What the heck is a 16mm negative film for?

[Adlershof]

Originally Posted by TV-collector

May I can turn the video signal of this film after it comes out of the film player (Fernseh GmbH) to watch this film?

It is not as simple as reversing the video signal, because newer negative film stocks had a corrective orange mask.

Originally Posted by TV-collector

Until now I am not clear about the sound of the film, magnetic line or light sound.

Either an optical soundtrack or a magnetic strip would be immediately visible. If neither is present the sound will be on a separate magnetic film ("Sepmag"), and this will likely be the case for such material from a TV station, in particular if this is 16mm film.

Originally Posted by ppppenguin

As far as I know, all 16m film in the camera was negative.

In Germany it was indeed the usual practice to shoot news and other non-fictional stuff on reversal film, the same material as also sold for amateur use. At least at DDR-F no one bothered for any kind of grading in this use, they let the automatics of the telecine machine doing it. Thus often after a cut the picture went almost dark, then after a second or so the machine cranked it up. Not always, but too often these broadcasts of 16mm footage looked gawdawful.

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

At one time, Kodak produced a special low contrast 35mm print film for video use.

Orwo made one special colour film stock for TV use, a reversal duplicate film, called UF 1. In black-and-white they had various stocks of reversal camera film in various speeds and special kinescope film dedicated to TV use.

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Edit: I also wonder who had a need for 35mm motion picture reversal film. Could it be that the 35mm version was not sold in movie rolls, and only used for slide (still) duplication?

The dividing lines appear to be a bit blurred anyway. At Orwo, considering colour stocks only, reversal duplicating film UD 1 / UD 2 as well as print film PC 7 were officially dedicated to both still photography and cinematography. Beyond this some guys sweared on using NC 3 motion picture film for still photography, of course in the proper fashion with a correction filter under daylight.