What is this film used for?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

It sold very fast. I was thinking the selling price is pretty high, but have no idea.  

What is this film used for? 

 

[Victoria Sagady]

Its used to calibrate flutter measuring equipment, so likely testing sound playback set ups in theatres etc.  Guessing its an optical track with the 3000cycle flutter.  

 

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7237347

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Thanks Victoria. I wonder how many different frequencies they used for this work. 

[Victoria Sagady]

I dont even fully understand what Flutter is so no clue!

[Mark Dunn]

9 hours ago, Victoria Sagady said:

I dont even fully understand what Flutter is so no clue!

Flutter consists of rapid small fluctuations in the speed of the film transport, many times a second, as opposed to wow, which is a change over a longer period, say a second or so. These would both change detrimentally the pitch of the sound.

I think 3kHz (3000 cycles in American) was chosen as it's about the middle of the range of frequencies that optical sound is capable of reproducing.

Edited March 17 by Mark Dunn

[Frank Wylie]

https://www.sprocketschool.org/w/images/3/38/Smpte-test-materials-catalog.pdf

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Thanks for that link!

But isn’t it strange that there’s no test material for S8 optical sound?!

And I have not seen any test material for anamorphic S8, R8 and 16mm?!

I wonder whether there have been test films for 9.5mm as well (maybe at SMPE times)?

Edited March 17 by Joerg Polzfusz

[Frank Wylie]

All original Super 8mm and Regular 8mm test materials (negatives, interpositives, etc.) for Super 8mm and Regular 8mm were donated to the Library of Congress Motion Picture Lab in Dayton, Ohio when I was Lab Supervisor in about 2003/2004.

I had called to inquire about getting new RP40 optical printing alignment targets for our production, when I was informed that SMPTE had discontinued producing those materials and were only selling what remaining stock on-hand. (We wound up duplicating our own RP40 masters from a small roll I found buried in a back storage room)

Somehow the conversation got around to S8/R8 when they informed me they were about to discard those elements.  I suggested they donate them to the LOC and they did.

They now reside somewhere in the collections in Mount Pony at the National Audio Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia.

I have since retired and don't know their status.  Hopefully, they have been ingested and are in archival storage.

I do not recall if there were 9.5mm elements, but I don't think so...

Edited March 18 by Frank Wylie

[Frank Wylie]

On 3/16/2024 at 9:40 PM, Victoria Sagady said:

I dont even fully understand what Flutter is so no clue!

Flutter testing was important to in-camera optical sound recording as well as sound playback projection.

Flutter was induced by the difference between the intermittent motion of the film in the camera/projector gate and the continuous motion of optical sound readers/recorders.  The test films were designed to measure the amplitude of fluctuations present in the optical pickup after the camera/projector gate and allow engineers/technicians to fine-tune the transport to minimize this audio problem.

Edited March 18 by Frank Wylie