The History of Motion Picture
Film for the Home User
Back in the day before digital
cameras, before video cameras and VCR’s, family activities were recorded
on 8mm film, Super 8mm film and to some extent on 16mm film. In 1922,
16mm motion picture film was introduced by Eastman Kodak as the first
amateur film gauge. The film, cameras and projectors were all fairly
expensive at the time and were not commonly found in your average household
because of the tough economic times that the country was going through.
Previous to this, motion picture film was available in a 35mm format
but was highly flammable and reserved for Hollywood and professional
film makers only.
In 1932 Eastman Kodak introduced
a brand new film gauge that was based on the 16mm format. The frame
size was 1/4th the size of its predecessor and came on 25-foot reels
that required splitting and once spliced together yielded double the
length of film that you started out with. The end result after processing
left you with a 50’ reel that contained around 3 minutes of viewable
film. It was then called “Double 8mm” or “Double Run 8mm.” Today it
is known almost universally as “Regular” or “Standard 8mm film”.
At the end of World War
II the economy was given a big boost with the return of GI’s from overseas
and taking home movies became a big hit with American families.
 The
60’s brought us a lot of new changes in the film manufacturing industry.
In 1965 Eastman Kodak introduced the newest film gauge known as “SUPER
8mm film”. This new film as well as regular 8mm was 8mm wide, but had
smaller sprocket holes, which resulted in an increased image area of
25%. This was a huge improvement. Unfortunately with the advent of this
new super film, it also required that you purchase a new camera as well
as a new projector.
In the late 70’s the end
was near for movie film as a way that American families captured their
family history. A format war erupted as Sony with Betamax and JVC with
VHS had competing systems that were totally incompatible with each other.
VHS won over the apparently superior Betamax which had a smaller cassette
and is widely said to have a better picture quality than the VHS format.
This has become a classic case study in marketing.
You may be surprised to
learn that in many cases filmed home movies from the 40’s and 50’s have
held up better then VHS or Mini-DV Tapes from the70’s 80’s and 90’s.
Numerous studies about videotape longevity and stability indicate that
the quality of videotapes deteriorates each time they are viewed and
will significantly deteriorate after several years even if not viewed
regularly.
Again, this deterioration
is attributed to the environment that they are stored in. With heat
and humidity being the biggest factors, proper storage has a huge impact
on life expectancy. The most common form of physical damage to videotape
is running tapes through a VCR that is old or has not been properly
maintained.
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