Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: MGM- Are all prints now cyan? Apparently not!

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Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 03-04-2005, 08:17 PM:

Interesting occurrence. I received two prints of MGM's Be Cool. The first one I put together was cyan, but I was somewhat startled to see the second one was Hi Mag.

My thinking here was that MGM was now releasing in cyan. Did the buyout by Sony have a bearing on this anomaly?

Can anyone shed some more light on this topic?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-04-2005, 11:08 PM:

To the best of my understanding international shipments (when the prints are finished playing in the US) need magenta tracks, but most US prints are cyan. The regular label on the cans represent cyan, but the silver label represents a conventional track.

I don't know how much longer the conventional tracks will be made, but apparently it will continue for at least a little while.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 03-05-2005, 03:17 AM:

On one of my prints reel 5 was not cyan.

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 03-05-2005, 07:23 AM:

Mike,

You are the man of the hour! You have the first test case for comparing the two sound tracks, Cyan and Silver.

Please describe for us the instant differences in the "sound" in your auditorium when the change from reel 4 to reel 5 occurs.

We all want to know what difference can be observed in this dramatic comparison. Can you really hear more distortion from the Silver track? Is there a level change? That sort of information would be very interesting.

Thanks. (As he heads to the auditorium with notebook in hand!)

KEN

[ 03-09-2005, 06:45 AM: Message edited by: Kenneth Wuepper ]

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-05-2005, 10:03 AM:

Ken,
Shouldn't you really ask Joe to do this "special comparison" since he's not there..... [Wink]

. He'd be the one to ask ya know......

MArk

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-06-2005, 07:38 AM:

It may be they are hedging their bets with a small percentage of applicated tracks that will be culled after US release, and used for overseas release into the few underdeveloped countries that are still way behind on converting to red readers.

Posted by Dominic Case (Member # 1830) on 03-08-2005, 10:11 PM:

quote: Kenneth Wuepper
We all want to know what difference can be observed in this dramatic comparison. Can you rally hear more distortion from the Silver track?

Not really as useful a comparison as you might think. The silver track would be a high magenta track, which was designed as a compromise solution - less distortion than a "deep blue" silver track on red readers, more level than a cyan track on red readers. There won't be much difference.

My fear is that now that most distributors have switched at least to high magenta, the pressure is off (as the high magenta track resolves the distortion problem of blue on red readers), and they aren't so anxious to push the last step in the change - to cyan. Bad result all round if that is the case.