K40 discontinued, but when?

[super8man]

It's about as accurate as any CNN online poll. That I agree with.

Just remember: Dewey won the election!

[S8 Booster]

1) these polls are all there is.
2) mainstream tendency clear enough.
3) even political polls are based on relatively small numbers often guided by leading questions.
4) even if this one board only it probably mirrors many of the most active non pro k40 users.
5) Other users not mirrored by this board probably "only" shoots k40.

besides - k40 is and allways will be dirt cheap compared to any other avail & future s8 stocks and shoots wonders with suitable lenses.
also the logistics with k40 mailers can not be beaten - at least on this side. will die with k40. All other stocks to be/is a pain in the ass this wise at least here.

can´t be beaten.

r

[agingeri]

[And for all those talking about the archival benefits of K40, it cannot compete with a DVD disc that can be copied to new formats as the come. One can have the exact same quality 300 years from now on a "DVD" (or whatever they are called then), but your precious K40 will not have the same quality in 300 years...[/quote]

Actually, DVDs are not archival quality. Standard Definition DVDs have an effective resolution much lower than even the standard NTSC 720x480 because it uses heavy MPEG-2 encoding. A MORE archival format is DV tape, but nobody has any idea how that will hold up over the next 75 years.

[LastQuark]

Actually, DVDs are not archival quality. Standard Definition DVDs have an effective resolution much lower than even the standard NTSC 720x480 because it uses heavy MPEG-2 encoding. A MORE archival format is DV tape, but nobody has any idea how that will hold up over the next 75 years.

He's talking about the media itself and not how a feature is recorded. If a feature is recorded in DVD media as raw and uncompressed, then it can be said the DVD has archival quality knowing they can last 30-100 yrs. The only problem is if there are any more players that can read the disc after 100 yrs. This is where digital technology will have a problem. With film, all it takes is a flashlight and you can still see the image projected.
 

[timdrage]

For what it's worth RE: who's buying K40 -

Every time I've ever got some processed, the few frames of the next person's film (on the little end splice/serial number thing) always seemed to be a family home movie!

[Angus]

How many times have I got to repeat myself?????

Errr..until what you say matches published and established fact?

I just said that nobody really knows for sure (except Kodak of course) and , besides, this forum is hardly representative of the size of the market.

Errrr...didn't that article from Germany give us numbers of every cartridges sold.....proving that K40 is far and away the biggest seller, around a million carts worldwide per year?

Or was I smoking crack that day?

[unxetas]

no you were not.





I mean.. that post did exist, I have no idea if you were on something nonetheless


dumb joke.. lol

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

Agingeri Wrote:

A MORE archival format is DV tape, but nobody has any idea how that will hold up over the next 75 years.

I really don´t agree with you, a DV tape is magnetic and will probably not last as long as a DVD disc. And for the compression issue: you can fit about 20 minutes of DV compressed film on a DVD, so there is no need to compress the film more than with a miniDV tape, just make a few more discs.

LastQuark wrote:

he only problem is if there are any more players that can read the disc after 100 yrs. This is where digital technology will have a problem.

This is actually where digital technology has the best benefits against "real" film, because it is digital you can copy it to the next standard media, without losing quality.

I really dont suggest for anyone to wait for 100 years without making new copies! As easily as floppys can be copied to DVD´s today, we all probable can (and should) copy our DVD´s to our holographophones in 25 years or so.

Then we won´t need to worry about not being able to read DVD´s in 300 years. We can read it on the media that is currently available because we have been smart and kept copying it before the DVD players or holographophones became obsolete.

For everyone to copy their own stuff it is not a big deal, I agree however that it is a bigger issue when we are talking about huge archives and such, to re-copy everything every 40 years would mean a lot of work when you have 10000000 DVD´s or so to copy to the holographophone....

[gurra83]

LastQuark wrote:

he only problem is if there are any more players that can read the disc after 100 yrs. This is where digital technology will have a problem.

This is actually where digital technology has the best benefits against "real" film, because it is digital you can copy it to the next standard media, without losing quality.

For everyone to copy their own stuff it is not a big deal

Im really just a newbee so probably i shouldnt comment, yet i must.

I think this IS a big deal! Of course you can do it. But can do and will do are often two different things. At least when it comes to amateur and private stuff.

As an example I will use still photography.

When it comes to amateur photos for example, the digital market has gained much of the ground. Some manufactures are seriously considering closing down the production of their analogue compact camera models (for the benefit of digital ones) and only produce analogue SLR´s.
Many people are too lazy to care about their footage and will just have it laying around in some folder on their hard drive. (Some will probably print it to. But not all.) Works of course! Until the hard drive crashes. I have friends who this happened to and they where´nt happy at all that their pictures from Spain had disappeared in to thin air! When I asked them why the hell they had not made a back up CD or DVD they simply stated that they where going to!
Tomorrow they where going to! Or the day after that! Or next week!!

Stupid of course! But I think many people reason this way.

When u use an analogue camera you simply have to develop the damned film whether you like it or not. You will get the prints and the negative slides in you’re little box, envelope or in whichever way they come. If you ruin the prints you can always make new ones using the negatives. Of course these will fade as well but at least they wont disappear because of Microsoft not covering all there safety holes until the release of like service pack 6 or something.

Despite anything that “funny man” Nigel says. All footage, be it still or movie, amateur or pro, does have a historical value.

Meaning, with all this said, that the pro or semi pro user will surely see to that their work will be copied to another format when such comes. The amateur user…………we’ll se

About K40: If K40 was to be discontinued and another reversal who where as good, cheap and easy to send away for processing would come I would surely use it. Saying this means probably little having never used any other stock. Yet!

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

gurra83 wrote:

I have friends who this happened to and they where´nt happy at all that their pictures from Spain had disappeared in to thin air! When I asked them why the hell they had not made a back up CD or DVD they simply stated that they where going to!
Tomorrow they where going to! Or the day after that! Or next week!!

Well I guess the learned their lesson the hard way. I bet they won´t forget it in the future.

You can´t blame digital cameras for people not making copies.
It is the same with negatives, I know a lot of people that always threw away their negatives. "I have the photos, I don´t need the negatives anmore." You see, there are smart people all over the world, lets just hope their misfortunes can learn them something.

[hassan]

I've just ordered 25 rolls of K40 with the PK59 mailer. Should I worry that I might not be able to get it processed, or should I keep an eye open for the mailers to be sold off at a huge discount and buy them all up?

[soundboy]

Despite the fact that I think Kodak should discontinue K40 and I tell my Kodak rep that every time I see her(As recently as last week). Her words are "Kodak will stop K40 Super8 when they give us bullet-proof vests." Meaning they know the numbers and they know that if they kill that kid there will be so much backlash that it is not worth it.

I still hope that it just goes away....

Good Luck

If they did kill K40, Super 8mm would be a totaly dead format except for the USA and England...
Here down under there is only Trix and K40...
You can't buy and process neg, as there is no infrastructure for it...

[Mr Blackstock]

although i usually pop up on the other forums, i always check this one for alternative views, but when people start bagging k40, i gotta say something!

i do not think k40 has a "home movie" look, if you hate rich colours, greens that leap out at you, reds that entice you, then yeah, stick to the stocks that look "real", the look that i see on day time soaps, dulled, mute tones.

and if k40 was discontinued, i would consider throwing in the towel! not that i dislike the other stocks, but at twice the price?

in australia k40 is $20, tri-x $20, and $20 to process. if one threw in the recent arrivals, $25, poss' $40 to process in the us incl postage, and maybe $40 to telecine. small budget film making would come to an end.

maybe it is because many people on this board are from the northern hemisphere, but many think that bussiness progression betters the product, enhances the consumer enjoyment, and helps support the market for the product. for each of your suggested improvements there is a sacrifice, new zealand is super8 abandoned, australia is barely hanging in there, and there maybe only 20 million people in the markets down here, but the collective landmass covers Europe and the states! That’s a lot of space to film!

What of the other countries in the world that were once able to consider their input a global input? And how many people applauded “improved” products? Tightened work forces? Does anyone have figures for the millions of people locked out of attempting film making since 1960 simply because of business acumen?

Or maybe there are sociologists out there who will assert that without a supporting industry such things are not important to people looking to just survive? Do these same people not see that because a business does not exist, that it never was?

In years to come, not that far away, k40 will disappear, as all the other stocks that are accesable, and they will not disappear due to their age, or look, or applicability, they will die because of people who see the world in the same light as their bloody consumer goods-perpetual upgrade!
It’s new(gotta have it)
it’s better, somehow.(gotta use it)

yeah, super8 will die out soon, hell, everyone is using 20 to 30 year old cameras as it is! Surely Kodak execs can see the writing on the wall. Things gotta break at some point!
And when they tighten the belt on costs, postage, emulsion, the pissing pond will shrink, and everyone will be posting with people in the country next door.

So typical of an artistic industry in it’s death throws, that it’s adherents will tear each other apart, divide amateur from pro, budget k40 from 500t.
It is a shame that money divides the “home movie” maker from the film maker.

p.s I am usually not such an opinionated blow hard, and although I have generalised, I mean not to insult.

[reflex]

It's about as accurate as any CNN online poll. That I agree with.

Just remember: Dewey won the election!

Isn't CNN the modern video equivalent of Pravda?

[monobath]

It's about as accurate as any CNN online poll. That I agree with.

Just remember: Dewey won the election!

Isn't CNN the modern video equivalent of Pravda?

No, I think you're thinking of Fox News.