Color systems for motion picture film digitization: A critical review

Abstract

Digitizing motion picture films is a crucial aspect of archival practices. Nevertheless, the primary purpose of this process is to convert analog film into a digital signal suitable for recording back onto film. Thus, the most popular color film system encoding, such as Cineon or Academy Density Exchange (ADX), may present some limits for the preservation and restoration practices. In this paper, Cineon and ADX systems are summarized and analyzed, and an experimental application conducted on modern cinematographic film scanners has been made to evaluate the integration of these encoding systems into these devices. Results have been examined and discussed to underline the constraints and possibilities of these color encoding systems for archival purposes.