Kodak Jittery Cartridges

[S 8 Booster]

Somewhere at the net a short while ago I read that the problem with the new Kodak S8 cartridges originated from a new lubrcation used by Kodak.

This did not allow smooth transport of the film inside the cartridge so the film actually jammed more or less inside the cartridge. If this is correct, which I believe, the problem is identified and there is really no need for a redesign or other wizzardy to solve the problem.

Apart from this I got some new S8 Kodaks a short while ago and the assembly of this cartridge was extremely bad and looked like it was assembled by a 3 year old kid (No offending the kids though) because it was a lot of superflous glue all over the cartridge joints.

Never seen that before. Something must have been altered along the production line. My cartriges has a end date of 03/2004 and are assemled in France.

Batch numbers are available.
If I can find the info on the lube problem I will post it here.
RGDS


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Vidar

[#Pedro]

Again the facts:

ALL cardriges are assemled and loaded in France, for world wide sales.

The first problem in 2000 was a washer disk that caused the film advance block totally. Only after beatin the cart and pushing the film by hand, you could get it to run again, but with a loud camera noise and with a jittery result.

This had been resolved. Then the problem came up, that some cardriges (about 50 % of mine) showed a jittery result in the beginning of each roll, until over the mid of the footage. There was NOTHING strange with the noise, and I gave every cart some pretty hard beats.

Because of this, the Bavaria Production Service in Munich had many trouble with customers, reclaming cameras and searching for repair. They contacted again Kodak, trying to resolve the problem and to discover the reason. And they worked on camera solution in order to compensate bad carts, applying a second claw spring, without much success. The basic problem of S8 keep the missing sprocket drives.

Lateron, a complete production line for Kodachrome in Rochester failed and Kodak discontinued K25. (instead of the not neccessary K200!!!). At the same time, the lubrification for all Kodakchrome had been changed somehow, and this now is considered to be the main reason for the jittery registration.

In another thread, treating the neccessity of spocket dives for cine film advance, I stated how sensitive is the relationship between pressure plate, the friction between film and pressure plate and the force of the claw spring. With a different lub, this relationship had been disturbed totally and perhaps the cardrige mechanics became worse additionaly.

As the problem now is present since over one year, there were several attemps for solutions. One of those attemps now is going to be offered comercially by Andec in Berlin. (www.andec.de) It is an stainless steel polished pressure plate to be clipped onto the plasic pressure plate in the Kodak carts. This inlay plate must be inserted when loading the camera and can be re-used for the next rolls in the same way. The price for this quality piece is really exiting (about $ 200) but it may decrease with more public interest and orders.
Currently the device is beeing tested at Bavaria Production Services.

The other alternatives are only the Beaulieu super drive DS8/60 or Kahl film stock with reloadable Russian carts.

The latest Kodak informations are, that Kodak (Germany) has stopped the delivery of K40. This year there was not delivered anything.
End of last year, Kodak stated, that with the first delivery in 2002 there should be no more problems with the films. We are already waiting for that delivery.

The most affected has is dated 04/2003 and 04/2004. Negative, VNF and B/W are affected as well, but the problem does not occure with every cardrige... and nothing can be heard, listening to the camera noise!

Pedro

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[#Pedro]

ROGER: This jitter is definitively NO camera or projector problem! Perhaps it could be resolved by software, for those who are satisfyed with a video transfer and don?t request projection.
It?s not the problem not even in projectors without sprockets! This projectors usually show a rather slow up/down balancing every few seconds when loaded with full rolls and the supply roll begins to unroll itself by the mechanical impuls, until the film tension rises again and the claw suddenly must push the whole supply roll again, giving it another impulse and so on. This is my expierience with a Bauer T182 projector without upper sprocket drive.

Pedro

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[S 8 Booster]

Kurt:
Next time Kodak is going to tell us that their S8 film perforating machine is dismantled because it too! won?t meet new environmental regulations.

RGDS

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Vidar

[Mikko]

Hah! I'm glad that I bought 10 carts of K40 sound film from ebay. Process before date is 1991!
But, I also bought 6 carts of fresh Plus-x

In Finland, we still have those bad K40 cartridges (4/2004) on store shelves everywhere, and I doubt that Kodak collects 'em back. No way! They just wait till they're gone. I'm sure of that.

Scottness: You have had 40 bad cartridges?!?!?! I'm so sorry. I bet you wanna punch some Kodak's technical manager in the face. I would.

Mikko

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[S 8 Booster]

Anybody out there noted a low profile from Kodak on S8 lately or is it only my "Vision"??
RGDS

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Vidar

[MovieStuff]

Hah! We need more big projects like Scott's to use up all those bad carts hiding in the weeds. Sorry it happend to you, Scott, but at least that's 40 carts less for the rest of us to worry about!

Man! Is super 8 getting cut throat or what?

As far as Kodak keeping a low profile on super 8, they never had a high profile. The only time anyone from Kodak says anything is when they're prompted by an query about the discontinuence of Super 8. Even then, they just speak in generalities. Beyond that, they never seem very proactive at all. I still want to know what their thinking was about discontinuing the 160 tungsten and keeping the type G. Neither one is very good, grain wise, but the G is crap compared to the 160 tungsten. Also, you would think they could have at least produced a K200 in super 8 since they had it in 35mm for a while. Sometimes I just don't understand their logic when it comes to product line decisions, especially considering their supposed "committment" to super 8....

Roger

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Roger Evans
MovieStuff
http://www.afterimagephoto.tv/moviestuff.html

[S 8 Booster]

Hmm!?
Aren?t we all S8s a pain in the .... for Kodak? (and the PRO?s)
I think it would be a lot easier for Kodak to only deal with the "one size fits all" 35mm film? (S8= GOTO Video)

We claim 1. class mechanically operating S8 cartriges, film stock they don?t want to make and even sound stripes on a film stock the really do not want to manufacture?

And not to forget; THEY NEED TO GET A BUCK OUT OF IT TOO!

In the budgets of Kodak (or other big co?s) there is probably no such thing as a long term view of a positive spinoff for future buzz enhancement in encourging todays S8 amateurs to turn to future 35mm (Kodak) Stock PROs.

The Russian "Gablinikoff " S8 filmstock is just as good for that.

Vidar


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Vidar

[MovieStuff]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Scottness:
they might get some ideas of which batches are a problem
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Kodak should just recall all the damned carts and be done with it. What makes them think that anyone would want them? It's not like these are being used for home movies any more. Virtually Kodak's entire core market for super 8 is people like Scott and Matt and others that are trying to do serious work with this stuff.

Perhaps this is a good example of what Kodak thinks about Super 8 users. You can bet that if this were a problem with 16mm stock, they'd have it pulled from distribution in no time but since it's "only super 8" then I guess they feel no sense of urgency.

Roger

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Roger Evans
MovieStuff
http://www.afterimagephoto.tv/moviestuff.html

[Scottness]

Hi Mikko the Kodak rep here I've been dealing with is actually a pretty nice guy and quite supportive so I don't want to punch him out! But oh well it's dissapointing but what can you say - I'm taking this film as a learning experience, but I wish I didn't have this problem -- glad I could be of help consuming 40 of the rotten cartridges so no one else does! ;-)

The image stabilisation software I'm looking at using is: http://digistudio.netfirms.com/

and
http://members.aol.com/HuberMM/

I think the second one might be of more help in this situation because it allows you select areas in the background that don't move and it uses these to realign subsequent frames.


I don't think Kodak will ditch Super 8 because maybe they see it as an entry point for new film makers who will then go on to 16 and 35 -- but they could certainly be a bit more robust and out vocal in their support of it -- there's never been a better time to shoot on Super 8 than now - I think they just need to capitalise on that.

Scot M



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