Film Scanning

Film Scanning Services

Cinelab Film & Digital's wide range of scanners combined with our expert team of film technicians, allows us to offer industry leading film scanning options for projects of all scales and budgets.

Your scans can be delivered in a variety of formats; from HD viewing copies through to UHD 12K, HDR, pin-registered 16 bit scans.

We tailor our solutions individually to the scale and requirement of every project. As well as offering graded or ungraded deliverable options.

Please see an overview of our scanning options below:

Spirit 4K

The Spirit 4K has been the mainstay of film scanning for many years and continues to provide excellent quality, industry standard scans. The Spirit 4K has a 4K line array sensor that can scan at either 2K or 4K resolution. If you are likely to go straight to online then Spirit is great for a cost-effective scan once approach, with full flexibility to grade however you need - without having to go back to the film.

Service

The Spirit 4K scanner has gates for 16mm and 35mm.
Output deliverables up to 4K. Standard scans delivered are full frame, uncompressed, ungraded 2K 10-bit Log DPX files.

Scanity

The Scanity HDR is a successor to Spirit 4K. One of its many features is that it has no stationary parts, like a skid plate. Instead, the Scanity has an ingenious rolling film gate that rotates with the film, which is the sensor. This results in incredible stability and perfect edge to edge focus.

It is typically used for a scan once approach on larger commercial projects, particularly if there are significant VFX requirements from the start. Scanity HDR is the only scanner realistically fast enough to scan rushes at 4K (15fps). If you are unsure of your existing footage/content, it scans at high-speed, up to 5 x real-time creating a cost-effective low-resolution viewing copy to help decide the next steps for your archive film. With 16 bit HDR delivery it also has an infrared option.

Service

The Scanity has a full complement of gates for 8mm, 16mm and 35mm scan and scans up to 4K 16-bit. Standard scans delivered are full frame uncompressed, ungraded 2K 10-bit Log DPX files.

Arriscan

The Arriscan is a premium scanner. It mainly differs from other scanners in that it utilises a pin registered full frame sensor. Other scanners have a line array sensor, whereas Arriscan stops each frame in the gate and physically pin registers the frame (pins engage into the sprockets of the film, effectively clamping the frame into the correct position) over the CMOS full frame 6K sensor.

The result is incredible stability and perfect edge to edge focus. It takes approximately 30 minutes to scan 1 minute of film. Arriscan provides the best scans for negatives, it is slow (4fps at 2K, 1fps at 4K), but typically used for select take scans/VFX pulls on-line. The Arriscan also benefits from Double Flash HDR and Digital ICE (real time IR dust concealment).

Service

Arriscan HDR has gates for 16mm & 35mm

LOG scans 2K, 4K, 6K resolution.
Standard scans delivered are full frame uncompressed, ungraded LOG DPX files.

OXScan

The OXScan is a large format, ultra-high resolution 12K, pin-registered, 16bit RGB film scanner. Developed for the ingest of 65mm original camera negative film, the OXScan can manage multiple film formats including 5-perf 65mm, 15-perf IMAX and 70mm print. Additionally, it has the capability to handle 8K finishing and remastering of 35mm film.

This is the first scanner in the UK to offer such high-resolution, high-quality scanning across formats for remastering. The OXScan delivers high performance image stability, high fidelity and authentic colour performance.

Created by DFT, an industry leader in high-end film scanning technology, the OXScan is the first commercially available scanner at this level. It has been designed in response to a growing trend of new ‘ScanOnce’ large film format productions, within the feature film industry. Producing exceptionally high-quality, high-resolution images.