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Kodak resurrects Super 8

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Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#171

Post by chiph »

dietrichepp wrote: post #9

I see USB and... SD card slot on the back? HDMI and... 3.5mm audio? One of the most characteristic features of Super 8, at least to me, is the complete lack of audio (at least, on most Super 8 works). So if you went to a theater to see something on Super 8 there might be a live band playing the soundtrack. I wonder if Kodak is doing something like putting audio on the SD card and then storing digital synchronization…

Growing up, my Dad shot on Super 8. And it had no audio - the camera had C-sized cells that only ran the film motor. I see from Wikipedia that cameras with audio capability were added in 1973, so it may be that Dad's camera predated that.

At 24 fps, with each frame being 4.01mm tall, means 96.24mm (3.7 inches) per second of magnetic stripes (there are two, presumably for left + right channels). This is roughly twice the speed that cassette tapes used (1-7/8" per second). Their announcement doesn't say if there's any audio compression/encoding used, but I used to use a dbx compression/expansion box to lower the noise floor on cassettes with very good results.

One of the nice things about Super 8 was how easy it was to edit. You used a cutting station that had pegs to ensure your cuts were between frames, and glued them together after scraping off a little bit of emulsion. Adding audio complicates matters, as the audio track is offset from the matching frame by about 3 inches.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#172

Post by acveilleux »

sparky_ wrote: post #52

Interesting to see history repeating itself a bit: "When you purchase film you will be buying the film, processing and digital transfer". Kodak was pursued by the DoJ in the 1950s and ultimately ruled against in an antitrust suit for doing the exact same thing with Kodachrome, the market leader in color (still) photography at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome#Prepaid_processing

Thing is, in 2016 it's hard to argue that doing prepaid processing is to lock out the competition, at this point, it's a requirement to make super 8 "viable" again. Where else will you get it processed?

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#173

Post by jschwartzi »

mikepurvis wrote: post #120
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With photography, film and audio alike, it's easy to prove that digital has orders of magnitude more precision and accuracy. That's great, but it's not the whole picture. Mixing desks are said to colour the sound in certain ways, and in doing so, introduce harmonics and other sorts of imprecision that would be anathema to digital components, for which THD and SNR are paramount and utter precision is the ultimate goal…

I don't think anyone disputes that. The real question is, can a digital filter provide a close enough approximation of that colouring that going through the analogue path is no longer necessary? Are Instagram and Photoshop an adequate substitute for real life film grain? I say yes, but I'm a software guy. And I've had this argument with a serious pro audio engineer who has a Pro Tools workstation built around a Neve…

I don't think the issue is with the system's ability to replicate the effect. Rather, with a digital system you're now faced with the problem of explicitly representing the effect, where the analog system had the effect built-in. If you can't quantify the effect then you will be unable to replicate it, and if you can then you have to do the work to replicate it. If these effects are a signature of your work, I can see how it would feel like a step backward to suddenly have to quantify them, and it would be very tempting to switch back to the equipment that already applies the effect.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#174

Post by acveilleux »

bambax wrote: post #149
salmonet wrote: post #107

Came across a tweet about the Sony MiniDisc Recorder/Player going for hundreds and even thousands of dollars on Ebay. Nostalgia apparently sells. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m5...

That's amazing. I have one that works absolutely flawlessly; I still need to transfer what I have on those disks before I try to sell it, but then... Why would people pay that kind of money for this?? Do they need it to play their old disks? Wouldn't it be cheaper to have them transferred to another media by a lab?

It was a very popular platform for audio recording by journalists. Good from factor, good battery life, decent audio quality (compared to cassettes/mini cassettes,) flexible controls and either decent microphones or at least connectors.

I'm surprised it's still popular enough however, I'd have thought modern flash based platforms would have killed minidisc by now. It was different back in the early 2000s.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#175

Post by amyjess »

drglitch wrote: post #16
ethbro wrote: post #6

Hearing the name "Kodak" just makes me sad these days. From the wikipedia entry, "From the $90 range in 1997, Kodak shares closed at 76 cents on January 3, 2012" .

As sad as that is, it's a pretty long life for a company that was killed by mis-management: they invented the digital cameras but chose not to cannibalize their incumbent analog business. To combat demise, they chose to fire people and become an IP shell. Last try at survival was to sell off most/all IP and license its name. The rest is history.

Didn't they also have a stint as a patent troll?

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#176

Post by dharma1 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #111

I watched the analog-to-digital-to-analog trend happen in professional audio (I was going to school for audio as ProTools was beginning to be a thing, we worked on analog tape machines...but the year after I finished my degree, they brought in digital ADAT machines for the small labs, and eventually went digital in the 24 track room, as well). It's amusing how superstitious people can be, especially in industries tha…

Sometimes it's the imperfections that we are attracted to. I started with digital audio a long time ago, but have been buying almost solely analog equipment (synths, effects, reel2reel) for the past 5 years. Often it just sounds more alive. I still use digital too, a lot, but it's nice to have another type of texture in the tool box.

Not sure I'd film on Super 8 though, it ends up being pretty costly and hassly, and you can get a pretty good match to those colours (if that's what you want) using flat or RAW profiles and film stock LUTs on digital cinema cameras

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#177

Post by iolothebard »

Jgrubb wrote: post #168
SwellJoe wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part where I went to school for audio? I don't want to appeal merely to authority, but, well, at some point I become frustrated at the level of superstition that backs these kinds of claims. Look, I own multiple all-tube amps for my guitars. I understand the appeal (though it's much more complicated than "tube is better"). I even understand the science for why tubes sound "good" and why solid state a…

Get off your high horse. I went to school for audio too. I own a ton of the same stuff you do. I spent 15 years on the road as a musician and 8 of those in the studio as an engineer. I've soldered custom Trident snake heads onto new snakes so we could build our studio with that board as the centerpiece. I used to use Pro Tools before I discovered (as you apparently did as well) that software is a more comfortable liv…

Come on man, everyone knows solid state amps > shitty 1950s tube amps! ;-)

Sarcasm aside, the modeling amp I'm looking at getting has a tube in it (Vox VT40X, 12AX7). I love my JVM410H but it's nice to not share with the entire neighborhood sometimes.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#178

Post by jevgeni »

SwellJoe wrote: post #111

I watched the analog-to-digital-to-analog trend happen in professional audio (I was going to school for audio as ProTools was beginning to be a thing, we worked on analog tape machines...but the year after I finished my degree, they brought in digital ADAT machines for the small labs, and eventually went digital in the 24 track room, as well). It's amusing how superstitious people can be, especially in industries tha…

It's a creative tool. And it's not comparable to music production, because film has a huge influence on the end result, whereas in music you must have a very well trained ear to appreciate the difference.

I sometimes shoot medium format film and the artistic results are often better, albeit with lower fidelity. The reasons as far as I can tell are due to both technical constraints that force you to be more mindful of what you are doing, the unique way light is interpreted by film, and mechanically superior vintage optics.

Could I achieve the same results in post processing? Yeah, if I calibrate exactly to colour rendering of my sensor, figure out the correct white balance, colour space, and the necessary adjustments. Although, given that even DxO Optics with their FilmPack addon doesn't give me the exact results I get from say Fujichrome Provia 100F film, I doubt that it's that easy.

Telling everyone you're vegan is hipster bullshit. This is just an artistic tool.

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#179

Post by dharma1 »

mjn wrote: post #147
mikepurvis wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone disputes that. The real question is, can a digital filter provide a close enough approximation of that colouring that going through the analogue path is no longer necessary? Are Instagram and Photoshop an adequate substitute for real life film grain? I say yes, but I'm a software guy. And I've had this argument with a serious pro audio engineer who has a Pro Tools workstation built around a Neve…

> can a digital filter provide a close enough approximation of that colouring that going through the analogue path is no longer necessary? In principle yes, but it's surprisingly tricky, to the extent that even some very simple analog audio things, like '70s-era voltage-controlled-oscillator synths, are only recently able to be emulated reasonably well. The research field is called "virtual analog synthesis". I'm not…

I've got a bunch of friends who have worked on this at some point, and I know some of the people cited in that PhD thesis. I can still hear the difference, even with state-of-the art current virtual analog emulations, like Diva.

Have to say the gap is narrowing though.

One approach I haven't seen used yet is using the latest AI/neural networks to learn and model the inherent nonlinearities in analog audio

Re: Kodak resurrects Super 8

#180

Post by SonicSoul »

dharma1 wrote: post #176
SwellJoe wrote: post #111

I watched the analog-to-digital-to-analog trend happen in professional audio (I was going to school for audio as ProTools was beginning to be a thing, we worked on analog tape machines...but the year after I finished my degree, they brought in digital ADAT machines for the small labs, and eventually went digital in the 24 track room, as well). It's amusing how superstitious people can be, especially in industries tha…

Sometimes it's the imperfections that we are attracted to. I started with digital audio a long time ago, but have been buying almost solely analog equipment (synths, effects, reel2reel) for the past 5 years. Often it just sounds more alive. I still use digital too, a lot, but it's nice to have another type of texture in the tool box. Not sure I'd film on Super 8 though, it ends up being pretty costly and hassly, and…

I think analog synths are in a different category because they generate sound vs capturing it. When it comes to instruments like that you can't make an argument that digital does it better because that is subjective. Similarly I don't think a synth with guitar sampled mod can replace the guitar because it would be impossible (or very hard) to capture all quirks/permutations of strings together. You could make a case that capturing guitar sound digitally is better than on analog, which is more in line with what's Kodak is doing
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