image is a shot of, say, a picket
fence, the CRT scanning from left to
right captures the vertical edges of

ity, but added other devices to
improve image quality." Some of

the

these

film

upgrades included the utiliza¬
tion of after-market technology
manufactured by Innovation TK
(ITK), including the TWiGi and
SCAN'd AL systems (which were
subsequently

dubbed

Diamond

Glow and Diamond Clear, respec¬

tively).
A re-engineering of the Ursa's
analog-to-digital conversion system,
the TWiGi virtually eliminates noise.

set

of head

a

one:

vertical

fence, while the movement of the

the beam gathers the
height of each fence post.
Due to the very fine lines in the fence
edges, however, sometimes the image
information may fall between the
across

horizontal

pixels, creating

a

jagged image,

or

aliasing. The SCAN'd AL converts
the rectangular CRT pixel beam into
an

elliptical shape that smoothes out
pixels to

the information between

revised

provide a cleaner, sharper picture.
ITK also developed the "Y-

amplifiers to reduce arti-

Front" attachment for Ursa telecines

The TWiGi also included

May 1999

with the

up

Gold," expands Swinson. "That
machine included 4:4:4 outputs

Ursa

L.A.

to

110

which

cryptic mystery to some,
refers to the ratio of sampling
frequencies used to digitize the lumi¬
a

facts, and

a
American Cinematographer - May 1999

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