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Topic: Why Acetate, Why Poly?
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John Whittle
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 791
From: Northridge, CA USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted October 10, 2007 05:36 PM
First there was nitrate, but when Kodak wanted to introduce home movies, a slow burning film was needed. The first was diacetate, early Kodachrome was another base, then then triacetate started being used in 35mm and subformats. The change in 35mm stocks came in the early 1950s.
Estar (Kodak's name) and other poly base materials also date way back. Originally it was more expensive than acetate and harder to coat. Also if any problem happened in processing or projetion, the machine was more likely to break rather than the film. Ektachrome was made on Estar base at 3000 pitch for high speed cameras used in research. The widespread use came when 35mm prints were made on the stock and then subformat (such as Super8).
Since you can't solvent splice Estar, you must tape splice it and the liquid dispersion sound stripe wouldn't work.
Now days, very few stocks are coated on acetate, and like black and white positive, are usually special order materials. 35mm Color Negative camera film are still acetate.
The Estar material wears tooling faster (such as slitters and perforators) as well.
John
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