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Author Topic: HELP WITH 35MM MAG FILM. Pete Barth Film Handler Posts: 4 From: Hollywood, Ca,, USA Registered: Feb 2014 posted 02-09-2014 10:10 PM                     I have a MagnaTech recorder and dual dummy, and I need to transfer some sound film to digital. Can somebody please advise me how best to clean the mag sound film? The film will be quite old and may outgas that vinegar smell. PTR's, spray, cloth with xxx??  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-10-2014 01:25 PM                     Is it 35mm striped prints (4 track cinemascope) or is it full coat or magnastripe makes a difference If it is badly warped or shrunken I know several people like the capstain style sondor dubber http://www.sondor.ch/oma_e.html  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-10-2014 01:54 PM                     I don't know that I'd clean them any more then running them through a kelmar type film cleaner just to pick up any loose stuff. And... is digital a good way to archive it? If it is important sound you have then digital is probably not the way to go since there is no sure way to archive anything digital for the long term yet. A friend of mine did the transfers of the three trtack stereo orchestral recordngs for Vertigo and actually had to hold the film in contact with the playback head with a rag to get it to make even contact. They transfered it to new Dolby SR encoded mag film. The original mag film was badly vinegared and badly warped. He had repeated head clogs and had to stop, clean the clog out and then start over again until a clean transfer was completed of each take. Mark  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-10-2014 02:38 PM                     That is where the sondor is so nice as there is a capstan type roller pushing the tape flat against the head skywalker had one for doing restoration of a old mag master  |  IP: Logged Pete Barth Film Handler Posts: 4 From: Hollywood, Ca,, USA Registered: Feb 2014 posted 02-10-2014 10:17 PM                     Hello Gordon and Mark, Please bear with me as I am brand new to this forum and I am not aware of protocols. I am aware of the Sondor cap. drive mags. I have drooled over them. They operate way quietly. And I can't afford one! And......... I do have the MaggotTechs. I have used them for forty years at various film plants here in Hollywood and I know their foibles. Mine are BRAND NEW 18 year old units. They have about three hours use on them! I have machined a spline shaft on the main drive, and slit the drive in half with the rear half fixed and the front half floating to accommodate shrunken film to ride the drive as it wants to. I bought a precision lathe and have re-machined all rollers to only ride outside the sprockets everywhere. I also used to maintain telecines and learned how they ride the negative very well through their transports. The stock I will get is both three stripe (3 track) and full coat. Nothing with picture on it. So far I am using two PTR rollers (one on each side) to do a first clean. I don't like to wipe anything to avoid scratches. I have seen many editors use the black velvet double sided pads on pic and sound elements. I don't think that would help me. I also use a single PTR roller on the oxide side of the film as it goes into the sprocket drive on the Maggie. I am familiar with holding the film against the heads. With badly warped film I have found using a brand new Teccon head (less wrap) prevents head clogs. Are there any liquid solutions on a rag, or sprays I should look at? And there is the Media Pads and FilmGuard. I see FilmGuard as wax. FUTURE: In the future I will get very old optical negative and positive masters. I will have them run through a film cleaner at a telecine house before I transfer them. I am designing a retrofit of an old RCA optical film recorder (1938) into a optical film reader with interchangeable B.A.C.P. RSTR-2000's for variable density and variable area pickup. If that doesn't work I also have a Century sound head and that will surely work. I will put a MagnaTech stepper motor with belt drive behind it. Loose belts will minimize cogging of the stepper motor. Some of my work is transferring multiple reels of three track masters that come to me on 2 inch 24 track tape to ProTools at 96K. Delivery on BlueRay and hard drive. Usually 7 reels on the first tape (21 tracks) Some mono and stereo 1/4 inch music and dialog masters of very old titles. I have had 7 1/2 ips Nagra master mono tapes that run 30% LOW in speed! So far most to digital. Future work will be 6 stripe mag to TWO copies of Dolby SR 6 stripe mag. One copy for out here and the other to Iron Mountain Pennsylvania for archive. I agree that digital archiving has future problems. I push for 35 mag SR six stripe. But I do what I am asked to do. Otherwise I don't get the work. Believe me, I have hit my share of hard drives with a small hammer to get them to spin up! I always say "one kick is maintenance, Two kicks is abuse". I still am a baby in the film cleaning arena. Again, thank you for any help, Pete Barth  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-11-2014 04:04 PM                     Peter, It sounds like you are on the right track for dealing with the warped mag film for sure. The Vertigo stuff was transfered over at Goldwyn. I actually saw the set up and I believe it was either MAgnatech or MTM. That was a long time ago. As for transfering optical the Western Electric TA-7400 may actually be your best bet. It has a great rotary stabilizer system and it is reverse scan projecting a magnified sound track onto a fully adjstable slit... both width and height. While it is late 1930's vintage it has actually been used for optical transcribing before by other people. All you need to is fit a dummy head to the top of it and you're in busniess. Also... red readers are not necessarily the best for playing back V.D. sound tracks. The light source is essentially collimated and the result is lots of noise from the track. Diffusing the red light helps but scanning V.D. is really a job best suited for white light. Mark  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 02-11-2014 04:48 PM                       quote: Mark Gulbrandsen Also... red readers are not necessarily the best for playing back V.D. sound tracks. The light source is essentially collimated and the result is lots of noise from the track. Diffusing the red light helps but scanning V.D. is really a job best suited for white light. Mark It's not really "white" light the sound track "sees". It's the IR component of the exciter bulb that gets modulated into the solar cell pickup. As to RED Led collimation, not really. It could be better but these are not laser diodes. Best result noise-wise is with the LED as close as possible to the film. The Western Electric 7400 adjustable slit is very good for sure.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 02-11-2014 05:04 PM                        quote: Mark Gulbrandsen And... is digital a good way to archive it? If it is important sound you have then digital is probably not the way to go since there is no sure way to archive anything digital for the long term yet. True, but the volume of data involved with audio is small enough that continuous format migration, and/or "always on" (e.g. RAID or MAID) storage is more viable and less expensive than if we were talking about, say, 4K DPX. If there is a vinegar smell in these fullcoat mag elements, this means that they are acetate, not polyester, and that acetic acid offgases could be compromising the binder layer and/or the oxide itself. My gut feeling would be dry media cleaning only, unless they are simply impossible to transfer otherwise, because of the risk that whatever cleaning and/or lubrication compound you use could react unhelpfully with either the gas or oxide being separated from the film base.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-11-2014 05:21 PM                     quote: Sam D. Chavez It's not really "white" light the sound track "sees". It's the IR component of the exciter bulb that gets modulated into the solar cell pickup. Sam, Wouldn't that be more reliant on the actual spectral sensivity of the solor cell involved? And also based on the actual make up of the solor cell involved... As you can see in the following chart Amphorus Silicon and Crystaline Silicon solor cells reside in two completely different wavelength sspectrums all together.... Just some thoughts. And perhaps collimated is the wrong term to use for the red led's. There is another term that defines that type of light escapse me at the moment. Mark  |  IP: Logged Pete Barth Film Handler Posts: 4 From: Hollywood, Ca,, USA Registered: Feb 2014 posted 02-11-2014 05:26 PM                     Thank you Leo, Sam and others. At Para Pix we used to take a pile of film out to an editors car and bake it in the sun for hours when we had sticky shed. I have been baking 1/4, 1/2, 2 inch in an oven for a few years now. For my film dry clean it is, Thanks, Pete  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 02-11-2014 05:35 PM                       I believe it was crystaline silicon used in our application. It's about the silver in the soundtrack if you recall. Seems like just yesterday.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-11-2014 06:17 PM                     Yes, the silver... I've been living in the blue days too long.  |  IP: Logged Tom Ruff Film Handler Posts: 36 From: Burbank, CA, USA Registered: Mar 2011 posted 05-05-2014 02:16 AM                     HI Pete I'm going to dump a MTM and and a couple of MTE 600 control chassis this week. You want them? tom  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 05-08-2014 02:23 PM                    They could have done a dye track in magenta as well as cyan. (Yellow I know to be bad for sound.) But they didn't want to give the refuseniks a couple more dB!  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-08-2014 03:46 PM                     I believe there was a concern of wear of that layer of the emulsion  |  IP: Logged

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