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In operation the projector is reasonably quiet and produces a nice steady
picture, with acceptable illumination. In its day, up against its 16mm
contemporaries, it would have put up quite a fight. The let-down would have
been the quality of the sound films.

Pathé’s 9.5mm Sound Films

Nine point five millimetre sound films are of the same format as 35mm
professional films, the sound track being printed on the near (to the operator)
side of the film when threaded, unlike 16mm which has the sound track on the
opposite side of the film.
Most Pathé sound films that I have seen or used suffer badly from poor sound
quality. The processing of the sound tracks let them down badly. Many sound
tracks to too light. In the case of variable density tracks this can cause low level
and sometimes distorted sound, in the case of variable area tracks, the lack of
contrast between the clear and black part of the track causes lack of volume and
of course in both cases high noise (hiss) levels.
The 9.5mm sound film shown at the right (approx 2½ times actual size) shows
the gray variable area sound track, which is far from ideal for good sound quality.
(Hopefully the gray sound track reproduces correctly - fingers crossed Mr.
Printer)
Pathé used a poorly designed (or adjusted) noise reduction system on some of
their sound tracks. When there was no sound or a very quiet section, the dark
area would be moved across to cover all or most of the sound track areas,
resulting in less back ground noise in the form of hiss and crackles – great
system, but when the sound reappeared in the scene, there was a substantial
delay in the sound track reverting to delay, causing the first few words being
quite distorted.
The other annoying aspect which was corrected on later releases, was that the
picture area where the sound track was placed was just cropped off, resulting in
the left quarter of the mage just simply missing. On later releases the image was
reduced in size with a thicker frame line – similar to 35mm’s transition from full
frame silent to sound on film in the late 1920s.
I have a couple of 16mm sound films which were cut down to 9.5mm and
reperforated to that gauge (possible because the frame sizes of the two gauges
are almost identical). Playing them, the image and sound quality from 9.5mm is
very close to that of 16mm. It’s a pity that Pathé didn’t realize the potential of
their gauge and produced better quality films and equipment.

Illustrations are of equipment in the author’s collection © Mike Trickett Geelong, Australia 2013

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