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From: papke@dicomed.UUCP (Kurt Papke)
Newsgroups: net.graphics
Subject: Re: Film Recorders
Message-ID: <654@dicomed.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 10:41:06 EST
Article-I.D.: dicomed.654
Posted: Thu Nov 21 10:41:06 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 05:44:25 EST
References: <471@sdchema.sdchema.UUCP> <648@dicomed.UUCP> <14752@onfcanim.UUCP> <651@dicomed.UUCP> <1004@lll-crg.ARpA>
Reply-To: papke@dicomed.UUCP (Kurt Papke)
Organization: DICOMED Corp., Minneapolis
Lines: 64
Keywords: Film Recorders.
Summary: 

In article <1004@lll-crg.ARpA> renard@lll-crg.UUCP (Paul renard) writes:
>I'm biased towards Dicomed (we have serial #1) but some problems to
>look out for are:
>	2. For any recorder, make sure you have adequate controls for
>	   proper color balancing.  The Dicomed  has several
>	   controls that are set once (never correctly by the service
>	   people - so be prepared for some agonizing months of 
>	   adequately balancing your recorder).  We've noticed little
>	   problem of color-drift once the recorder is set up properly.

Out latest work on our slide-producing software will greatly reduce this
problem.  We have spent a fortune in the last couple of years on R&D
concerning color problems: setup, matching CRT colors to film colors, color
consistency between films types, etc.

>	3. The software for controlling the recorder can be expensive
>	   too.  Write your own!  (You can surely do a better job
>	   and allow for more flexible data formats.)

There is some merit to this statement  if you are not using the slide
production software.  Dicomed has done much incremental improvement to
its Precision COM software in the past few years, but has not made any
quantum leaps.

>	4. We produce 8x10's by enlarging our 4x5 film.  I've seen
>	   8x10 enlargements from 35mm done offline on a 3M machine
>	   that are quite acceptable.  Dicomed's 8x10 optics are not
>	   quite up to snuff.  (To get enough light onto the film
>	   requires 2-passes over the image, and thus increases the
>	   time to plot so much that it becomes impractical to
>	   produce 8x10.  I'm not particularly impressed with the
>	   quality of Dicomed's 8x10 - Celco's is better - which
>	   is surprising, since Dicomed's smaller formats are generally
>	   better.)

The reason for this is that the 8x10 optics were designed for overhead
transparencies !!  Our staff artists use 4x5's for going to print.  Also
of very high quality is our new 70mm assembly.  This is due to high-quality
lenses, and the fact that the smaller film can be rigidly supported to
stay flat on the focus plane, and the result of less diffusion from a thinner
film backing.

>	If you get a recorder of Dicomed's caliber, it's worth 
>providing your own film processing, or make sure you have a good
>photo lab available.  I've seen lots of potentially good film
>produced on the recorder, but ruined by the photo lab.

This is all-to-true.  Our FE's spend a lot of time setting up recorders
for color calibration, only to have the lab change their process
negating all the careful tuning !!

>wear out just from changing it.  They 'forgot' to put handles on
>the camera body, so there is no convenient way to pick the bloody
>thing up. 

That is why we mount a winch on the top of the D48 cabinet !!

> (And maintenance! - Dicomed
>probably makes more money from maintenance contracts than from
>sales of recorders!)

Not true.  We charge the same basic percentage for support as any computer
manufacturer does.  One expect to pay for maintenance on a precision piece
of equipment just as you do for the disk drives on your computer.