Max 8:New life for super 8 or gimmick?

[Shion]

Has anyone considered VISTAVISION 8 ?

I have. Interesting idea though it is, it's pretty pointless since it would double the cost of Super8 while still yielding lower quality than regular 16mm. And that's ignoring the major hurdle of converting/building a camera to shoot it in the first place.

It's said in pro8 press release there's a 16:9 framing lines in the viewfinder INSIDE a 4:3 window... I don't understand how is it done if the gate is in 16:9...

My guess is that Max8 does not quite expand the frame to 16x9, since Super8 is not wide enough for that. It's probably somewhere between 1.50:1 and 1.66:1, so some cropping down is still necessary to get 16x9 (1.78:1). This still results in a significantly larger 16x9 frame than you'd get from cropping the regular Super8 frame down. (Note that Super16 is also 1.66:1, not 1.78:1.)

That said, the viewfinder shown in the Max8 PDF appears to be 4x3, so my theory could be wrong.

-Bon

[Mystic Mot]

That said, the viewfinder shown in the Max8 PDF appears to be 4x3, so my theory could be wrong.

This is exactly what i don't understand. If we want to see the new enlarged in the viewfinder, this last should have an enlarged and recentered window in 1.50:1 or 1.66:1 whatever you want. But in the pro8 release we can see a 4:3 window with 16:9 framing inside...

[tlatosmd]

No surprise indeed. After all they don't talk about modifying the viewfinder. That's why I said it must be like a widescreen film on a 4:3 TV.

[Mitch Perkins]

That said, the viewfinder shown in the Max8 PDF appears to be 4x3, so my theory could be wrong.

This is exactly what i don't understand. If we want to see the new enlarged in the viewfinder, this last should have an enlarged and recentered window in 1.50:1 or 1.66:1 whatever you want. But in the pro8 release we can see a 4:3 window with 16:9 framing inside...

The 4:3 VF mask, which I think represents something closer to the whole S8 frame, shows you what you'll see, but in telecine, the edges are safe before the frame lines. So the edges get moved out. The widescreen transfer pulls the edges back in as far as they can come, and you have to mask the frame lines. So the VF must be showing you edge of frame in 4:3, edge of film in 16:9.

Mitch