Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: printing speed history (question)

This is topic printing speed history (question) in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 10-03-2005, 03:36 PM:

Just wondering if anyone can provide info on the history of printer speed for release prints.

When did the current super hi-speed printing that often leads to very unsteady release prints begin to take place? [uhoh]

"Showprints" and dye-transfter titles seem to be the steadiest, what speeds were those printed at?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-03-2005, 06:39 PM:

Hi speed printing in itself is not always the problem and I have seen many cases where a match print done on the smitzer and the highspeed have the same amount of jitter
Each of the large labs designs and builds their own proprietary printers most designed around the classic B&H design

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-04-2005, 03:39 PM:

I agree with Gordon that high speed printing in and of itself is usually NOT the reason for unsteadiness.

In the early 1900s, Bell and Howell developed continous contact printers with the concept that when a print original and raw stock were wrapped around a 12-inch circumference printer sprocket, optimum steadiness (least slippage) was achieved when the original film had a perforation pitch (distance between perfs) about 0.3% shorter than the raw stock. This optimum condition is usually met by the printers used for release printing, but may not always be followed in the making of master positives and duplicate negatives, where a pin-registered step printer should be used to maintain the proper pitch relationship. Step printers are MUCH slower than continuous contact printers, and labs often cannot meet worldwide production schedules if they had to use a pin-registered step printer to turn out the required multiple duplicate negatives.