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Topic: Fabulous Pathe Site
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 01, 2006 03:48 PM
Hi Trev,
Yes there's some great equipment on this site. Just exactly what is it that makes Pathe equipment so fascinating? Maybe it's their quirky projector design's, they always seemed to design things the hard way instead of taking a sensible straightforward , tried and tested, approach. Its almost like their designers went out of their way to be different. I think the comments on this site, comparing the design of the Pathescope GEM to the Eumig P8 are very illuminating. There was just no comparison in the Engineering expertise and production quality control of these two companies. Pathe seemed to make everything out of sheet metal when just about everyone else was using precision aluminum die castings and plastic mouldings. But this is what makes Pathe equipment so intriguing (and frustrating!).
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Trevor Adams
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 763
From: Auckland,New Zealand
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 01, 2006 05:22 PM
Paul,I find the Pathe/Pathescope machines very labour intensive.A bit like having to double-declutch every gear when you are driving(and no power steering of course!)Or owning a prewar MG that you must get out and get under after every drive in the country.
By and large,these nine-fivers are, noisy,illumination is inferior,threading is fiddly and if you have sound,you must tweak the exciter lamp control all the time! No time for the projectionist to watch the flick! It all adds up to,"the joys of mechanical film projection"!
When you watch a demo of a 17.5mm or 28mm machine-you applaud and silently marvel at the fact the things cast a flickery yellow picture on a screen.
There is just something so primitive about most Pathe/Pathescope equipment,I reckon.Trev ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Trevor
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 05, 2006 07:39 PM
Hi Trev,
I can appreciate that Pathescope were trying to produce relatively economical movie equipment for the mass market, but what is frustrating is the obvious elementary engineering mistakes that they made. A classic example to me, is the little brake arm on the ACE. A schoolboy could look at this and know right away that the sharp edge of this metal arm is going to scratch every frame of film that goes through the machine (which of course is exactly what it does). Pathescope must have known this, yet for the thirty or so years that the ACE was in production (and probably their biggest money maker)they did nothing to correct it. Same thing with the PAT camera. I bought one of these and every charger of film jammed up in it, and it came with a lens like a marble! Did they never test any of their equipment? The one truly great projector design they had was the 200B, but they never stuck with it or advanced on it. I never had a GEM or SON but have read poor reviews on these machines. You have to say that this shoddy equipment design must have lost Pathescope a whole lot of customers to 8mm - like me! I remember the first time I saw 8mm Kodachrome on a Specto 500 projector- the quality literally blew me away, far superior to my black and white 9.5mm efforts with the PAT camera.
But I'm not here to knock 9.5mm - I still love the guage and the finnicky equipment, perhaps more than ever!
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Trev
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