SMPTE Journal. 89 (2): 106-110. Doi:10.5594/j00526

Color choices can have cognitive implications as well. Cinema fires caused by the ignition of nitrocellulose film stock commonly occurred as well. During the year 1914-the same year that Goodwin Film was awarded $5,000,000 from Kodak for patent infringement-nitrate film fires incinerated a significant portion of the United States' early cinematic history. In that year alone, five very destructive fires occurred at four major studios and a film-processing plant. Nitrate dominated the market for professional-use 35 mm motion picture film from the industry's origins to the early 1950s. While cellulose acetate-based safety film, notably cellulose diacetate and cellulose acetate propionate, was produced in the gauge for small-scale use in niche applications (such as printing advertisements and other short films to enable them to be sent through the mails without the need for fire safety precautions), the early generations of safety film base had two major disadvantages relative to nitrate: it was much more expensive to manufacture, and considerably less durable in repeated projection. Salvaging old films is a major problem for film archivists (see film preservation).

For this reason, immersing burning film in water may not extinguish it, and could actually increase the amount of smoke produced. That tragedy claimed 123 lives during the fire and additional fatalities several days later, when hospitalized victims died due to inhaling excessive amounts of smoke from the burning film, which was laced with toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen cyanide. Although triacetate does not decompose in as dangerous a way as nitrate does, it is still subject to a process known as deacetylation, often nicknamed "vinegar syndrome" (due to the acetic acid smell of decomposing film) by archivists, which causes the film to shrink, deform, become brittle and eventually unusable. Acetate film manufactured during the era when nitrate films were still in use was marked "Safety" or "Safety Film" along one edge in dark letters. The use of nitrate film and the looming threat of its fiery potential were certainly not issues limited to the realm of motion pictures or to commercial still photography. Millions of feet of film burned on March 19 at the Eclair Moving Picture Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Then a second fire hit the Edison Company at another location on December 9, at its film-processing complex in West Orange, New Jersey. Later that same month, many more reels and film cans of negatives and prints also burned at Edison Studios in New York City, in the Bronx; then again, on May 13, a fire at Universal Pictures' Colonial Hall "film factory" in Manhattan consumed another extensive collection. Then in 1929 at the Glen Cinema in Paisley, Scotland, a film-related fire killed 69 children. In Ireland in 1926, it was blamed for the Dromcolliher cinema tragedy in County Limerick in which 48 people died. The BFI Southbank in London is the only cinema in the United Kindom licenced to show Nitrate Film. Nitrocellulose film base manufactured by Kodak can be identified by the presence of the word "nitrate" in dark letters along one edge; the word only in clear letters on a dark background indicates derivation from a nitrate base original negative or projection print, but the film in hand itself may be a later print or copy negative, made on safety film. 8, 9.5, and 16 mm film stocks, intended for amateur and other nontheatrical use, were never manufactured with a nitrate base in the west, but rumors exist of 16 mm nitrate film having been produced in the former Soviet Union and China.

Cellulose triacetate superseded nitrate as the film industry's mainstay base very quickly. By the late 1990s, what is billiards polyester had almost entirely superseded triacetate for the production of intermediate elements and release prints. It remained in almost exclusive use in all film gauges until the 1980s, when polyester/PET film began to supersede it for intermediate and release printing. Even after film technology changed, archives of older films remained vulnerable; the 1965 MGM vault fire burned many films that were decades old. Yet again, on June 13 in Philadelphia, a fire and a series of explosions ignited inside the 186-square-meter (2,000-square-foot) film vault of the Lubin Manufacturing Company and quickly wiped out virtually all of that studio's pre-1914 catalogue. All that being said, felt color may not necessarily have a direct impact on your game - again, it’s mostly subjective. It’s more than a purchase; it’s an experience. Polyester is much more resistant to polymer degradation than either nitrate or triacetate. Much more important will be how close you got to perfection.