Steenbeck was a company that manufactured

flatbed editor A flatbed editor is a type of machine used to edit Film stock, film for a motion picture. Picture and sound rolls are placed onto separate motorized disks, called "plates," and then threaded through picture and sound transports, each of which has ...

s. Steenbeck is a brand name that has become synonymous with a type of flatbed

film editing Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...

suite which is usable with both

16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical Film gauge, gauge of Photographic film, film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 mm film, 8 mm and 35mm movie film, 35 mm. It ...

and 35 mm

optical sound Optical sound is a means of storing sound recordings on transparent film. Originally developed for military purposes, the technology first saw widespread use in the 1920s as a sound-on-film format for motion pictures. Optical sound eventually ...

and magnetic sound film. The Steenbeck company was founded in 1931 by

Wilhelm Steenbeck Wilhelm Steenbeck invented the editing system known as Steenbeck, which is a brand name that has become synonymous with a type of flatbed editor system. He founded The Steenbeck company in 1931 in Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Fre ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Since then, Steenbeck editing tables have become ubiquitous in the

community and have seen significant use in television production. In total, more than 25,000 machines are in operation around the world. The company relocated to

Venray Venray or Venraij (; ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a city in Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg, the Netherlands. The municipality of Venray consists of 14 towns over an area of , with 43,494 inhabitants as of July 2016 ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, in September 2003, and went out of business in 2024.https://www.faillissementsdossier.nl/en/bankruptcy/1841457/steenbeck-b-v.aspx Steenbeck-rollers

Despite the move away from physical

film stock Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent pl ...

– much editing is now based on

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

– devices such as the

Lightworks Lightworks is a freemium non-linear editing system, non-linear editing system (NLE) for editing and mastering digital video. It was an early developer of computer-based non-linear editing systems, and has been in development since 1998. The dev ...

non-linear film editing controller and archives still use the Steenbeck for controlling the process. The Steenbeck's lower light levels and controllable speed make it a preferred piece of equipment for film archives (such as the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

's motion picture collection) and restoration facilities as prints can be quickly and easily inspected with less risk of damage compared with a

movie projector A movie projector (or film projector) is an optics, opto-mechanics, mechanical device for displaying Film, motion picture film by projecting it onto a movie screen, screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illuminat ...

. Because there is no intermittent movement, the image is created through a rotating prism which scans the frames. Steenbeck machines were known to be exceptionally easy on film stock, due to their use of soft-edged

nylon Nylon is a family of synthetic polymers characterised by amide linkages, typically connecting aliphatic or Polyamide#Classification, semi-aromatic groups. Nylons are generally brownish in color and can possess a soft texture, with some varieti ...

rollers.

References

External links

Demonstration of Steenbeck 16mm editing table by former BBC film editorsOfficial company site
Filmmaking Film production Film and video technology Film editing Manufacturing companies established in 1931 1931 establishments in Germany Manufacturing companies of the Netherlands {{film-tech-stub