8mm Forum: why are M+O elmo projectors more common in europe?

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Posted by Eric Baucher (Member # 809) on January 05, 2008, 09:14 PM:

I have two HD's but everytime I look om Ebay UK or DE or even IT almost all the Elmo ST projectors are mag/optical yet almost none of the elmos in the US are. I even know a guy who used to sell elmos in NYC in the 70's and he never had any optical capable units, I wonder why that is.......

Posted by David Roberts (Member # 197) on January 06, 2008, 01:18 PM:

as i remember,the elmo 1200 series imported into uk were all mag/opt,we just didnt see the other versions or even knew they existed.

Posted by Graham Sinden (Member # 431) on January 06, 2008, 03:22 PM:

A friend of mine has an Elmo ST1200 Mag ONLY

Posted by David Pannell (Member # 300) on January 06, 2008, 04:14 PM:

Mine too!

It's an ST1200HD - magnetic sound only!

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on January 06, 2008, 06:18 PM:

I have seen a number of ST1200's over the years and they have mainly been the mag only version.

In the UK very few films were released with optical soundtracks. More were released in France, Germany and Japan.

As time has passed these machines have moved about between countries and this may be the reason why you see them now spread about in these countries.

When I bought my very first ST1200HD it did have optical sound but I didnt pay a premium for it. I think it was a case of they sold whatever version was available at the time.

I have repaired quite a few ST1200HD's and in the main the have not had the optical facility.

I have never seen an optical version of the ST600 but they do exist on the other hand virtually all ST800's have optical sound.

I think it was all down to the way that Elmo marketed and built these machines.

Kev.

Posted by Claus Harding (Member # 702) on January 06, 2008, 06:24 PM:

I too am a bit puzzled as to the 'selective' availability of the Mag/Opt models.
In Denmark we never saw any model but the Mag model, and when I came to the States and got mine, the Mag one (ST1200 HD) was the one offered.
It was not until I got on EBay I ever saw that there was in fact a 'dual-purpose' model available.
I have never had a need for an optical 8mm machine, but still it is interesting how it seems to have been divided up by market. There must have been reasons....more optical films available in England??

Best,
Claus.

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 549) on January 07, 2008, 12:57 AM:

In Australia there are both. I have had two ST 1200's and both were Mag and Optical. I would say the split sold in Australia would be around 50/50. Interesting in that I have had ST 1200's with optical for over 20 years and never ran a single Super 8 optical print!

David

Posted by Eric Baucher (Member # 809) on January 08, 2008, 08:41 PM:

I happened to re read my copy of "the super 8 book" by Lenny Lipton (wonder where he is these days?) right after posting this topic, and acording to that book he says that there are also "o" versions of the ST1200D. wonder why they made optical only versions, sems that would have been hard to sell, unless they were only sold to airlines. I have certainly never seen one of those. wonder what that would fetch on ebay? probably be bought just on rarity alone I'd Imagine.....

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 08, 2008, 09:15 PM:

Lenny Lipton, who wrote the words to "Puff the Magic Dragon",

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nva4AseNIAY

is alive, well and apparently pretty busy:

http://www.lennylipton.com/

I enjoy his Super-8 book. I bought mine new and it's looking pretty worn these days.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on January 09, 2008, 09:34 AM:

Hi,

you should keep in mind that the single8-camera Fujica ZS400 was able to record optical sound and that Quelle/Foto-Quelle sold a lot of films with an optical sound-track under their "Revue" label in Europe. Not to mention that the German Quelle/Foto-Quelle was also selling films by "Ullstein AV" that have been available only with an optical sound-track. ("Ullstein AV" did have a "super8-rental"-thing for those films, too.)

There have been rumors about several European companies/schools using super8-films with optical soundtracks for teaching/demonstration-purposes as the optical soundtrack was cheaper and wasn't to be erased by mistake... . I haven't figured out whether this is true as most of the companies/schools used 16mm-films... .

Jörg

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