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Hi,

I read your post on Cinemeccanica's going out of business...I don't think so... Cinemeccanica has several divisions; the production division manufactures dollies (which the patent infringment came from) film
editing equipment et cetera. The company is privately held with the 3rd generation planning for digital cinema, whenever it happens. Their projector production is almost at sold out level for the next two years
thanks to customers such as Warners International, U.C.I./Paramount and myself (a $6,000,000 distributor). Prevost was in bankruptcy a few years ago due to losing the Zeiss distribution network but the son has brought it back to life.
Cinemeccanica wisely did not greatly expand their facilities like Strong did during the American building spree (now dead); that is why Strong is in deep trouble.

(and)

2 1/2 years ago Cinemeccanica came up with a new sound drum which fully covers the sound drum (with a slot for the reverse scan LEDs)
the center covered area is recessed so as not to touch the image area; designed for mylar stock... I have over 130 units in operation and we are converting 14 more cinemas next month. It is an easy retrofit, and if you have the factory spanner wrench, should take about 1 1/2 hours to install.

New item introduced this month - D.C. pulse ignitor for their lamphouses and consoles to replace the IREM AS series units they have been using.

Richard Fowler
TVP-Miami www.tvpmiami.com

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I do have some nice AGA pics, so I'll scan them and email them to Brad. That OK with you, Brad?

The AGA was the first machine I ever threaded, actually, so I really like them. They're really beautiful, too, very well designed. They were installed pretty much everywhere in Sweden after WWII, but they eventually lost ground to the Philips FP5, Ernemann VIII and others.

As for Cinemeccanica, we've nicknamed the Victoria 5 "Cinemeccano" since most of the projectionists around here regard it as something of a toy projector. It certainly feels like one, when used to a Philips DP70 or a Favorit70. On the other hand, when cared for properly, it is not a bad projector, it just feels like one.

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I thought the same thing about Victoria 5's. One day, we put a Xetron 3000 watt lamp on to a V5. That night, while it was running, I was talking to someone and leaned on the back of the lamp. The entire projector tilted up! I ended up bolting the thing to the floor (there are holes in the pedesal for that.)

To be honest with you, I don't know for sure. My recollection is that they aren't; they look like a Philips FP5 inside. But when I get around to scanning and emailing the AGA pictures I have, see if you can figure it out. I can't - I don't have that kind of detail visible in them.

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Back a few years there were plenty of Super Standards, Cummings and Wilson, (both Australian) Kalee, Centrex, etc.

Most automation is Pennywise CA 100 and CA 21. Platters are mostly Speco, Christie, Kinoton.

Shakameccanica is the word, they also shed poly film and churn through shutter gearboxes, otherwise good. Kinoton have a great image on screen but the new aperture set-up is fragile and hard to get right. Christie cause major shedding and are easy to work on - they need to be, everything breaks from Ultramittants to damper struts. Clever construction and great lamphouse consols.

An AGA projector is (was) a Swedish-made post-war modernity. Well, actually I think AGA started making them before the war, but they didn't become popular until after the war ended. AGA projectors were installed in a lot of booths around the country for a while, but I doubt they ever spread anywhere outside Scandinavia. I know that some were installed in Finland and Norway.

The machines themselves were characteristically dark red and elegantly designed. Later models featured 4-channel mag readers and the AGA version of CinemaScope, called AGASCOPE (what else, huh?). In the eighties, many of the remaining AGAs were converted to Dolby Stereo with generally good results. AFAIK, a few of these are still in place.

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