A mystery. Eumig phomomat p8

[Max Wheeler]

Hi all,

I was researching my Eumig phonomat p8 and i cannot find any information about this p8 model at all.

Even the Eumig Museum does not exhibit it in its long list of Eumig p8s https://eumig.at/index.php?option=co...=97&Itemid=198

It seems to be a hybrid of the p8, p8 imperial and p8 phonomatic but it is very different from all of these.

Can anybody throw any light on this model and does anybody have an instruction manual.

Many thanks

Max

[Maurice Leakey]

Max
Seems like an addition to a P8. As you say, a Hybrid.
Vintage Eumig Photomat P8 Movie Projector In Original Case [4144] | eBay

[Osi Osgood]

I had one of these years ago, but never quite figured out that attachable back portion. The projector itself ran like a dream. I'm sure that syncing the sound would have been a real, ummm ... pain!

[Paul Adsett]

I purchased one of these when they first came out back around 1958. It was designed to be attached to the existing P8. It also provided power rewind facility to the P8 which only had a little geared hand rewind, the little roller at the back was designed to push against the existing rubber drive belt in the P8 during rewind.
I hooked mine up to a Phillips tape recorder running at 3 1/3 inches per second and did a commentary with music background on a 15 minute home movie. You had to line up a mark on the tape at the tape sound head and also line up a marked frame in the film gate. The projector speed control was set at full speed and was controlled by a roller on a sliding rheostat looped into the tape run. It all worked very well. was easy to do, and was good enough for that kind of simple sound program. I remember though that the rewind mode really wore out the rubber drive belt on the P8 very quickly. Of course Eumig soon had this whole apparatus integrated into the Imperial projector.
Bolex had a similar device for their M8 projector, which was coupled by a long flexible shaft to the inching knob on the projector. A better arrangement for sure.
Of course the advent of 8mm stripe sound made all these synchronizing devices obsolete.

[Erik Snel]

Yes that is an addon to make any P8 with manual rewind, often the green coloured older models into a "sound"projector. later this mechanism was built into the projector and became the Phonomatic. I have several old style P8's with an attached Phonomat. the P8 imperial and P8M imperial also have them built in and later they were named the Phonomatic. sometimes the type designation seems almost random and changed during the 13 year production run.

[Paul Adsett]

13 year production run! Wow, Eumig must have sold a bunch of P8's!

[Erik Snel]

yes very much so, I counted 975640 eumig P8's made from 1955 to 1967. in all of their variations. my serial numbers list starts at 1955 but the p8 was introduced in 1954 so there were more made then are listed. the P8 was replaced by the P8D in 1967. in 1959 the production of the P25/26 stopped and the p8 was the only projector eumig made until the Mark S for regular 8 came on the market in 1964. then when super 8 was introduced in 1965 the mark series were further developed and the P8 became very much obsolete and eventually replaced by the shortlived P8D (1967-1968) which was the predecessor of the 500 and 600 series

[Osi Osgood]

I always LOVE it when I learn more information about a beloved projector or film! Many thanx Eric!

[Maurice Leakey]

Many thanks to Erik for that detailed explanation of the P8 and its variants.
For my wedding present in October 1959 my wife gave me a Eumig P8 Imperial, this I coupled up to my Grundig TK5 tape recorder.

[Brian Fretwell]

I've always thought that the P8 Dual was very little different to the Mk501D. To me it looked as if all they dis was alter the external front casting.

[Maurice Leakey]

It is true that the Eumig P8 went through alterations during its life but the P8 Dual can't really be considered a relation as it is so completely different.
Eumig P8 dual – Spare Part Finder – Van Eck Video Services (van-eck.net)

[Erik Snel]

yes the P8D was a totally new type of projector that altough shortlived, it dictated the designs for eumig's silent projectors up until their end in the 80's. the 501 is way more simpler built then the p8d. the p8d also has rubber wheels between the motor and mechanicals and the 500 and 600 luckily have a belt.

fun fact:a little design thing they tried was placing a logo shield on top of the handle, eumig never did this again in later models of their own brand but this style of handle with a gleued plate on top is found in all the Revue and Prinz projectors made by Eumig. so they didn't throw away the molds for these parts.

[Lee Mannering]

Nice to read and about where I came in at our local cine club/film making group.
A few were still using these with the very popular Tandberg reel to reel decks early 70's and it was something to behold with several setup on twin top projection tables hosting P8 and recorders on the back end. This was UK annual film completion time and always struck me funny everyone wanted to use the same setup in competition.

Worked well with the reel to reel running at constant speed and the Eumig varying speed thru its rheostat to keep up time on the back of the projector. One old member of the club used to clean his rubber idler wheel before every show to get maximum traction on the Eumig. He got on well with me as a young boy enthusiast and upon his passing he left me his films which I scanned last year linking up the reel to reel tracks which were of high quality.. He mainly filmed STD 8 Scope which today still look great.
What wonderful times we had 50 years ago...

I'm going to put some clips of these up on Youtube I think as they need viewing.