Digital Video to 35mm > Becoming a Believer

A few months ago, we had the opportunity to see a projected demonstration of a new digital video to film process. It was impressive, to say the least. One of the highlights was a section where several different video and film formats that had been blown up to 35mm film were shown back to back. What we saw seemed almost unreal. Could digital video actually hold it's own against 16mm when blown up to 35mm? We spoke with the people at The Digital Film Group at length about the process, and decided to conduct some tests of our own. The results were somewhat mixed, but nevertheless, astonishing. We wish to thank FatBox, Inc. for their invaluable support and contribution to the prodution of these tests.

series 01

series 02

We do not have the bandwidth to show you these images in motion. Instead, we have prepared a series of stills so that you can compare and see for yourself how dv looks on film.

What You Are Seeing

Camera and Tape Stock:
Sony DVWS-700 > NTSC > Digital-BetaCam
Special Camera Settings:
> shots were done with the camera in 16x9 mode
> some of the detail levels were dropped
> otherwise the camera was set to factory standards
Post:
> footage was assembled and cut on a Discreet Logic smoke*
(a non-compressed nle/fx system) in 16x9 mode
35mm Blow-Up:
> edited video was output on to a Digital BetaCam tape
(still non-compressed and in "stretched" 16x9 mode)
> the tape was sent to Digital Film Group
>where video was up-rezzed to 2k and transferred to 35mm film
35mm Telecine to Digital BetaCam:
> the 35mm film was telecined back to Digital BetaCam
>both the telecine and the original were loaded
onto the smoke* and compared > these stills are taken
directly from the smoke* > they have been converted to jpegs
for the web and will show some artifacts of compression
35mm Projection:
(not represented in this still series)
> 35mm film projected in a movie theater > this screening
looked significantly better than the telecine

credits

models:
marcella & cindy

director/dp:
michael derrossett

assistant camera:
mario escobar

dv to 35 blowup:
digital film group

sony DVWS700
courtesy of:
fatbox,inc.