Digital Magic, Hong Kong specializes in datacine transfer, digital intermediate work, service for large volume of classic movies and television restoration. Our film data transfer suite is centered around the Cintel Millennium II Datacine/Scanner, with da Vinci color 2K plus correction, and da Vinci ToolBox 2 for enhanced effects. Cineon and .dpx Log Scanning is further supported by Cintel DataMill for maximum control of DMax and DMin in the original camera negative, resulted in extended range required for digital intermediate work. The system can transfer film to SD, HD, 2K and 4K high-resolution data at high speeds with interactive monitoring. HD is transferred in real-time, while high-resolution 2K and 4K data are scanned at approximately 15 and 4 frames per second respectively.

At Digital Magi we serve you with the world's only datacine equipped with a pin-registered film gate, which provides the best stability for film data transfer when VFX quality requirements must be met. Aaton keycode system, and Digital Vision DVNR HD, and DVNR 2K are added to provide image enhancement and grain control.

DVS Clipster is online with all 2k and 4K data work, providing all image data files needed for Vfx.

HD work are supported with HDCam SR 4:4:4; HDCam, D-5, DVCProHD 100, and HDV.

We can transfer any type of negative, intermediate or print film stock onto any film format.

l          Super 35 and academy 35mm, with a selection of 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8 perforations plus other special perforation needs up to 24.

l          Super 16 and 16mm

l          Super 8mm and single 8mm, 65mm and 70mm IMAX formats with special Cintel filmgate

l          Cinemascope

l          Vistavision (utilising the Kodak Cineon Genesis Plus for 6K screens)

Why MII for data work, not the CCD approach

Our choice of Millennium II is due to the fact that she is the best flying spot CRT-based datacine that allow change of scanning sample sizes to suit any filmmaker's creative needs. There is no other CCD linear telecine or area array scanning devices like it. Because CCD works under a fixed pixel sample size. With CCD datacine, the film cannot scanned at higher sample rates, especially when rescaling and zooming are required. Flying spot techniques employed by MII  allows manipulation of the focal size, and also the shape of scan, result with maximum resolution to suit any frame size or cropping need. This approach is especially useful for anamorphic-based super 35mm film releases, where original vertical film resolution are limited.

Millennium II datacine is designed to scan in any resolution up to 4096 x 3112, compared with the CCD-based Spirit datacine which scans only up to 1920 x 1440 resolution, well below the true 2K resolution specifications. The method used by Spirit as to fill your standard 2K frame requirements could only be accomplish with an up-sampling of limited data, which we believe has posed the risk of degraded image quality. In general, we found the MII images are far more sharper, and film grain could be recaptured for VFx creation, and film look. Datamill help further to provide .dpx and .dpx.cin images sequences for Digital Intermediate works.

The new phosphor designed Millennium uses a "white light" broadband phosphor with a significantly higher energy level. It offers an  "afterglow" fast decay rate, resulting in much less noise and a relatively cleaner and improved film image.  

The MII's rectangular CRT design follows the shape of your selected scanning patch without any loss of corner resolution. The new CRT faceplate curvature design is specially applied to match that of the skid plate to enhance constant focus.
  

Superior Performance and Specifications Summary

1) a. The Millennium II is a better datacine unit, as the Spirit samples luminance information with a fixed 1920 sample CCD array, color information produced with three 960 sampled RGB, CCD arrays, resulting in 4:2:2 scanning. With Spirit, less color information  is made available than with luminance information.

 b.  Millennium II datacine samples all 3 channels of RGB information from film at full color bandwidth; a true 4:4:4 scanning. Millennium II also samples 3 RGB 16-bit channels with 1920 samples each in HDTV mode, and 2048 samples each in 2048 x 1556 at 2K data mode, 4096x3112 at 4K data mode. Even in 1920 x 1080 HDTV scanning mode only, the Millennium II captures a perfect 4:4:4 image that provides more information and color depth for your film mastering work.

 2)   Many colorists have problems reproducing certain colors with Spirit, and the use of secondary color corrections is often required, because  Spirit's CCD sensor performs only 960 samples. With Spirit, rescale image will cause  throw away of image information when zooming, panning or tilting.   When zoom or scaling is applied, the Spirit must carry out interpolation processing which is equivalent to a DVE zoom, causing picture quality reduction and degradation.

3) a.   In 2K mode film work, Spirit again must interpolate 1920 samples to fit the required 2048 sample output.  Color information, too, scanned by Spirit only contains 960 samples. So the resulting image is only 4:2:2, or just with half of the original color information. Picture steadiness is also a big question, which wide angle Vfx post works has always been troubled with the Plus or Minus 2 pixels specification.

 b.   Millennium II samples always fit fully and scan your desired total picture area with maximum available pixel depth. When zooming, the Millennium II CRT raster beam changes to fit the area of the selected image. Millennium II also never loses any data, nor needs to do any interpolation. In your preferred HD, 2K or 4K mode, Millennium II always outputs the true, full bandwidth 4:4:4 color information. In our special MII config, you could apply pin-registered film movement during the scanning process for the utmost stable needed for Vfx post work.

4) a. Millennium II datacine captures more information from film than any of the Spirit units.

 b. Spirit's CCD array design also tends to have a "video look" while Millennium II always has the much more preferred full resolution "Film Look".