Gotten features on several occasions where the end is out. Is there a good reason to? You need to rewind anyway to watch it... Is there a reason? I can’t find one

I got two films where they had not been rewound, too lazy I guess. You sometimes find the instruction 'Do not rewind', on the labels of films that came from a library, I suppose this was so they could check for any damage, before sending it out to the next hirer.

Yes, that is a reason so for libraries it makes sense. Hanks, Robert

i also had a couple of films where i had to rewind it in order to vie. i thought it was odd but now that makes sense.

I have had them wound out, back to front and inside out on very odd occasions.
I have had them sellotaped, staples joining them, and some that have been warped, stripe peeling off them and all number of ridiculous ways in the manner a film could ever possibly be classed as "fit for purpose or dispatched as such!"

Luckily all of the real shoddy stuff came in the early days, was only ever very short lengths of film, and was very cheap and from it I simply deduced, it isn't worth bothering with any of the clowns which operate at this end of the market.

It may be cheap but anything at all spent was simply a waste of time and money in my case!

These type of films and their sellers were the ones which wasted my own personal time and money by far the most!

There is a lot of meaning in the term, you get what you pay for, the thing with this hobby is that it is possible to get good low price bargains, and in both 8 and 16, i can certainly be unpredictable, i always breath a sigh of relief after viewing a used print for the first time, or grit my teeth if i get peed off should there be a problem.

I'm probably like you Tom; first time I view a used print, I am quite relieved when it's come to the end, and no problems; then next time I can relax more in the knowledge that there are no issues.

No issues, not even one teeny weeny issue nowadays,... almost as rare as Rocking Horse Shit now, on any full feature no matter what the gauge!

If anyone says differently on a regular basis in this era now,.. they are lying!

Another thing the 16mm libraries did was to know the exact length of each reel. When they received the copies back they ran them through a counter if it showed some length missing they would know. Another reason for requesting "Do Not Rewind".
Borrowers often complained they were returning their own "nice" spool, there was at least one library who enclosed an empty spool for the first reel take-up.

Not on a regular basis Andrew, but you can still pick up prints looking like they just came from the lab. A few years ago CHC listed a copy of 'A Yank at Oxford', it was a bit more than I usually paid. I kept going back to the list to look at it, then it disappeared, and I wished I had bought it. I would have bought the disc as a last resort, but it wasn't available in the UK. Then after a year's absence it reappeared on the list; maybe it was missing to make room for other titles. Just then I had an electricity rebate, so used the money to buy it. The film is a theatrical print, and was made by MGM's own labs, and is absolutely flawless. I wrote to Phil afterwards to congratulate him on coming up with this.
I don't know of anyone who claims to have no issues with any secondhand prints. As regards Super 8, which I no longer collect, all but one of my films were bought by myself brand new, and have been kept in that condition, as you saw from some pictures I posted before. I am not a returner like so many in the forums; I never sold up thinking VHS was better, then try to re-collect everything I formerly owned.

Yes quite correct Robert, I have them as proof!
But from front to back over 3,4 or 5 spools of 600ft film on 8, it is rare now and getting rarer by the year I might also add as these things still get used before they are eventually sold on.

If I'd have kept all of my brand new prints from the 70's , 80's and 90's , not one would look anything like brand new lab struck prints.
Had I have only ever stuck to the Agfa LS, they might, but because I didn't , even the most treasured prints contained some minor damage.

I only have my Eumig for Super 8, and they have a reputation for safe handling of film. There are two ways of looking at your question:
1/ Does the film have any issues
2/ Does the collector have any issues with the print.

It's almost impossible to buy a print that is without some signs of wear; our home movies will show signs of use if you keep projecting them. A number of my 16mm prints are no worse than the brand new prints we bought from Mountain, and you know they didn't always get the best material to work from; printed base lines, cue marks. I have bought prints with issues, as you have seen from my screenshots, faded Eastman, splices, maybe clipped dialogue, and even an emulsion scratch. Some outsiders would think it mad to spend more on a film like that when you could get the perfect digital copy much cheaper, but it wouldn't give me the same enjoyment.

Me neither Robert. I am using the digital projector less now than I've ever previously done. Partly because there aren't too many new movies I'm too bothered about watching.
It might be an age thing that though and I'm sure once our grandchild gets just a little older, it will be used much more frequently once again as all of those movies our own boys used to love seeing up on the big screen get revisited once again.

I never get anything like the same thrill using my digital projector as I do watching real films on my cine projector even though I'm the first to concede that you do need both now in this era.
I can say exactly the same thing between playing music digitally or using a quality analogue turntable and 12" vinyl.
Once again though, digital play is far easier, takes much less care and maintenance and from a Dj's perspective, mixing and looping digital files is childsplay using modern software when compared to the skill required to do so well using vinyl records.

Eumig machines do tend to be very good film handlers but I had an early HQ sound mono 8 series in the 90's that did regularly scratch much to my complete annoyance.
It had very good sound however albeit with a rather annoying audio hum in the days before the hum bucking coils were correctly adjusted.

The best by a million miles so far as non scratching film paths are concerned are the last 9 series all except the terribly designed co axial reel job.
The S934/36/38 & 40 are about the very best ever made by them.

I just looked it up again on S8 Data. It was an 802-D that I previously owned that scratched film for no apparent or obvious reasons not a seven series model sorry.
It was also far noisier in run than the 9 series models mentioned above.
The quietest and by far smoothest machine I ever owned first time around in this hobby was the Agfa LS2.
A lovely little machine still to this day.

That's the one thing about the Eumig, is the hum; most of the time, the volume is Ok so I don't hear it. Regarding issues with films, the main one for me is that the splices go through with any trouble, like perforation tearing. You can check them on rewinds. I'm always relieved when I have got to 'THE END', and no problems. The odd base scratch, cinch marks, and cue marks, don't bother me. i know I am watching real film. One other thing; there aren't so many copies about of each title in 16mm, simply because they were not sold for domestic use, so collectors have to lower their sights a bit. I came across a letter in one of the Movie Maker's at the time VHS was making inroads. One man was complaining that Super 8 features at that time were edited, while VHS features were full length. Someone wrote that because this person didn't want to go over to tape, the medium was more important than the message. I think that's the same now; even though the title might be on disc, someone wants it on film.

Further to the original question, as well as seeing the words 'Do not rewind' on the tails of library films, I've also found it on TV prints, so I suppose someone would inspect it prior to it being broadcast again. I can remember back in the 60s when there would be breakdowns, or a film jumped the loop.

The hum can be made a whole lot better on all machines that have these coils fitted by a little careful trial and error so far as the ideal positioning of these coils is concerned.
Machines prone to audible hum however cannot easily be silenced without fitting such things as extra ground loops to the machine etc etc.
Many machines don't have or even need these coils. These are the better designed machines.

Yes, the eumigs I had were great, sturdy machines — but the hum drove me crazy. It made their claim of “high-quality sound” suspect, in my view. I loved the sturdiness of eumigs, but the hum really detracted from the film presentation, and spoke to the sound engineering (?) that went into these machines.

(I will say, the lack of hum associated with the other formats is a big advantage, in my mind.)

There are many machines John without hum bucking coils that don't produce any noticeable hum even when they have no film loaded into them and the volume level is turned right up.

Digital, being a lossless and noise less source is of course a different thing altogether.
I remember the first time I listened to a CD beginning with the volume on the separate stereo amplifier set to my normal analogue presentation level, I nearly jumped out of my skin at the full on intro of the track, without any hint of when it was about to begin.

I found the hum far less prevalent with other non-eumig machines, but it was still there to some degree. Thanks to my day job as a communications vice president for a global company, I work with many high-quality formats. After work, when I came home to “humming” film projectors, my ear was already trained to not even expect a “hum,” “crackle,” “drop out,” “muffled,” etc., output. Given I can’t turn off my ears’ (and eyes’) “expectations,” I welcome any and all formats that produce jaw-dropping audio and images.

It is truly a great time to be a home showman!

That's fair enough John. Of course nothing from 40 years ago can possibly match the quality of what we all have at our disposal in this day and age but the hiss and hum found on some machines can be all but eliminated on others, even more so when used in conjunction with a decent graphic equaliser.

I can still be fairly regularly amazed by just how good those tiny stripes can be made to sound.
It isn't audiophile quality of course but still is mighty impressive for a tape source of such tiny proportions as can be the resulting image quality from such a tiny frame.

Agree, Andrew — but I’ve found the only consistency with magnetic stripe Super 8 films is its inconsistency. That is, the best-sounding film I’ve found from a distributor is Universal 8’s 400’ INVISIBLE MAN digest. (A 1933 film!) The worst? — a music video (!), for Pete’s sake — Derann’s CAN’T STAND LOSING YOU (by The Police). It was so muffled (which is inexcusable), I promptly got rid of that one.

(Speaking for myself, the consistency of present-day formats has alleviated a lot of the frustration of decades past.)

Nothing will ever come close to today's digital sound quality, that's for sure.
Perfect cannot easily be improved upon!

Derann's music films like the one you mentioned, The Lion King and Band Aid promo films among others have always needed recording again to sound anything at all like acceptable as I've found.
Most of these were printed in the days of the often inconsistent grey stripe.

Some films I have on pasted grey stripe I've found can sound perfectly acceptable even straight from original recordings, others like my Fantasia feature were, quite frankly, really poor until revisited.

Elton John's "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" was abysmal on my own print from a sound perspective until I recorded it again from my digital copy of the song. Now it is one of the best musical films I have!

Thanks Andrew. My question as a collector has always been, if sound quality on some new releases were so poor that collectors had to go through the added expense and work of re-recording them, then why were these releases even offered for sale in the first place?

It's the age old question John which has been answered many times over by many different people.

It was this or nothing towards the end and the titles on offer at the time, sold themselves.
If there was any chance at all that most collectors could get them up to scratch so to speak, they grabbed the opportunity with both hands for timeless classic footage on real film such as the Lion King Promo.

It has honestly never put me off buying any film so long as the stripe was at least sound in its adhesion to the polyester.

The reason I've never pursued Chicken Run even when sold relatively cheap was because so so many of this title suffered with stripe peeling reportedly.

Can the stripe be removed? Then added by those Italians perhaps? Those that magnetic stripe 16mm too?

Regardless of product category or hobby, a company knowingly selling a(n expensive) faulty product is where I have to draw the line as a customer.