Beaulieu SuperDrive SD8/60

Beaulieu SuperDrive SD8/60

A refillable 60meter(200feet)-reel-holder with integrated film-transport-motor. Introduced after Kodak stopped producing 60m-Super8-cartridges.

Features:

• Can be filled with any super8-filmstock (pre-striped and not pre-striped)
• Integrated pressure plate
• Allows unlimited rewind (e.g. for double exposures) like Kodak's 60m-cartridge

Disadvantages:

• Doesn't even work with all cameras that accept Kodak's 60m-Super8-cartridges
• All cameras (except for the latest "Beaulieu 9008 Quarz"-models) have to be modified to accept these SuperDrives (connector camera <-> SuperDrive's film-transport-motor, ...)

Suited for:

• the latest "Beaulieu 9008 Quarz"-models (should run "out of the box")
• all Beaulieu 6008 / 7008 / 9008 (requires modification)

Also reported to be suited for the following cameras (however it's unclear whether these combinations were really working):

• Nizo 6056/6080 (requires modification)
• all other Super8-cameras that support Kodak's 60m-cartridge, that don't have fixed microphones on the camera's top (<- the SuperDrive seems to be a little bit larger than Kodak's 60m-cartridge) and that can get modified for the new connectors and ...

File:Beaulieu SuperDrive SD8 60 small.pdf

Prices on eBay:

• eBay Germany:
  • EUR 760 (+ EUR 8 for shipping) in 10/2005
• eBay Luxembourg:
  • EUR 700,00 (+ EUR 25 for shipping) in 10/2013

Comments

There are probably only two or three non-Beaulieu-cameras worldwide that have been modified to accept this SuperDrive. This is because the main (or even only) company that did those conversions (Ritter in Mannheim, Germany) went out of business only a few months after the SuperDrive's introduction.