JAPAN’S HBC FLEX
INSTALLS BLACKMAGIC DESIGN’S CINTEL FILM SCANNER

Fremont, CA - March 24, 2017 - Blackmagic Design today announced that HBC Flex has installed a Blackmagic Cintel Film Scanner to archive numerous films they have produced over their more than 50 years of filmmaking.

HBC Flex, launched in 1955 as an affiliated company of Hokkaido Broadcasting Co. Ltd., has produced a number of 16mm short films, as well as TV news and TV programs. Such films include images from the Hokkaido Olympics in 1972, promotional films for various cities and towns throughout the Hokkaido area, as well as for corporations, events and constructions. The company has more than 1,000 film titles, many of which are stored currently only as negative film.

“We wanted to check films we have produced with ease and wanted to convert the films to high quality data. These were our long time wishes and challenge. We also knew that we had to reorganize our library for film and tapes,“ said Hiroki Tuchisaka, executive director of HBC Flex. “We use Cintel mainly for data transfer from the 16mm or 35mm negative films we have produced. This includes audio data conversion from audio negative. We also complete data conversion for film that our customers bring to us.”

Tsuchisaka continued, “When using Cintel Film Scanner, you can scan films in HD for 16mm films and 4K for 35 films, which means we can acquire a better quality image.”

The scanned image from the Cintel is checked via a 4K monitor and temporarily saved as RAW data into their 24TB storage. Then the data is sent to LTO, and the RAW data is graded upon request with DaVinci Resolve Studio and then converted to various video files.

“We also own positive films and our client sometimes bring positive films. The colors of those films are fading because they are old or they haven’t been stored properly, and some are scratched . Even though we had a telecine with a built in analog camera, and it was very difficult to extract certain colors from the image and fix it. Using DaVinci Resolve Studio, it is easy to fix individual colors, as well as handling color correction for the overall images. DaVinci Resolve Studio allows us to do a wide variety of color correction tasks. The basic functions of DaVinci Resolve Studio are so similar to other NLE software that it didn’t take too much time to learn basic operations. “

“We have started scanning early film works produced around the time our company launched. I was shocked with how clear the image quality was when I saw the scanned image on Blu-ray. It was scanned from 16mm negative film from 50 to 60 years ago. We also scanned some of our 35mm films. We could reproduce details from the films, such as the latitude of colors, light and shadow and depth of field, which compares favorably with the quality of current movies in theaters,” Tsuchisaka concluded.

PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY

Product photos of the Cintel Film Scanner, DaVinci Resolve Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

ABOUT BLACKMAGIC DESIGN

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

