8mm Forum: 8mm sound-the Early years

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Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 28, 2005, 09:37 PM:

Anybody remember the early technical struggles to get sound on to 8mm films? I vaguely recall the late 1950's when all kinds of attachments suddenly appeared on the market to convert existing silent 8mm projectors into magnetic sound machines. Such attachments as the Cirse-Vox, and the Peterson Magnetic were only marginally successful, but people were so anxious to get sound-on-film that these things actually sold. At that time there was little standardization of picture-to-sound separation, some heads were above the gate and some were below, but eventually the 56 frames sound advance for standard 8mm emerged. Then super 8 came along with the standard 18 frames separation (I think 24 frames would have been better- more room to smooth out the intermittent motion of the film), and then came stereo. Anyone recall the Worlds first ever super 8 stereo projector? We must tip our hat to our friends in France- it was a Heurtier!

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on January 28, 2005, 10:07 PM:

A Heurtier, who would've thought [Smile]

I always did wonder, though, why the picture/sound separation was so small with super-8 film... looking at the design of some super-8 sound projectors, I have to agree they appear pretty CRAMPED on the inside! [Wink]

Posted by Jean-Marc Toussaint (Member # 270) on January 29, 2005, 12:08 AM:

Paul: on std8, was it also 18 frame separation?
As a kid, when I got my first sound projector (a dual format Silma S233), I borrowed some std8 sound films from a friend and the sound was a bit out of sync...

Posted by David Roberts (Member # 197) on January 29, 2005, 05:28 AM:

Standard 8 had a picture-sound separation of 56 frames.

Posted by Tim Christian (Member # 48) on January 29, 2005, 06:27 AM:

The 56 frame separation was due to the long film path inevitable with add-on units. The first of these, the Peterson Recorder, developed in The Netherlands, appeared in 1955. There was also the Pathe Avatar for 9.5 and 16mm that appeared at about the same time.

As a point of interest, Nick Maltezos, who runs EvT Magnetics, developed the electronics for the Peterson Recorder.

Standard 8mm striped sound was by no means marginally successful. By the early 1960s, many commercial films were available in this format - from Castle and Walton, for example.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 29, 2005, 08:31 AM:

Anybody remember the various sync devices used to run tape recorders in sync with 8mm projectors before stripe sound was perfected? The only one I tried was the Eumig Phonomatic attachment, which bolted onto the Eumig P8 projector (later versions of the P8 had the phonomat integrated into the projector design). This seemed to work very well for adding music and commentary, but was not accurate enough to get lip-sync. As well as this worked, I found the whole buisness of maintaining separate film and taped sound tracks tiresome, and of course you could not use these attachments for showing any commercial striped sound films. At the time, the main advantage was the better sound quality that you got from the tape, but today I don't think anyone could complain about the superb sound quality of super 8 stripe sound.

Posted by John Whittle (Member # 22) on January 29, 2005, 11:39 AM:

I would love to see a picture of the Peterson device if anyone can post a link. All of the "add on" devices I remember worked as a "penthouse" and actually played the sound before the gate rather than after. The 56 frames was picked (and standardized by the SMPTE) because it was the same physical distance as the 28 frames for 16mm magnetic sound. Kodak changed matters with Super8 because any edit in a standard 8 sound film resulted in over two seconds of out of sync sound.

As for other early devices, find a copy of the Focal Book from 1948, adding sound to your movies. There were all sorts of turntable connections to projectors (like Vitaphone). 16mm magnetic sound didn't appear until after WWII and there are pictures of the early work on a Kodak projector. B&H introduced the first commerical machine for home use in the 16mm model 202.

In the same book, there is a picture of a regular 8mm B&H Regent with a below the gate add on flywheel and sound pick up device.

There were also many different tape recorder sync devices besides the Eumig unit. Revere had a device with a strobscope and there were other tape tension devices like the Eumig.

Bolex also offered a penthouse sound device for use with there current (at the time) Regular 8mm projector (M8?) and Sears sold a similar device. These devices would provide sound on film, but due to the lack of standardization, it made commerical sale of sound subjects all but impossible. It wasn't until the introduction of the Fairchild Cinephonic Camera and Projector and Kodak's Sound 8, that regular 8mm sound finally took hold and Castle started releasing some 8mm versions of their 16mm subjects. Predating the Fairchild was the Elite from Norway which also had the 56 frame sound advance.

John

Posted by Tim Christian (Member # 48) on January 29, 2005, 12:27 PM:

John,

I'm just finishing a sound history page to add to my Walton site. My resources are essentially for the UK, but I do have useful pictures of the Peterson Recorder (including part of the Manual) and their first striper. This page should be up in a week or so.

If you have any dates and details for US devices, I'd happily extend the scope of the page.

Tim.

Posted by Michael De Angelis (Member # 91) on January 30, 2005, 12:36 AM:

Hello to all,

Regarding the early sound days of projectors,
I have a Kodak Sound 8, which is in need of
repair.
The claw does not retract sufficiently, the rewind mechanism
needs work, and the amp needs some fine tuning.

I love this machine, and would hate to part with it.

Any suggestions would be positive.
Thanks in advance.

Michael

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on January 31, 2005, 02:43 PM:

Elmo also manufactured a unit that would work with a reel to reel tape player and one of their FP series projectors. In addition to having different size tape drums, this unit would be cabled to the projector and could adjust the running speed. I have one somewhere....

Doug

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