Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What are the sound formats on 16mm film?

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Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 11-30-2002, 06:16 PM:

Probably a really basic question that might cause you to want to beat with a dead mouse but anyway.

We have a couple of 16mm projectors in storage and it might be an idea to dig on of them up to see if we can get any cheap films to run. Being a student venue it would be nice to see if there is anything out there on the 16mm format that it might be good to hire for an occasional performance.

Anyway we currently run 35mm with a Dolby cp-55. We run a mixer into the non-sync with runs a cd player, radio, microphones etc.

Would a 16mm projector run through the 2nd projector input of the Dolby unit or would I be better putting it through the non-sync via a channel on the mixer? I'm assuming that 16mm doesn?t carry a Dolby soundtrack? [Confused]

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 11-30-2002, 06:23 PM:

Standard 16mm has a veriable area mono shoundtrack. You can usually wire it in to the second projector input of your Dolby unit. Or wire it in to a preamp and then in to your Non-sync input.

Be careless, some 16mm projectors have a line level output, some have a mic-level output and some just bare solar cell wires.

Although I have never seen it, there are rumors that 16mm can have a DTS timecode and thus, 6-track digital sound. [thumbsup]

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 11-30-2002, 06:28 PM:

16mm knows magentic and optical soundtracks. As far as I know, there is no stereo format, but I am not 100%sure.
I worked with 16mm on a Kinoton FP38-E which has a combined optical and magnetic reader and a digital delay which can be configured to different film-speeds and picture/sound offsets. The sound unit provides a mono line level output.
In the theater where we played 16mm during the Berlin Film Festival, we connected the output to a patchbay and patched it to the CP500 Non-Sync 2 input for which we had configured a customised format based on Non-Sync settings (i.e., without noise reduction, if I remember correctly) in mono.
Of course it may be possible that there are 16mm tracks which are Dolby NR encoded, since that can be used with all analogue sound formats.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 11-30-2002, 06:42 PM:

quote:
Standard 16mm has a veriable area mono shoundtrack

...and density, too. I've shown/handled/archived loads of 16mm elements with density tracks going into the '70s. In most case, they've simply been photographically reduction printed from 35mm track negs. Not that this makes much of a practical difference with most 16mm setups, but if you're passing the output of a typical 16mm portable projector (e.g. Eiki or Hell & Bowell) through a sound mixing desk, you can boost the HF and back off the bass to help VD tracks a little bit.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-30-2002, 09:32 PM:

I've seen a 16mm DTS print; the optical track carries the timecode and has very distinctive "pulse-like" wave forms. Although I've seen a print, I haven't seen the full setup, but I assume it uses a normal DTS player.

[TIP TO FILMMAKERS: if you are submitting your film to a festival, DO NOT send prints with weird picture or sound formats unless you KNOW FOR SURE that the venue can play them!]

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 12-01-2002, 02:13 AM:

16mm 2-track has also happened. In the form of stereo and bi-lingual. Witness the ELMO LX-2200....every single one of them has a stereo cell. They allow you to play either/or/both cells.

Steve

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 12-01-2002, 02:27 AM:

In DTS 16, you just plug the optical preamp output of your 16mm projector into the timecode input of your DTS processor (6D or whatever). DTS can provide a special impedance matching board, but you don't really need it, just hack the levels so they're compatible...

Disclaimer: the above is not from personal experience, just from what I picked up along the way.

I admit I've thought about hooking up our 16mm projector to our DTS 6D, but given the rarity of DTS 16mm prints, I figure we'll "bridge that gap when we come to it."

--jhawk

Posted by Lionel Fouillen (Member # 1475) on 12-01-2002, 04:07 AM:

Michael Brown said:

quote:
Being a student venue it would be nice to see if there is anything out there on the 16mm format that it might be good to hire for an occasional performance.

Not a bad idea (provided that distributors make prints available). I remember the first time I saw DePalma's BODY DOUBLE was in 16mm at a second run cinema club. The picture quality was excellent.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-01-2002, 11:33 AM:

When Kodak's Ron Uhlig first presented the concept of stereo tracks with noise reduction at the SMPTE Technical Conference in the early 1970's, the demonstration was done with 16mm optical sound, just to show how effective noise reduction could allow the use of a narrower track. Ron suggested both stereo tracks and dual-language tracks. His two papers were published in the April 1973 and September 1974 SMPTE Journal. Several years later, Dolby commercialized Dolby Stereo.

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 12-01-2002, 12:20 PM:

Despite the existence of DTS and mag/optical analog stereo, the overwhelming preponderance of 16mm prints will be standard optical mono. The biggest improvement in a theatrical venue, if you want to take the trouble, is the use of a dbx subharmonic synthesizer, together with appropriate eq, and then a bi-amp'd stage / subwoofer configuration. Not as simple as straight into the non-sync, and probably not worth it for a single show, but it does make one heck of a difference.

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 12-01-2002, 12:33 PM:

And don't forget that some 16mm prints had Mauer soundtracks!

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-01-2002, 12:51 PM:

For what it's worth, there's also an airline format that usually has a narrower-than-normal English-language optical track and foreign-language mag track. I've never seen one of these prints, but apparently the sound quality on both tracks was pretty lousy.

16mm optical tracks _can_ sound OK, but usually don't because the projector alignment is off or some other part of the reproduction system is sub-optimal. The low end is fine, but the high end always seems to be lacking.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 12-01-2002, 01:49 PM:

Ken said:

quote:
And don't forget that some 16mm prints had Mauer soundtracks!

OK, I'll bite. A quick Google search yielded several German-language sites that, despite my Bavarian-sounding name, I cannot read. Scott's FAQ makes no mention of these. So, what are Mauer soundtracks?

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-01-2002, 02:31 PM:

We use 16mm in two venues, both Eastman 25B projectors. This projector has a slit lens assembly that can focus for the two kinds of emulsion orientations that are found on 16mm prints -- one with the emulsion toward the lamphouse (the only orientation used for 35mm) and the other with the emulsion toward the lens. The two possible orientations presents a problem for projectors that don't allow for refocusing the slit lens. Most portable 16mm projectors have their slit lenses prefocused by the factory inbetween these two positions. This is why most folks think 16mm sound has lousy high end response. While the best high-end response for a 16mm optical track tops out at about 9kHz, that isn't exactly terrible. But when you lop off another 3k because of a slit that is not focused precisely on the soundtrack emulsion, then you are really down in the dumps as far as decent sound is concerned.

The good news is that most commercially released 16mm prints from the studios are not contact printed, so their soundtrack orientation will always be the same or at least 90 percent of the time.

If you are serious about the frequency response of your 16mm projection, you can have the lens assembly refocused at the position of most studio prints, which is (I THINK) the emulsion toward the lamphouse (but I can check that for you) -- perhaps John P knows the SMPTE standard for 16mm emulsion orientation. In any event, the point is, refocusing the slit lens so that it is precisely on the emulsion, getting the best soundtrack accuracy, will make a BIG difference in the fidelity of a 16mm track. The downside is, if you run festivals, you will get quite a number of contact prints -- those soundtracks will then be out-of-focus and they will really sound bad. Bottom line is, decide what kind of prints you will mostly likely play and then tweek the equipment to get extract the best out of those prints. If you have two projectors, you can have them tweaked for each orientation -- use the correct one for that type of print.

Modern 16mm prints can be very impressive in both picture and sound. With screens of moderate size (many, many multiplexes have screens well within the optimum optical capability of 16mm) and modern Eastman print emulsions and a good xenon lightsource, the average movie-goer would be hard-pressed to tell if a print is 16mm or 35mm. I recently ran MICROCOSMOS. The print was razor sharp, 1.66 matted; and I was literally in awe of the image quality. Naturally, the sound was only mono, but as mentioned, pumping it thru a dbx bass enhancement processor makes a world of difference.

I also would opt for putting the sound through a mixing console and Non-Sync input rather than rigging it up to the second projector input. The mixer will give you more flexibility in tweaking the sound. You would be surprised how much a good eq section will allow you to enhance a 16mm mono track and give it a little extra punch.

As for stereo, well, I know for a fact that the Army used to get special prints with Dolby stereo tracks going directly into CP50s at the Fort Hammilton base here in Brooklyn, or so a licensed projectionist who I trust told me. Evidently these prints were only for the Armed Forces. I had some discussions with Ray Swank and the people at Films Inc. at the time about the possibility of their getting together to see if the same prints couldn't be made available for their non-theatrical releases. No go. But other than the studios' obstenancy, there really is no reason why 16mm couldn't have Dolby stereo tracks, especially given today's finer grain emulsions.

There was also John Mosely's Colortrak process that used the color emulsions to get multi-track stereo recordings. With that process, since each track used the full width of the standard mono track, suposedly there was no decrease in signal-to-noise ratio as is the case with splitting the track into two separate L/R tracks for Dolby stereo. But that technology went nowhere, as has DTS so far. From what I've heard, DTS really was applied to 16mm, not as a way for non-theatrical prints to play 6 channel digital sound, but really as a alternate way for filmmakers on limited budgets to get decent sound on their projects.

Unfortunately with the continual move away from 16mm as a non-theatrical format in favor of DVD and video projection (gag me with a spoon), it is unlikely that studios which have now openely proclaimed that they are cutting BACK on the number of releases for which they will supply 16mm release prints, it is unlikely that there will ever be any serious move to upgrade 16mm's standard mono track even though it is quite easily done with DTS code or even Dolby bilateral. As pointed out, there are even existing projectors that can play bilateral stereo tracks without any conversion at all -- sadly, they probably will never play a real Dolby stereo print.

Frank

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-02-2002, 03:12 AM:

Getting back to one of Michael's original points, 'is there anything out there?' (on 16mm), the answer is, not much.

There used to be three main non-theatrical distributors of 16mm (and several much smaller outfits): Filmbank (which released mainstream Hollywood product on 16), Glenbuck (which specialised in foreign/arthouse stuff) and the British Film Institute (rep/archival rereleases).

Glenbuck was taken over by the BFI in 92 or 93 if memory serves me correctly. I really don't know if Filmbank still exists, and if it does whether they still rent 16mm. The last time I had anything to do with them would have been in 94 and 95 running a student film society, when we would occasionally get one of their prints. But even at that stage we were showing 99% 35mm.

The BFI decided to stop striking new 16mm prints a couple of years later, though AFAIK they still hire the ones they've got (and for which they still have distribution rights). Needless to say, the quality of most of them is pretty dreadful by now. The last one I showed was a reduction print of their 35mm Sunrise restoration which would have been in 98 or 99, and it was barely watchable. We only showed it because the 35mm print had already been booked somewhere else.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-02-2002, 04:01 AM:

Scott wrote:

quote:

For what it's worth, there's also an airline format that usually has a narrower-than-normal English-language optical track and foreign-language mag track. I've never seen one of these prints, but apparently the sound quality on both tracks was pretty lousy.

I've run just one of these, 'Mahogany', sometime in the mid '80s. The optical track was in English, and was noisy, the mag was in Italian, the stripe was uneven, lumpy (bits of hardened stripe emulsion embedded in it), had nothing above about 5k and seemed to have been partly erased in places; other than that, it was ok.

I also have an industrial training short somewhere in this format on which the mag is very good.

There are many magnetic formats on 16mm, Full width stripe in the same position as the optical, half width stripe covering half of the optical track, I have seen both inner and outer half versions of this, quarter width edge stripe outside the perforations on double perf stock, and all 16mm stripe prints I have seen also carried a balance stripe outside the perforations on the other edge. A few projectors were capable of recording and replaying sound on this stripe as well.

Full, inner half, outer half and edge (quarter) track heads were available for some machines, sometimes music or a commentary was added to an existing track, using a half track head, producing tro tracks side by side on one stripe, like the wide stripes on 70mm, and these could then be played back together by a full track head. This never seemed to work very well. I have been told that a 'centre third' head was available at one time, to enable a third component of the track to be added in the same way, but I have never seen this.

Some projectors, e.g. some of the later (large lens barrel) Bell and Howell models, could replay both optical and mag tracks ant the same time on mag-optical prints, and had separate volume controls to enable mixing between them.

On sep-mag there is edge and centre track, or both. For mono centre track is more common in Europe, but I believe that edge track is more common in America. Both tracks can be used for two-channel stereo, there doesn't seem to be a standard as to which channel goes on which track. Of course, as with any two channel system, this can have four channels matrix encoded, but this was not common. I recently ran a print made directly from a 7245 camera neg, with sound encoded in this way, and with Dolby 'A' noise reduction. Projection was by carbon arc on a screen of about four metres, It took a bit or setting up to run this, but both picture and sound quality were suberb. It is surprising what 16mm is capable of at its best; and how bad it can be at its worst.

16mm sound on disk was also used, but very rare. The machines ran 400 foot spools, and used the standard 16 inch Vitaphone type disks, they looked very strange, not so much a turntable attached to a projector, but rather, a very small projector attached to a very large turntable. There was one of these in the museum at Bletchley Park, but I'm not sure if it's still there.

Almost any 16mm feature film hired from a normal distributer will have a normal mono optical track, the English/Italian mag-optical one is the only exception I have ever run.

Even super 8 film can have matrixed four channel sound recorded on main and balance stripes, and though it was never very widely used, mono optical was also available. It wasn't as bad as might be expected, but the track was very narrow, it looked almost like a scratch, and was bilateral VA dye in magenta and cyan layers, with no silver. Alignment of both printer and projector sound head was very critical, and the slightest speck of dust in the sound head could almost obliterate the entire track! I have a handful of these prints, and one of them, an airline advertising reel, sounds much better than the others.

Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 12-02-2002, 04:47 AM:

Our village Arts Centre which is equipped with 16mm only, and shows 2nd run mainstream upmarket and art house one night weekly. For over a year now product has been supplied in DVD format only as 16mm prints are no longer available. The projectionist told me that whilst a pristine film print would be preferred, the advantage of DVD is the stereo sound, and the better alternative should the 16mm copy be trashed.

I’ve done three 16mm matinee showings at my cinema with a souped up RCA Hollywood projector; the sound, which was excellent, was put through the non-sync mixer.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-02-2002, 01:40 PM:

quote:

If you are serious about the frequency response of your 16mm projection, you can have the lens assembly refocused at the position of most studio prints, which is (I THINK) the emulsion toward the lamphouse (but I can check that for you) -- perhaps John P knows the SMPTE standard for 16mm emulsion orientation.

The 'normal' standard grometery for 16mm, and 8mm, prints was base towards lamp, emulsion towards lens, the opposite to that used for 35mm and 70mm prints. The reason for this is that both of these gauges were designed originally for amateur 'home movie' use, and this would be the geometry of a reversal camera original used for projection, as would have been normal for most amateur use. A 16mm print made from a CRI negative, in turn made from a normal 35mm negative would also have this geometry. CRI is now no more, and projection of 16mm camera originals by amateurs is now uncommon, so it would now make more sense for 16mm prints to be made to the same standard as 35mm, but it is probably too late for this to happen now.

Because of the emulsion position magnetic stripe on 16mm prints is on the side facing the lamp, as this is normally the base side. This creates problems when striping a contact print from a 16mm negative; the stripe has to go on the emulsion side. It is possible to apply past stripe to the emulsion side of film, but a different coating has to be used, with a rather strange smell, and it doesn't seem to wear as well as the normal stripe.

I'm not sure of the correct emulsion position on 9.5mm prints, I have seen it both ways. Although an amateur gauge it was originally used mainly for the projection of printed films, the first cameras did not appear until some time after the first projectors, given this, and the fact that the Pathe formats tended to do just about everything the opposite way to the Kodak ones, I suspect that emulsion towards lamp was standard for 9.5mm.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-02-2002, 02:22 PM:

Yes, 16mm originated as an amateur format where the reversal camera original was projected, therefore the emulsion faced the lens. But today, contact prints from a negative are common, so emulsion facing the lamp is also allowed by standard SMPTE 233-1997. Optimum frequency response requires focusing for the soundtrack position used on the print.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-03-2002, 03:07 AM:

I wrote:

quote:

A 16mm print made from a CRI negative, in turn made from a normal 35mm negative would also have this geometry.

Of course, that is not correct. What I meant to say was:

"A 16mm print made from a CRI internegative, in turn made from a normal 16mm negative would also have this geometry."

A 16mm interneg from a 35mm original would, of course, have to be optically printed, and could therefore have either geometry.

Posted by Lindsay Morris (Member # 1430) on 12-04-2002, 07:57 PM:

Almost all 16mm release prints of todays films I handle have emulsion towards the lens. I have never really seen anything else.
As John had noted the SMPTE standard says it can be either way BUT I would not like to see that at all, if ever, as the way 16mm machines are built the film is wrapped around the soundhead stockside against the drum.
If you were to reverse that the emulsion side would be wrapped around the drum so after a few screenings I would imagine that the image area would become horribly scratched.
How many 35mm machines allow intimate contact with the image area on the emulsion side and the sound drum?
Common sense would prevail and I doubt that many 16mm films would ever be released for general screening duties other than emulsion towards the lens.
I handle the distribution of 16mm film in this location and the sound and picture quality of stuff from Sony labs is first rate. Pin sharp images even when pushed to an 8m wide picture and even though it is only mono sound a little processing thru a stereo simulator really makes people sit up and take notice.
I would certainly like to see DTS on 16mm as good stereo sound coupled with equally good images could help many small community cinemas in Australia who cannot afford 35mm presentation improve the sound side of things.
Lindsay

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-04-2002, 08:27 PM:

For what it's worth, 16mm contact prints from 16mm camera neg have the emulsion towards the lamp.

Are there any projectors besides Kodak Pageants that make it easy to re-focus the sound optics to match the orientation of the print?

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-05-2002, 04:06 AM:

I have an old, (early '60s?) Bolex projector which has a knob to focus the sound optics, this is continuously variable between certain limits.

The Philips 16mm machines, or at least the ones I have seen, left handed machines with intermittant sprockets, have a small lever to select which side the emulsion is on.

I have a 16mm SMPTE 'Jiffy' test film, one section of which has the emulsion on the opposite side for testing purposes. They recommend setting to the best compromise position between the two. Seems less than ideal, but I suppose with thinner polyester stock the problem would be less than with diacetate or triacetate.

Having the emulsion against the drum does at least mean that it is in the same position, whatever the thickness of the stock. Of course, it would be very difficult to releive the sound drum in the picture area, there's not a lot of space left on a 16mm print when you take away the picture and track areas.

Of course, there was a time when even which ede of the film the track should be on was not certain, the D.I.N. standard had it on the left, and to run these prints on a normal machine you have to lace them reversed, and then either rear project, or use a mirror or prism. Of course, doing this puts the emulsion on the wrong side again. [Roll Eyes]

.

Sound always seems to have been more of a problem than picture with 16mm.

Posted by Mike Rendall (Member # 1499) on 12-05-2002, 04:25 AM:

Regarding the original post..

We have a Fumeo XL1000 (1k Xenon) 16mm. I have this wired in to the format 22 selector on the CP65 (bridge the Left and the Right channels together to get mono sound on both channels (you could also wire in the centre as well if you wish to get a complete sound spread across all stage speakers))

Regarding getting 16mm prints in the UK, it is quite difficult, Film Bank has a large archive, so has the BFI. It is worth knowing, that in the UK we tried to screen an original copy of the Blues Brothers about 2 years ago on 35mm but could not get hold of a print that wasn't trashed - Spoke to film bank and got a perfect 16mm print with no scratches with crystal clear sound, It was like it had only been run a couple of times.

We go to filmbank to get shorts and cartoons normally before our normal features, For a student venue I recommend you ask them about the 'Look at life' featurettes, has our house rolling in the aisles constantly!

(for those of you unaquainted with Look at Life, they are late 60's early 70's B-reel documentaries based on completely mundane pasttimes, the one about a motorbike and sidecar towing a caravan was particularly funny.)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-05-2002, 06:28 AM:

Look at Life was a weekly documentary series launched by the Rank Organisation in 1957. It was intended as a replacement for Gaumont-British News and Universal Talking News, which were the two twice-weekly national newsreels distributed by Rank since 1942 and 1944 respectively. These were both discontinued in 1957 in the face of mounting costs and the increasing prominence of television for news and current affairs. Rank also produced the documentary series This Modern Age between 1946 and 1951, but this was a lot more politically focused and heavyweight than Look at Life. Shameless plug: a chapter on This Modern Age by yours truly can be found in Andrew Higson and Justine Ashby (eds.), British Cinema, Past and Present (London: Routledge, 2000).

I can't remember when Look at Life ended - late '60s I think.

Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 12-05-2002, 07:06 AM:

For those who are not aware, "Look At Life" once featured the projection room of the Odeon, Leicester Square.

The sole survivor of the five newsreels, "Movietone News" which became a weekly review in colour, outlived Look At Life by quite a few years into the 1970s.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-05-2002, 07:17 AM:

...until June 1974, according to my notes. Having been born the previous year, I can just say that I lived in the era of cinema newsreels!

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-05-2002, 02:14 PM:

Is there a index of the look of lifes matched to there subject matter. I have several of them

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-05-2002, 04:50 PM:

I'd guess that the National Film and Television Archive in London will have them fully catalogued and shotlisted, which will mean that you could search under subject/personality/keyword. But I'm not aware of any published catalogue.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-07-2002, 08:07 AM:

Paul wrote:

quote:

OK, I'll bite. A quick Google search yielded several German-language sites that, despite my Bavarian-sounding name, I cannot read. Scott's FAQ makes no mention of these. So, what are Mauer soundtracks?

A few yeas ago I was asked to produce some slides of various types of soundtracks. For some reason which I cannot now remember, I made negatives on Kodak Royal Gold 100, and then had the slides made from these, rather than shooting directly on slide film. This does mean that I still have the negatives, so I have scanned some of them and inserted them below for anyone who may be interested, and is not familiar with the various types of tracks which have been used in the past. I used 16mm prints for two reasons, firstly because I was asked to produce slides which included the full width of the film, not just the track area, and the track takes up a greater proportion of the film width on 16mm, and therefore appears larger, and secondly because I had a greater number of different track types available to me on 16mm than on 35.

This is a variable density track. The print is Technicolor dye transfer, and the track is therefore silver only. The film is 'We've Come a Long Way', about the history of the design of oil tankers, made by British Petrolium, and released in 1951. I recently discovered that it was shown at the Festival of Britain, in that year. In the mid to late '60s, the early days of colour television in this country, the BBC ran what they termed 'Trade Test Colour Films' during the day as a cheap way of putting colour pictures on screens at times when normally no programmes were being broadcast. Yes, television programmes were not broadcast throughout the day at that time, not really that long ago! This was one of the films they used. Any of the British members remember seeing it? Interestingly, I also have a 35mm print of this film, and that has a variable area track.

This,

, is another variable density track, on an Eastmancolor print. Thank goodness print stocks have improved somewhat since then! There is obviously dye in the track, but there seems to be very little, if any, silver. I have a couple of frames of an 8-perf print of 'The Battle of the River Plate' and that has a very similar track, and has faded almost as badly. I don't know the reason for the lack of silver in these tracks, cost saving by not re-developing the track might be a reason for mass-produced 16mm prints for educational use, but would seem very unlikely for a handful of 35mm Vistavision prints. If anyone knows why this type of track was used, please let me know.

The film is 'Moscow to Peking', about a journey by train between these two cities, made in the late '50s, or early '60s. Quite surprising that this was made in what were very much the days of the Cold War. Historically interestng, but a pity it's faded so badly, one of the worst examples I have seen.

The vast majority of variable density tracks look very much the same; there are a couple of obscure variations, but I don't have examples of those. There is a much greater variety of variable area tracks.

This is a unilateral variable area track. Actually, it's a fairly unusual variant of one, but you can't tell that from this sample, so more on that later. The film title is obvious, it was made by the G.P.O. (General Post Office) in the '30s, about the same time as the much better known 'Night Mail', and is about a ship in distress, made to promte an early form of ship to shore radio.

Another unilateral track, of about the same vintage, but showing the most common form of ground noise reduction on these tracks, a separate shutter which comes in from the white edge of the track. I cannot remember the film title.

Another sample from 'North Sea', revealing the true nature of the track. It is Marconi Visatone, with the ground noise reducton taking the form of an extra black line to fill some of the clear film. During the quietest passeges a second such line was used, and this can just be seen at the bottom of the picture.

A bilateral track. The print is Eastmancolor, but has obviously faded much less than the previous example, despite being only about ten years younger. The track has dye, in the magenta and cyan layers, and redeveloped silver. Two modulated edges rather than one. The film is an educational title about electrostatic copying.

I'm not allowed to put any more pictures in one post, so I'll try making another post with the others.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-07-2002, 12:07 PM:

O.k. folks, a few more tracks.

This is a duplex track. It is not a negative of a bilateral track. It would be more correct to think of it as two unilateral tracks facing in opposite directions. Another way to get two modulated edges. These tracks were quite common, on both 35 and 16mm, into the '70s. This sample is from 'Basic Oxygen Steelmaking'. Technicolor print with silver track. I have seen a picture of an early Dolby Stereo track which had two unilateral tracks facing in the same direction (duo-unilateral?)

Everybody here must have seen this one; a duo-bilateral track. Four modulated edges. This Eastmancolor print is about the same age as the electrostatic copying one. The difference is obvious; the reason is unknown. As early as the mid '30s experiments were being done with using the two tracks separately for two channel stereo. Of course, this eventually developed into the Dolby stereo tracks of today. Another variant of this track was one form of push-pull track. In this, the modulation of one half of the track was opposite to that of the other; one would be wide where the other was narrow. There were other forms of push-pull tracks, a variable density one, where one half was light where the other was dark, and a variation of the duplex track, where the black central area was of constant width, but moved from side to side, the clear areas on either side of it forming the two inverted tracks. This was the so called 'snake' track, four of which were used for Fantasound.

I suppose this would have to be described as duo-duplex, but I've never heard the term, and this is the only example I've ever seen. The track had been partly covered by a half width magnetic stripe, but this carried only the narration, not the music, and was therefore blank at this point. I was therefore able to remove a small area of stripe, to reveal the full track, and afterwards replace the oxide, returning the print to its original state.

If two edges were better than one, and four were (possibly) better than two, somebody had to go one (or eight) better (or worse). This is the Mauer track which started this whole thing. Again, this example had been half covered by stripe. If they awarded an Oscar for the most interesting film, 'Principles of Rotary Air Drilling' would be unlikely to win it. The track is silver, but note the very low optical density. Was it deliberately under exposed and developed to minimise the risk of the very narrow lines being totally oblitterated? Whatever the reason, the sound quality is, as might be expected, poor. Anybody know the reason for those strange patches of picture to the left of each frame? Due to the low resolution that I had to use for these pictures, these very narrow bias lines do not reproduce well on screen. The first picture in my previous post was a small area cropped from the original high resolution of this picture, with the contrast increased. We have now reached twelve modulated edges, and things are starting to get a bit silly. There would obviously be no reason to go any further, and therefore nobody would bother to produce this:

I doubt that the details of this track will be visible on screen from this scan, and in this case I was not able to remove the stripe covering half of it, as it carried the full mix of the soundtrack, and therefore carried sound wherever the optical track was modulated, but this track really does have eight bias lines, sixteen modulated edges. It is difficult to see what possible advantage this could have. This track actually starts to look quite similat to a variable density one, so we are almost back to where we started.

The last three of these tracks I have only seen on 16mm, all the rest I have also seen on 35mm.

The duo-bilateral track was in use in the '30s, and variable density tracks were still being recorded in the '50s, possibly into the '60s, so there was a period of several decades while most or all of these tracks were in use concurrently.

I will stop at this point, before I fill Brad's servers with pictures. For anybody who is interested, the BKSTS produce an excellent wallchart, featuring many more types of tracks than I have shown here, and Robert Gitt does a very interesting lecture on the subject, which I was luckly enough to be able to attend at the National Film Theatre a few years ago.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-07-2002, 04:04 PM:

quote:
Anybody know the reason for those strange patches of picture to the left of each frame?

They are a camera aperture identification mark. Some models of 16mm and standard 8mm camera had small apertures with a distinctive shape between perforations, which were exposed along with the main frame. These marks can be used to identify the make and model of camera which shot the footage. I have an identification chart of them somewhere which was compiled by Harold Brown (formerly head of preservation at what was then the National Film Archive).

For obvious reasons these charts are usually found on reversal originals (e.g. home movies): they won't be reproduced by anything other than continuous contact printing. In your example, continuous contact printing must have been used for every generation from camera original to release print.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-08-2002, 11:55 AM:

I had once heard an explanation of why multiple tracks were used in 16mm, even though they were all mono duplicates. I will say up front that I don't know the veracity of this explanation, only that I heard it years ago when I questioned those 6 tracks on a print of one of the Bell Science series films (HEMO THE MAGNIFICENT, maybe). Perhaps someone else here can comment on it.

I was told that the reason for smaller, multiple tracks on 16mm instead of one larger one is that the use of multiple tracks minimize the effects of azimuth misalignment. If the slit has an angle of error from the soundtrack perpendicular, the degree of that error will be smaller as it intersects the smaller tracks than it would be of a larger, single track. My question is, even though the error is smaller at the intersection of each of the multiple tracks, why is the error not cumulative and result in the same total error as the
single track. I guess should have paid more attention in Geometry.

Frank

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 12-16-2002, 04:35 PM:

OK.

On my 16mm projectors the outputs are 8 ohm 1/4 inch.

So...

EDIT: What the??
I just made a new post to this thread, so why has it not been brought to page 1???

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-16-2002, 05:33 PM:

Michael, these sound (no pun intended) like speaker outputs from a built-in amplifier. Many protable projectors had no other output, and need to be modified to feed them into a theatre sound system.

Are these ELF (EIKI) projectors? They were probably the most common to use quarter inch jack sockets, but there were others, Graflex (Singer) for example. Bell and Howell used a modified DIN plug for their later (1960s onwards) projectors, and a two flat pin, one wider than the other, plug on the older models. Are they portable or fixed machines? Others have written that some models of ELF projectors can provide a line output to an external amplifier from the ring of a three pole stereo jack plug, with the speaker output on the tip. I've never seen this, and I don't know which models might be so equipped.

Most fixed, floor-standing machines, intended for use in a large auditorium provide a 600 Ohm balanced line output, but some provide an output direct from the photocell and magnetic heads for connection to external pre-amps, as with 35mm. Neither of these would be 8 Ohm, so I'm pretty sure that what you have is a speaker output.

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 12-17-2002, 03:17 PM:

I can't speak for the British equivalent Elf machines, but the later US Eiki 16mm portables (halogen and xenon) have a dual output scheme which includes 8 ohm from the amp, and 600 ohm balanced from the preamp (yes, it is affected by the volume, bass, and treble controls). The 1/4" jack is really a stereo jack, and you pull the 600 ohm off the ground and the second "tip" of the jack. For those who want to get serious, you can also pull directly from the solar cell by disconnecting the two pin plug with this signal from the amp board.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 12-20-2002, 06:32 AM:

I've run 16mm theatrically only once, but if I ever must again, I will send the audio through a noise gate then an Aphex Aural Exciter. As has been mentioned, the Fi on 16mm can be less than Hi.

Early Aural Exciters can now be picked up cheaply used from eBay, studio & broadcast equipment resellers. The sort of overly crisp Aural Exciter sound is not my favorite in production, but it would be perfect for 16mm in auditoria which tend to be tubby or boomy anyway.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 12-20-2002, 11:48 AM:

Yes ELF projectors.

So all I have to do is find out where the other output it.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-23-2002, 05:15 PM:

The Aphex Aural Exciter is a great tool and we use it on both our 16mm channel and also the 35mm center channel -- our theatre is a big single screen (2500 seats) and although we did a lot of acoustic treatment of the room to improve speech intelligbility, I was not
not 100% happy with it the results. Adding the Aural Exciter did wonders to clear up center channel dialogue. Now I won't run anything without it.

We also use a JoeMeek preamp for the 16mm track with the output of the solar cell going directly into the preamp. The sound of that piece of equipment is day and night above the cheap mic preamp that was originally installed when the projector was converted from phototube to solar cell.

We are lucky in that we have two recording studios in our performing arts complex so I get to play with gear designed for the pro-audio field but which can be great black box tools to use in the booth. The JoeMeek preamp and the Aphex are examples. We also use a dbx bass enhancement unit as well as an Orban Stereo Genarator (naturally it's not real stereo but it does a nice job of spreading the signal out a bit across the screen -- anything to help the lowly 16mm track).

Frank

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-24-2002, 10:57 AM:

Michael wrote:

quote:
So all I have to do is find out where the other output it.

Michael, I used to run Elf projectors when I was an AV technician. We had the old blue ones with the separate motor an lamp switches, and the small flap which you flipped down to run and up to rewind, took an EJL 200W lamp, also the later blue ones, single rotary switch, larger flap, which worked the other way - down to rewind, and ELC A1/252 250W lamp. Then there were the later still black ones, NT-1 I think, similar but autoload, we always laced them manually. Lastly we had a portable (with difficulty) dark brown Elf-Lite EX-1500 xenon. I never used the later light brown slimline lightweight ones. I am certain that some of the machines I used did not have a line output. I have never seen it, but it is possible that some of the machines I used had it without me being aware. I'm not sure if it is the case that the American machines had it, but the British ones did not, or that the later ones had it, but the earlier ones did not.

Open up the case of one of your machines and have a look at the connections to the speaker socket. If there are only two wires then you do not have a line output. If there are three wires then you probably do. In this case make up a cable with a headphone type quarter inch stereo jack plug on one end, and whatever you need to fit your sound system on the other. At the projector end, connect to the sleeve and ring of the plug only, do not connect to the tip, this is the speaker output. Since there are only two contacts available on the socket, other than the tip used for the speaker output, the line output must be unbalanced. If your sound system has balanced line inputs (do not use mic inputs) they will probably be on three pin XLR connectors. These have the signal on pins 2 and 3, and the screen on pin 1. In this case, try joining pins 1 and 3, and connecting the screen to that, with the signal going to pin 2.

Without knowing the spec of the projector output and the input you will be connecting to, I cannot say if you will need a matching transformer, or other components. Try it, with the volume on the amplifier turned right down, then turn it up slightly, and see what it sounds like. If it is very load and distorted, then you are overloading the input.

Portable 16mm projectors were not good at providing line outputs for some reason, most of those that do not have one can be modified fairly easily, but exactly where you tap off the signal, and what extra components you need to add to get a signal of the required level and impeadance will vary from one model to another.

Hope this helps,

Stephen.

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 12-24-2002, 11:50 AM:

Stephen is right; you can go from unbalanced to balanced by jumping the two pins of the xlr with no ill effects. I've done it. Surprisingly, it actually doens't make a heck of a lot of difference on the Elf/Eiki's whether you actually use the speaker or unbalanced line out in terms of sound quality. One caution, however. They're notorious for ground loop hum. If you run into it Radio Shack in the states has little stereo isolation transformers for around $20. I assume there's something similar in the UK.

Posted by Lindsay Morris (Member # 1430) on 12-25-2002, 07:23 AM:

Micheal,
When not runing the 35mm outdoor site I do a lot of 16mm "portable" shows for local groups.
As every show is different I have a range of 16mm machines to utilise ranging from Eiki SL1 (250watt halogen lamp) a bigger Eiki with a 500 watt Xenon and my old favorite the Bell & Howell 666 with a Marc 300watt lamp.
All machines except the Xenon Eiki only have speaker output so I have standardised on using a 10k -10k line transformer mounted up in a 35mm still film plastic case (pill box looking thing with a snap on lid) and a suitable plug to fit either Eiki and the B&H which uses a crude looking Din socket and a rather rare plug that fits it.
With this arrangement there is no ground loop problems, no possibility of upsetting the projector amp (there is a slight DC component at the speaker socket on almost all transistorised amps) and a clean signal is then fed into a stereo simulator.
The L & R output from that goes into a small mixer for non sync and occasional mic work and the lot is then shot into a 100watt per side stereo amp. This feeds two big beefy speakers with a pair of 300mm drivers in a ported enclosure and a HF horn mounted on top of each unit either side of the screen.
We have done outdoor shows for around 800 people onto a 8m screen with this setup and get a lot of very favorable comment regarding sound quality.
The 10k - 10k may not be strictly theoretically correct but it does work. The projector runs on about 2 or 3 on a scale of 10 on the vol control and what comes out is a reasonable match into a solid state device after the projector so you do not loose the highs. The line transformers in Australia cost around $9 each and I would imagine that something similar is available in UK.
I have used the same setup on other 16mm machines such as Hokushin, Singer, Fumeo and Elmo with equally good results all round and in one case hired a B&H 666 to a local cinema for a weeks screening of some Gospel films and the tranny just went straight into their Non Sync input with brilliant results.
The Xenon Eiki does have a 600 ohm line output but using that seems to drag the highs down quite a bit and the only time I use that is if I use the big Eiki at the outdoor.
There I have valve amps so have setup a 600 ohm to 100k ohm line input just to suit the Eiki/valve amp combo and that works fine as well.
For continuos shows we use 6000' spools and an ELF long play unit which seems to accomodate just about any sort of 16mm machine.
There it is, a simple almost "universal fix it" for getting 16mm signals into bigger sound systems. [Smile]

Lindsay

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 02-21-2003, 03:52 PM:

More dumb 16mm questions:

How are 16mm films shipped? Is it all on one reel?
Is it multiple reels that need splicing as you do with 35mm?
If so can you load a whole feature on a projector at once?

In other words. I know nothing about 16mm.

Help! Please!

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-21-2003, 04:00 PM:

Most 16mm films are shipped on 1600 foot reels. A 2 hour show
would be on 3 Reels. Yes, you can splice them like a 35mm show
on to a big reel.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 02-21-2003, 04:42 PM:

16oo feet of 16mm is equal to 4000 feet of 35mm. Most fixed projectors, at least the more modern ones, can take up to 6000 foot spools, most portable ones are limited to 2000 feet, but you can get long run attachments, often just a pair of long spool arms, fixed to a baseboard, between which sits the projector. This is more or less the equivilent of a tower with 35mm. Platters are not normally used for 16mm, but it has been done, there are some pictures on the film-tech site, or you can use two machines, and do changeovers, as with 35mm.

Unlike 35mm, which in the UK is normally delivered on cores, 16mm usually comes on spools, for features these are packed in a box, without cans. For shorts, the spool normally comes in a can.

Unlike 35mm, where 5/16" 9mm 3/8" and 1/2" spindles can be found, sometimes with more than one keyway or driving pin position, and a few odd machines, e.g. BTH SUPA, which took totally non-standard spools, 16mm ones are universal, the shaft is 5/16" diameter, but the few milimeters nearest the machine is enlarged to a 5/16" square. Most spools have a square hole on both sides, but a few have a round hole on one side, so they will only fit one way round. All spools also have a keyway, and will fit on a 5/16" 35mm rewinder.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 02-23-2003, 10:17 AM:

Has anybody actually seen a 16mm print with optical stereo tracks like those the ELMO machine was built for? I was told by a dubbing engineer that 16mm optical stereo was never used outside of Japan.
When I used to work at the German Film Museum, we got many 16mm prints from Japan, but never a stereo track (which would have been played Mono on our Selecton Xenon machine anyway).

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-23-2003, 05:42 PM:

Kodak (Ron Uhlig) first demonstrated stereo analog tracks with Dolby noise reduction in the early 1970's, using 16mm prints. Several SMPTE papers were published. I recall that the National Film Board of Canada used dual language optical tracks.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 02-23-2003, 07:05 PM:

What the next student cinema meeting will most probably be like:

Everyone else: So Mike did you get the 16mm set up yet?

Me: No we can't run 16mm it's too complicated. The 16mm projectors are staying in the cupboard.

Posted by Mike Rendall (Member # 1499) on 02-24-2003, 03:25 AM:

It would be a shame since 16mm is quite fun, especially remaking loops on the fly when the dreaded claw snatches the sprockets out!

We don't show much 16mm now, but we like to show the old vintage fred and ginger classics whenever we can.

Mike

Posted by Tom Doyle (Member # 1474) on 03-04-2003, 11:44 PM:

We actually have a CP55 being used for 16mm right now. The projectionist uses two Eikis with 2000' reels. (This brand seems easy to use and handles film well.) He has them hooked up to a receiver that connects into the auxiliary input of the CP55. He uses the receiver because he plays his own non-sync music, either from cassette or cd, and uses a microphone to introduce each show. (Also, recently he played a silent film and had the musical score on cassette.)

So the short answer to your question is: hook up the projector(s) to your mixer and you're all set. It shouldn't matter whether they are stereo or mono, just use the appropriate jack. (Most 16mm film is mono.) I'm not sure if you'll need a pre-amp or not, but some receivers come with one built in (for use with magnetic turntables). Otherwise, you could just pick up a stereo pre-amp at a local electronics store and hook it up between the projector and the receiver.

The nice thing about 16mm is that there's always stuff for sale. Check out http://www.16mmfilms.com for a start. The projectionist at our theater has well over 100 cartoons and other shorts and shows at least one before each film - much easier than amassing a comparable 35mm collection.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 03-05-2003, 04:24 AM:

What do you mean by a 'receiver'?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-05-2003, 08:26 AM:

Don't use a phono preamp for a solar cell in a film projector. It is (more or less) effective at raising the level, but phono preamps designed for LPs (as opposed to '78s) use something called the "RIAA eq curve" which is different than the "Academy curve" used in film soundtracks. Both of them are relatively primitive and reasonably effective attempts at noise reduction, but they are different enough that your films will sound weird.

A better choice would be a microphone preamp, preferably in line with some sort of EQ capability so that you can roll off the high frequencies (anything above 12KHz or so is just noise in a 16mm optical track). A low end Mackie (or similar) board works nicely for this, although you need to use the mute buttons to effect a sound changeover if using two machines.

Posted by Tom Doyle (Member # 1474) on 03-09-2003, 11:05 PM:

By 'receiver', I mean a component used in home stereo systems. It has inputs for different components (CD player, DVD player, VHS, phonograph, etc.) and has outputs for the speakers. Since he uses different components, it was an easy way for him to hook everything up together. Since you already have a mixer doing this job for you, just hook up the projector to the mixer. (Thanks for the tip, Scott. I guess that's why the pre-amps are never labeled as pre-amps, but instead as 'phono'.)

I was asking my friend about soundtracks on 16mm. He told me he has no problems playing any kind of optical track on his mono projectors. He has variable density tracks that sound fine (he refers to them as Western Electric). This weekend he was using a cartoon with a duplex track and a feature with a duo-bilateral track (he called this RCA).

I believe he is using the speaker outputs of the projectors for his sound. If you need any more info, just let me know.

Thanks, Stephen! All those pictures and descriptions were *extremely* informative!