Now that we have 116 members, let's share with one another the gauges that each of us collects. I'll start. It's a question that requires a short and sweet response. Myself, I collect 8mm/super 8mm/16mm.

Tim, it might seem like 116, there's about 50 of 'em dead meat, they make gravestones look animated.
As for your pertinent question, Standard ( Regular ) 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm mainly features, how's your 16mm venture coming along?
Don't be surprised if one day you notice "This room used to be bigger than this, and where the hell has the door gone!"

Regular 8/Super 8, 9.5 (just a little), 16mm and 35mm ... Love the size of the Super 8's, but the 16mm are probably the best bet for quality and ease. 35mm beats it all, but is a lot of work. Ouch says the back

Super 8 and 16mm. My projector supports regular 8 too, but I don't collect it (unless something special shows up).

Just Super 8mm on celluloid, and that's the way it will always be for me.

Just super 8mm for me, been tempted to stray into 16mm many times over the years but financing super 8 does enough damage to the wallet

99.9% is super 8,
I do have an old Elf NT1 that seems OK but has seen better days, a few 16mm include two features,
Cromwell, (an excellent print) & all that jazz with Roy Schieder, then its an episode of Minder, The flintstones, The Big Valley, A Beverly hillbillys episode, a Wyatt Earp episode, Mash & a Happy Days.
Its only due to size and space etc that im torn between continuing with 16mm or selling it all and concentrating on the 8, especially now i have bought a you know what projector which is also pretty good on the quality.

For me it's Regular-8 / Super-8 & 16 mm. More 16 these days but I still pick up Super-8 titles when one comes along that I've been searching for ages!

LMBO HUGH!! Where in the heck ARE all of the members?
The 16mm purchases are on hold until I have a bit more freed up cash, but still glad that I bought the machine! I do have a television commercial from the late 60's on it's way that runs a minute long. :-)

Timothy, they simply look on, like a peeping Tom by and large, and have nothing to say.

The Mute Majority is what I refer to them as. They are here and on every single forum you will ever visit!

I wonder what would happen here, and elsewhere, if the regular posters, boycotted the forum altogether for a month?

Then what?

Doesn't say much for their love of real film, I know that much!

Having seen the pathetic response to one of the very best 16mm portable projectors money can buy over on the other forum, I am seriously losing faith in this film collecting fraternity left here!

No passion, No real interest, No Comments, No drive.... and seemingly, No Money!!!!

For me, it begun with silent standard 8 films in the early sixties. Then standard and Super8 sound. In the seventies I bougth some 16mm reels from Blackhawk Films. There was a 4th class media mail these days. Slow but affordable. I collect all formats except 70mm, since last year. I found a 35mm feature collection, I just had to buy. It was a bargain. £400 for 40 features. Hard to resist. now I just have to install my 35mm projector, to enjoy the films.

I only actively collect the larger gauges, 9.5 silent, 16 sound and silent and 28. Nothing against 8mm, it's just a lot of the very early prints I collect are found on the larger gauges. I keep my trusty Eumig 824 just in case though!

Finally finished watching one of my latest buy's last night "On The Town", this is why I love super 8mm so much, gorgeous mint print, rich colours and excellent sound and for the rest of the night I was humming and whistling you know what.............................. "New York New York"

You can't beat the flexibility of Super 8mm magnetic for use in the home environment, I agree Del.
The ability to upgrade the sound, as and when necessary, is a big deal in my book.

I do agree that without Derann and their modern prints which are mostly near 16mm quality I might have strayed into 16mm but as Andrew says there is such flexibility with super 8 with re recording etc plus it doesn't take up anywhere near the same amount of space. However I am in no way dissing 16mm and have complete respect for ALL 16mm collectors, as I have for any gauge to be fair (with the exception of one collector). At the end of the day we all love our films and all of us enjoy the thrill of threading that precious film though our projectors and hearing that familiar noise as the film threads through, no matter what gauge it is, nothing really compares.

I see many of you mention upgrade of sound. How do you actually do this? Which kind of recording equipment do you use?

Elmos have good recording ability, the dual track ones. My True Grit has English sound on one track and French I think on second. When I get the sound file for Frankenstein, I will move German track to two and record English to first. Or you can do stereo on the GS models

If you wish to use an Elmo to do this with, make sure it is an electronically driven one with a D.C. drive .

I am no expert, can I ask why? Which models is not good for this? I remember adding music to some home films with my ST-600. Worked fine at the time

But how do you synchronize the sound? I have also recording on mine, but how can you play it from an other device to get it in sync? I guess you need some kind of synchronization equipment.

That is where I come to short also. Microseconds off and I think I get annoyed. My GS-1200 with synch box should keep it good IF I can start it exactly

It has to be a D.C. electronically driven machine to stand any chance whatsoever of decent lip sync on packaged movies.

Yes, you can use any machine to record background music or narration of course, but this isn't relying on precision lip sync like what you need to be able to re record a sound track on a film.

Many of the Elmo machines use D.C. motors to drive the film through the projector. All the GS ones do. The ones that do not, are the ST range.

Using a GS 1200 and a sync pulse unit to record with, should provide you with the easiest method of any once you can master starting the digital track at precisely the correct point at the beginning of each reel of Film.

But even with a reliable motor you need to start at the exact correct frame. You will notice with just a few frames off. One hickup and jumping of a frame during playing of the movie and the sound will be off. I have a hard time to see that the lipsync will be 100% correct unless you have a dedicated machine with two films run with the same motor, or if you have a motor digitally adjusted to hold the exact correct speed.

Ah, I didn't see your reply, Andrew when I wrote mine. A machine with a lip sync pulse would solve the problem, but then you need such a machine too. Now I get it. But still the same problem with starting the film at the correct frame.

It's just a case of practice to be able to start the digital track at precisely the right time.
I use a pc and dedicated video software to do my recordings.

What I've found is my own personal reaction time from seeing the opening scene of a movie on film to pressing the start button on my digital controller is around 0.33 of a second.
Therefore I find the exact point that the corresponding opening scene appears on the digital video, then I advance the video by .33 of a second before pausing it.
Then when I set the projector running observing and predicting when the same opening is about to appear, my own reaction time of one third of a second on average, finds the exact point the digital track begins at once the play button is depressed.

This way I gain almost frame perfect sync from the start. Any discrepancies, are completely unnoticeable to the human eye.

It takes a little practice, but it is a fairly easy skill to develop with the right amount of practice.