I mentioned this part one only item we have the other week. I have had this for a number of years now & haven't been able to find any more parts. So the other day i decided that in January i will list it on e-bay.
Well, tonight i took it out the box, gave it a gentle clean with filmgaurd, and popped it through the Elmo, watching the stunning quality of this and again, via my old pioneer stereo amp cranked up the sound and there aint no way i bring myself to selling it now, so back into the collection it goes.
What a print, great music, especially that Beethoven 5th Symphony.
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Belive me when i say these images really do not do it any justice at all. Anyone with a copy of this film will tell you that.

I couldnt see the images so i have loaded trhem up again, perhaps one of you administrator chaps could take a look at this?

As with nigh on all the Derann Disney prints, it is indeed a lovely print Tom.

The sound isn't great on mine as it stands (not even looked at this one yet for recording it again), but the image cannot be beaten really on eight.

It was said by K. Wilton while reviewing the Aladdin print for FFTC, unless there are drastic improvements made to the present day film stocks available, we are probably seeing the very best of what can be achieved on Super 8mm with these current Disney releases from Derann. (Or words to that effect).

He was of course, absolutely correct and sadly that did turn out to be pinnacle of what could be achieved.

If only LPP was made and used in the 70s. Cant help wonder where the hobby would be if Dear old Derek had lived on.

They've all loaded successfully now Tom. Perhaps just a little glitch that I see happen at times. Especially if you change method of upload mid way through.
It seems to cause chaos to the order of assembly I've found.

Nowadays, I've learned to stick with one method and try my best not to make any errors, though you do need to concentrate at times if you have distractions around you at the time of uploading.

What really would have been interesting, would have been if pre striped stock had not been discontinued, then maybe Derek WOULD have still had a chance of enjoying all this still, even if not releasing much these days.

Those chemicals he was forced to handle on a daily basis through circumstances beyond his control, were highly volatile over prolonged use.

Something we will never truly know of course, but they can't have done anyone any good, Ged included.

I have read a lot about those experiments that derann did in order to a soundtrack they could use. Its only having purchased the Madagasger xmas caper that i have come to realise how crap this stuff is.although the sound is ok it just isnt anywhere near as good as the proper pre stripe.id b dissapointed if i had a feature film like it.id probably return it. When did this pasty track start being used.any idea of title to avoid?

Don't buy Die Hard then Tom! 😁😁😁

Look at the end of the day mate, once pre striped dried up around about the same time K40S and the likes disappeared from the shelves (around 1995 for the most part), it was this way or no way.

Derek spent in excess of ten grand of wasted stock, before finding a solution he felt was anywhere near good enough to serve his film loving community.
He bought as much pre stripe stock he could lay his hands on. But it only lasted a couple of years. He was using miles and miles of the stuff in that era.

Had he had not even bothered finding an alternative solution, Die Hard, Speed, Independence Day and Silence Of The Lambs and so and so on....would never had seen the light of day.

Now the good news...

As I've been banging on for years now, you can record them again far better than they were done originally.
As these modern master materials offer far far superior sound, you can almost always achieve a finished print quality that will AT THE VERY LEAST match what we were used to from good old pre striped on a good day when all the sound recording equipment was far newer and far better back then.

The only time you come up against real issues, is when the pasted stripe wasn't bonded well enough. This is still fairly rare so long as someone previously hasn't treated the film in hazardous cleaners such as Deranns own, ironically.

Most of what I collect is from 1990 onwards.
Some of it comes from the pasted stripe era, while it is time consuming exercise having to record these things again, they nearly always can be made at the very least perfectly acceptable and Die Hard has turned out exceptionally well on the one I did thankfully.

I'm sure Madagascar could be too.

Thanks for the info there. I shall beware.

I'm sure I'm not teaching you anything here Tom. A seasoned veteran and all! 😁😁

One other little snippet of advice I'd like to offer anyone who is NOT familiar with buying prints from this era,...

Accept now, first and foremost, that it is these prints above all others, that will retain both their colour and value far beyond a good older pre striped fading one, even with brilliant sound.

Yes you have to ask the questions before committing to them regarding the stripe quality, but sellers of these prints do not particularly like being bombarded with questions like, will it record again well? Etc etc.

Truth is, they don't know.

No one can ever truly know.
You can only go off your past experiences with these things and even then occasionally, one will surprise you.
Sometimes for better, sometimes for the worse.

Mark Mander is someone I know who has had considerably experience of doing these things.

It would be interesting to see what his input on this one would be?

All I can say is, I don't feel I've ever thrown good money after bad away on these type of prints. You just have to do a little bit to get them ultimately how you'd all like them, that's all.

For any doubting Thomas's, consider the fact that the snippet from the Vimeo upload I posted for other purposes of WFRR, came to me re recorded in German from a collector. It was on pasted stripe and considering the video only records the sound from the two small internal projector speakers, I think it highlights perfectly well, that for the most part, with a little effort and devotion, there isn't much to complain about for analogue stereo from a magnetic stripe! 😏

https://vimeo.com/179453269

Not really a lot to your post there Andrew, the sound on this paste stripe is well worth doing and results are much better with more depth to the sound, I'd say it sounds more stereo rather than two mono tracks (if that makes sense).

Let's just say one thing here, if you bought the print new from Derann and on first play you noticed a problem with the sound it would sent back(due to the purchase price alone), I guess it would either be rerecorded or replaced at the time, these prints would then be white box specials? Now i doubt many got sent out with bad stripe as if it was a continuous problem then other prints wouldn't be released, there were many prints produced using paste and ok its not as good but it was that or nothing on polyester prints but the ones out there should be fine now. My point is this , if the stripe is already sound and flat then a very noticable improvement can be achieved.

As always steps need to be done before attempting ANY recording jobs,Mark.

I must admit, if (for example) i did purchase Die Hard brand new from Derann when they were trading, if it had the same sound quality as Madagascar xmas caper i would definatly had sent it back. If that was the best they could produce on the paste stripe i find it hard to believe that they sold many films at all, or that the word would have got around, certainly Mr Wilton would not give this the thumbs up in his reviews, or indeed the likes of other collectors like Kev Faulkner, John Clancy , Andy and Mark on here to name only a few, bearing in mind the prices at that time.
I took a look at some of the reviews on later films releases and they all seem OK, i fully understand that re-recording in stereo makes a hell of a difference, i have seen that myself on my own copies of T2 and Grease, (done by the previous owners).
I did read the reviews of the xmas caper on the other forum as well before purchasing and it appears to be a generally accepted as one of the best ever for images but everyone seems to say the sound,(like mine) though acceptable is hissy and on the lower side. Alan Rik also said his didn't take to well to re-recording while others appear to have done it OK and improved it.
I do wish i was up on that side of the hobby but with only the 1200HD i do agree its not the best machine for tackling it, plus i dont have any decent enough equipment for the job full stop.

When I was rerecording super 8 prints for a certain dealer the best results that I got was the german acetate prints with laminate stripe this was because it was dead flat and you could get a perfect recording so much so that I had one of the first prints of the world is not enough and Keith Wilton wanted to show the pre opening title sequence on the Thames, he was going to sync it up with the laser disc but on the day their was technical difficulties so he asked if he could show it with my sound recording which I agreed after the sequence their was so much applause because of the sound so much so that Derek asked if he could show it at Blackpool in November which again I agreed.
This was all down to the laminate stripe, but Derann paste stripe was a gamble sometimes it was good and then it could be like a ploughed field.

What are the few new releases using for sound stripe now? Also, what is the film stocks being used, i assume LPP polyester is no more?

The German labs use a paste stripe which they put on themselves but only main stripe and no balance stripe so you can't have stereo and the film stock is polyester

The last time I spoke to Phil a chc there was a hold up with the striping machine as it was rebuilding the old one or having a new one made. There are so many levels of film coming
out of there its not hard to see why its a slow process, film without stripe, film with stripe and no sound, film with stripe and sound !!!!!!. I would hope they are now offering the
balance stripe too for an up to date option of stereo sound, but that would then involve the recording equipment to suit, unless you want to do it yourself, which many have with
great success. Lets not forget that Walton relied upon striping for there output of shorts features and everything in between, this was done for the most part by evt magnetics and
with major success too. Does anyone have any experience's of bad stripe on a Walton film or a re record that improved one of there films ?, we just get the horror stories of the
derann products, I would be interested to hear any from the forum members.

Now the German lab prints are totally different, I agree you get some great results with them but as you said David it's flat so there shouldn't be an issue, paste stripe applied by Derann can be bumpy hence the difference in sound, Mark

Paul, I've done a few Walton prints and got fantastic results, i've had to do some as the sound levels were very low and hissy, after recording they sound lovely, quite a lot of the Walton prints are single stripe so no stereo but i would still rerecord them if needed, Mark.

Paul, i have to say up until now i have never had an issue with any Walton film as far as sound is concerned. I know a lot of the industry at the time thought Walton were nuts not putting on a balance track. Sure this is bad if you want to re record in stereo but there was also people saying it affected the quality of the sound. So far i have not had a poor walton sound film, and we have a lot of them with single stripe only.
I have never been into re recording for reasons given, i always buy my films and if the sound if crap it goes back. The only exception is the Madagascar xmas caper as it appears they are all the same but it is of course more than acceptable, today we are grateful to have have a copy.
The one company i had more problems with returning crappy sound copies was mountain films, jeepers so many were utter crap, either out of syn or muffled or both, & these all had a balance track.

Some of the latter films from Walton had a zonal paste stripe on them, but still no real bad reports of poor sound or quality of stripe, again done by evt, so if the stripe is applied
correctly and flat even if its not Agfa f5 paste mix, result can be very good and even after some 30 + years, factor in the head wear many will have flats on to some degree, its still
incredible that such good sound can be got from such a tiny .80 mm ( 32 thousandth's of an inch ) and less than .001 thou thick strip of rust. As Mark quite rightly says preparation
is the key here, a couple of test recordings on leader beforehand should determine how good it will be. I understand the goko 8008 machine is very good for this but only in short
runs because of the capstan drive it uses tends to slip or skid around because no sprockets to drive it through.

The balance strip was not meant to be recorded on was it? The word 'balance' was so that the film wound better on to reels. Paste Vs Laminate. Would paste under a microscope look slightly cambered?

The reason poly had laminated stripe would it be on the top of the emulsion?

Walton prints 99% sound was OK. Mountain Films so. so.

David,
I thought the balance stripe was to keep the film flat through the gate, having both stripes helped the film stay level, some single stripe films can have focus issues.Mark

I have never looked that close David, but under a microscope you could see a curve maybe in the middle, but the paste stripe goes through a series of rollers to flatten it
before its rolled onto the take up spool. I would think this is the most critical part of the process is where cleanliness is very important, this "slurry " of paste sticks to everything
in its path, and stainless steel or brass parts were used to stop ant magnetic attraction of the stuff and aid the cleaning of parts, perhaps this was not done as much as it should have been in some cases. I think the recording on the balance stripe was a light bulb moment for someone, not sure it was derann or a collector. I can't say I have experienced that much
out of focus effect with the lack of a balance stripe, virtually non of the tom & jerry Walton 200 footers did not have this balance stripe, but I have not noticed an out of focus problem with them any more than any other film. I measured this thickness of stripe on the film which came to about 1 thou approximately which means that the projectors parameters are set to account for such imperfections on the gate area, perhaps some machines are better than others at dealing with this, plus any lube that has bean used, in
my case though non.

Mark is correct on the balance stripe there, it was to be even through the gate for full focus, but again, i dont see any image problem on any of our Walton single stripe only films, in fact, Walton have some of the best picture quality outside of Deranns post 85 films. This was an idea Walton had to save money when things wernt going too well, Derek Simmons told the boss it was false economy.

I doubt if you could work out how much it would lift one side of the film by, 8mm X .001 now work out the angle ?. This would be the shift of flatness to gate and lens, the barrel
holding the lens square to the film plain would be out by more than this, in a side to side movement, there needs to be tolerances as to limits and fits I believe these would be
able to accommodate the missing balance stripe or include it, given standard machining tolerance's.