Ultimate Quality

Simply the best

Our flagship scanner.
Recognized as the industry leader for its superior image quality.

Up to 13.5K resolution
Color sequential scanning for full color data at each pixel (not Bayer)
Very high density scanning with virtually no noise due to 3-flash High Dynamic Range (HDR)
Infrared light detects and corrects dust and scratches while scanning
Each film frame held motionless while imaging, optimizing scans of damaged and warped film
Gentle sprocketless film transport — ideal for older films
Image and optical sound scanned in a single pass
Output to many file formats (ProRes, DPX, TIFF, etc.)

Feature Comparison and Technical Specifications

Testimonials and Objective comparisons

Request More Information or a Free Scan Test

Features & benefits–Director

Self-adjusting optical magnification delivers maximum resolution for all film gauges.

35mm

16mm

8mm

65/70mm

VistaVision

IMAX

Single-pass color and B&W 2 and 3-flash HDR scanning for the best capture of print film shadow detail.

Often, part or all of the original negative is missing when it comes time for an older film to be scanned. This requires that print film be scanned for the missing portions. Whereas the highest density on negative film is about 2.0, the highest density on print film is 4.0 or more. Thus, scanning print film requires up to 1,000 times more dynamic range than negative film.

Conventional film scanners are optimized to scan negative and not print film, resulting in shadow detail loss or noise.

In contrast, the Director’s 3-flash scanning capability can easily capture shadow details on print film at densities well beyond 4.0.

Below are scan comparisons between the ARRISCAN, the dft Scanity, and the Director from the same print film using 2-flash and 3-flash scanning. Images have been digitally brightened 1,000 times to reveal detail in the shadow (i.e. high density) regions. Notice the vertical artifacts, excessive noise, and loss of detail in the ARRISCAN and dft images.

Optical Pin Registration (no edge guiding)

For the best stability of shrunk and damaged film.

Lasergraphics’ proprietary 2D optical pin registration system locates up to 8 perforations and is able to register the frame even if only one of the perforations is usable. The frame is stabilized in the X, Y, and rotation axes. Therefore, shrunken film can be effectively stabilized with no mechanical or software adjustments. All optical pin registration is performed during the scanning process, eliminating the need for any post-processing.

Lasergraphics scanners are highly immune to perforation damage and splices while maintaining registration. Lasergraphics’ 2D optical pin registration detects the location of all of the holes and then determines which ones are damaged. The damaged ones are ignored while the undamaged ones are used to align the image.

Optical pin registration is superior to:
Mechanical pin registration, which engages the film in only two perforations and is only effective on undamaged and unshrunken film.
Edge guiding, which weaves laterally because it entirely ignores the holes and is highly intolerant of splices.

Sprocketless Film Transport

Continuous motion sprocketless capstan servo drive for constant film tension and safe film handling.

Software-controlled adjustable film tension.

Each frame held motionless in gate during scan for optimal imaging of damaged and warped film.

Dramatically reduces noise in high density print and negative film.

Simultaneous image scanning and soundtrack/KeyKode reading

Synchronized audio and image output to ProRes and H.264 (no post-processing or third-party tools required)
Variable scan speed for fragile film (no requirement to read in real-time)
Optical soundtrack extraction from scanned image
Automatic continuous alignment of track to edge of film (no need for constant manual adjustment e.g. thumbscrews)
Noise reduction processing reduces noise dramatically compared to conventional slit-based readers
Optical reader:

35/16/8mm soundtrack reading
65/35/16mm KeyKode reading
Silver and cyan
Positive and negative
Diffuse light-source for scratch and fingerprint reduction, minimizing ticks and pops
Automatic continuous alignment of track to edge of film

SoundView visual soundtrack position control
Variable-density optical soundtrack reading from negative film

Conventional optical soundtrack readers are designed to read the soundtrack from print and NOT negative film, which results in distorted audio, pops, clicks, and static.
Lasergraphics optical soundtrack reading technology is able to read the soundtrack from both print AND negative film, which results in undistorted

Rack-mounted host computer ready-to-use and pre-configured with Microsoft Windows and Lasergraphics Motion Picture Film Scanning System software featuring:
Full transport and scanning control
Adjustable horizontal and vertical framing with visual selection of scan area
Aperture and shading correction
Automatic or manual DMin calibration
Self-calibrating intensity, focus, and film base
Fast interactive gray balance and base calibration
Shuttling from 1 to 100 frames/second (200 frames/second for 16mm) with image preview and KeyKode recognition.
Selectable scanning speed
Adjustable film tension
KeyKode-based job management
Multiple simultaneous output resolutions and data formats including DPX, TIFF, and ProRes.
Fast ProRes and and H.264 proxies/dailies
Per-clip color correction
RollView™ with thumbnail preview and automatic clip/splice detection
Seamless and easy integration with popular restoration systems including support for a secondary (reference) monitor and popular color grading panels.

Storage options:
PCIe slot available for customer-supplied adapter to connect to NAS, DAS, or SAN systems.
Internal 16TB SSD or 32TB HDD SATA RAID

Other:
Meticulously calibrated, aligned and tested at the factory.
Power requirements similar to a standard PC workstation
Operates in normal office environment (no special cooling required)
Full one year warranty (parts and labor)
Extended warranty available

Lasergraphics offers an extremely generous trade up program that can increase the capability of your scanning system as your requirements grow over time without losing your existing investment.

Stable low-heat LED light source protects film from heat damage and ultra-diffuse uniform illumination from the integrating sphere reduces the appearance of scratches in the film base and emulsion (that do not damage the dye layers) without softening, blurring, or altering the image.

	On-axis light passes through undamaged film and reaches lens
	On-axis light passes through scratch which deflects it away from the lens
	Off-axis light from diffuse source passes through scratch but nevertheless reaches lens

Warped film scanning

Warped film can’t naturally lay flat in the gate causing the center to appear shrunk compared to the edges and the resulting output will have a ripple or “potato chip” effect.

Warped film in gate without clamp
Warped film in gate with clamp

Automatic Failed Splice Recovery™

This patented feature eliminates the need to pre-inspect film. After the operator repairs a broken splice, the scanner automatically finds the proper frame and continues. Video and sound remain synchronized.

Imaging system
Monochromatic CMOS area array image sensor
Sequential RGB+Infrared color capture per pixel
6.5K or 13.5K scanning resolution
High MTF resolution lens
Self-adjusting focus
4:3, 16:9 and 1.85 aspect ratios
10-bit or 16-bit log or linear bit depth (data format dependent)
2-flash and 3-flash color and B&W High Dynamic Range (HDR)
Infrared dust/scratch detection and reduction
Intelligent Noise Reduction (INR)
Scans beyond density 4 in 3-flash HDR mode
Film base calibration, color grading and focus independently adjusted by shot/clip/scene
Max scaning speed: 10.0 fps B&W, 7.5 fps color

Light source
Integrating sphere containing high-intensity, low-heat RGB LEDs
Self-calibrates before each scan
100,000 hour lifespan

Film transport system
Continuous motion sprocketless capstan servo drive with each frame held motionless in gate during scan
Removable film gates with clamping pressure plate
2D optical pin registration
Software-controlled adjustable film tension
Film shrinkage tolerance up to 4%
Selectable transport over particle transfer rollers
Automatic Failed Splice Recovery™

Supported film formats
8mm, Super 8mm, 16mm, Super 16mm, 35mm, Super 35mm, 65/70mm 5-perf, VistaVision, and IMAX 8/15-perf
Self-adjusting optical magnification for maximum resolution of all film formats

Supported film types
Negative, Intermediate, Interpositive, Print, Reversal, Color, and B&W

Optical soundtrack/KeyKode reader
Soundtrack/KeyKode reading simultaneous with image scanning
Variable scan speed
- Optical reader:
- 35/16/8mm soundtrack reading
- 65/35/16mm KeyKode reading
- Variable area and variable density
- Silver and cyan
- Positive and negative
- Automatic continuous alignment of track to edge of film
- Diffuse light source

Max film capacity
2,000 feet

Built-in color grading
Ungraded or primary-color graded via lift/gamma/gain or black/white/contrast color controls.
Support for 3-ball color grading panel
Simple dye fade correction

Image, video, and audio output file formats
13.5K, 10K, 8K, 6.5K, 6K, 5K, 4K, UHD (2160p), 2K, Full HD (1080p), HD (720p), SD and others
DPX color/B&W 10/16-bit (conforms to SMPTE 268M for compatibility with graphics, compositing, and other post production systems)
JPEG 2000 (contained within MXF file)
ADX (Academy Density Exchange Encoding)
TIFF (8/16-bit)
QuickTime (ProRes 4444 HQ/XQ, ProRes 422, and others)
H.264 (MPEG-4)
WAV/BWF

Built-in control panel
LCD display on scanner deck with buttons for loading, unloading, and shuttling film

Host computer
High-performance host computer preconfigured with Microsoft Windows OS and all required adapters and scanner control software
Internal RAID storage
2 PCIe slots available for customer-supplied high-speed connectivity and storage (e.g. 10GbE/40GbE NICs, Fibre Channel, RAID HBA, etc.)
Rack-mounted chassis
16:9 aspect ratio LCD monitor
Software support for customer-supplied reference monitor via HDMI or DisplayPort
Host computer can be operated remotely via KVM and/or remote access software

Scanner base cabinet
Dual 19″ rack-mounts for host computer and customer-supplied subsystems

Weight
441 lbs. (200 kg) (scanner and base cabinet containing host computer)

Dimensions
65″ H x 45″ W x 27″ D (165 cm x 114 cm x 69 cm)

Operating environment
15ºC to 30ºC
15% to 85% relative humidity non condensing
90-250V ~50/60Hz 872W

Built-in color grading tools for easy dye fade correction, applied during scan, eliminates secondary post-processing step.

Enclosed cabinet with positive pressure HEPA filtration avoids dust contamination from normal office environments.

Infrared dust and scratch detection works during scanning to detect and reduce dust and surface scratches without softening, blurring, or altering the image. A defect matte is generated, depicting pixels that have been automatically corrected and defects that require additional attention (if any). The defect matte allows the uncorrected defects to be easily located and addressed in post.

The Director’s infrared dust/scratch detection and reduction is superior to conventional (dry gate) scanning and better than scanning with a wet gate. Less messy and less costly too!

DPX files containing the defect mattes generated by Lasergraphics scanners have been certified compatible with systems from the following companies:

DaVinci

Czech TV launched a comprehensive public tender to acquire a high-end motion picture film scanner. This tender was unique in that Czech TV developed what is perhaps the most stringent, highly detailed pre-purchase scanner testing methodology ever performed to determine which scanner produced the best results under a variety of scanning conditions. They first narrowed their selection down to four scanner finalists to include in the test: the Lasergraphics Director, the ARRI Arriscan XT, the DFT Scanity HDR, and the Digital Vision GoldenEye.

The same reels of film were scanned at the factories of the four film scanner manufacturers under close observation by two highly qualified third-party consultants. The consultants (a director of photography and a film archiving expert from the National Film Awards) were engaged by Czech TV to bring objective independence to the process, avoid any possible conflicts of interest, and ensure that the manufacturers’ scanner operators had no opportunity to manipulate any of the scan data.

The consultants instructed each scanner manufacturer to use its best scanner, have its best engineer/operator perform the scan tests, and give each operator the freedom needed to generate the best possible high-resolution scans. The identical frames from the same test films from multiple film gauges and stocks were scanned on each scanner. The frames were output in 100% uncompressed raw 16-bit color TIFF files, to eliminate potential differences due to codec variations. This methodology provided the most fair and optimal conditions to essentially guarantee the best possible results that each scanner was capable of producing.

More than four terabytes of data were generated, all of which needed to be critically and fairly compared to comply with strict Czech laws regulating public tenders. The data from the four film scanner tests were compared by an eight-person Czech TV evaluation team in an exhaustive blind comparison evaluation. The two consultants also attended the evaluation to provide detailed information regarding the four manufacturers’ scanning processes.

High film density detail (i.e. shadow detail) is shown by digitally brightening the image and then enlarging the image in the yellow rectangle which contains the darkest portion of the image.

Lasergraphics Director

ARRI Arriscan XT

DFT Scanity HDR

Digital Vision Golden Eye
Conclusion
Following the blind comparison evaluation, the Director had superior resolution, better color rendition, less noise, and consistently reproduced the most faithful image aspect ratio of the four scanners.

As the comparison evaluation was a critical part of Czech TV’s open, public tender, all data, testing methodologies, and findings are 100% transparent and made available to the general public.

Uncompressed raw 16-bit color TIFF samples
Film Density (260 MB zip)
Resolution (525 MB zip)
Aspect Ratio (525 MB zip)

High film density detail (i.e. shadow detail) is shown by digitally brightening the image and then enlarging the image in the yellow rectangle which contains the darkest portion of the image.

Lasergraphics Director	ARRI Arriscan XT
DFT Scanity HDR	Digital Vision Golden Eye

Ultimate Flexibility

8mm to 70mm IMAX up to 60fps

Our fastest and most versatile scanner.

Up to 6.5K resolution
Scanning speeds up to 60fps
High density scanning due to its 2-flash High Dynamic Range
Warped film gate option allows scanning of highly damaged and warped film
Gentle sprocketless film transport ideal for older films
Image and optical/magnetic sound scanned in a single pass
Output to many file formats (ProRes, DPX, TIFF, etc.)

Feature Comparison and Technical Specifications

Request More Information or a Free Scan Test

Features & benefits–ScanStation

Self-adjusting optical magnification delivers maximum resolution for all film gauges.

35mm

16mm

8mm

65/70mm

VistaVision

IMAX

Single-pass color and B&W 2-flash HDR scanning for the best capture of print film shadow detail.

Often, part or all of the original negative is missing when it comes time for an older film to be scanned. This requires that print film be scanned for the missing portions. Whereas the highest density on negative film is about 2.0, the highest density on print film is 4.0 or more. Thus, scanning print film requires up to 1,000 times more dynamic range than negative film.

Conventional film scanners are optimized to scan negative and not print film, resulting in shadow detail loss or noise.

In contrast, the ScanStation’s 2-flash scanning capability can easily capture shadow details on print film at densities well beyond 4.0.

Below are scan comparisons between the ARRISCAN, the dft Scanity, and the ScanStation from the same print film using 2-flash scanning. Images have been digitally brightened 1,000 times to reveal detail in the shadow (i.e. high density) regions. Notice the vertical artifacts, excessive noise, and loss of detail in the ARRISCAN and dft images.

Optical Pin Registration (no edge guiding)

For the best stability of shrunk and damaged film.

Lasergraphics’ proprietary 2D optical pin registration system locates up to 8 perforations and is able to register the frame even if only one of the perforations is usable. The frame is stabilized in the X, Y, and rotation axes. Therefore, shrunken film can be effectively stabilized with no mechanical or software adjustments. All optical pin registration is performed during the scanning process, eliminating the need for any post-processing.

Lasergraphics scanners are highly immune to perforation damage and splices while maintaining registration. Lasergraphics’ 2D optical pin registration detects the location of all of the holes and then determines which ones are damaged. The damaged ones are ignored while the undamaged ones are used to align the image.

Optical pin registration is superior to:
Mechanical pin registration, which engages the film in only two perforations and is only effective on undamaged and unshrunken film.
Edge guiding, which weaves laterally because it entirely ignores the holes and is highly intolerant of splices.