8mm Forum: Todd AO & CinemaScope

»	8mm Forum » General Yak » Todd AO & CinemaScope

UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!

Author

Topic: Todd AO & CinemaScope

Paul Adsett
Film God

Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted May 29, 2006 12:50 PM

There is an excellent special feature included with the new 2-Disc DVD of 'Oklahoma'(50th anniversary edition). It is a 12 minute documentary about the technical comparisons of CinemaScope and TOdd-A0. Oklahoma was the first picture filmed in Todd-A0, and was concurrently filmed in CinemaScope. Included are a discussion with Martin Short of 'The Widescreen Museum' with nice shots of the Todd-AO 'bug-eye' lens and sample film strips etc.

Makes a great intro to your next widescreen presentation.
Incidentally, the new discs contain both the Cinemascope and the Todd-AO versions of the film. The Todd-AO should look the best, but does'nt in this transfer. The Cinemascope disc is by far the best Oklahoma yet, with a needle sharp high bit rate transfer, enhanced for 16:9.

--------------------
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

| IP: Logged

James N. Savage 3
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1375
From: Washington, DC
Registered: Jul 2003

posted May 31, 2006 05:45 AM

Paul- What is Todd-AO???

Nick.

| IP: Logged

Paul Adsett
Film God

Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted May 31, 2006 07:22 AM

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingto2.htm

--------------------
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

| IP: Logged

David Kilderry
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 963
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Registered: Feb 2006

posted June 01, 2006 12:54 AM

James, TODD-AO was the first successful 70mm film process. Essentially it involved the film being shot on 65mm negative and then transferred to 70mm release prints. The extra 5mm was to accomodate the 6 magnetic sound tracks. TODD is for Michael Todd (RIP) and American Optics who developed the system.

When projected on film TODD-AO was certainly the superior format to Cinemascope. I thoroughly recommend Marty Harts excellent website linked to above. It is simply the best around for wide-format film. (look out for the 70mm frames donated by your truly!)

That explains the process, if you want to see the projector developed to run TODD-AO, check out this link to my projection room:

http://www.lunardrive-in.com.au/gallery.htm

Regards,
David

| IP: Logged

All times are Central

Printer-friendly view of this topic

UBB.classic^TM 6.3.1.2