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Author Topic: Cyan Tracks Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 07-21-2003 10:59 PM                     I have a question for John... How much testing has been done on the stability of the cyan dye track over a period of time?  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 07-21-2003 11:01 PM                        I also have a question for John... How much testing has been done on the stability of the cyan dye track over a period of time?  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-21-2003 11:06 PM                     John, Nah, you are allowed to round...that was indeed my mistake, sorry about that...300mils is a bit wide. My apologies. Steve  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 07-21-2003 11:09 PM                        The improved stability of the cyan dye has a proven track record --- I haven't heard of any significant fading on Kodak prints made since the early 1980s. If actual cyan tracks weren't put "into the ovens" for keeping tests, it's at least likely that some of the early tests have been kept at room conditions and can be remeasured. (I was NOT one of the engineers working on the evaluation).  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 07-21-2003 11:24 PM                     I have used all the "red" light sources in my work and they all have good and bad points.....at least there are 20 - 30% less service calls in which the exciter lamp is the problem. The money issue regarding Dolby's LED-V chip is funny...if Dolby had NO competion and sold 100,000 chips a year to all the venues in the world they would gross $5 - 6,000,000 a year....petty cash to them....licensing is their cash cow.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-21-2003 11:28 PM                     Has anyone involved with the cyan dye track done any long-term testing on its longevity? BTW...a patent search on the dye track issue turned up that the inventors of the thing acknowlege a 3-dB downgrade in performance over conventional methods. That was prior to lowering the current on LEDs and subsequent increase in the pre-preamplifier gain (with its associated noise increase). Steve  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 07-21-2003 11:48 PM                     John said: quote: Most of the environmental advantages come from the savings in water required to wash off the caustic soundtrack developer, which is a major portion of the water used to process prints. Water - Schmater....We have oceans full of it. Everyone bitches about water shortage....but yet, nobody has taken the time to develope the technology to distill ocean water on a large scale. Hell, the evaporators on navy-issue aircraft carriers that carry crews of 6,000 each make enough fresh water which is nothing more than distilled sea water full of fish turds and other stuff. Large distill units are not new. They have been around for more than 70 years. While I was on the Oriskany, our ship made more fresh water and liquid oxygen that we knew what to do with. Lot of it was jettisoned over the side. In the three years I was on that rusty hunk of shit, I never recall having "water hours" because of an evaporator failure or using too much of it.Our ship was an 888 footer, and we had a crew in excess of 2500 people.  |  IP: Logged Ray Derrick Master Film Handler Posts: 310 From: Sydney, Australia Registered: Sep 2001 posted 07-22-2003 01:48 AM                     It seems much, if not most, of the pressure to convert to cyan soundtracks has come from the chairman of the Cyan Dye-tracks Commitee. Now consider the following questions. 1. Who is the chairman of the Cyan Dye-tracks Committee and which company does he work for? 2. Which companies hold patents for the combined use of cyan dyetracks and Red LEDs? 5. Which company makes approx 90% of the all Red LEDS sold and licenses the manufacture of approx 90% of all reverse scan red LED readers sold? Anyone see a pattern emerging here?  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 07-22-2003 04:34 AM                     I hesitated to disagree with the learned gentlemen, Steve, Brad and Joe, but I don't think the stability of cyan tracks is a major issue. If I thought otherwise I would have to disagree with another learned gentleman, John, So I guess that I'm on dangerous ground whichever way I go. I am an ex film collector, mainly of documentary material, and also a fan of 'classic' film, most of the material that I handle, project and watch is decades old, so I might be expected to see this as more of an issue than those who handle new material, but I do not; for several reasons: The life of a typical cinema release print is in the order of months, or at most a year or two, in this timescale the fading of the cyan dye is simply not an issue. Even if it were possible to measure any fading of the dye on this time it would be far too small to make any audible difference. Cyan tracks are only going to be used, if anywhere, on prints. The track negatives will still be silver, and new prints can be made for any re-release without problems. Modern print stocks do seem to be far more stable than the old ones; even clips of film I have seen hanging on a wall exposed to daylight show only slight fading after several years. The cyan dye in the track is going to be no less stable than that in the picture, it's the same dye. If the track has faded sufficiently to cause problems with the sound then the picture is going to look pretty poor anyway; maybe it's time to make a new print. Is there any point in having a good track, if the picture is unwatchable? We are talking about an analogue sound system, it's not suddenly going to become unplayable, if the track fades the amplitude of the output will be reduced, and the noise level will rise. The former could be compensated somewhat be increasing the gain, at the expense of the latter becoming worse. I think I would tend to leave things as they were in most cases. There are, of course, cases where a pristine print of a film is not available, that applies to much of the material I see. If the content of the film is such that it is worth watching a somewhat faded, dirty print, if that is the best that is available, then a slightly noisier track is not a serious problem, certainly less serious than several metres of film at each end of each reel which is dirty, scratched and has frames missing from poor handling. The sound can be almost totally lost in noise in the worst cases. Maybe poor film handling is more of an issue than dye tracks. Some time ago somebody asked about track formats on 16mm film, and I posted some examples; some of which were very badly faded. I tried scanning some film which was faded not quite as badly as this, but to the point where the colours had totally changed, and the film would be considered unwatchable under normal circumstances. Looking at the cyan layer there was actually considerable density still there, and I think a track with similar fading would still play, albeit with reduced quality. One of the tracks I posted a scan of had a very low density of silver, it still plays, and I doubt if a cyan track is going to fade to the extent that it has as low a density as this one. I'm not sure about the effect of fading on Dolby material. Would there be a case for archival prints having a length of Dolby tone spliced onto the head of the first reel, before the leader, which would fade at the same rate as the rest of the print, to enable the level to be re-set when running these prints. We hear of various problems which people have with SDDS tracks, but none that I have heard of relate to fading of these tracks, which are almost always cyan dye. I believe there have been a few silver ones on Technicolor IB prints. I have looked at a couple of trailers which I have in my desk at the moment, they have been stored in a typical office environment, for getting on for ten years, and I can see no visible fading in that time. How much is a cyan track going to fade over 10, 20 or 50 years, and how much will that reall affect the sound quality? I suspect not very much, but on one point I do agree tith the three gentlemen, I would like to see some figures. I do have reservations about cyan tracks, but they are mainly concerned with issues of cost and compatibility for the theatres, I don't think the stability of the dye is a major problem.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-22-2003 06:45 AM                        ...and furthermore, the preservation elements kept by archives as masters are likely to be original sound negatives. I presume these will continue to be silver and that it's only release printing which is going to change. So I can't see this being a big issue as far as archival preservation is concerned.  |  IP: Logged Ken Layton Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1452 From: Olympia, Wash. USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 07-22-2003 09:05 AM                     People seem to forget that some old movies are still here with us today not because a studio carefully preserved a film, but rather because some film collector preserved an ex-cinema print! Sometimes studios 'lost' negatives, master postives, track negatives, etc, or had fires that destroyed precious originals. The film collector to the rescue! Soundtrack stability is very important on a print. Of course don't forget that studios don't or won't reprint some films and revival showings can't get anything but a beatup, faded print to show. Again another case where dye stability is important.  |  IP: Logged John Walsh Film God Posts: 2490 From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way Registered: Oct 1999 posted 07-22-2003 10:26 AM                     Myself, I don't really care about the minor environmental savings of cyan tracks or compatibility with older prints. This is almost like when the studios forced polyester onto the theaters: With polyester, there was no warning, and theaters suffered. Now it's the 'boy who cried wolf' and if cyan really does come out now, the theaters will suffer again - just when there's no extra money - because the studios waffled these past three years. I would accept being forced to pay for a process that either takes more work to maintain, but performs better - or has less maintaince and performs the same. But, cyan requires more maintaince AND is not as good.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-22-2003 11:41 AM                     John said "This is almost like when the studios forced polyester onto the theaters: With polyester, there was no warning, and theaters suffered." That is incorrect Nato was the group that asked for estar prints even against the advice of the film manufactureing firms Also I have far fewer emergancy calls in theatre wil led's than from the ones with excitors so maintance is lower in my experience  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-22-2003 12:21 PM                     Stephen, Lets takes these points one at a time, shall we? Please take this as thought provoking, not attacking. The time scale of prints have never been considered that of a few months to a few years despite your factual statement about how long the typical print lasts. Most would consider that a print that is designed with such a short life-span would be considered defective. As to fading, certainly today's stocks are superior to old, that I have never disputed. As to comparing an audio track fade to a picture fade, one CAN NOT equate the two. If the cyan density changes in the picture, while one can chart the change the human brain is pretty good about mentally shifting things so they appear correct. An audio reproducer would not have such benefit. While you can see a print that may look off color, pretty soon, most people stop noticing that and end up watching the film. To a lesser degree elivated constant noise will also be filtered by one's brain. If the gain is not stable over time, you will have other issues. Dolby-SR (the only proposed system for cyan at the moment) is a level dependant compander (as is Dolby-A). If the levels and dynamics are not matched to the encoder, the playback will mistrack...simply turning up the gain will affect overall playback. When looking at older prints that have had considerable dye fade, you have to look at two things, you have the fact the application is on there AND the magenta layer is still there. Application plus magenta = "high-magenta." Glory be, that works for all kinds of readers, albeit a bit noisier than proper cyan + magenta and application. With cyan only, you are hedging your bets on a single dye layer that must precisely interact with the narrow wavelength of the light source. Your comments about SDDS are interesting...of the various problems associated with SDDS, one of them is actual track damage (tracks that used to play but now don't). If the cyan layer is so well protected (2nd layer and covered with the geletin) then why are those tracks being damaged? Now I will grant that the SDDS track are will come into contact with just about any film guidance system, roller or what have you and the optical track should not (though double flange pad rollers do)the scratching effects of the cyan layer are real. Furthermore, we are using collimated light...any scuff on the outer layer will create a distinct shadow that will be accurately read by a reverse scan reader. This is the chief issue I have with both IR and visible LED based readers. As to other SDDS issues, I believe density at the labs have been one of the major ones. Certainly there are other issues with the SDDS tracks. Steve  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-22-2003 12:26 PM                        There seems to be a lot of rending of garments and nashing of teeth (or is it rending of teeth and nashing of garments....I never get it right) over a 3db drop in signal to noise. Hardly a sonic catastrophy....barely audible, right? Certainly there is a much more of a dramatic loss in light throughput and apparant resolution degredation by the added magnification of the wrong-out-of-the-gate 1.85 spherical wide screen "process." Yet where is the outcry over this highly questionable practice? Discarding that much precious resolution-storing film geography just because of exhibitors' obsecession with "WIDE at any cost," surely can be put right up there on the list of bad ideas along with the 3db SN loss associated with the switch to cyan. If we are going to rant about cyan tracks, we should be equally as vocal about cropping film geography to artificially obtain a wide screen image, which, as poor practices go, certainly out distances cyan tracks by a wide margin. I say resurrect the full frame,"soft" anamorphic lens for 1.85:1 wide screen idea. Where are you Glen Berrgren?! Frank  |  IP: Logged

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