I worked for 9 years back in the 1970's as a sound engineer in a film laboratory. I spent many hours recording optical sound tracks for 16mm film. As for the nice dark track on the prints; the film processor had a thickened developer that was applied to just the sound track area by a narrow wheel. This allowed the sound track area to retain the silver and make a nice dark track. The same was done for reversal films. It was important to have the track be as sharp as possible. While recording the sound negative, some of the light would scatter into the unexposed area. The same would happen when the negative was printed onto the final print. We would run exposure tests to get this effect to cancel and leave a nice sharp sound image on the print. If it was wrong, noise and intermodulation distortion would result. Another point you many notice is that the slits narrow down during the quiet parts. A DC bias was placed on the galvanometer to keep it as narrow as possible for quiet sections and then open up for the louder parts. This greatly reduced the film grain noise during projection. Great video as usual.

@TechnologyConnections

Жыл бұрын

Amazing, thank you so much for sharing!

@christianterrill3503

Жыл бұрын

Super cool! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

@singerofsongs468

Жыл бұрын

This is so cool! I am studying to become a materials engineer, specifically in semiconductors and chip manufacturing, and I’m fascinated by how much of the process you’re describing translates to modern day photolithography and deposition onto chips. We have to make the same kinds of design choices to make sure that certain features are extra sharp or whatever. Thanks for sharing!

@theogcritic

Жыл бұрын

@@TechnologyConnections It was possible for the sound developer to leak into the picture area, so there was a little squeegee in the film processor to keep the two separated. If the squeegee was misaligned or wore out, it would contaminate the picture area, making the edge of picture way too contrasty and ruining the print.

@OVMEBReed

Жыл бұрын

@@theogcritic No squeegee. The developer was thickened with a chemical called Gantrez. The wheel was a fraction of an inch from the film surface and a bead of developer would just bridge the gap in a nice even flow onto just the sound track area. Actually, it was a pain to maintain. Temperature or humidity could affect it and if the processor, which ran the film at a continuous rate through the chemical baths, stopped or changed speed, the developer would run into the picture area and create a big black smear. Of course, that print would be ruined.

I feel Alec is going to slam a full IMAX projection system onto that table next month.

@jbs256

Жыл бұрын

I want to see that too! On his desk made me ROTFLMAO. The poor desk, probably will need a crane and open the roof and hoist it in…

@SplicesAndCelluloid

Жыл бұрын

@@jbs256 there wouldn't be a desk anymore. Even the small ones would take up the whole thing :P

@jbs256

Жыл бұрын

@@SplicesAndCelluloid I know, hence the crane and cutting off Alec’s roof. Though just dropping it in the same location would effectively guide its way to his basement studio . I assume the Acme Crane Co. would be hired. LOL

@supersat

Жыл бұрын

"... and through the magic of buying TWO of them..."

@MrHack4never

Жыл бұрын

@@supersat My first thought was about 3D movies My second thought was about the hell that it would be to synchronise both frames, and keeping them synchronised

As someone that almost always watches with closed captions on, I appreciate all the extra work that goes into adding those in. I especially liked the captions during rewind

@fwiffo

Жыл бұрын

I had to scroll to find someone else who noticed them.

@HoopleBogart

10 ай бұрын

there are dozens of us!

@wyattmanhabel644

10 ай бұрын

Same

@simpli_A

8 ай бұрын

Some of those jokes made me laugh more than the video itself [those trademark projector noises] was probably my favorite

@simpli_A

8 ай бұрын

Nevermind i hadn’t gotten to the rewind part yet… that definitely takes the cake

20:53 "Code unto others as you would have others code unto you." Programming parable soundly stood the test of time. :)

De-synchronizing your voice while pointing out the de-synchronization issues of old phonographs in conjunction with projectors, was a very nice touch.

@russellgeisthardt9828

Жыл бұрын

Also adding in the cue dots to the same section

@bozimmerman

Жыл бұрын

Not thinking, I immediately reached for my mouse to stop the video and resume it. De-synced audio happens when watching my plex server sometimes, and that's how you fix it.

@chachhi2011

Жыл бұрын

yes i noticed it as well

@ChanningKing

Жыл бұрын

I was already thinking about how I needed to clear out the app cache and restart my Fire TV stick, before I realized what was going on.

@ConfuSomu

Жыл бұрын

@@bozimmerman you sure that your plex server isn't film reel based? :P

When I saw _Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan_ in a movie theater in 1982, the projectionist missed one of the reel changes, and the movie ended (and the lights came up automatically) RIGHT in the middle of the heart-rending Spock-is-dying scene. Nothing kills the mood faster. Among the groans heard in the audience, someone called out, "Well, that's it. They ran out of money." (Referring to the film's producers.)

@Pauldjreadman

Жыл бұрын

Ran out of money lol

@perrybrown4985

Жыл бұрын

Very occasionally, the reels would get mixed up too - that can sure make for a confusing plot...

@TheRightNut

Жыл бұрын

This happened to me during Power Rangers the Movie (I assure you it was to make fun of it) when Ivan ooze breaks into Zordon's chamber at the start. Kinda good timing tbh since it was like Ivan broke the film.

@SaiMorphX

Жыл бұрын

odd that the lights would come on automatically, it's possible, I only worked with reel to reel a few times taking over another theater for someone, I can't remember what would happen if we missed switching projectors. they are all set up different! with a platter system that I'm used to it was a little strip of metallic tape on the last reel, that tripped a sensor to turn the lights on.

@BierBart12

Жыл бұрын

That's a joke my dad has made many times since then lmao

My pleasure!

@kennyramos20

Жыл бұрын

Great... now we need a colab between you two!

@TheRenegade...

10 ай бұрын

@@kennyramos20 Co-lab. Not to be confused with collab. Unlike the shortened term for collaboration, what we need is them to do a lab together.

@FluffyBlueCow

10 ай бұрын

But I didn't hear laminar flow anywhere in the video. I thought that was how Destin is summoned (kind of Captain Planet style) :)

@jaysunbrady

6 ай бұрын

@@FluffyBlueCowWhen he mentioned he knew how film was made @26:16 (roughly) he thanked Destin, as Destin made a series of videos on how film is made. It seems Destin must watch this channel too.

Three stories: In the late 1960s, I managed the AV department in my high school. I also ran Bell and Howell projectors, all though newer than yours. After a while, I got to where I could change reels and get the next reel going in under 15 seconds. If I could get two projectors, the audience could hardly tell when I switched, except for the fact I was standing in the middle of the classroom. During the same period, my Father was a photographer for the Smithsonian Institution. One project he was involved in was to try to reproduce photographically some of Alexander Bell's original optical sound disk experiments. They were trying to retrieve the sound without doing any damage to the originals. I don't think that method worked, otherwise I think dad would have been more exited about it. My dad was also into 8mm movies. He eventually obtained equipment to place the magnetic stripe along the edge between the sprocket holes and the edge of the film. There was a problem though. This made that side of the film thicker and caused the picture to be out of focus across the screen. Then someone came out with a device which would carve a groove under where the stripe would sit to flatten out the film. The device was basally just a slot with a tiny chisel which scraped the grove. The trademark name was "Cut-A-Rut" made by R.& D. Carnall & Company.

I love it when you are explaining the process of audio video syncing, the section is intentionally off-sync.

@SRQmoviemaker

Жыл бұрын

It's the little things like this that make this channel one of my favorites.

@jeffmcdonald730

Жыл бұрын

There are a few reel change warnings interspersed as well for our enjoyment.

@Iamdebug

Жыл бұрын

Indeed, perfectly well exampled with the additional side effect of making me think my computer hit a sudden load and the GPUs were busy again...

@RockyPeroxide

Жыл бұрын

I was pretty high while watching, and I had to rewind a couple of times to catch all the info.

@Astrorenity

Жыл бұрын

@@RockyPeroxide I am glad I'm not alone on this one 😂😂 high as pie so got confused easily 🤣

The another advantage of DTS's off-film approach that you didn't mention is an ability to switch soundtrack language without changing the film, which made it very useful in countries where movies could be released in different language versions.

@poochyenarulez

Жыл бұрын

I knew there were more advantages to that but couldn't think what off the top of my head. Thats a fantastic advantage.

@syrus3k

Жыл бұрын

Indeed, DTS was really the best option though it was probably more expensive.

@frejbow

Жыл бұрын

Thus in countries where dubbing is the norm, showing a movie once in original language became feasible for theaters as they no longer needed to ship the entire film (which was expansive). Though there was always confusion when the title wasn't original.

@deeiks12

Жыл бұрын

Yes and it gave studios more time to work on the sound since prints could be made and distributed without the audio being ready. Analog fallback was used for bigger productions but at least these couple of local features i managed to work on before we went all digital had only DTS audio.

@mattgeek49

Жыл бұрын

Also cartoons could have different language versions easily made maybe even unofficial translations could be made later in the movies life. Somewhat like people are transcribing movies and making subtitle files nowadays but with actual sound

I went into this video thinking it "wasn't for me", but the 40 minutes flew by and I found it all genuinely fascinating. Part of my job over two decades ago was splicing damaged film in a museum on these little displays. Everything in this video answered so many questions that I didn't know that I wanted answering! Thank you T-shirt-Tweed-jacket-guy! New sub!

@grn1

11 ай бұрын

I didn't even realize it was 40 minutes. The only videos Alec's produced/produces that I don't care for are the sights and sounds ones he does on Connextras (some folks love them). Other than those everything he produces has been great so I don't even look at the time stamp unless I'm getting ready for bed.

28:49 - There's an episode of Columbo called "Make Me a Perfect Murder" in which you get to see this reel change technique done. Also, I have to say, it's crazy to me that people were able to figure out how to make this stuff work as well as it did so long ago. Not just the reel change technique. Everything. Every part of this just seems amazing.

@TheBrain2K

Жыл бұрын

I think that Columbo episode might actually have been where I first learned about cue marks too. And once you have learned about cue marks, you'll ALWAYS notice them. You can't un-see them anymore. From that point on, I could tell 8 seconds in advance when the break will start in the movie theater (in the middle of the movie, at the end of a reel) or sometimes even on TV for the one channel that only put in a single advertising break (and timed it the same as they would in a cinema). That was like 15-20 years ago when I still watched regular TV sometimes. But even after all those years of watching mostly digital content with no cue marks, I noticed the first cue marks in this video straight away (the ones at 10:28, way before he starts talking about changing reels). I started laughing and had to explain to my son (who has never heard of cue marks) what I found so funny. 😄

@bb5242

Жыл бұрын

The film "Fight Club" had some, ahem, interesting film lore presented in it as well.

@davidweston9115

10 ай бұрын

In many ways I find the analogue world to be more high tech than digital. Compare the CRT tv screen for example. The old tech CRT had an electron gun shooting electrons at you, drawing 500 lines of picture 60 times per second, using quickly changing magnetism to bend the trajectory of the shooting electrons, vs. the new led screens which are merely glorified Las Vegas type outdoor lighted signs, with a bunch of coloured lights already in place and a circuit to decide when to illuminate each one. Also consider in 1950 TV was wireless and free, broadcast from miles away, but now we need a cable to get it to the tv, and must pay for it. Much lower technology in modern times.

@alveolate

9 ай бұрын

@@davidweston9115 i sorta get what you're saying... but the point of the "lower tech" (i would say less fanciful tech) is purely practical: far far higher bandwidth and way better fidelity. i'm not a tech expert by any stretch, just know that CRTs hit the maximum limit in picture quality very early, since those units produced MUCH more heat, consumed a lot more power, and couldn't ever do 4K resolution without crazy massive mechanisms that would probably present real dangers to users. by the same token, radio waves (probably) can't carry the 10mbps or so required for HD and up, while maintaining data fidelity on radio waves... something about data correction and stuff already hitting physical limits with cell phone carriers or something? this one's really super complicated and specialist, there was a veritasium video on how it works and i don't think i remember all the details xD altho cell phones are "many-to-many" whereas broadcast tv is "one-to-many" so i'm probably wrong on this one. we probably still could do wireless 4K somehow.

@Muswell

8 ай бұрын

I used to use the wondeful Elf projectors back in the 1970s. SO easy to thread - never had any problem during the 5 years I was using them 3 evenings a week. I got the reel-changes down to a few seconds.

Deeply appreciate the de-sync and drift moments in the said explanation moments! Always wonderful!

@mincos_outon

Жыл бұрын

about 9:50 for anyone who didn´t noticed this detail

@ddanielsandberg

Жыл бұрын

I had an OCD meltdown and had to open another box of chocolates for comfort. 😁

@matsv201

Жыл бұрын

I got a flashback to early computer video that often had this problem

@loganricherson3749

Жыл бұрын

Thought I was going crazy lol. Thanks for letting me know I'm not

@UrbanPanic

Жыл бұрын

When Alec was about to do the de-sync part I was all "Yeah. I know the trick he's about to pull, and will be disappointed if he doesn't, cause it would be so on brand." But then once the drift part came up less than a minute later, I was like "Did he mess up the... oh. wait. Got me." Well played.

This is one of my areas of expertise so I'll try not to go completely into shop-talk mode. SDDS could do 8 channels, yes, but it often carried the same 5.1 mix as Dolby Digital and DTS. The extra two channels were between the Left, Center, and Right channels behind the screen, so backwards compatibility was a no-brainer. AMC made a huge SDDS buy and installed SDDS in ALL of their screens in the US, or at least they were supposed to. They certainly had a ton but I don't think it ever reached 100% of AMC screens. SDDS is indeed the least preferred format though. That's because instead of dropping back out to analog stereo when it failed, it would often drop do a crappier low-bit rate digital mode with fewer channels. It sounded awful, way worse than even Dolby A-Type. Only when that failed would it drop to ANALog sound. I wish I knew you were working on this as I could've sent you some DTS discs. BTW DTS was really only a 5 channel system as it doesn't have the ".1". Instead it took the subwoofer information from the surrounds, which made the surrounds not-full range. There's so much more nonsense I could blab about but I'm stopping now before they use my text as a new border wall or something. PS - They got rid of silver soundtracks and opted for cyan dye soundtracks. You can see one on the platter picture you showed with the film coming out of the center. Yeah that was a whole thing which was a fun conversion in the industry.

@Aquatarkus96

Жыл бұрын

I'm an audio engineer and I have a few questions. 1. You say DTS is not "full range" in the surrounds, and the LFE is a summed and filtered mix of the surrounds. How is that exactly done? Is that the case for theatres as well as DTS on consumer media? I have the catalogue of the band Genesis remixed in 5.1 DTS 24/96. When ripping the discs for my own archival purposes, I do notice that there is in fact 6 channels of audio on the disc. Is this a lie and the decoder is making a LFE channel up on the spot? Or is the process of taking the surround channels and creating the LFE done in the mix/master portion? If it is always just a sum of the surrounds, I would be interested to see how those Genesis albums were mixed, because the LFE does not sound like a simple filtered mix of the surrounds, and the surrounds do sound like they're full range when playing the music back. I do know that the short lived DTS:EX used a matrixed center rear surround in a "6.1" kind of system in the years before true 7.1 channel releases, but the only movie I can think of that used that was LOTR. 2. I often hear claims that DTS soundtracks are mastered slightly louder on commercial DVD releases compared to DD. Is there any truth to this?

@jussikuusela7345

Жыл бұрын

Expensive modification which some cinemas couldn't afford... a few years only before most went digital. OTOH those cinemas might not have been able to afford digital either.

@davidfaraday7963

Жыл бұрын

@@Aquatarkus96 The DTS system found on consumer media is entirely different from that used to provide digital audio in the cinema. Yes its the same company, but otherwise no connection.

@davidfaraday7963

Жыл бұрын

Or as someone said in the early 2000s: "SDDS means "still doesn't do shit"

@TopSpot123

Жыл бұрын

I scrolled down just to see if you'd show up. You did and I learned something new.

I was a projectionist in 97-98 at a 10 theater house. One of the things not really detailed was how film was transported. Movies came on reels in canisters and a 2 hour movie used about 4-5 reels. They had to be spliced together and fed to the platter system and then broken back down after the film release had run its course. I was hoping to see some footage of how the multiple reels had to be daisy chained together as well as the trailers. One benefit of putting together was being able to do a “run down” on Thursday nights after hours before a typical Friday release. We had to make sure that there were no mistakes during the splicing to insure that a reel wasn’t offset by miscounting the sprocket holes during a splice. All in all this was very informative and it brought back some good memories. I really enjoy your channel and the topics you choose. All of the research you put into your topics, shows in the final product. Kudos.

80s kids like me who watched plenty of these in elementary school will have waves of nostalgia from this video! What amazes me is how clean and crisp the sound is from the film.

@floyddwayneviernum3816

Жыл бұрын

I was in elementary school during the early 1960's. We watched a lot of those educational movies on 16mm.

@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece

Жыл бұрын

My school still used them in the early 2000s for some old films. Seeing those in that time seemed extremely surreal.

@grn1

11 ай бұрын

90's kid here, don't think I watched any of these in school but did recognize a few things from documentaries I've watched as an adult including a documentary on one of the inventors of sound on film.

@shapesinaframe

4 ай бұрын

I first saw Wizard of Oz on one of these in primary school in the mid 80s (I think it was the last day of the year and the teachers had not much to do) I was completely blown away when it went from black & white to colour when Dorothy opened the door to Oz 😮

@ShazeemKhan

2 ай бұрын

Lucky guys, we weren't allowed tv / film in our schools😢

I love that you edited in all the little analogue cues into the video. Very well done.

@harriehausenman8623

Жыл бұрын

It alsmost seems like some 'effort' went into this *looking at the calendar* No, not November anymore 😄😉

@richjamjam

Жыл бұрын

And the out of sync sound! He's awesome isn't he.

@darksu6947

Жыл бұрын

@@richjamjam The out of sync sound really bothers me. It makes my brain feel like it has a short circuit 😆

@doubledarefan

Жыл бұрын

@@darksu6947 No disassemble Johnny 5!

@thanksfernuthin

Жыл бұрын

Did anyone else notice he put the black blob in the upper right hand corner of his video several minutes before he showed that was the way it let the projectionist know to switch reels?

Alec's Christmas present to me is the knowledge of where the word "footage" comes from

@nayhem

Жыл бұрын

And "soundtrack", though implied.

@uzetaab

Жыл бұрын

and don't forget "flicks"

@gameworkerty

Жыл бұрын

I've seen footage

@Gzalo

Жыл бұрын

Fun fact, in Spanish, French and other languages from countries that use the metric system, it's called "metraje", "métrage". Like "footage" but with meters instead :P

@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721

Жыл бұрын

Can't wait to use that fact.

I don't know how you manage to make super engaging videos like this. My guess is by default many people would find that 3 minute film demonstration at 18:00 boring, but I was so goddamn happy you showed that material

31:41 "And you probably recognize our old friend dual-bilateral variable-area! Later renamed _Shrek_ ..."

Great video! A few things that might be of interest: - Magnetic sound on film was more of a feature of cinema sound than you might have realised. When CinemaScope premiered in 1953, the wide image was only half of the selling point - the other was the 4 channel high fidelity soundtrack, which was achieved by putting 4 magnetic strips on the edges of the film. This 4 channel layout (Left, Centre, Right, Surround) is what Dolby would emulate when they came up with their Dolby A encoding system utilising the optical soundtrack. (btw Stereo sound for cinema has always meant at least 4 channels, not 2 as is the case in the home). The original Cinemascope was also a wider ratio (2.55:1) than what became the 'Scope standard (1.35:1) because it originally widened the image into the previous optical soundtrack area. This "Mag-strip" was also utilised for the 70mm format, with 6 channels recorded onto the edges of the film. 70mm never had an optical soundtrack. Even once filming natively for 70mm became a rarity, big films were still often optically 'blown up' onto 70mm release prints pretty much purely to take advantage of the better soundtrack. 5.1 in the layout we know it today was already in cinemas since 1979 thanks to 6-track mag strip 70mm when Apocalypse Now premiered. Also, it sounds awesome. - When doing traditional double-projector presentation, projectionists would often put some splicing tape on the edge of the film in the lead up to a reel change - the clacking sound the tape would make as it passed through the rollers / gate would serve as an audible warning that the reel was soon to end. - SDDS utilised ATRAC encoding - the same compression format Sony had invented for the MiniDisc! Also, whilst it was 8 channels in its premiere format (which added two more channels behind the screen - the same as the original Todd AO 70mm Format), SDDS also had a standard 5.1 mode. For many years prints with all 3 soundtrack formats like the trailer you have were very common. What was less common was studios opting to upmix to the full 8 channel format. The advantage of having those extra 2 screen channels is again being utilised by Dolby Atmos. - DTS didn't ever utilise higher capacity DVD Roms. However part of the original design of the system had allowed the timecode to also be used to trigger in-theatre effects. And from memory there was also provisions in the DTS bitstream itself to accomodate triggering other than the soundtrack. For this reason, DTS did get some limited use in special venue scenarios. It was also the only one of the 3 digital sound formats that had a 70mm version. Which was easy because the SMPTE timecode was just added to a 70mm print.

@silentracer911

Жыл бұрын

I love how he always sticks in a little tidbit about Disney lately

@davidfaraday7963

Жыл бұрын

The initial release of the Ken Russel film of "Tommy", the rock opera from The Who, used a system called "Quintaphonic" created by sound engineer John Mosely. This used a combination of a Sansui QS matrix quadraphonic system (for left and right front plus left and right back) with a discrete centre channel. The resulting three channels of audio (Lt and Rt from the QS encoder plus the centre channel) were recorded on three of the four tracks on a stripped 35 mm print. DBX noise reduction was used on these three channels. This created what in modern terminology would be called a 5.0 system. "Tommy" was released in early 1975, a few months before the first Dolby Stereo release, which was of another Ken Russel film "Lisztomania". Curiously the original Dolby Stereo cinema processor, the CP100, was designed to facilitate its use for Quintaphonic playback. By swapping the three Dolby Cat-22 A-type noise reduction modules for the mechanically and electrically interchangeable DBX K9-22 module (yes it really was called that!) and connecting a QS decoder to terminals provided on the CP100. After "Tommy" the Quintaphonic system was never used again, it joined Disney's "Fantasound" system (used for the initial release of "Fantasia") as a "one-film wonder".

@matthewbestdfghy

Жыл бұрын

I ran a Norelco DP70 for Wehrenberg theaters in Missouri it was probably the best film projector ever made.

@sguttag

Жыл бұрын

Near miss @CinemaSynesthesia. 70mm did have an optical (variable density) format with Fox's Grandeur. It was also 4-perfs/side per frame. Stereo for cinema always meant at least 3-channels, not 4. The surround channel started out as an "effects" channel and some titles omitted them and some 35mm magnetic prints omitted the surround stripe. Later DTS units (XD10 and XD20 could do higher channel counts). You can also have multiple DTS players track off of one reader to expand channel count. And, while they never did change their disc types, the later units could ingest via USB (that fancy new thing) and later software versions of the later units could also exchange content via network.

@davidfaraday7963

Жыл бұрын

@@sguttag Fox Grandeur was an entirely different format from modern 70 mm film. The perforation pitch was greater than the 64 to the foot of 35 mm which is also used by modern 70 mm film. Modern 70 mm film is actually based on another failed wide-screen format from around 1930, Paramount's 65 mm format. When Todd AO were starting work on developing their "Cinerama through one hole" format they acquired the cameras which had been built for this system, which is why negative film for 70 mm is actually 65 mm. Print film had an additional 2.5 mm added each side to make room for the magnetic stripes (two tracks are recorded between the perforations and the edge of the film on each side, one between the perforations and the image on each side). Early Cinemascope films with an "effects" track used a 12 kHz tone recorded on that track together with the audio. The absence of that tone muted the relevant amplifier so that audiences wouldn't be disturbed by hiss when there was no "effects" recorded. Early Dolby Stereo films also didn't have a surround channel.

Letting your audio get slowly out of sync was genious

@SimuLord

Жыл бұрын

Reminded me of the KZread Stone Age in the late aughts.

@rogermwilcox

Жыл бұрын

Then it slowly got back IN sync at the end of the segment!

@rogermwilcox

Жыл бұрын

@@SimuLord : The very first video I uploaded to KZread was in .wma (Windows Movie) format. The audio was perfectly in sync when I watched it in Windows Media Player. When I uploaded it to KZread (which interntally converted it to MP4 format, I think), the sound drifted horribly out of sync. It was this experience which convinced me to switch from Windows Movie Maker to Adobe Premiere Elements 8.

@bobroberts2371

Жыл бұрын

There was a Saturday Night Live skit where the presenter spoke like a fluttering " B&H Filmosound 3000 projector" complete with the flapping sound when the film reel ran out. I tried to find it but came up empty. It was in the 80's 90's time frame.

@RayleighCriterion

Жыл бұрын

You were having a stroke, the audio was perfectly fine.

Hi Alec, this episode brought back many memories from the 1960's when I was that geek kid that was always tasked with running any projector in elementary school. That Bell & Howell Filmosound 500 series 16mm model was very easy to set up and thread (believe it or not) compared with the 170 and 180 series 16mm prior generation Bell & Howell projectors. The 500 series had a larger lense, which enabled the protection bulb to be have the wattage and still maintain the same image brightness. Those bulbs had a lifetime of 20 hours and needed to have the cooling fan run for another few minutes after projecting to cool and maximize bulb life. I never had a sound drum lamp go out. I suspect these bulbs were powered from a filtered dc voltage source to prevent ac hum from being transmitted to the light sensor, as it would detect the minor cooling and warming of the filament due to 60 cycles ac power. The 35mm projectors used in the movie theaters during the 1960's had a carbon arc light source. The projectionist would set up the arc prior to running the movie on both projectors. A mechanical electrode feed system was used to keep the arc mostly optimized, which needed touch up while the film was rolling ever so often. The electrodes only lasted about 22 minutes before they were consumed, which is why the film reels contained 20 minutes of film, at which point the second projector was switched on. This gave the projectionist time to set up the other projector for the next reel, including arc electrode changout and alignment.

Now this is something I haven't come across KZread in many years! Very informative, grabbing and entertaining! Good old fashioned keeping people glued to the screen type of production! Well done sir, I thoroughly enjoyed this, my late Stepdad worked in a drive-in cinema when we was young and he used to tell me about those cue dots in old films, and how he had to get good at the art of switch over, or the horns at the drive-in would be honking mad as the patrons got upset! hehe!

This made me nostalgic, I was in AV club in HS in the early 70s. We had a full auditorium with a projection booth, in it was a 16mm RCA Porto-Arc projector from the 50s. It was hand thread with a separate lamp house containing an arc lamp. A transformer that looked like an arc welder lived on the floor underneath the projection stand which powered the lamp. The projectionist had to learn to manually strike an arc to get it started. A clock mechanism fed the carbon rods together at the rate they burned away and a prism in the side of the lamp house projected an image of the arc onto a glass scale so that the projectionist could monitor the proper gap between the rods to ensure that the adjustable clock speed stayed correct. If the clock speed was too slow the gap got wide and the picture went dim and turned yellow. If the speed was too fast the gap narrowed causing the picture to dim and turn blue. Properly adjusted the projector produced a really beautiful and very bright picture. Each year our club would rent a feature film and charge admission to a “movie night” as a fundraiser. 16mm features came on two huge reels, we couldn’t show a feature without a break because we had one projector. Instead we watched for the cue marks and switched to a slide projector that contained an “intermission” slide. The tail out of these films was black so that the projectionist didn’t have to close the window on the film projector, the slide projected right over the blackout giving enough time to kill the arc. We also had a hand cranked rewinder that was much faster than the projector rewind. I absolutely loved being a projectionist and got really good at it. That quirky sound of a 16mm optic soundtrack always brings back memories.

@joekelly7505

Жыл бұрын

I got to operate 35mm Peerless Magnarc lamp houses in college. They would drift, too, so I'd have to adjust them every couple of minutes.

@IstasPumaNevada

Жыл бұрын

Wow, that arc lamp management sounds wild! And very neat.

@DreitTheDarkDragon

Жыл бұрын

@@IstasPumaNevada It sounds really crazy, especially considering that František Křižík had automatic regulator for arc lamps patented already in 1880.

@djmips

Жыл бұрын

That sounds like a very simple setup to our town drive-in during that same time period. Carbon and lamp and intermission music and slides suggesting you but something from the concession stand.

@tadonplane8265

Жыл бұрын

@@DreitTheDarkDragon you inspired me to look up Křižík. He was quite the inventor and engineer but I’m having trouble finding out how his automatic arc lamp worked. Once the clock was properly adjusted on our projector it held very well. A set of new carbon rods would just cover the biggest reel of film. So a two reel feature consumed two sets of new rods. But we also projected many shorts for particular assemblies during school so we had leftover partially used rods. It took some judgement to know if a short rod could last through a short film. It was no fun having the lamp go out in the middle of a film.

The whole synchronization bit is gold. EDIT: Holy crap. I never realized that's how Dolby digital started out. Like in my head I was like that's late enough for a digital file right? I guess it was just spread across the sprocket of the tape...

@ZaphodHarkonnen

Жыл бұрын

Yup, it’s in between the sprocket holes. The way they squeezed in multiple audio formats into ever smaller bits left in the film is truly stunning. The engineers must have been so happy when things went digital for projection.

@Milnoc

Жыл бұрын

What's also fascinating is how Dolby incorporated DD/AC-3 soundtracks onto Laserdiscs. By the time the AC-3 technology was introduced, most Laserdiscs had the newer stereo CD style PCM track on top of the two legacy analog tracks, and newer Laserdisc players fully supported decoding the superior PCM tracks. With the analog tracks becoming somewhat obsolete, they were repurposed for extra features such as commentary tracks. You could even have two commentary tracks on a disc because the player allowed you to select which analog channel you wanted to play back instead of playing both at the same time. That's when someone at Dolby had the brilliant idea to store an RF modulated 384(?) kbps Dolby Digital signal onto the analog track. Some higher-end Laserdisc players came with a separate audio output for the AC-3 RF analog track which would be fed into a separate RF demodulator, converting the RF track into a proper digital signal that could then be fed into a home 5.1 channel receiver. I used to have such a Dolby 5.1 Laserdisc set-up and it sounded fantastic! But with the introduction of lower cost DVDs and their ability to natively support multiple digital tracks, Laserdiscs quickly became obsolete. And once Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were introduced, it was already game over for Laserdiscs. Still, Laserdiscs paved the way for the home sound formats and features we have today, and I'll always be grateful to have owned them at one time. My old gear and remaining Laserdisc collection will soon be put up for sale on Kijiji.

My first technical job out of school was in a university library's AV unit, and I remember being shown, and being fascinated by the audio banding tracks - I never really thought much about it again until now, thanks so much for the explanation!

This was an amazing amount of great explanation. I never fully understood how sound was encoded on film in days of old. In the 1960’s it happened occasionally that a movie would stop in the middle for anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or so, and now it’s clear what the projectionist was frantically doing.

I haven’t worked as a projectionist since 1984, but when that cue mark popped up, the countdown timer started in my head and I switched to the next projector with my hands just as you had that cut. You freaked me out! Thanks!

I was a projectionist back in the early 90's and I remember when we got the Dolby Digital and DTS systems retrofitted to our projectors. We never got the Sony system though. The systems would instantly fail-over to the analog track if the digital signal experienced temporary corruption and switch back as soon as it got a good digital signal again. And yes, you could totally hear the difference when that happened but at least the audio didn't completely drop out if too much dust got on a section of digital squares. Also, try pointing an infrared remote at the light sensor behind the sound drum and press one of the buttons. You'll get a nice burst of digital noise pulses!

@cmsch180

Жыл бұрын

We had all 3 at the theater I was a projectionist at. The SDDS system was really unreliable, since the soundtracks were right on the edges where the rollers contact the film. any amount of dust and it'd lose sync. Dolby and DTS were WAY more reliable

@MrStimpanzee

Жыл бұрын

Man, I totally remember that happening during movies in the 90s and 2000s. Neat to know why!

@mromutt

Жыл бұрын

@@MrStimpanzee I was thinking the same thing haha, now we know what was happening XD

@subwaygaragemusic

Жыл бұрын

There's a reason Paramount calls SDDS "Still Doesn't Do Sh*t"

@plonk420

Жыл бұрын

2000s projectionist here. SDDS seemed to mainly just be AMC. i was at Carmike. tho long after i left, i guess AMC bought Carmike. and i got a notice that my identity got stolen from Carmike records 🤣

OK. I like most of your stuff. But this one brought back so many memories. In the 6th grade (I'm 81 years old btw), I was our classroom's official projector operator, and at one point, later on, used that very projector model on Thursdays when we always had some sort of "thrilling" teaching film. I dreamed of working in a movie theater, but, alas, lacked the gumption to apply for a job there. I eventually had one of my own, and loved it! Then I bought an automatic threader...which ruined my fun. Anyway, thanks for the throw-back. *****

This brings back memories. In junior high school in the early 80's I chose A/V as an elective. There were about 2-3 of us per period. We were the kids that went around the school to roll the projectors around to the classrooms and rewind and re-load the film on the projectors in the classroom. The teachers could start it, but not thread it. We could also wander around during the period just checking on the projectors and making sure the audio was synced (that issue with the loops too big would happen sometimes). After a few weeks we could thread a projector pretty quickly. They also taught us how to splice the film if it broke, replace bulbs, etc. But I don't think we ever saw the inside of one with all the belts and mechanics. I was always curious how the audio worked. I knew there was a light there and that was audio related, but I did actually think it was somehow magnetic. Fascinating stuff!

Another fact that is often overlooked in the states with DTS is that having the audio on a separate medium makes DUBs so much easier as you only need to swap the audiodisc so switch to another language. I think around this time cinamas started to tver alot more variations here in germany, making runs with original language, than one with dub and sometimes even a third language when there was a large group of potential customers of that language near a specific cinema.Noone would have dealt with that chaos in the older days.

To be honest I didn't see how it was even possible to encode audio on film like that, but some quick googling says that 16mm film stock has an optical resolution 50-80 lines per millimeter. Using the high end of that and assuming a 7 inch / sec film speed we get an audio rate of 14KhZ in more modern parlance. It's not great but it's plenty good enough. I'm still amazed it works at all, hats off to long-dead engineers for being smarter than I am. 37:35 I love how you actually put backwards captions and not just [reversed sound] or something xD

@petrmaly9087

Жыл бұрын

Depends on what film. Foma 100 has over 100 lines per mm, that's a cheap film (still in production as true B&W reverse film), it wouldn't be a problem to find something of much better resolution.

Respect! You have an extraordinary skill of breaking down complicated technology into easily digestable pieces. I have watched only a few videos so far and I never had to rewind or pause in order to understand what was just said. Even more, you are covering seemingly every possible angle and in the end I feel like nothing was left unanswered. Some teachers could learn from you!

@alexbootthanoo

Жыл бұрын

Agreed!

I worked as a projectionist for Aye Emme Cee around '08 and ironically the 35mm prints (the last around that time before everyone switched to digital) had a form of this. The film would move through a platter and the "brain" would read the side of the film and decode it and then produce the sound. Best job I ever had.

@johntomik4632

5 ай бұрын

Those brain wraps were brutal.

@JohnDoe-cd6ro

5 ай бұрын

@@johntomik4632 Ah dude you ain't lyin'. The location I was at was one of the biggest in the NYC area and like one day during my first week running the booth, I remember I had like 3 or 4 at the same time. I was running around like a chicken with its head cutoff, running from platter to platter trying to splice film WHILE the projector was running. I was freaking out. I managed to splice them and had 2 or 3 late starts but no one was the wiser. I had threaded them wrong because I missed one little step. I learned from it and it never happened again but boy was the pressure and anxiety on.

@johntomik4632

5 ай бұрын

@@JohnDoe-cd6ro I had a few break too lol! I also remember watching Apollo 13 and Braveheart about 50 times:)

@JohnDoe-cd6ro

5 ай бұрын

@@johntomik4632 That's always the best part. Being able to watch movies and sometimes (at least at my location) being able to have viewing parties with close family and friends of films a few days before official release. Like as soon as we got the reels, we'd build them and screen the movies. That could be like a week before release. 3 hr movies sucked bc of the amount of film and threading you'd have to do. Sometimes even threading the same print through multiple projectors simultaneously. But my favorite is we had separate smaller digital projectors that were strictly for ads, etc. and we'd hook up our consoles after hours and play multiplayers on the huge screens. Needless to say, my projection booth manager was awesome.

I was the last trained projectionist at my theater in 2009. I remember we had Dolby and DTS on all our Christie projectors. Some reels came to us with discs and some did not. We used whatever sound the distributor gave us

One of the other benefits of DTS was that you could produce a foreign language version of the film without having to change the film print. Just supply DTS CDs in the appropriate languages that the cinemas could use. Love your work!

@PanthereaLeonis

Жыл бұрын

Oh, that is genious! The DTS after all is just "we're this, and we're here", so that would indeed be easy! Cool!

@PouLS

Жыл бұрын

The word you're looking for is "translation".

@b6983832

10 ай бұрын

Dubbing is popular in some counties, such as Germany, but many other counties use mainly the original soundtracks with subtitles. Lip sync is never perfect when the dialogs are dubbed to an another language.

"Don't be Blu, Sony" immediately became my favorite of your clever drop-ins. Love it.

Not trying to get all sappy, but thanks for making these videos. You, electroBOOM, and Project Farm have completely changed the way I see and use technology. I've been making frankenstein electronics (lights, stereos, heaters, etc) and small engine equipment (lawnmowers, chainsaw, generator, etc) out of junk that was headed to the landfill. Most of it looks like it was assembled by a tweaker, but it's fun puzzling them together, and most of the stuff actually works well. It's a hobby, it saves money, and I'm reducing my waste. So, again, thanks.

I was in a Microsoft meeting where they were struggling with the overhead Barco... no luck getting it running. The irony is that the company is largely staffed by people who ran the projector in school when they were young... like me!

@TechieZeddie

Жыл бұрын

Hey, it's Dave! 👋 Love your channel, too!

@capitalinventor4823

Жыл бұрын

You were in a meeting with software people and the problem was with hardware. :) I was a contractor at a large firm that is no longer around and I was part of a group that looked after the software configuration management (SCM) application, custom scripts, and repositories. Not my main work of software development but I don't mind doing other jobs. One day I had to see someone to install the SCM application and the company's custom scripts onto their computer. I got to their desk near the start of the day and the computer was still turned off because the recently graduated software engineer didn't know how to turn on their computer. I had to show them how to turn on their computer. Two reasons that assisted into the company's demise were that all the jobs were strictly segmented and managers were able to increase their level (get a promotion) by having more people under their charge. When I went to install the set up the persons computer I found out it had not even been set up properly to be used on the network so I needed the person to call the network group to do that and then call the system administrators to install the base SCM application as my group were not allowed administrator rights. Two days were wasted for them until I could go back and install the software. As for the other issue, I stated that the more people a manager looked after the higher in level a manager was. Basically a manager could give themselves a promotion by taking over another group from within the company or hiring more people to fill in their own group(s) whether the people were needed, a good fit, or even good. That's how I ended up meeting a software engineer that could not start a desktop computer. They were from another country and had been used to going to the labs in university where the computers were always on.

@minecraftchest1

Жыл бұрын

Hey Dave!

@Kandralla

Жыл бұрын

If you are in the very thin band of people who were in school when VHS was replacing Film for showing educational stuff an interesting observation you probably can make now is how some 60 year old was able to accurately thread and troubleshoot multiple projectors.... but popping a VHS tape in, putting the TV on channel three and pushing play had about a 30% success rate.

@startedtech

Жыл бұрын

...how old of a barco? One of the 150lb CRT projectors?

Those subtitles during the backwards bit were divine

@TwoWholeWorms

Жыл бұрын

That was worth rewinding for. xD

@Fulano5321

Жыл бұрын

37:27 for those that want to go back.

@runed0s86

Жыл бұрын

Also check the endcard subtitles for a leak from the basement interns about the new movie coming out!

@mckstellar1005

Жыл бұрын

I was trying to read it backwards since Ik how to sdrawkcab ti daer and type it as well. The trick is not simply typing the words backwards but the whole sentence as well. Unfortunately it just sounds exactly like it... which then makes me wonder... what it actually said forwards hmm.

@starfoxdelta

Жыл бұрын

YOOOOOOO, nice Advance Wars pfp! :D

man it really doesn't matter what you choose to talk about it's always a banger.

My grandpa worked in a movie theater back in the 60s or 70s so it’s nice that you explained how they had to work the projectors for movies :)

Some of that audio is the most 60’s and 70’s things I’ve ever heard.

@newq

Жыл бұрын

Does anyone know exactly what caused that effect? Was it the mics they used? I'd really love to know so I can replicate it!

@Kruton1122

Жыл бұрын

@@newq mainly just synths of the time, the obsessive use of flutes and strings as well as early electronic organs.

@ryanphillips4123

Жыл бұрын

@@Kruton1122 and the tone of voice, the accents, the presentation style

"1/grossth" is amazing and also the refresh rate of my monitor so that's interesting

@frederf3227

Жыл бұрын

A microfortnight is about 1.2s. A gigaAngstom is about 1/3rd feet. This makes a gigaAngstom per microfortnight a rather sedate speed of 0.2712334569.... mph.

Absolutely love your videos. Can't think of any other channel that I learn so many fun facts from. Like "footage"... Never even thought of the origin of the term. Never stop being you! Thanks a million!

A couple of notes, as someone who has worked in film projection: 1) Magnetic sound tracks on film *was* a thing for 35mm and 70mm. Mag 35 is pretty rare, but Mag 70 is actually fairly common. Both include a magnetic tape strip bonded into the film on either edge, outside the sprocket holes. Mag 70 got you 6 channels of audio, and it actually dates back to the inception of the 65/70mm format. Mag 35 and Mag 70 are almost twice as thick as their optical counterparts, meaning that you can fit about half as much film onto a reel. A 40 minute reel of 35 optical becomes a 20 minute reel of Mag 35. There are some 3+ hour long movies that were distributed primarily in Mag 70, so imagine how hard that is for a projectionist. Also Mag 70 loves to snap at splices since its so much thicker, and running it in a projector (my experience is on Philips Norelco DP70s) the loops are incredibly loud, and hearing a splice go through is always terrifying. 2) DTS did actually use DVD-ROM for some later features. Most later DTS processors (like the XD-10, the last one) are equipped with 2 DVD-ROM drives, and some later DTS prints distributed sound on DVD-ROM, though there was no real improvement to the format from my understanding, just that you now needed a newer DTS system to play them back. 3) Most really nice DTS and Dolby Digital sound heads actually use line lasers instead of exciter lamps.

Your audio desync work is on point! Brings back memories...

@Beakerbite

Жыл бұрын

You can still experience it with bluetooth audio devices. A classic problem with modern equipment, wonderful.

@xavierg.

Жыл бұрын

He right on point. When I was 19 working at the theatre concession serving popcorn, I had a chance to see the projectionist loading up a movie.

@toyloliSpare

Жыл бұрын

It was like watching an old english dub of a japanese film :P (The best reference I had for it)

@MrDuncl

Жыл бұрын

I recall being shown a film on materials science at college. The lecturer must have threaded the projector incorrectly as there was about a 1/2 second delay between the picture and sound which was very amusing when the presenter was smashing materials like pig-iron to show how brittle they were.

@pyro-millie5533

Жыл бұрын

When I caught that, I nearly slow clapped out of sheer rage lol

I just love his sarcastic humour, one of the funniest yet educational channels ever, the technicalities of the subjects discussed are indelibly impressed because it is presented in such a entertaining format, If i had teachers like this i would not have grown up so stupid.

@MrZoomZone

Жыл бұрын

and the whithering stare after delivering a salient point, lol! Makes me want to to look round to check I am the only one he is talking to.

I'm impressed you managed to get through all the changeover stuff without a single Fight Club reference.

What a delightful throwback to the AV Club in high school, where only a select few of us were trusted not to mangle film in projectors. It was always a source of joy when a teacher got impatient and took over the process, only to destroy the first few feet of whatever was slated to be shown.

@ChristopherSobieniak

Жыл бұрын

I was sad my high school didn't have one for me to join.

@withershin

Жыл бұрын

I was just at the edge of AV club times where we had access to these and knew how to use them but it was way more fun letting a teacher "show us" how to use it and destroy film. "What do you mean I have to flip a laserdisc?" was my other favourite thing or "why are there black boxes on the image?" - the good old days.

@cambridgemart2075

Жыл бұрын

Yes, been there myself! I remember one lunchtime showing when the loop restore failed, I spent the whole roll with my finger on the tension idler so stop the sound wowing.

@nicholasragusano2284

Жыл бұрын

Being part of the AV Club meant that you spent one period a day with these contraptions. It also meant that we could "preview" all the movies that came in. We just needed to make sure they were rewound and placed back in the correct cans! Also, there were times when we, even with 16mm film, had to use two projectors and make the transition from one to the other watching for those little Os in the upper right corner of the film. We could get quite upset if someone bothered us, causing a miscue!

damn, that pokemon 35mm film looked really sharp and well colored.

I told the people in this house yaers ago about film with sound they didnt believe me bu now with your clip i can aactually prove it ,and the other clips i watched gave a boost and a refresh of knowledge. So well done dud ,thanks for the information

I'm old enough to remember these film projectors in early years of grade school... They were fascinating.

That "Code unto others" line is absolute gold and I can't believe they were complaining about stuff like that even in the 60s/70s. Makes it even sadder that it's still such a problem now.

@bb5242

Жыл бұрын

Ya, and it was 100% white people back then, even.

@9SMTM6

11 ай бұрын

Well, as with anything this discipline must be learned first by newcomers. And as sadly with many social disciplines, the feedback for how well you do that often lags or never reaches you.

@JACKHARRINGTON

7 ай бұрын

@@9SMTM6 I wonder if you can go out of your way to receive that feedback?

@Yin_Esra

5 ай бұрын

​@@JACKHARRINGTON in a professional environment - code reviews. However, it would be better if you are taught this better in training, but the incentives are not aligned (and TAs and profs in uni / college often have no idea what good code is).

Norman MacLaren, at the National Film Board of Canada, hand-drew abstract sound-tracks, directly onto the master print. His Oscar-winning anti-war film, "Neighbours" is a masterpiece.

@morora.9312

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the discovery, that was interesting to watch !

@Xondar11223344

Жыл бұрын

"Neighbours" was required watching when I was in elementary school.

@TheHarryshelton

Жыл бұрын

Bell and Howell must have sold a zillion of those to schools!

@kelownatechkid

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing this. Truly a historic film.

@treeofgrowth

Жыл бұрын

Now all we have are warmongers.

Watching your videos with subtitles increases the fun factor significantly. I love your sense of humor!

I really enjoyed this. I used to work as a 35mm projectionist on the platter system and experienced the transition away from film projection. I felt like the last of my kind, but I'm very happy to see you still keeping the knowledge alive!

I am 35 and my first job was being a projectionist in a multiplex cinema. I was basically the last generation to have handled film on a daily basis. I have worked with multiple machines and they were mostly35mm projectors, but sometimes we used 70mm too on our bigger machines. One of the biggest benefits of dts was that we were able to play the same film copy in multiple languages, because all it took was to swap the dts discs and voila, any dubbed version could be played. SDDS contained three centre channels as the normal single one in SRD or DTS which was beneficial on bigger screens because the voice of the speaking person could be more accurately placed on the screen. And then there was the scary but interesting way of playing one copy in multiple machines at the same time which have been networked together. A scary thing to do, but it was interesting to see in action :).

@mfbfreak

Жыл бұрын

Ooh! That last thing - one film print running through a bunch of tubes and holes in walls and floors to another projector - there's actually really awesome footage about that on KZread. Or at least there was, about 5 years ago. No idea if the uploader kept it up, but it was very much worth watching.

@erinrising2799

Жыл бұрын

at my 10 plex, the projectionist once threaded a print thru 8 of the projectors

@Coderjo.

Жыл бұрын

@@mfbfreak FilmTech has a video demonstrating a 16-screen interlock. it's quite a trip. The video ID is ZdPKGNCw7lM

@JamesNeave1978

Жыл бұрын

If you look at the last generation of 35mm film, SDDS was encoded outside the sprocket holes, Dolby Digital _in-between_ the sprocket holes, analogue stereo where it's always been and the DTS time code in-between sound-on-film and the image. Bananas

@Toast_Points

Жыл бұрын

My people! I'm 34 and was a last-gen 35mm projectionist too! I even ran the last film screening at our multiplex. One day film will come back, the way vinyl did, and they'll have to dig us up to train the new generation lmao

Another potential benefit of DTS's audio-on-disc system: same film stock for any region with the CDs being localized to whatever language necessary.

@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you

Жыл бұрын

Dts was a pain, not cause it wasn't awesome, pr great quality. But soo many cinema's 'lost' discs meaning it was less and less likely cinemas would ever get the discs. Towards the end, DTS were digitally delivering iso files if you asked them, which meant at least cinemas HAD the disc data. Most cinema's still had a DD and the standard SR track discussed here as backup. Worth pointing out SR was more than stereo, it had two patterns as seen here, but with some additional 'maths' you could encode more channels, albeit nowhere near as good as DTS or DD. 70mm did also use magnetic audio tracks, and both 35mm and 70mm also had the very little used SDDS

@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you

Жыл бұрын

Also, to my knowledge, DTS only ever used CDs and never moved to DVD. I have an XD10 or two if anyone wants! And whilst the XD10's used dvd drives, the discs were only ever CDs

My dad was a cinema projectionist when i grew up and i often got to see movies from the projection room and sometimes help to rewind the film. His theater never upgraded to digital projection before it shut down so in my mind projectionists are still sweating their asses off working the film hehe. Weird to imagine it's not actually like that anymore. Thanks for the great video!

I appreciate the sound desync while you were talking about sound desynchronization problems. Nice touch.

The limitations of having multiple film reels for feature films even came to affect the way the final film was edited. To make the viewing experience as seamless as possible, it became commonplace to make a scene or camera/view change coincide precisely with the moment of the swap.

@nynexman4464

Жыл бұрын

I learned this from a sort of throwaway joke in mystery science theatre. Whatever movie they're watching has a rather sudden cut to church bells ringing and one of the bots says something like "way to hide the reel change".

@marcberm

Жыл бұрын

@@nynexman4464 I think I vaguely remember this!!! There's also a good explanation of the reel change (and the "cigarette burn" queue markings) from Tyler Durden in Fight Club.

@marcberm

Жыл бұрын

@@nynexman4464 Old school telecom guy? Just guessing by the name. I work with a bunch of the modern Avaya stuff.

@lizcademy4809

Жыл бұрын

As I remember, all reel changes were at a visual change in the film. The exact length of the film on the reel would vary a bit to match up. Because the change was manual, different reel length wasn't a problem.

@aelitadelarobia

Жыл бұрын

reel changes were described in detail in at least one or two. episodes of Columbo

Insane how smart people were back then and continue to be today. Makes me feel we stand on shoulders of giants

@supme7558

Жыл бұрын

Its all iterations on monkey to the next

@fershred

Жыл бұрын

I mean yeah but no one invented this in a day. This technology, like any other, is brilliant but it took, like any other, time through trial and error to achieve its optimum capabilities.

Hey Alec! So happy to see you covering one of my favourite topics in cinema technology: Soundtracks! Oh, I could talk to you for a really, REALLY long time about some technical intricacies and my own experiences with building and maintaining several sound systems in cinemas. Plus some very amusing stories about how stuff went wrong... Keep up the great work! :) Regards, Patrick.

Back in the 70s, our library had a few public domain 8mm films tucked away in the corner. You could check them out, along with a cool projector, that packed up like a suitcase. I remember watching Nosferato, Charlie Chaplan, Buster Keaton on it.

These old projectors are incredible. I never realized it had to stop the film for each image. I figured it was just moving the whole time. Whats weird is fight club taught me a bit about film.

@markevans2294

Жыл бұрын

This is why there's a small loop of film above and below the gate as well as a tension arm underneath. When moving through the optical pick up the film is moving at a constant speed.

@likebot.

Жыл бұрын

You wait until you see how IMAX works. It's genius.

@BaronVonQuiply

Жыл бұрын

When he does the Vintage Compact Disc episode in a few years, I'm hoping he tells us all the CD stops 44,100 times per second.

@crazyeyez1502

Жыл бұрын

I was waiting for him to reference Fight Club. "In the industry, we call these 'cigarette burns'..."

@jooger69

Жыл бұрын

@@crazyeyez1502 Me too.

Back in 2009 (when the first avatar film came out) a friend who worked as a projectionist let me tour the projection booth. He showed me that they had special markers on the film that would be read by a sensor during projection that would trigger a matrix that in turn would automate the movie going experience. E.g dim lights, open the curtains, reason lower the curtains depending on the aspect ratio of the film/trailer and turn the lights back on when the film is over.

@plonk420

Жыл бұрын

we just used some metal tape along the SDDS area of the film which i believe was caught (low voltage bridged/shorted?) by the "stop sensor" under the visual and audio part of the projector

@joshjones3227

Жыл бұрын

@@plonk420 Proximity detectors were used to sense the foil strip cues. The nicer systems could detect a variety of 3 positions, inboard, outboard and center to trigger different events. There were a lot of simpler readers that used the conductivity of the foil to detect such things as well, but they tended to get less reliable as the film was run many times. The foil would crack, and often fail to trigger the automation. There were other varieties as well, some using reflective patches, barcodes, all sorts of things. The foil cues are also used on audio tape reels to trigger the deck to change playback sides.

When clicking on this video, I never imagined how cool audio on film was. I truly learned a lot. Thanks.

I was a projectionist in the 80's. Your description of the 'dance' doing a changeover was spot on. It was a nice stroll down amnesia lane. Thank You!

The last time I noticed cigar burns, or cue marks, was when I watched The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers and Return of the King at my regional Australian theatre. Makes sense that they were still using a largely analog system, even at the time, and finally explains to me what those marks were. I always thought they were some kind of artifact or imperfection in the film stock. Makes sense that they were a reel transfer, either manual or automatic.

@davidg4288

Жыл бұрын

You used to see these cue marks on television back when TV shows were on film rather than tape. Time for a commercial break!

@ploed

Жыл бұрын

@@davidg4288 Plainly Difficult does the same on his videos :D

@robmausser

Жыл бұрын

100% Digital projection in theatres didnt become commonplace until at least the mid 2000's, so even up until 2007 in some smaller theatres, film was still being used. And a lot of theatres never upgraded to the film tray system, they went straight to digital from the old method.

@twizz420

Жыл бұрын

@@robmausser I've been to some small towns where they still use film projectors... And in my city there's also a small theatre that plays old classics on a film projector as well. I love it and it's usually pretty full but I'm generally the youngest person there by a good 30 years at least, unless I manage to drag a friend along

@horusreloaded6387

Жыл бұрын

I learned about cue marks from a Fight Club scene but didn't understand how they work until this video

I'd seen close-ups of visible soundtrack waveforms on old films like shown earlier here, but I never dreamed of the ingenuity of Dolby Digital audio being stored as QR-like codes INBETWEEN THE SPROCKET HOLES!! Amazing!

@SplicesAndCelluloid

Жыл бұрын

Fun fact, those codes are called fixels! Dolby Digital is absolutely bananas, and I'd totally suggest reading the patent. They put a lot of thought into it, and though it's not covered in the patents, some newer films had firmware updates for the Dolby Digital readers encoded in the soundtrack!

@DPedroBoh

Жыл бұрын

@@SplicesAndCelluloid My god, that's indeed what i would consider bananas. Totally bogus, and even, ludicrous. No, really, that's so cool.

@kelownatechkid

Жыл бұрын

Yeah this is one of the best things!

@h8GW

Жыл бұрын

I'm not gonna look it up, but I'm pretty sure cinema is why QR codes were invented in the first place.

@aarondavis8943

Жыл бұрын

The fact that the bagpipes sound terrible is an indication of the accuracy of the system.

I miss the days of being in school, and walking into a class with the 16mm projector set up! Or, if its first class of the day, seeing the projector roll in. And one of the schools I went to, had one similar to yours. The cart it sat on had boxes of various spare vacuum tubes for the amplifier and spare bulbs for the main projector and sound. I can say, it was less fiddly than yours, as myself and a select few other students were allowed to thread and start the films, and then rewind them for the next class.

I love how in depth this channel gets on topics. 😊

The sound quality being dependent on the type of film is something I hadn't given any thought to, but it explains something I had read recently that hadn't made sense to me. So, in the Doctor Who missing episode recovery sphere, there was a recent discovery of home-recorded audio tapes. I found it perplexing when the restoration team said that in some cases, the audio was higher quality than they had on the film copies of these episodes - but I suppose it makes sense. The copies we have today are transfers to 16mm film, with the same limitations you mentioned here. The audio tapes are reel-to-reel recordings from consumer-grade hardware, sure. But I suppose it stands to reason that a reel-to-reel tape recording made from the original broadcast of the master tapes may have more frequency response and overall better quality than what the 16mm film format allows, even with professional equipment.

@nickolaswilcox425

Жыл бұрын

hadnt put that much together either but it explains some things, between the degradation of the original media, transfer down to inferior formats and destruction, you ended up with a ton of fan recordings often done on top end equipment which were incidentally better quality than the official copies... ive listened to all the early episodes, the eras most heavily affected by the purges and the audio quality keeps jumping all over the place at random, its not great but at least it still exists

So the next time someone brags about having a 144Hz monitor, you can remind them that it's displaying images for one grossth of a second...

My father used to be a projectionist in the 70s. He'd tell the stories of sometimes having to not only get the next reel loaded and ready, but also dash down to the train station to pick up the next movie, preview the reels and splice any breaks, change the signs out of the front of the cinema, assist in prep for intermission etc, all while not missing a cut-over. He also told the story of stopping in to see how a fellow projectionist was going one night to find a 1,000ft of film spooled all over the floor of a tiny projection booth due to a take-up spool failure.

I worked as a protectionist in a theater in the late 90s and this brought back a lot of memories!

I like how the audio was purposefully desynced to give a real idea of how synchronization matters, yet I'm sitting here watching with bluetooth headphones that are always slightly desynced.

@JoBot__

Жыл бұрын

I've always disliked Bluetooth devices because of latency and battery issues. I'm stickin' with wired headphones and computer mice. 😊

@tildey6661

Жыл бұрын

Is Bluetooth audio desync still an issue for media? Obviously for a game or music software etc, something where the audio is unpredictable, it’s always going to exist. But for video playback, this issue has been solved for years now.

@davidgro2000

Жыл бұрын

@@tildey6661 It is in KZread without extra work (I found a Chrome Extension named "KZread Audio/Video Sync" that works after some fiddling) I'm really looking forward to earbuds that support Bluetooth Audio LE - it's supposed to greatly reduce the latency issues.

@1sdani

Жыл бұрын

I use a desktop and sometimes video streaming sites, including youtube just decides to desync for an indeterminate amount of time. Isn't video specific either, the entire site just decides I should hear things too early/late for the foreseeable future.

@Lucas_Simoni

Жыл бұрын

I looked to see if my headphones were connected to my bluetooth dongle. lol. I actually started to notice he was desynced after he said it. I start to notice desync of about 40ms and above.

Of course Alec has a Filmosound projector. 1:46 Also, Pedants' Tears really is the best drink. 23:24 So that's why something felt off about the front half of this video, almost felt like a voiceover at times.

@SianaGearz

Жыл бұрын

Too salty.

@truckerallikatuk

Жыл бұрын

@@SianaGearz But also lacking essential nutrients.

@MisterNohbdy

Жыл бұрын

that second line is pure uncensored violence

@ryuku2

Жыл бұрын

I thought I was just being overly influenced about the demo station of desync earlier and was going to comment that after the video was over. But once he mentioned that yes, things were off, I decided "oh, no, I'm not crazy"

@NeatNit

Жыл бұрын

What's the timestamp for pedant's tears? I can't find it!

In the 1980s, I worked as a cashier in a movie theatre. I did get to learn how to build and break down films on the platters, and how to thread the projectors. Threading them for the first shows of the day in that multiplex ended up part of my job. A few years before, in that same theatre, I saw _Tron_ in its initial release. The projector stopped several times during the show, so I missed parts of the movie and ended up getting a refund and seeing it elsewhere. My most memorable experiences were in another location in that chain, where I got to see _Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom_ and _Star Trek IV_ in 70mm with 6-track magnetic sound.

Just recently restored a Fumeo 16mm Cinema projector that had both pickups for magnetic and sound on film. Very cool to discover how it worked and it was a real experience getting a 70 year old piece of machinery to work.

That Bell & Howell Filmosound projector was THE standard of every school classroom, every State Hospital (read: Psycho Ward) and every Prison in these United States in the 60's and 70's. Many updated versions came later than the one shown here. Until video came around, many a movie from film rental house "Films Incorporated" were shown on these B&H projectors.

@ChristopherSobieniak

Жыл бұрын

That or the Singer models I saw.

I don't know why, but when you mentioned sewing machines I suddenly had a great urge to see you do a video about the mechanisms of how they work. I don't sew. I've never sewn. I haven't even seen a sewing machine in like 30 years. But for some reason I NEED to know how they work now.

@tanya5322

Жыл бұрын

I won’t swear to it, but I think maybe he does 🤔 And if he hasn’t already done one, then I agree that he should.

Nice touch to put in your own cue mark when talking about it at 10:30. I didn't know what it was until I got to the section later in the video where you talk about changing reels.

Loved the quick "cigarette burn" with no explanation. Surprised i even noticed it, but super grateful for the Easter egg!

I have fond memories of super-8 mm film getting stuck in an old projector in elementary school. The flaming-hot incandescent lamp was still on, so fireworks-like bursts of light appeared on the screen while the inferno-like projector bulb destroyed a frame of film. You could literally see it BOILING. Thank the gods for the invention of (much cooler) LED lamps!

@soaringvulture

Жыл бұрын

Were there any movie projectors with LED lamps? I would have thought that the projectors became extinct before LED's became popular.

@loganricherson3749

Жыл бұрын

@@soaringvulture I'm not sure about period projectors but I wouldn't be surprised if someone made one nowadays. The main market for people using them are collectors and having an LED would greatly reduce the chance of them potentially destroying a rare film

@CptJistuce

Жыл бұрын

@@soaringvulture Film projectors are virtually extinct, but the modern solid-state projectors still have big ol' lamps. And yes, they've moved to supernova-bright LEDs. I'd wager that some of the projector lamps in modern projectors are compatible with their more-traditional film cousins.

@charlie_nolan

Жыл бұрын

That film was probably shown 50 more times even after that

@Thornbloom

Жыл бұрын

Always loved it when a film breaks. I was in a screening of Batman Forever and the projector (or the film don't remember which) broke right at Carrey's deep voice moment. That was fun.

My first job was at a movie theater, and from 2006-2010 I was the head film projectionist and I got to deal with all these sound formats (we even used SDDS sometimes). This was a fun walk down memory lane! What a fun Christmas surprise, Alec!

Thank you SO MUCH, Alec, for completely, absolutely gaslighting me into not being able to tell whether your video was synced up or not at any given moment.

Awesome video! This brought back so many memories working in the projection booth. By the time my brother worked there a few years later, the projectors were upgraded to full digital and eliminated the use of film reels at our theater.

The fact that you can recreate exact sound from a picture of it is so fascinating to me. I would understand mechanical noise but the fact that it can create a specific persons voice and music blows my mind

@joesterling4299

Жыл бұрын

If you could see magnetization on audio tape, it would probably look similar. This is just an optical representation of the analog audio, rather than magnetic. If you look at a vinyl record's grooves with a magnifying glass, you'll see the waveform recorded physically there as well.

@kaitlyn__L

Жыл бұрын

@@joesterling4299 magnetisation on audio tape looks like the second-described sound on film, where it’s varying brightness rather than varying width, so it ends up looking like a non-quantised barcode. Techmoan has a brief video with an audio tape viewer (think magnet paper but with finer particles) if you’re curious how it looks.

@MCOlangotang

Жыл бұрын

We can recreate images, audio and worlds by opening and closing really tiny gates.

@Jonathan_Doe_

Жыл бұрын

The resultant of a combination of sound sources/frequencies is only ever one waveform, (or two for stereo playback). It is pretty weird to think about how multiple sounds can be contained in one wave, but somehow, they can.

This is just amazing. It’s like a Rube Goldberg machine. I kind of can’t believe the ingenuity required to make this work

@dielaughing73

Жыл бұрын

And he didn't even show all the mechanical complexity

What a great Documentary! I am always in awe to see how complicated yet brilliant those things are. Thank you for those beautiful worthwhile 40 minutes.

I enjoyed the informative content but I also want to compliment how precisely you enunciate and phrase things, wow. Thank you!

I always remember the teacher with the patches on his elbows operating these things with the assistance of the class tech nerd.

@davidg4288

Жыл бұрын

And having the take up reel hitting something, not turning, and unwinding the whole reel on the floor. Although the teacher would freak out the class tech nerd could usually recover that without much drama. I think the audio visual nerds sometimes rigged this on purpose just to demonstrate their mad skills.

@crackwitz

Жыл бұрын

The smartest teachers just had the nerd do it all. The least stress for everyone.

@GeorgeActon

Жыл бұрын

I was that nerd in the 1960s - the "projector monitor." The school projectors had a raised metal line showing the path to thread the film and indicating how much slack was needed. It was pretty simple. I remember one teaching showing me how to run a film backwards so we could watch a volcano sucking in lava!

@w7777777s

Жыл бұрын

I think I learned to thread a projector very similar to the one he was using in the 1960s in elementary school.

@JC-jv5xw

Жыл бұрын

@@GeorgeActon At primary school the teacher ran the whole film backwards after we had watched it. We were in hysterics - particularly in the section where people were eating.

This brings back a lot of memories. When I was a small, my friend's dad was a projectionist at a local movie theater. We hung out in the booth often, learned a lot about film projection by osmosis. Then in high school, another friend of mine got a job as a projectionist too, and I learned how the giant spools worked.

@erok268

Жыл бұрын

@Don't Read My Profile Photo botttt

@JamesNeave1978

Жыл бұрын

They would bring an Eiki 16mm to my primary school on rare Saturdays to show us movies. Highlight of my childhood.

@RandomDudeOne

Жыл бұрын

Being a projectionist was a career at one time, until automation made it so easy the theaters would just higher high school kids for minimum wage to do the job.

You got a LITERLOL from me at the "Sound Synchronization" gag. This is a huge part of why I love your channel!! Happy New Year, and keep 'em coming!

Omg I'm having a 5th grade flashback. I was a library assistant in 5th grade, 1977-78, and we got to learn how to work the film strip projector, the film projector, and this new gadget, the VCR. I don't remember them being that difficult to load. Thank-you for a wonderful trip down memory lane.

I am impressed by the coincidence, that only just yesterday (one day before this video was released) I was looking at an old 35mm film that I found which has an analog audio track as well and as I had never seen something similar before, I was trying to think of a way to reproduce the sound. Now, without even searching I have all the information I need to play around with it! I am actually creating a mechanism to automatically take a picture of each frame, and I can make a separate contraption to attempt to get the sound. The film is not very long, and it's an original take, so it makes a very interesting project!

@Weretyu7777

Жыл бұрын

Impressive work! And that is a funny coincidence.