Steenbeck on eBay in Ohio...who has literature on Steenbecks?

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Working Steenbeck 16mm Film Editor Viewer Editing Machine Motor Hollywood Movies | eBay

No idea if overpriced or not...but here it is in Tiffin, Ohio!

On another topic...

Who has literature on the Steenbeck? Catalogs, photos in operation, whatever. And more important, who wants to sell/ donate copies or sell originals reasonably to me? But they have to be decent quality...no garbage res.

write: w1000w@aol.com

These things are pretty complex, some of them anyway. I picked up this press photo of one in operation. I never thought much about them, so my archive is lacking in this area. Hence looking for material to add. Also, for the Moviola.

James Fletcher 1980

Don't know him. Anyone know him?

PS...you want any of these photos, download them. eBay hosts them and they pull them in a few months.

<><><><>

Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

 

 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Forgot to mention...

You don't want to scan literature...I can scan for free for you.

[Mark Dunn]

A silent Steenbeck.....interesting, never seen one before. Maybe for print QC inspection at a lab? Considering it almost certainly needs $200 in belts, a bit steep.

BAck in the day Steenbecks cost as much as cars. They still do, last time I asked a new 4-plate was €36000. I paid less- much, much less. Dwight Cody still services them on the East Coast and he'll sell you a good one for $4000.

As to literature, I won't have anything you don't, and nothing in print. I rent Steenbecks. Well, just the one. LondonSteenbeck on FB.

Edited December 20, 2024 by Mark Dunn

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

That is quite a range in prices.

What is the advantage of the Steenbeck over a Moviola and vice versa? Were Steenbecks more of a European machine or were they popular in the USA?

[Simon Wyss]

As you’re asking, way more common in Europe. We have only very few Moviola editors.

Having worked at Steenbeck tables for years I can point out these advantages:

• film can be handled from core to core on plates, the weight of a roll is taken off the film itself,
• one has the perfect overview of what is content and what isn’t, especially with the audio bands (dialogue, effects, music) when using spacer of a different colour than the magnetic stock has,
• the revolving prism optical arrangement allows for high speeds in moving the strips forth and back,
• one has space on the table to pile up rolls and tools

Inconvenient are the sheer size of flatbet machines, Prevost from Italy were the largest, immense, monstrous, and the weight. A Moviola is so much easier to move around and to move oneself around it.

[Mark Dunn]

Flatbeds had a few fans in the US- Spielberg used Steenbecks until Munich.

Thelma Schoonmaker used a KEM until, I assume, it just wasn't practical. The KEM is very similar but with a modular arrangement so it can be used for 16 and 35*.. They are even harder to keep going now.

*There are Steenbecks with interchangeable beds for 16/35 with the model suffix W (I assume for "wechsel"). The Cinema Museum in London has one. The coupling is mechanical so they run a bit noisier, although no-one would call a Steenbeck whisper-quiet.

Edited December 21, 2024 by Mark Dunn

[Mark Dunn]

13 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

inconvenient are the sheer size of flatbed machines

Witness the not-so-infrequent posts on here about how to move one. The 4-plate will just wheel through a UK door with the top hinged up but a 6-plate is a dismantling job. I bought new large castors for mine after a rough floor trashed cheap Chinese ones. Starting at about 125kg, it takes a few beefy grips to lift one.

Edited December 21, 2024 by Mark Dunn

[Gregg MacPherson]

On 12/21/2024 at 7:20 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

That is quite a range in prices.

What is the advantage of the Steenbeck over a Moviola and vice versa? Were Steenbecks more of a European machine or were they popular in the USA?

By Moviola do you mean an upright or flatbed moviola? There were a lot of flatbed moviolas made. Television in NZ used them. I have two (one and 7/8 you could say). As you are probably discovering, Steenbeck and Moviola are brands, flatbed is the type. But both brand names served to indicate a type.

I'm sure that a flatbed will be the most useful machine for you. The four plate Steenbeck like Mark Dun has is about the smallest. Though I think it was Cinema Products that started production of a flatbed that had the plates stacked vertically. I fiddled with one for a few minutes around 1984, and it had a very small footprint.

Edited December 22, 2024 by Gregg MacPherson

[Mark Dunn]

Flatbed Moviolas seem to me to have been a minor item for the company, almost an afterthought because they needed to have the option in their product range. I don't think they were very well thought of. They certainly don't seem as well designed or engineered. There's a reason 'Steenbeck' became a generic term- they probably accounted for 90 out of 100 flatbeds. Of the rest, 7 were KEMs and the other 3, maybe a Cinemonta, a Schmid and a Moviola.

I don't think Daniel is looking to acquire one.

[Gregg MacPherson]

16 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Steenbeck.... probably accounted for 90 out of 100 flatbeds. Of the rest, 7 were KEMs and the other 3, maybe a Cinemonta, a Schmid and a Moviola.....

Mark is this anecdotal...your impression...a guess? or are there statistics?

There were a lot of flatbed moviolas used by TV in NZ. When I looked in the editing department at Christchurch all I remember seeing is Moviola. My friend bought 7 of them from TVNZ in Auckland in the 80s.

I don't know if there is tribal snobbery favouring the Steenbeck, but in hindsight I wish I had waited for one. The Moviola is overpopulated with ICs...troublesome circuitry. I always thought the Steenbeck would be more simple, mechanical, easier to look after without electronics expertise.

[Mark Dunn]

Sounds like Moviola had a good salesman in NZ lol.

No just an idea based on observation and how often they get mentioned. But Steenbeck's 1990 brochure does say that they had made 25,000 up to then. The electronic redesign in the late 70s (most of the -01 models) did make the machines more capable, but there are dozens of ICs. I don't know what it did to the reliability, my '00 (January 1973) is the 1965 discrete-component design. Before that they used valves and 3-phase.

When I worked on weapons trials from 88-91 we used a 2-plate Schmid and a 4-plate popped up here (in Torquay, IIRC) a while back.

All the other flatbed are essentially copies of the Steenbeck- they really did invent the flatbed. From the start they had a single motor, all the others I believe had multiple motors with that complexity. I think of all the rest only KEM got it right. I don't think it's snobbery, it's just a question of survival in numbers. The relative simplicity has a lot to do with that- the only real impediment to a Steenbeck's survival is the price of timing belts. The only parts I've really had to renew have been resistors and capacitors.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Mark Dunn

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 12/21/2024 at 5:44 AM, Mark Dunn said:

Witness the not-so-infrequent posts on here about how to move one. The 4-plate will just wheel through a UK door with the top hinged up but a 6-plate is a dismantling job. I bought new large castors for mine after a rough floor trashed cheap Chinese ones. Starting at about 125kg, it takes a few beefy grips to lift one.

You gotta have good casters. I never moved a Steenbeck, but I have a lot of heavy chrome wire shelving that I move around all the time. I've always been short of space. Consequently, I stack the shelving units one or two units deep. If I need something from a rear unit, I have to move out the front shelving units to get at it. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 12/22/2024 at 7:49 AM, Mark Dunn said:

Flatbed Moviolas seem to me to have been a minor item for the company, almost an afterthought because they needed to have the option in their product range. I don't think they were very well thought of. They certainly don't seem as well designed or engineered. There's a reason 'Steenbeck' became a generic term- they probably accounted for 90 out of 100 flatbeds. Of the rest, 7 were KEMs and the other 3, maybe a Cinemonta, a Schmid and a Moviola.

I don't think Daniel is looking to acquire one.

That's right. I'm just interested in history. Although if they made a nice flatbed film scanner, I'd like one. As Simon mentioned there are advantages to working with film flat. They do have some flat scanners, but they are not mainstream from what I can see.

I didn't know there were more flatbed editors. I've only seen the Steenbeck. 

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

Why do the flat editors have so many reels on them? Why do you need more than 2 reels when editing? Looks like a nightmare dealing with all those reels.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Simon Wyss]

The brands I know are

• Wilhelm Steenbeck, Germany
• Union, Germany
• Lytax, Germany
• TOBIS-Klangfilm, Germany
• KEM, Germany
• Pentacon, Germany
• Schmid, Germany
• Arnold & Richter, Germany
• Prevost, Italy
• Oude Delft, Netherlands
• Atlas, France
• Muray, France
• Moritone, France
• Kägi, Switzerland

There were additives to the Moviola for the three essential sound carriers just like on a flatbed editor. You have one gang for (original) dialogue, one for effects, and one for music. So the complete machine affords four strips of perforated material running parallel. The Moviola thus gets larger to the LH side.

There were different arrangements for two images for example, accompanied by one or two sounds.

The many rollers serve to give the sound carriers tension over the magnetic heads and to align all bands foremost on the LH side for becoming marked.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Simon Wyss

[Mark Dunn]

1 hour ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

You gotta have good casters. I never moved a Steenbeck, but I have a lot of heavy chrome wire shelving that I move around all the time. I've always been short of space. Consequently, I stack the shelving units one or two units deep. If I need something from a rear unit, I have to move out the front shelving units to get at it. 

That's where my old Steenbeck castors went- onto a home-made studio trolley I made out of a folding camping kitchen unit and a piece of chipboard. The Chinese sellers tend to rate castors by the total weight carried on all 4 castors, not singly, so watch out for that. Anyway a ridged concrete floor did for mine. The replacements are actually Turkish and I can move the Steenbeck with one hand now. Move. Not lift.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Mark Dunn

[Jeff Bernstein]

8 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

You gotta have good casters.

Scrooby finds this a fascinating point because, you know, when you're growing up from childhood you don't think of such things. Such is life. Hopefully we learn what we need to know just in time.

[Simon Wyss]

Moritone of C. T. M., from 1930 on

Intercine, Milano, Italy, was another brand.

https://www.filmlabs.org/docs/MoviolaMagnasyncCatalog E-181.pdf

[Brian Drysdale]

19 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Why do the flat editors have so many reels on them? Why do you need more than 2 reels when editing? Looks like a nightmare dealing with all those reels.

When you're editing, you often have more than one audio track. From what I saw, the six plate (one picture and two audio tracks) was pretty common, it allows you to build up a couple of tracks at the same time. Although, some UK editors liked doing that with a Pic Sync and used the Steenbeck for viewing.

[Jeff Bernstein]

20 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

 Looks like a nightmare dealing with all those reels.

Scrooby recalls two directors' commentaries relating to old Hollywood analogue editing : (1) In the DVD of Ninth Gate, Polanski recalled how he enjoyed the tedious and cumbersome experience of analogue editing because when it took "twenty minutes" to find a piece of film, Polanski was not sitting idle during that time but contemplating the movie; he was, to use an obsolete word, thinking. (2) In the Criterion DVD of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam said that he used old analogue editing equipment for the film because if he had used digital technology in the editing process, the number of choices would have overwhelmed him to the extent that, as he put it, "I would still be editing the movie today."

[Rick Shamel]

Dwight Cody has documentaion on all Steenbeck models. Below is a recent message from him about Steenbecks:

******************************************

From Dwight Cody - Owner of The Boston Connection www.CUTFILM.com and www.STEENBECK-USA.com 

Steenbeck BV in Amsterdam was auctioned off recently by MWA. This leaves The Boston Connection Inc. as the apparent last full service company dedicated to Steenbeck Repairs in the entire world. The auction was quietly done and we wish MWA had been forthright when asked days before the auction as to what was to become of the inventory so we could have considered salvaging it.

News travels fast and the concerns of "what now" are crossing the lips of all film preservationists around the globe. We can offer hope and a solution to keeping Steenbecks operational. We have been organizing and expanding our parts Inventory for 45 years. We have designed 28 different direct replacement circuit boards called "New Generation boards" offering features and a margin of safety not available in the past. Obsolete Timing belts have threatened the ability to rebuild machines yet we have invested heavily in stock and offering advice on installation.

For the record, I plan to retire in 2029 (4 years from now). Field service work may wrap up sooner since it's dependent on many things. The cost of goods and services will certainly go nowhere but up, so the idea is to plan ahead, service your gear and stock up while our prices remain low.

I just turned 65 and going strong but want to wind down and still have some years left to do some things for myself, perhaps travel abroad. Many people have asked if someone is in training to carry on and the answer is no. The time to teach is lost if they choose along the way to go in a different direction and my time is in short supply, due to the current workload. I plan to continue with travel for another 2 years and offer intensive 2 week Steenbeck training workshops on Cape Cod, where Steenbeck restoration currently takes place, over the final two years. The plan is to have 2-3 people at a time learn and take part in full rebuilding of a machine including Timing belt and bearing replacement. Preventive & general maintenance, electrical upgrades and optical alignment will be covered as well as the tuning of motor control and audio systems.

 Successful on-site repairs are dependent on the knowledge as much as the parts. Our organization of Timing belts, assemblies, circuit boards and unique new and rebuilt parts makes it efficient getting problems resolved quickly.

 Of course there is also the possibility of selling the entire business or its divisions, to interested buyers but I prefer to build a network of repair people and be the one supporting them with parts. The other areas of the company would be easier to offer individually. Supply sales, Splicer repair and Projector repair are a little more straight forward.

Dwight

Edited January 21, 2025 by Rick Shamel

[Mark Dunn]

Wow. Didn't see that one coming, neither did Dwight. He was my go-to guy.

The Steenbeck website went weird a couple of years ago and now it's gone altogether, along apparently with Janssen, the owners.

There's a possibility of inventory becoming available in the UK but I can't say more at present. Looks like we should be booking museum places for our Steenbecks.

[Mark Dunn]

The question remains- who bought all the bits? It sure wasn't Dwight.

[Rick Shamel]

Dwight did see it coming. He knew there was going to be an auction for the left-over equipment but they never told him when (maybe on purpose??). Apparently, the equipment was sold to a variety of people/origination in Europe so they would have parts to maintain their equipment.

Here is a link to what was sold:

https://www.troostwijkauctions.com/a/faillissement-steenbeck-b-v-A1-26548

[Mark Dunn]

My info is that a good piece of it was bought by Beeld en Geluid , the Netherlands media institute.

I think a lot of that stuff was still in the Hamburg boxes from the original bankruptcy in 1999. Some of them were still labelled in German.