Personally, I just prefer them on the left. I am never in any super hurry to get the show threaded that a couple of seconds will make any difference.

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It also helps when trouble shooting some sound problems if you can stick your head out the port and listen in the theatre while you are switching formats or whatever else you are doing. Not to mention if you are resetting the SPL's in the theatre and you don't have a radio and have another person in the theatre with the meter, you can actually see that person while adjusting the levels, rather than looking out the view port or projection port, then moving over to the rack to make a small adjustment then going back to the port ect., ect..

There are some theatres that I work at where they have the sound processors for two theatres in one rack, it's bad enough that the rack is on the non operator side of the first machine, but that also puts the sound rack for the second theatre on the non operator side, so it goes: sound rack / projector / platter / platter / projector. Makes it a pain to do an A-Chain on the second machine as the sound rack is about 40 feet away from the projector, and to make matters worse, the sound rack faces the back of the booth, so even if you can get a sight line to the rack past both projectors and platters, you can't see the darn processor, only the side of the rack!

Still, if set up properly, there is NO reason why the sound rack and platter can be on the operator side of the projector.

BTW, I can see the pros to having the platter on the operator side of the projector. If I had a platter that was a pain in the butt, and malfunctionig a lot, I might want it on the operator side. I just have never had platter problems that make me want to change my mind on this.

Now here is a question for you all. If you had a Theatre that was not designed as stadium seating, then they decided to go that route at some time during construction, making you have to raise all of the ports 4 to 6 feet because now you can stand up in the back row and completely block the port. Now the projectors have to be raised, but the company dose not want to raise the whole floor, nor do they want to spend any extra money that they don't have to and only build platforms for the projectors and not the platters. Now you have stairs on both sides of the projector and the platters and the sound racks are on the floor 4 to 6 feet lower than the projectors. Do you want the platter on the operator or non operator side of the projector?

Heck during the 80s where twining reached new stupidity levels I had to convert a back-to-back twin to a 4-plex (each large auditorium was twined). Since the booth wasn't enlarged for this process I used Christie AW-35R (the first removables on a Christie 5-deck, I might add) so two theatres have the platter on the left, and two have it on the right. And to the soundracks...There are two theatre's worth of sound in the rack (the other two have Kelmar wall-mount mono sounds...it was the early/mid 80s where not all theatres were stereo).

As an operator, I always preferred having the platter (when I worked platter booths) on the right. It puts the film where the operator needs it. The soundrack is nice if it is close by for tuning...but if it isn't then there are always remotes for the better processors (ie Dolby) so the operator has full control over the volume and format. I now insist on remotes on new changeover installs to allow format changes on changeover.

Now if you have your typical "to be run by idiots" both, on the non-op side the platter goes...if the "operator" doesn't step on the film, the passers by (candy girl, manager...etc) to get a peak at the film will. A booth that gets good operators tends to guard against that sort of thing.

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Hi Scott,

My automation has manual overides for all of those functions you mention and the console is right in front of me beside the projector. I know not all of us are fortunate enough to have these luxuries, but that's the way I design my booths. I've never had any reason to stick my head out the porthole, but I could do that anyway 'cos I stick a porthole beside the rack as well.

Everything at arms (well, two arms, anyway) length.