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I haven't worked with the Ilford B&W stock yet. It will be interesting.

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Seriously, my job is to understand these concerns, and there obviously are some. Most of my information has come from the rec.arts.movies.tech newsgroup, and from surveys run by NATO, and they seem to indicate that the polyester flaking/dusting issue affected all films, and were very dependent upon the projector type (Joe Redifer had continual problems, Scott Norwood almost none). Have Kodak prints gotten better or worse than a year ago? Or do you feel the other films have recently improved? Is there perhaps a correlation with the lab, as some labs have been trying to lubricate prints again? What about humidity? Some recent reports seem to show high humidity plays a role. Has the nature of the debris changed (emulsion vs. base)?

Another commonly found machine which seems to promote shedding and dirt attraction, although nothing like the Christies, is the Simplex. Although this is an excellent machine, gate/trap tension is too high straight from the facotry and the soundhead relies on a little rubber/felt ("dirt embedder") roller. I have explained this in the past somewhere here on the forum, but this little roller collects dirt and presses with a good amount of tension right into the emulsion of the film, just after it has been softened by the heat of the lamp! It is for this reason that in a 50% Simplex and 50% Century booth, the Simplex prints will look extremely dirty in no time. I have another $5 solution for this, but haven't had the time to take pics and sit down to write it out. (Will do soon.)

Have Kodak prints gotten better or worse? That depends. The best years of Kodak stocks were the last half of the 1980s and early 1990s with the "LPP" prints! I think most anyone will agree with me there. Of course, these prints were also on triacetate stock. (Could you please explain for the record why this switch to polyestar took place? Cost?)

As to the polyestar Kodak stocks, the more recent ones (but not all...will start taking notes for you) are far better in regards to static (I don't get shocked inspecting nearly as bad lately). I have heard many people are having worse problems with shedding from the Vision line of prints for some reason. (I use FilmGuard myself and this is not a problem as it neutralizes static and stops shedding.)

Can you tell me what's up with the "London" prints of Notting Hill? I have heard horrible things about these with the London tag on them. Apparently they are easily burned by the heat of the lamp, have had emulsion flaking off and I've even heard of colors smearing. Obviously these theaters do not want their names to be known, for fear they will be charged or I would post print numbers. They claimed to be using PTRs and dry media cleaners for cleaning the print and alcohol and XeKote for the projector heads. They didn't get the print stock, so I couldn't tell you if it was Kodak or Fuji. I ran this film and had no problems myself. I will note in past testing of XeKote years ago I have found "color smearing" to be a problem. The edges of white objects (such as a T-shirt) will start to turn green. I found this to be exaggerated with polyestar stocks. (Yes, these were "torture" tests...but I always do that with any product to find it's limit.)

I got two prints of "Eyes Wide Shut" and both were scratched from the lab. Are the labs not running scratch strips as frequently? The scratches went right into the leaders, which were of course cut to load onto a platter. Trying to get some of the studios to admit a print "can" come scratched from the lab is a nightmare. Fortunately, Warner was very concerned about the presentation of the film and shipped me two complete new prints, despite the fact I only needed certain reels. The prints I received came from Europe and were OUTSTANDING! Best prints I've seen since the days of Kodak's LPP stock! I believe they were on Agfa stock. Is Agfa still available? (I was rushed to get the scratched prints off the screen and only gave it a quick look.)

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