8mm Forum: Help needed with 8mm Type S cartridge collection

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Posted by John Pardillo (Member # 5517) on August 14, 2016, 10:59 PM:

Hi

I collect "vintage" flight training materials. Mainly because I learned to fly in the 1970's and then did nothing more until 2010 when I rekindled the passion. I found the old materials great for making up a bit for the lost time. Most of my collection is on VHS, about 600 tapes. I pick them up on eBay for an average of $5 each.

A while back, one of my eBay searches returned something quite unusual. It was a Piper Aircraft factory flight training program that I would very much like to have in my collection as I have never seen anything like it. The problem was that it was is in an unusual format. I decided that if I could get a cheap enough I would buy it anyway and that is what happened. After I won the auction, the seller offered me the projector for the cost of shipping only. Perhaps stupidly, I declined because he said the projector did not work and the shipping was at least twice as much as I had already paid for the tapes. I did not want to get into a situation of throwing good money after bad.

Recently, I was reorganizing my collection and I came across those tapes again and wondered if there was something I could do to play them. When I came across this forum, I realize that I probably made a mistake in refusing the projector. Most likely it was repairable at a reasonable cost and may well have been a valuable and rare item. Accordingly, I emailed the seller yesterday and asked him if he still had it but he had already tossed it.

Below are some pictures of a typical cassette from the set and below that is one of the pictures the seller sent me of the projector, a unit made by Norelco.

Not really sure what I am asking here. Minimally, I guess I would like to know what y'all think this format is. Is it the format that was used on airlines? Is it a proprietary Norelco format or do you see it elsewhere? Do you think it has optical sound (see below)? Could I open the cassettes up and transfer them to reels and play them with a Super 8 projector of some sort?

Each cassette box also contains standard audio cassettes and apparently the projector accepts both the audio and the Super 8 cassette at the same time so I suspect that there is no sound on the film.

Any information and any suggestions are appreciated and welcome. Thank you in advance.

Posted by Janice Glesser (Member # 2758) on August 15, 2016, 01:21 AM:

Is it 8mm film or 8mm videotape in the cartridge. If it's film you probably could just remove it from the cartridge and put it on a regular reel to play on a film projector. If it's videotape you are probably out of luck without a compatible projector.

Posted by John Pardillo (Member # 5517) on August 15, 2016, 02:57 AM:

Hi Janice.

It is film.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on August 15, 2016, 03:18 AM:

Your last picture shows what looks like normal Super 8 film perforations, so I would assume it is that gauge. These is no sign of magnetic stripe so it sound would be on the other cassettes.

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on August 15, 2016, 01:15 PM:

I don't know if "Type S" is an industry recognized designation or not but I did find one reference to it in an article explaining the challenges of using optical sound with Super 8 film.

I'm not sure if that has any relevance in your case since audio tapes seem to be part of the package. Maybe the audio tapes represent different material altogether.

Putting Super 8 film in a cassette of some sort was certainly done by other companies. Technicolor had their "Magi-Cartridge" for example. The ones you have seem fairly simple to open so I say you have nothing to loose by trying to run the enclosed film through a projector. Projectors that can read an optical sound track are available I guess. Osi seems to be an expert.

Posted by Mark Creighton (Member # 5276) on August 15, 2016, 01:31 PM:

The information I found states that Type S is Super 8.

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on August 15, 2016, 01:50 PM:

If it does have optical sound, it would have a wave-form along the edge opposite the perforations like the clip below:

You would need a projector capable of reading the optical track to hear the sound, but any super 8 projector should be able to display the images.

Posted by John Pardillo (Member # 5517) on August 16, 2016, 10:09 AM:

Thanks for all the input.

Below is a shot of the film. So what I understand is that it is probably Super 8mm film with no sound and I should be able to play it on a Super 8 projector.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on August 16, 2016, 12:05 PM:

Yes.
It is Super 8 film with no sound track. It will run on any Super 8 projector.

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