Hi all.
I've only just started being interested in reel projection and bought my first projector at a thrift store last week.
Actually a bit weird because I have lots of photography equipment (many vintage lenses) and it's been one of my hobbies since the mid 80's but I somehow never had any interest in moving pictures.
Anyway, I saw the Eumig mark M and I thought it was a great design (didn't even know what it was when the lid was still on) and it was only €8 so I took it home with me.
Being me I then started reading, reading and more reading about 8mm film, bought a lot with 38 Laurel & Hardy reels and 4 days later got the chance to buy a serviced Elmo ST-600D for €25.
So, there's the start 😆
Now to the point of this topic: I'm going to make a cable so I can output channels 1 & 2 to headphones or an external amplifier for stereo sound. However, I have no idea how many titles actually have stereo sound. Was this quite common with later movies? And was stereo there from the beginning or did they implement it later? Hoping to find some answers. Thanks in advance.
John

Hi John
I would say that most films are mono single stripe recordings ,you will find some stereo releases from Derann that will normally say on the boxes if they are original, these I think were during the 80s to the 2000,s when they closed, they released several 200,400,600 footers and features too, many collectors aren't too bothered about stereo and are happy with a good mono recording but if you have a machine capable of making the use of both stripes then it can add to the experience of running film, Mark

I think Watership Down released by P.M. Films was the first in stereo. Also might have been one of the first 600ft releases too.

John, if you use www.super8database.com, Eivind, admin and the site's creator, has named whether most films were mono or stereo for each entry. It's an excellent resource and one I use regularly.

I think he also has included pages of original Derann catalogues on the site which also state whether the films were mono or stereo.

Both Derann Film Services and Kempski produced full-length features in stereo sound. Derann, as Mark rightly says, had a number of shorts in stereo too.

Although all the films are designed to default to mono for obvious reasons (with most of the information recorded on the main stripe), some of the stereo recordings sound surprisingly good. So, it can be a worthwhile pursuit tracking some of them down.

The best results are still obtained by rerecording your own films from a digital source if you have the capability to do so, most of the recordings produced by high speed recording giving varying results in terms of volume, bass and treble, they do sound better using the projectors outputs through an amp but still nothing like a decent rerecord,Mark

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I'll have a look at the links and see if I can lay my hands on a reel with stereo sound. Would be nice to be able to test it even though I'll probably hardly ever use it :)