I live close to a company called 16mm Australia Pty Ltd which hires out 16mm prints. I have thought about getting a projector and having a few outdoor family nights. I have a few questions though first and would be grateful if those of you familiar with 16mm could help me.

1. How does the screen quality of 16mm compare with that of 35mm?

2. Is the projected image the same shape or is the image cropped to make a squarer image?

3. What are your experiences and thoughts on the quality of the medium?

4. Is dvd projector technology better?

Thanks Peter

I found this site on the web. This looks like quite a nice home theater.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/2428/CINEMA.html

cheers Peter

Print quality can vary from excellent to , depending on the care used to make the reduction duplicate negative, and the number of "generations" from the original 35mm cut negative. Prints in 16mm libraries can be very abused and damaged, and many prints available to collectors are old and very worn prints that were used for television syndication. But some rental prints can be very high quality and in very good condition.

IMHO, a good 16mm reduction print can easily fill a 4 x 3 metre screen with far better quality than a DVD. A good 16mm projector will cost much less than a digital projector required to fill that sized screen. But 16mm release prints normally do not have stereo sound (although DTS digital has been used for 16mm, and Kodak pioneered the use of Dolby noise reduction with stereo optical sound using 16mm prints in the early 1970's). Getting a new/good 16mm print of recent films is usually more difficult than finding the movie on DVD.

As long as the film is being shown for private use "outdoor family nights", rental terms should not be an issue. But films shown to a paying audience need to be handled through a distributor (regardless whether you are showing 35mm, 16mm or video).

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

I recall seeing 'Roxanne' a few years back at a small showing in a room at Monash University in Gippsland.

I don't know whether this was 16mm or 35 mm however I do recall thinking that the image looked much squarer than you normally get in a picture theatre. This must be the 133:1 aspect ration that you are referring to.

I find this a bit of a turn-off personally. I like the wider formats, especially cinemascope.

cheers Peter

Theoretically, 16mm can look much better than HDTV and certainly better than DVD. In practice, it often doesn't. The weak points are usually a) projection lenses b) light output from tungsten projectors and c) sound quality (which can be decent, but usually isn't). As John pointed out, print condition can also be an issue.

For a good spot to ask questions like the one you have here, go to www.16mmfilms.com .

You have to register to even look at the forums, but once you're in...it's a regular 16mm film-tech type of place.

John.

I have registered for the forums and had a look around the site.

One thing really surprised me. One person was looking for a 16mm 'Grease' print and a reply suggested that it had been released in Super-8. I never thought that films were released in Super-8. I imagine that the quality of the projected image would be pretty bad. Seems hardly worth the effort.

When I saw Roxanne at Monash University the quality of the projected image was pretty poor. The image was projected on one of those white rollup screens that are about 5ftx 5ft in size.

This makes me think that perhaps I was watching an image from a Super-8 print not a 16mm print. The projector was not very large from memory. I am quite surprised by John P's comment that

"... a good 16mm reduction print can easily fill a 4 x 3 metre screen with far better quality than a DVD." 4m x 3m equates to about 12ft x 9ft for which you would need a reasonably large room to show an image that size (my place has 8ft ceilings only!).

I will see if I can find someone in Melbourne who has a 16mm projector and ask if they will show me a film so that I can gauge the quality.

If I was to show films at home I would want to collect 16mm prints of french comedies along with politically incorrect cartoons. I hunted around the Internet but aside from La Cage Aux Folles there does not seem to be much ethnic 16mm stuff around. Perhaps the films can be obtained in France on 16mm?

cheers Peter

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