The Auricon was a popular optical sound camera, sold in a 100' model for amateur use. It evolved into the Cinema Products line of cameras. Mag striping was available on a few film stocks, ie Kodachrome for amateurs and Ektachrome stocks for newsreel. Optical recording was much more popular among news shooters. Projectors could have both mag heads and optical heads because the sound was advanced a different number of frames.

Ralph (videogeezer)

The amateurs could not afford the $12,000.00 price for the magnetic recording option. That's just for the option and does not include the price of the camera, lenses, magazines, battery packs, etc.
JJK

Thanks for the replies and the excellent link.

Every once in a while I see an EIKI mag sound projector come up on eBay and since I've converted one of their optical sound units for video transfer, I've thought about buying a mag/optical unit in case an order come in for mag sound conversion.

It sounds like I'm unlikely to see much magnetic sound film. (Must put off urge to buy vintage toys)

thanks,

RalphM

In the 60's, 70's and some of the 80's magnetic sound film was the medium of choice for television news gathering. The raw footage, with sound, would be edited and used as the "B" roll for a two projector playback. The "A" roll would contain the narration and talking heads. The two projectors would be synchronized in playback and the TV control room would have timing sheets so they'd know when to switch back and forth between projectors. The disadvantage of editing film with magnetic sound tracks is that there'd be a delay in the sound edit, because the sound head was approximately 16 frames behind the picture. Some TV stations might still have some old news film, but the wise ones converted most of the valuable stuff to tape before getting rid of the projectors.

Actually the mag head was 18 frames ahead of the picture (the sound heads are below the picture gate). Optical sound was 2 frames closer to the film gate. Darn! A figure of 26 frames has entered my memory -- I'll have to check. There were quite a number of Super-8 mag sound cameras used by amateurs. Of course there were many films (amateur and professional, 16 & 8) with mag sound added in post.

Oh yes - the frame offset between audio and image. I've received Super8 sound where the customer had spliced the film onto larger reels relying only on the image for the location of the splice.

Yep - about a second of missing sound for every cut...

OK, in 35mm the sound is 19 frames ahead of the corresponding frame. In 16mm optical the sound head is 26 frames ahead of the gate and 28 frames for magnetic. Super 8 I can't remember. There were a number of Super 8 sound cameras, sometimes employed by country TV networks for news footage. Quite often 16mm (and even 8) was shot double system, including 16mm TV news gathering with the sound guy lugging a Nagra. Of course once 16mm sound cameras became available for news they got rid of the sound guy. Most studio productions (amateur and professional) were shot double system, as indeed most professional stuff still is. So the question about the availability of sound cameras doesn't cover the issue of whether or not one is likely to be presented with a mag strip film for transfer.

As I recall Mag was basically used on reversal film, hence the original film shot in the camera had the mag stripe. I believe it was used extensively in TV news as you processed the film, cut the original film and put it on the air -- NO need (or time) to make a print at the lab. You'd soup the orig in an hour, cut the orig (no work print) and use that in the telecine. No effects (even a dissolve) unless you had two telecines. This was as fast as it got --- NO WORKPRINT. It was mostly talking heads anyway or the talent did voice over the BG sound. NOT very durable as the splices were tape or glue and they dry up in time. Prints could be made later but the film took a beating.

I can't recall release prints from negative using a mag track so you may NEVER see anything with mag stripe.

That is correct for news gathering, but not other productions. Mag stripe was used on 16mm release prints but did fall out of favour because it was easily erased by careless projectionists. You will know that it was used on 35 and 70mm release prints (with similar problems). Apart from news very little 16mm was shot with striped camera stock. Amateurs did shoot reversal stock and applied the stripe after editing. I've been through all of that. And I've still got films I made in the 60s with cement splices that are not falling apart. The only films you will be asked to transfer are amateur productions (if copyright means anything), but it is true that many people were not skilled at splicing and their splices are fragile. A good splice is a weld, not a glue.

I'm convinced that I don't need the magnetic track projector - unless some company come in with an archive they want to preserve.

BTW, I love the image from 16mm compared to 8mm. It's too bad it fell out of favor.

Serena, you are correct - a good splice will last for decades. It's far more likely that the film will break due to becoming brittle than that a cement splice will fail in my experience. I'm seeing films, both 16mm and 8mm that are over 70 years old, and they are in remarkably good condition, especially considering the variety of storage condfitions.

>>>>I love the image from 16mm compared to 8mm. It's too bad it fell out of favor<<<<

Actually 16mm didn't fall out of favour, and of course still hasn't. However most home movie shooters preferred 8mm (and then Super 8) because the cameras were smaller and the film cheaper, and they thought the image quality was fine (same considerations in home video today). I started at age 13 with 9.5mm (nearly same frame size as 16mm) and have always been a quality nut (can be an expensive trait) in image and audio. I suspect that it was in the 80s that film got too expensive for amateur use, and now 16mm is regarded, in Oz, as the film stock to use if the feature budget doesn't stretch to 35. But electronic cameras are now overcoming all.

Anyway, I think you're right. You don't need a optical/mag 16mm projector. But they're cheap, if you would LIKE one.

I'm seeing films, both 16mm and 8mm that are over 70 years old, and they are in remarkably good condition, ...I agree.

I just did some from 1928. Except for the dust from projection and storage, I would be hard-pressed to see any signs of aging.

Here's a good example of some hand-held amateur footage. I encoded it at 12 fps, progressive, which seemed to give the correct playback. Some of this early amateur footage was extremely slow crank -- probably to save film.



I think I showed this before, but this shows my attempts to digitally remove both the flicker, which I believe was caused either by film stock irregularities or else how it was processed (rather than aging). If you click both, one right after the other, you should be able to get a simultaneous before/after:

Before:


After:


Many more examples at my YouTube page:

John Meyer YouTube

John, excellent transfers. Done with your "no projector shutter" system?

I shot 16mm film for the army in the 1950's anda believe me there was nothing better than to heft a Bolex in your hands and twirl around those three lenses. Shoot film...wind the spring...shoot film....wind the spring....
Burt

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