One of them (cyan dye soundtracks) will completely solve the "black splotching on the soundtrack side of the print" that Dave had on his prints of "Space Cowboys". Another has significantly reduced the level of "white dirt" on prints. One is evaluating the spectral purity of additive printers to improve color and contrast. Another development program is aimed at improving the sharpness and steadiness of prints.

Three of the five reels Dave returned had a problem he has not seen before, so it may be an unusual occurrence. Hopefully the lab will share samples of the problem with Kodak so we can analyze the "medium sized white dots running down the right side of the screen". Kodak's assistance in analyzing and solving problems is always available to our lab customers.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

Lab defects are all over the place. I believe the biggest problem with this situation is the major pain it is to order a replacement reel. Most people feel it is simply not worth the trouble. I mean really, it is worth changing out that reel of Thomas and the Magic Railroad because the SRD track wanders in and out of the sprocket holes? Nope. Just play it in another format. It'll only be here 2 weeks anyway.

The ratio is indeed far higher than 1%, it's the depots that are making it seem like it is not, as well as having to go on screen the next day without a perfect print in the first place.

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Here are our replacemnts for the summer... 2 reels each in both of our prints of MI2 had to be replaced due to black scratches throughout the print and major color problems (4 reels total)

2 reels of one of our prints of Big Mamma's House had to be replaced because they were in FRENCH!

1 reel of Fantasia 2000 had to be replaced due to white scratches throught the final reel.

3 reels of 1 print of patriot had to be replaced due to soundtrack problems (snaping and cracking and loss of sound sporaticly through the reels).

2 reels of 1 screen of Klumps had to be replaced due to black and white scratches and soundtrack cracking.

2 reels of Space Cowboys due to black splotches randomly appearing on the print.

The easiest way to keep track of serious problems would be to report them on the "Feature Info & Trailer Attachment" Forum. For example, if everyone was having a sound sync problem with reel 4 of a particular feature film, it would quickly help the lab track and solve the problem. Keeping the information organized by feature title in one place would be useful for all.

My "less than 1%" return figure comes from my contacts in Hollywood. Good to see agreement with what Gordon hears in Canada.

John Scott: You returned 14 defective reels in a period of about three months. Assuming your 16-plex changes out about 1/3 of the prints weekly, you probably received about 30 new reels per week, or a total of 360 reels this summer. So you are returning less than 4 percent of your reels. As mentioned previously in this thread, some theatres may be more tolerant of defects like minor scratches or occasional sound pops, so that may be the reason for the difference in reported returns.

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Over the past ten years, TAP has rejected between 7% and 10% of the reels we've reviewed. On a typical project, we review every 50th reel manufactured, that is our minimum sampling ratio, we do review more reels if we find a problem and need to isolate a defect. We have caught many problems over the years... in each case, we immediately contact the lab, have the defect investigated and repaired, and confirm that the defect was actually fixed. All this is reported back to the distributor that hired us for the project. I will say that Coyote Ugly was our last Disney title we worked on, and although we don't see every reel manufactured, when we catch a problem that is repeated, and we did a few times, we stop the presses and get it fixed. The Reel 4 that was mentioned that had a "picture and sound dropout", well, after looking at our report, this was most likely an isolated problem, hopefully on a single reel, because it never turned up in our every 50th reel review statistics. Then again, I have been aware for some time that the labs pre-screen the reels they give us to review... I used to be upset with this, because it skews the statistics in the labs favor. Yet, for the clients' sake, it works out great. When TAP is hired to review a title, the Distributor gets double the Quality Assurance, first the lab looks at the reels (something that doesn't always happen when TAP is not looking over their shoulder) and they catch the glaring problems, then we look at it and catch the problems the lab misses. And even with the lab pre-screening our reels, we still reject 7% to 10% of them.

Not that I want to open up any cans of worms, but of all the titles mentioned in this topic thus far, Coyote Ugly was the only one we at TAP worked on. Warner Bros. has not utilized TAP Lab Services in some time... Sony uses us here and there on their high profile projects... Disney and DreamWorks use us on almost all of their titles. Fox chooses how extensively to use us on each title, but they do use us on virtually every title. TAP did not work on The Perfect Storm, The Patriot, or Space Cowboys, yet we did work on Coyote Ugly, The Kid, X-Men, Gladiator, and Chicken Run. Before I start getting beaten up here, because we cannot guarentee that each and every print will be flawless, let me say that on all those titles, we assisted the lab in putting out a better product. We caught many defects and had them corrected with a very limited amout of prints being affected. Yes, bad reels do slip by us here and there, but the overall difference we make is significant... and our clients that use us appreciate that difference.

John P: Did you get the flowers I sent? (Ha, Ha)

I'd be happy to answer questions on this topic, but try not to beat me up too bad, o'kay? I'm on your side.

THXfully Yours,

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