According to Blackmagic Design, EMPC (Egyptian Media Production City) uses Cintel Scanner G3 HDR+ for real-time scanning of Egypt’s rich archive footage, and DaVinci Resolve Studio for restoration and digitization.
The Cairo-based EMPC media complex has a contract with the Ministry of Culture that houses hundreds of original films and photographs made from 1940 to the late 1990s. The CRC (Centre for the Restoration of Cinema) was established in 2018 to document and digitize all these collections.
Nada Hossam Eldeen Farahat, General Manager of CRC, commented:
Mr. Farahat:Cinema plays an important role in Egyptian culture, but there is not enough time to preserve these legacies. For decades, celluloid was the primary recording medium, but many of its original negatives are now in poor condition and degraded.
Work began in 2019 to restore and digitize Egyptian Film Magazine’s newsreel archives, filmed between 1952 and 2015.
Mr. Farahat:We have been using Cintel for telecine for many years. Because Cintel offers the best picture quality. However, the machine we owned was an old model and could only handle SD. Furthermore, we could not rely on a single machine for all videos, photographs, and recorded texts.
CRC consulted system integrator Systems Design to deploy Cintel Scanner G3 HDR+ to support the next phase of this ambitious project to restore over 300 iconic Egyptian feature films. became.
Mr. Farahat:After physically inspecting and manually repairing the reel, we remove dirt, fingerprints, and dust from the film. These reels are then scanned in real-time at 4K resolution using Cintel Scanner into DaVinci Resolve Studio for color, restoration, and mastering.
In parallel, high-quality audio information was recorded from the negative using the Cintel Audio and KeyKode Reader, synchronized with the video scan. A precision encoder also automatically adjusts for wow and flutter as the scanner speed changes. Additionally, KeyKode numbers identify individual film frames, dramatically speeding up post-production workflows.
Mr. Farahat:What makes Cintel Scanner G3 better than other scanners is that it links with DaVinci Resolve Studio. Information from Cintel is automatically loaded into DaVinci, saving you a lot of time. No other system offers this level of integration from scanning to final delivery.
DaVinci Resolve Studio also includes tools for automatic dirt removal, dust busting, flicker removal, patch correction with smart fill technology, and advanced temporal and spatial noise removal.
The 300 drama, comedy and music films currently being restored were made between 1941 and 1995.
Mr. Farahat:It will take three years to restore all of this to its original state. Some of the restored collections will be screened at film festivals, and some will be made available more widely for the enjoyment of moviegoers.
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