[78-L] Speaking About Really Early Film Sound Technology -- Read This. Whoa!

[Michael Biel]

Making safety copy prints of the films has been discussed.  I'll mention
it again.

I uploaded the videotape of the demonstration of the playback machine
that Leah shot at the Schenectady Museum.  You can hear the entire track
he played, not just excerpts. This is track two of the film recorded
April 26, 1930.  Hearing extended music you can hear the extreme wow
problem.  You can see the capstan which contacts the film only at the
edges, especially when she zooms in.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ6NRtD-oAw

I have several still pictures which I took of details of the machine,
including under the deck, and we'll try to upload them as an addenda to
the video in a few days.  


Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  

-------- Original Message --------
From: Michael Shoshani <mshoshani at sbcglobal.net>

On Mon, 2010-06-21 at 19:42 -0700, Michael Biel wrote:
> Some of you might know about
> the very early tape recorder made by Eicor around 1947 or 48. It used a
> one inch diameter rubber capstan and no pinch roller. The tape wrapped
> around it with a sharp angled tape path. This might solve the problem,
> along with a flywheel. 

Before they do *that*, I respectfully suggest (to the engineers and the
archivist) that they need to take those nitrate negatives to George
Eastman House, or some other film preservation house, have contact dupes
made onto safety stock, work from *those* and put the possibly unstable
and certainly fragile originals into climate-controlled storage. 

If the originals wind up with scratches or breakage or some other
catastrophe, that's it. But if they can even make a negative-positive
pair of contact prints, the quality won't be degraded to where anyone
can tell....and at the very least there will be a backup negative in
case the positive print gets damaged.

MS

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