DSC Laboratories Ceases Operations – Farewell to Their Test Charts

Industry News

by Francesco AndreolaJuly 3^rd, 2024

In an open letter published on their website, Susan Corley of DSC Laboratories has announced that the company will soon cease its operations. You have until October to order one of their award-winning camera test charts, and these will continue to be produced and shipped until spring 2025.

Like with most success stories, DSC Labs’ adventure started in a basement back in 1962. Founded by David and Susan Corley, over the course of the following 6 decades, the company grew to become a leading manufacturer of high-quality test charts for the film and television industry. These include precise tools for assessing the performance of a camera setup in terms of dynamic range, resolution, color, and much more.

If you’re an avid CineD reader, then you can imagine how sad of a day this is. Indeed, DSC Labs’ Xyla 21 High Dynamic Range test chart stands at the foundation of our rigorous Lab Test procedure – a workflow that we developed with a scientific approach to offer our beloved readers a benchmark of their camera’s performance.

As mentioned in the letter below, DSC Labs will accept orders until October 2024, will keep producing their test charts until next spring, and will eventually stop shipping products after April 2025. So you have one last chance to stock up.

Before you go on reading, we would like to take some time to thank David and Susan for their painstaking effort in engineering these test tools over the last 60 years. If we, as filmmakers, can make the best out of our gear, we also owe it to you!

Greetings from DSC Laboratories…

A BIG thank you, to each and every one of you who has used our test materials over the past years.  After more than six decades of providing “better images through research”, David and I are winding up the operations of DSC, and would like to provide you, our loyal customers, with a final opportunity to stock up on the award-winning DSC products that you have come to know and trust.

Our testing has found that DSC test charts, when stored in cool, dark conditions, have very good stability.  To facilitate the storage of DSC test charts, and then the measurement of their time-in-service, we have removed the printed replacement dates and have included a 24-month time strip, to be activated when a fresh test chart is put into use.

To wind up our operations in an orderly manner, we plan to accept orders for DSC products, for the next few months (until the end of October), and then to produce and deliver these products until the spring of 2025.  As supplies for the manufacture of certain products are limited, we would ask that you please send in your orders as soon as reasonably possible.  We will do our best to fill all orders, but may suggest a similar product (if the one you have ordered is unavailable), or in some cases we may be unable to provide it.  Recognizing that you may be ordering products for use in the future, please let us know if you would like to delay the shipment of them to you for a brief period – (but to no later than April 2025).

We are currently speaking with our dealers about them possibly acquiring a substantial inventory of DSC products to be sold in the coming years, and will let you know if we are successful in concluding such an arrangement or arrangements.

Thank you again for your support and for your suggestions over the years. Our products have been developed in collaboration with this community, and our lives have been enriched by our meetings and conversations with all of you.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Susan Corley, President at DSC Laboratories

What do you think of DSC Laboratories shutting down? What do you think led to this decision? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.