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Author Topic: quick guide to 35mm optical (mono vs. Dolby stereo) & Dolby Analog NR formats by year Paul Burt Film Handler Posts: 46 From: San Francisco, CA, United States Registered: Apr 2006 posted 09-23-2006 12:00 PM                     35mm mag stereo was indeed used on flat releases, although not often. Prints of the 1.85 film "The Buddy Holly Story" were released in 4-channel mag. As were prints of "Monterey Pop" and "Gimme Shelter." No doubt there were others.  |  IP: Logged Robert Throop Master Film Handler Posts: 412 From: Vernon, NY USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-23-2006 01:17 PM                     "Mary Poppins" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie" were flat mag releases from the sixties. I saw "MacArthur" at Radio City Music Hall in 1977. This was flat and mag and at least for that engagement Dolby encoded. Bob  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-23-2006 01:27 PM                     There were many non-scope films on 4-track magnetic...in fact, some of the last ones were non-scope...Yentl, for instance...of older titles Fantasia would be one...1.37:1 and released many, many times in 4-track....including the remix of the film in the mid 1980s. Sensurround really has two personalities...one which used a box to generate the bass and merely triggered by the film, the other had the bass on the film so in that sense it is one to watch out for. 4-track magnetic is actually a good one to know about since many people will often see the thin stripe (surround) and mistake that is where the optical sound should be...when in fact it is next to a fat track, track 2. I think the list is a good thing and something that should be refined but definately not expanded into the history of movie sound...just what might reasonably walk in the door and one can quickly go in a direction to know what sound format to choose.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 09-23-2006 03:36 PM                        Has anyone ever encountered a MAGOP track in real life? I haven't, I have only read about it.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-23-2006 03:53 PM                     Yes, many, many! I've even encountered a 3-track mag/opt...South Pacific. I would say that most of the 35mm mag prints I've encountered had an optical track too. Steve  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 09-23-2006 03:57 PM                        When did they start that and how long lasted the format? Wasn't half of the optical track covered by the surround magnetic? Didn't you run into a lot of problems with level and also noise plus occasional tracking of the mag track by the optical pickup?  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-23-2006 05:14 PM                     The Mag optical print started about 3 years, if that into 4-track's life...this continued into the 1980s. This is not to say that all 35 mag prints were mag/opt...far from but they were the majority. It was the CENTER track that ran over one of the optical stripes and yes, this did reduce the level of the optical track and increase the noise...but hopefully you were running on the mag track. The mag optical print was more of "something is better than nothing."  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 09-23-2006 05:55 PM                     There were 16mm mag-opt prints too; both tracks were mono, and they were normally used to add a second language to a print. I've go a couple of shorts, and I've seen one or two features printed this way; I think they were used by the airlines at one time, before they went to 8mm, and then to video.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-23-2006 06:18 PM                     Tommy was also flat mag (quintaphonic)  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-23-2006 08:52 PM                     Last time I ran a print of "Fantasia" in the late 70's had a full - 4trk print with no optical backup. (We'll forget the horrible 82 release, recorded in dolby "A" optical that took out the original music track from Stoki leading the Phil Orchestra, Deems Taylor's narrative, and a host of other mistakes done to that release year..). Luckilly, our good ol Simplex System ran that mag print without a hitch. Of all the MAG that I ran, the one that really was well done, was the 76 DeLaurentiss "King Kong" release - granted, Rick Baker did his best in that monkey suit, but the film was still on the corny side..but the 4channel recording on that film was excellent. Yet, I had fun with Alice Cooper's "Welcome to My Nightmare" concert movie - which we had a MAGOP of that one. Sound really travelled across the screen and thundered from the surround speakers.. When working at other theatres when I received MAGOP prints, we had to crank up the volume due to half of the optical was covered with the center channel mag track..and a bit of noise started to emit from the screen speaker due to cranking up that fader some. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Michael Coate Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1904 From: Los Angeles, California Registered: Feb 2001 posted 09-24-2006 12:01 AM                     quote: Brian Dooda Can someone tell me if 35mm magnetic stereo was ever used on flat releases Here's a list of many, if not most, of 'em (from my upcoming article, "The Mag Stereo Story"): 1961 Devil At 4 O'Clock, The (Columbia) Master Of The World (AIP; "StereoSonic Sound") 1964 Mary Poppins (Disney) 1967 Dirty Dozen, The (MGM) Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (Columbia) Happiest Millionaire, The (Disney) Thoroughly Modern Millie (Universal) Trip, The (AIP) 1968 Wild In The Streets (AIP) 1969 Angel, Angel, Down We Go (AIP) De Sade (AIP) Fantasia (Disney; Re-Issue) Monterey Pop (Leacock-Pennebaker) 1970 Gimme Shelter (Cinema V) Zaccariah (Cinerama) 1971 Joe Cocker: Mad Dogs & Englishmen (A&M/MGM) 1972 Concert For Bangladesh, The (Apple/Fox) Man Of La Mancha (UA) Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii / Echoes: Pink Floyd In Concert (ind.) 1973 Ladies And Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones (ind.) 1974 Janis / Janis: A Film (Universal) Little Prince, The (Paramount; Dolby) Mahler (Mayfair) Phantom Of The Paradise (Fox) 1975 Rollerball (UA) Tommy (Columbia; Quintaphonic) Train Ride To Hollywood (Taylor-Laughlin) Yessongs (Ellman; Quadrophonic) 1976 Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same (WB; Dolby) People Of The Wind (ind.) Silent Movie (Fox) Star Is Born, A (WB; Dolby) 1977 Fantasia (Disney; Re-Issue) Grateful Dead Movie, The (Monarch) MacArthur (Universal; Dolby) Renaldo & Clara (Crescent) Sorcerer (Universal) Turning Point, The (Fox) 1978 Buddy Holly Story, The (Columbia) 1979 All That Jazz (Fox; + Dolby Re-Issue) Amityville Horror, The (AIP) Champ, The (MGM) Hair (UA; Dolby) Nightwing (Columbia) 1980 AC/DC: Let There Be Rock (WB; Dolby; "The Wall of Sound") Blue Lagoon, The (Columbia) Blues Brothers, The (Universal) Cloud Dancer (ind.) Don Giovanni (ind.; Dolby) Fame (MGM; Dolby) Idolmaker, The (UA; Dolby) 1981 Zoot Suit (Universal; Sensurround Plus) 1982 Fantasia (Disney; Re-Issue; Dolby) 1983 Yentl (MGM/UA; Dolby) 1984 Against All Odds (Columbia; Dolby) Natural, The (TriStar; Dolby) 1985 Bring On The Night (Goldwyn; Dolby)  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 09-24-2006 03:44 AM                     That List is pretty extensive. Im sure I saw Flashdance in 4 track, and Rocky Horror Picture Show ( I could be wrong )  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 09-24-2006 04:28 AM                        I once had a magoptical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (or 'Pretty Shitty Gang Bang', as someone had written on one of the leaders) which I couldn't show, because the standard FP-20 sprockets would have ripped the Fox holes to shreds. It was a Saturday kids' club show and, sadly, the only way we were able to show the film at all was to project a VHS (this was in the mid-90s, before DVDs). quote: Steve Guttag I'm surprised that you find that format 02 helps with VD tracks as I find them the quietest...the problem with them is that they have good exposure and they sound super clean or they are over/under exposed and sound distorted/muffled. Also VD tracks seem to be subject to "thumps" more than normal. With underexposed tracks I found that 02 often gave quite a bit of help; in effect, boosting the s/n ratio and making dialogue easier to hear. It was a bad idea with overexposed ones which overmodulated in loud sections, because the NR would often clip dialogue and make it difficult to hear. The bottom line is that the densitometry and sensitomery with VD tracks is absolutely critical, whereas with VA it effectively doesn't matter (all the density of the track determines is where you set the volume fader, effectively). A minute printing or processing error can totally wreck a VD track, which is why archives tend to rerecord them when money allows. But with many titles - especially the more obscure ones - it doesn't, and they have to strike a viewing print from the final mix track neg they've got. I think my 'quick advice' over 02 would be: if you've got it, by all means experiment with it on older mono tracks before the show. If it reduces noise without perceptibly affecting the signal, then you can consider using it for the show: but be very careful that it doesn't clip the higher frequency end of dialogue (especially female voices), making it more difficult for the audience to hear what characters are saying.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-24-2006 06:27 AM                     Believe it or not...this is a place where Kintek (dbx) really did outshine the others. The KT-21 (3bx) could nicely clean up a print if you didn't expand it too far. If you keep the expansion to 10-20% (1.1-1.2) you could really help a poor mono track without adding unnatural artifacts. Using Dolby-A NR (format 02) is kinda like doing the same thing but without the ability to tailor it to the particular track...02 either works or it doesn't. Since analog recording and playback has all but gone out of existance...getting a nice dynamic range expander is much harder than it used to be. Even the DSP based processors for pro audio seem to include all sorts of compressor modules but not so on expanders.  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 09-24-2006 08:55 AM                     I ran two 35mm 4-trk mag prints last year: GOLD (1974, dir Peter Hunt, starring Roger Moore, Susannah York, Ray Milland) TILT (1979, dir Rudy Durand, starring Brooke Shields, Charles Durning) TILT was an U.S. print, GOLD may have been a British release print.  |  IP: Logged

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