Optical Sound Quality for 2022?

[Stuart Budd]

Optical Sound, how's it holding up?

Wasn't thinking of going down this path. One of the reasons I avoided the Eumig M&O. But then the Elmo's came to my possession. Maybe 3 months ago there was an eBay add from Down Under. A projector and optical sound film of cars, adverts if I remember. Holden rings a bell. Thought, no!

https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-b...004133;go=newe r

The topic from the old forum now a good 10 years old may go to explain the lack of replys of offers for cheep optical sound films. There just aren't any!

Got me thinking though. Maybe I could scratch any film with a pin. 24 frames a second, so a scratch may have to be 3 or 4 frames long. A scratch would also change the optical nature of the film base. Matting it. OOF! I may try it as an experiment. I then realised that the film only stops in the gate. It's continuously moving everywhere else. So sound is constantly flowing as apposed to image. An accedent of possitioning for hardware room or well thought out. If I had made it, an accedent!

The topic in the link mentions focus and colour fade, different exiter lamps and LEDs. Very interesting. Would be nice to have new optical sound. Complicated and most probably, incredibly expensive!

[Melvin England]

Stuart - Optical prints do surface from time to time on Ebay. The best thing you can do it just buy one. The sound is still good on most of them. I have one or two with no complaints. I think Phil at CHC has one or two if you got in touch with him or went on his website. What you will notice with optical prints is that the picture quality, even on faded prints, is pretty damn good!

As for "new" optical sound, I think that is a non starter. These prints were made for in-flight aircraft that are now well and truly digital.

[Martin Davey]

Regarding 'drawing' the optical sound track, it has been done before by an artist/ animator named Norman McLaren. He created many experimental short films for the NFBC in the last century. The film 'Dots' is created by painting directly on the film (35mm) the image AND the sound track. In the film 'Pen Point Percussion', we see a behind the scenes view of the film in progress with McLaren demonstrating how a sound track works and what painted shapes he used with a brush, to create the experimental sound track to accompany the similarly painted images. I have both of these on Super 8 with mag tracks, from Barry Wiles Films.

[Stuart Budd]

Thanks for the replies.

I will give CHC a phone call regarding an optical print availability and get a price. Would be nice to see both the GS1200 and ST1200 run with optical sound.

[Dominique De Bast]

These prints were made for in-flight aircraft

Les grands films classiques, in France, released super 8 optical features for home projectors and I have an American digest that is also an optical sound film. I have no idea how many people had the proper projectors when they were expensive...

[Ed Gordon]

What is optical sound, and can you capture it from my 8mm or 16mm film reels?

Sound on film is rare. Optical sound on film is the rarest of them all — a relic of a bygone era that was niche in its own time....

Optical sound for 8mm and 16mm film was a method of sound for commercial releases of films. It was more popular in Europe than in the USA, and primarily saw usage on airlines up until the 1990s. If you flew on a transatlantic flight in the 1980s, the chances that the inflight movie was Super8 film with optical sound are pretty high.

Film with optical sound was much easier to duplicate than film with magnetic sound, which is was why distributors of commercial films used it. However, the sound quality was generally worse than magnetic sound. It also required specialized equipment to use in the home...

Since optical sound is so rare — optical film in good condition is even more of an anomaly...

https://help.kodakdigitizing.com/hc/...mm-film-reels-

[Ken Finch]

The majority of 16mm commercial prints are optical sound as are the projectors. All the Pathescope 9.5mm films are also optical sound as were their 17.5mm sound films. Sound quality is inferior to magnetic with regard to recordable frequency range. Ken Finch.

[Osi Osgood]

While it is inferior, by the 1980's the quality of the sound had definitely improved for the optical sound print.

[Stuart Budd]

Thanks Melvin. Phil did indeed hunt me one down and it's on it's way to me. Really pleased that I have an opportunity to test/try optical.

[Melvin England]

You are welcome, Stuart. I thought Phil would be able to come up with something for you.

A lot of people bang on about optical sound being inferior to magnetic sound. To be honest, I think you will be pleasantly surprised how good it actually is. I would be very interested to hear your opinion of it once you have tried it. Note the picture quality too! The sharpness, I mean, not the colour as a lot of it will have faded by now.

[Osi Osgood]

It's too bad that optical sound printing didn't continue into the digital audio age. Could you imagine optical sound super 8 with a old school optical sound track on the "balance stripe" area, and a modern digital soundtrack on the main stripe area? Wow! The audio quality should also be measured based upon the optical audio quality of the projector. Some super 8 optical sound projectors gave a much more robust optical sound. Having said that, I must confess, as with these modern soundtracks on these new releases, the audio is very impressive.

[Stuart Budd]

Phil got me a film more for testing so I'm not expecting great quality for comparison with magnetic but think it should be ok. I'll definately give my opinion.

It seems the sound will be affected by quality of light, lens, film, focus and alignment. As I've got quite a dirty optical path I'll do a before and after.

Probably have a go with it over Christmas.

[Ken Finch]

You are dead right Stuart. The optics must be clean and positioned so that the tiny slit of light is at right angles to the film and as fine as possible, as well as picking up the most light from the exciter lamp. With 16mm and 9.5mm, frequency test films were available to assist with the adjustments. I obtained mine from Pathescope, but I have no idea if they were ever available for 8mm. Best of luck, its a very fiddly job if it does require re alignment. A magnifying glass is very helpfull when making the adjustments. Ken Finch.

[Stuart Budd]

"frequency test films"

Yes, trying to adjust something that isn't constant like a film's audio will be challenging. I actually think my ST-1200 is ok and cleaning is the best option.

I'd only attempt on a faulty machine first. One that I can play with without saying "blast, I've gone and done it now!"

I'm hoping the GS1200 is also ok in this regard. Haven't had a chance to test yet.

[Paul Adsett]

The optical sound lens holder on both the Elmo GS and ST machines is about as primitive as it comes - absolutely a horrible design. Instead of a precison adjustable 3 axis mount, we have a flat plate and 3 screws! And just to make things as bad as possible, the 3 screws are not even at right angles (orthogonal) to each other. This means that any adjustment of any of the three screws produces a tilt in more than one axis, so it is impossible to make an adjustment in one axis at a time without messing with all 3 screws. Oh, and by the way, when you loosen any of the screws it also affects horizontal and vertical displacement of the optical lens as well as tilt in 3-axis! This makes optical sound lens adjustment literally a hit and miss proposition.
Clearly optical sound was thrown into these Elmo's as an afterthought and not given the necessary attention for a successful design.