October 05, 2010

16mm film goes digital - wins award

P+S Technik won the recent Cinec Award for Camera Technology, for its 16Digital SR Mag that converts film cameras to digital.

The magazine is a direct replacement for a film mag, which can transform an Arri 16SR film camera into a new digital cinematography camera. It allows the camera to shoot at up to 60 frames per second in full HD.

It has a 2/3-inch CMOS sensor that outputs 1920x1080 video in 10-bit RAW and 4:2:2 HD, recording the CineForm format, with HD-SDI output. It offers multiple frame rate settings at 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97 and 30fps.

The Mag fits into an Arri SRIII just like a film magazine, making use of any 16mm PL-mount lenses and accessories, including the original optical viewfinder, and records to removable SSD storage.

"The migration from film to digital is an important challenge for our customers”, said Michael Erkelenz, Manager Digital Capture Business Unit, P+S Technik, who was one of those picking up the award. "No other camera model on the market gives you the freedom to shoot and capture Digital Film, High Definition and analogue film."

It effectively combines a traditional film way of working with a fast digital workflow, but because all the changes are non-destructive and completely reversible, users can simply fit a film magazine to switch back to 16mm.

The power supply of the 16Digital SR Magazine comes through the camera, so it doesn't need an external power supply.

It also offers convenient wireless operation via smart phones (such as the iPhone or BlackBerry) or laptops. It comes with PSRushes software that offers a complete workflow for digital dailies processing (quality control, media management and transcoding for RAW and HD workflows), which was jointly developed with Pomfort.

The Cinec Award is presented at the international film technology trade fair in Munich by the Bavarian Society for the Advancement of Film Technology (FGF), and awarded to innovative cine equipment developments.

By David Fox

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