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SECTION: 6.10 is for an overview of the subject of Digital Cinema. See also the program files in the current distribution of my programs, the other parts of this HTML documentation, and the current On-Line version of this Web site for information more specifically about my programs. Any comparisons of my programs or methods to some others is only given as a vague generality of my opinion and is not intended as a recommendation or reference to any particular products, always make your own evaluations and comparisons before taking any action.

A Movie Film Recorder is a machine that is used to expose movie film with digital frame images in order to make printing negatives for making release prints or to directly expose release print stock to make movie release prints for projection. In its most basic form a 35mm movie camera is pointed into a computer monitor and each digital frame image is displayed on the computer monitor and the movie camera shoots one frame onto the movie film then advances to be ready to expose the next frame. Some kind of computer control is used to load the digital frame images into video board and display them on the computer's screen and then operate the movie camera automatically.

My program DANCINEL.EXE (tm) can be used to make a DIY film recorder, it can load high resolution frame images that have been edited and color corrected in my DANCAD87.EXE (tm) or almost any other system, then send signals to the computer's parallel port to operate solid state relays to control the single frame motor on the movie camera to shoot each frame's image onto a frame of 35mm movie film. You can see an example of an older DIY film recorder in SECTION: 5.1.1.0.

That was a 16mm film recorder working at 720x348 monochrome resolution built about c. 1991-1992. Today my programs can support using an LCD monitor at 1600x1200 color so called 32bit mode and a CRT monitor at 2048x1536 color so called 32bit mode. Your video card may support other resolutions that could be used as well. 32bit color mode in video cards is 24bit color plus 8bits that are not used for color, they are just padding, so a video card with 24bit color looks the same as 32bit mode for all the cards I know of that might work with my programs.

35mm movie film comes with two kinds of perforations, B&H and KS. The B&H have rounded sides and are a little less tall. The B&H perforations are used on printing negative stock and fit the registration pins used in 35mm Movie Cameras made outside the Soviet region. Movie film also comes in two perforation pitch spacings, 0.1866 inch for camera negatives for printing, and 0.1870 inch for prints made from negatives made on 0.1866 inch pitch film. When you order film you need to ask for the right combination of pitch and perforation type since some come in both types. It is possible to make a print on 1866 pitch with B&H perforations if you need to if your film recorder camera uses B&H registration pins, but that would be non- standard since prints are normally KS perforations and 1870 pitch. If you need a camera that shoots KS type film you might try looking for Soviet made cameras that have not been converted to B&H for export.

Other kinds of film recorder use colored laser beams to draw directly onto the surface of the movie film, and some use LCD light valves, like small monitor screens, to control extra bright light sources.

If you are going to build your own DIY Film Recorder using a 1600x1200 LCD monitor you might be able to take the back off and use a fresnel lens to condense light directly into the movie camera's lens to shorten the exposure time. Be sure to use heat absorbing glass or a heat mirror to keep heat in the light away from the LCD screen to avoid damage to the screen.

When exposing motion picture film you should have a Wratten 2E type UV filter in the light path to remove UV light since motion picture films used for printing can only produce bright colors in the absence of UV light, if there is UV light mixed with the image more than one layer will be exposed when only one layer should be exposed making the colors off Hue and less true.

Some film recorders run at speeds around 24fps for real time transfer, but other film recorders have exposure times from about a minute per frame down to a few seconds per frame, so transferring a whole feature film from Digital frame image files onto movie film can take several weeks or more. To speed up the transfer of a movie from digital frame file images to movie film some companies might have a room full of film recorder machines running in parallel each one transferring a reel of the total project, that way each project can be finished in the time it takes to expose just one 2000 foot reel.

Some older film recorders only took 400 foot film magazines so the 400 foot processed film rolls needed to be spliced together using a glue cement movie film splicer or an ultrasonic movie film splicer to make up full 2000 foot printing rolls to make prints from. The reason you need 2000 foot printing rolls is that the sound negatives are easier to manage if you transfer a full 2000 feet at one time, the sound is edited into parts that are one reel long. The sound negative for printing is exposed going both ways so that one reels sound is on one side, and another reels sound is on the other side going the other way, so the cost of the sound negative stock is for half the length of the prints that will be made, in other words to print a four real feature film you can use just two reels of optical sound recording film stock since it is exposed from heads to tails and from tails to heads going the other way on the other edge. To make a finished print both the printing negative made using a film recorder for the image frames, and a sound negative made in an optical sound recorder, are printed onto print stock in a motion picture contact printer. The reason the film you print from in a contact printer has 1866 pitch and the print onto print stock has 1870 pitch is that the printing light comes from inside the printers drum and so the film to print is on the drum and the film to be printed onto is on the outside, since the drum has a radius, the radius is longer for the outside film, therefore the outside film needs to have its holes spaced a little farther apart, hence the standard 1866 pitch for negatives and 1870 pitch for prints, that are made on contact printers. If you are printing in a step contact or optical printer the pitch does not matter since the film will register on the registration pins in those printers movements. The type of perf B&H or KS does not matter in a contact printer, but does in a step contact printer or optical printer that uses registration pins. When you expose the film in your Film Recorder you should keep in mind how the film will be printed so that you pick the right type to use, and expose it with the right contrast and such to make good prints.

Some more complex film recorders can also expose the sound track at the same time as the image area of the film. Because of issues with wow and flutter in the sound such film recorders in some cases need to operate at full sync speed, which requires extra bright images on the computer screen being used to display the digital frame images, and great speed from the disk storage to load the high resolution frame images fast enough to keep up with the sound being recorded onto the movie film.

Various schemes may be used for the color correction and compensation of the contrast of the computer monitor used to photograph the movie film off of and for the color and contrast characteristics of the particular movie film stock used to do the transfer onto. No matter what system of details is used, there needs to be a calibration stage where reference images are displayed on the film recorders screen and test exposures are made onto the film of choice in the movie film camera. Test exposures shot off the film recorders screen in the movie film camera are processed at a film laboratory and reviewed in a projector to check the exposure, contrast, brightness, and gamma as well as the color balance, focus, grain, and other image qualities to see if further adjustments to the film recorders settings and software need to be made, or if the film recorder is adjusted well enough to shoot a reel worth of digital frame images. If several film recorders are going to be used to make the several reels for a feature film, then they must be calibrated very closely in order to avoid obvious changes in color, contrast, black level, gamma, etc. on the film reel changes in the movie theatre.

The Kodak LAD test image is one standard image used to match color, brightness, gamma, and contrast to a standard value so movie prints come out uniform on the screen when viewed. See SECTION: 4.10.30.0 to download the 1600x1200 or 2048x1536 image of the Kodak LAD to help calibrate your DIY film recorder. My program DANCINEL.EXE (tm) also has some built in test charts for calibration of the image tones and the placement of the images on the film.

The way that the film exposed in the film recorder is processed can affect the look of the prints made. If you pull process the negative stock exposed in the film recorder the prints will show less contrast. If you push process the negative stock used in the film recorder prints will show more contrast. The film recorder will take more time to expose when pull processing and less time to expose when push processing. If you bleach bypass or skip bleach the film exposed the contrast will increase and the color relative to the contrast will de-saturate. If you are exposing black and white color separation films or black and white film in your film recorder using a fine grain developer like Kodak formula D-23 (tm) can give smoother tonal values then using a higher contrast formula like maybe D-96 or D-72. You may need to talk to your lab about a bulk processing lot deal if you want some special processing of the footage you expose in your film recorder.

The film stock your film recorder uses can also affect the look of your finished release prints. Some CRT film recorders may use EI 50 camera film stocks rather than Dupe-Negative film stocks, and so may make a printing negative that shows more grain. Making release prints directly in a film recorder on color print stock may require too long of an exposure since the Red layer in color print stocks is very slow, maybe EI 0.2+/- and can require exposure times of a minute or longer unless the film recorder has a very bright light source. Black and White print stocks, like Eastman Kodak 2302 (tm) are about EI 1.5+/- and are fast enough to shoot in some film recorders for direct print making or for making color separation printing negatives. If you do not have enough red light when printing onto color print stocks you get a brownish cast to the print.

You can find more information about using my programs for Digital Cinema tasks by looking in the sections that have the text from the program and update documentation files corresponding to the documentation files in the ZIP archive files for the program executables from the Download sections. See SECTION: 3.80.0.0 for information about using DANCINEL.EXE (tm) in a DIY film recorder, see SECTION: 3.85.0.0 for information about using DANCINES.EXE (tm) in a DIY film scanner, and see SECTION: 3.3.7.34 for information about using DANCAD3D.EXE (tm) and DANCAD87.EXE v3.7N+(tm) for motion picture post production and DI (Digital Intermediate) to edit, color correct, and sound mix a feature motion picture. See also any later Update files relating to the programs, and look in the Downloads sub-sections for additional utilities and or programs that may be added that relate to Digital Cinema.