Film-Tech Cinema Systems
Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE


  
my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » Attention DTS Experts: Help Needed! (Page 2)

 
This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3 
 
Author Topic: Attention DTS Experts: Help Needed!
Cory Johnson
Film Handler

Posts: 46
From: La Crosse, WI USA
Registered: Aug 1999


 - posted 01-05-2002 09:48 AM      Profile for Cory Johnson   Email Cory Johnson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Well, we just ran A Beautiful Mind through and heres what happened:
Minority reports - Flickers badly. Plays in digital for about a minute and then back to SR. With about 5 seconds left of the preview, it drops back into digital.
I Am Sam preview - Flickers on and off constantly while playing, but never drops out of DTS.
Beautiful Girl - 100% solid green timecode. Does not play back in digital however - not on the disc.
Attached preview of DragonFly - Absolutely 0 time code. Nothing. Not even a flicker. We can see timecode on the film, but nothing is being read by the reader.
Film starts - Solid green 99% of the time. Flickers once in a great while for a split second. The goes on for about an hour. Then - the flickering gets bad. Just over an hour into it, it drops out of digital for a bit and then it goes back into digital right away. The rest of the film plays back in digital, but the flickering is bad.

Keep in mind that Ocean's 11 is almost solid green for then entire movie and it had played back flawlessly since we had it in there - 2 different prints of it, 2 different disc sets.

Heres the tally so far:
Play back perfectly: Oceans 11 (2 different prints), Vanilla Sky
Play back poorly and trip in and out of digital from time to time: Beautiful Mind.
Play back great for first hour and then either no time code for long periods of time or the digital is kicking in and out constantly: LOTRs (2 different prints), Ali.

Please Help!

 |  IP: Logged

Charles Lubner
Film Handler

Posts: 78
From: Milwaukee, WI USA
Registered: Sep 1999


 - posted 01-05-2002 10:04 PM      Profile for Charles Lubner   Author's Homepage   Email Charles Lubner   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Cory, the exact same problem has been happening at another theatre in our circuit. How old is the unit (both the original and the replacement)? One of the Milwaukee theatres has had the CD-ROM drives replaced 3 times now on their original 1993 unit and after a few months of use it just dies out. Email or icq me for more information.

Charles

 |  IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99


 - posted 01-06-2002 12:54 AM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
Ok Cory, after your last post I am leaning heavily towards the reader being at fault, or possibly another problem reader related. You never answered the question if there is another digital penthouse on this projector. Is there? Also, do you have a film cleaner on this screen?

The only time I have seen a report like the one you posted at the top of this page, either the setup was running through an SDDS reader before the dts reader...the film cleaner had been dropped and was exhibiting a strong bounce to the film...or the reader was infact defective.


 |  IP: Logged

Antonio Marcheselli
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1260
From: Florence, Italy
Registered: Mar 2000


 - posted 01-06-2002 05:09 AM      Profile for Antonio Marcheselli   Author's Homepage   Email Antonio Marcheselli   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Cory,

Definitely it is a reader problem!
When Timecode is lost DTS players will continue playing the soundtrack for 4.5 seconds (right?). So it is "normal" that digital sound will continue if timecode is flickering. Digital will drop only when timecode signal is lost for 4 or more seconds. However having a flickering timecode will not help in system reliability!
I had your same problem with my old readers: some films were read perfectly, other ones not. But my readers were very old. Now that I have repaired them I have absolutely NO problem. Every movie is read perfectly, with NO timecode flickering, in any moment.
I beleive that it is an alignment or a tension problem. Did you read the DTS troubleshooting manual? It contains a lot of helpful hints.
This is what Karen said few posts ago:

"When film is running, be sure the timecode light is on solid and not blinking. An occasional blink is OK but if it blinks a lot, then there is a problem. Usually, a blinking timecode light means bad back tension. This is easily checked by using your finger to gently press on the film as it enters the reader (do this while film is running)."

Let's do this tests and let us know the results.

Bye
Antonio

 |  IP: Logged

Cory Johnson
Film Handler

Posts: 46
From: La Crosse, WI USA
Registered: Aug 1999


 - posted 01-06-2002 11:32 AM      Profile for Cory Johnson   Email Cory Johnson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
No, we do not have either an additional digital penthouse reader nor a film cleaner running before the DTS reader. The current DTS reader is from 1997. This is the "replacement" reader we recieved to use. The reader prior to this was marked Oct 2000 on it. It appeared the LED on this one was not correct. We have added tension onto the film by: Moving the tention roller on the DTS reader as far forward as possible; adjusting the top roller on the projector to add more tention before the film enters the reader. Would it be better to have the film taunt going to reader or just leave it "loose" coming off from the platter? The previous way - before all the trouble - we just left it loose and it was OK. I think I will email Karne and see if she suggests a new reader.

 |  IP: Logged

Cory Johnson
Film Handler

Posts: 46
From: La Crosse, WI USA
Registered: Aug 1999


 - posted 01-06-2002 11:36 AM      Profile for Cory Johnson   Email Cory Johnson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I have a picture of the projector setup. I will see if I can get it on the web. It is much easier to see the setup from a picture.

 |  IP: Logged

Antonio Marcheselli
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1260
From: Florence, Italy
Registered: Mar 2000


 - posted 01-06-2002 02:34 PM      Profile for Antonio Marcheselli   Author's Homepage   Email Antonio Marcheselli   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Cory,

I think that print shouldn't stay "loose" in the reader. Try the finger trick to see what happen.
Also, try (while you keep the print with the fingers) to remove the print from the DTS tension roller before the reader. Mine was just not aligned with the reader and caused the print to enter misaligned. I removed the roller and the readers work pefectly. But it is just my case (I have a lot of tension before the reader and the extra roller is not necessary), with platter I believe that extra roller is needed.

Let us know!

Bye
Antonio

 |  IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99


 - posted 01-06-2002 04:42 PM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
See if you can't give the offending reader's serial number to Karen and get permission to adjust the reader with the control under the "remove this sticker and die" label. There's a good chance your problem lies there.

 |  IP: Logged

Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000


 - posted 01-06-2002 09:56 PM      Profile for Darryl Spicer     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
If that doesn't work the problem could be within the reader it's self....The little lens may not be focused correctly wich can only be done at the factory. I woiuld try and request a more up to date reader from DTS.

 |  IP: Logged

Antonio Marcheselli
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1260
From: Florence, Italy
Registered: Mar 2000


 - posted 01-07-2002 05:23 AM      Profile for Antonio Marcheselli   Author's Homepage   Email Antonio Marcheselli   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Brad and Darryl,

Cory has tried two different readers, I don't think that both was misaligned...

Cory, Behind the reader's plug you can see the revision of the reader. Can you read it?

Bye
Antonio

 |  IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99


 - posted 01-07-2002 06:09 AM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
Here's another test you might want to do. Assuming you have another dts system that works with no problems in your complex, swap them completely with each other and see if the problem follows the dts system, or stays with the auditorium. That will at least rule out 50% of the issues here.

When I first went to the Galaxy there was one dts system that absolutely would not track. I swapped the reader (and player) and the problem remained with the projector. Turned out whoever had changed belts in the projector last didn't do too good of a job, for when I reset the belt tension, the dts started tracking fine and dandy. Although not a big possibility, it is possible something is vibrating on your projector.


 |  IP: Logged

Michael J. Barr
Film Handler

Posts: 12
From: Greensboro, NC, USA
Registered: Aug 2001


 - posted 01-09-2002 03:23 AM      Profile for Michael J. Barr   Email Michael J. Barr   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
What I see from all the things brought up about your issue is that, you either throw prints and havn't mentioned that, if you get a bunch of shit on the sound side you wont get a good reading. The other things that would come to mind is, did you install all the updated hardware when you upgraded your dts unit, including any chips and all the drives. Make sure your brain has enough tension and your rollers have good flow of film so your film doesn't bounce coming from your platter tree to the top magazine roller.

 |  IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99


 - posted 01-09-2002 04:53 AM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
Thrown prints (prints with lots of splices) won't affect the dts system. A few years ago I chopped the crap out of multiple trailers and spliced them back randomly out of order, cutting from one trailer to another and it tracked perfectly.

Also to clarify again, "enough tension" is absolutely incorrect. All that matters is "consistent tension". It can be a lot of tension, or basically zero tension. It only matters that it is not changing (such as a bounce from the payout platter). On Christie platters, better performance can be obtained by removing that spring in the center brain roller completely. Even with the spring removed, the platter will still provide more tension than almost every other platter ever made and will no longer require constant maintenance of relubricating the spring.


 |  IP: Logged

Michael J. Barr
Film Handler

Posts: 12
From: Greensboro, NC, USA
Registered: Aug 2001


 - posted 01-09-2002 05:40 AM      Profile for Michael J. Barr   Email Michael J. Barr   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
About removing the springs from the Christie brains...we have tried that at our theater and in some cases, it hasn't effected much of anything. In other cases, such as when the platter tree was farther away from the projector, it caused more harm than good. The film would bounce and this would cause the payout arm on the brain to fluctuate speed, in turn almost throwing the print. We had to replace the brain without a spring back to a brain with a spring. Maybe this was just a rare case, but this proved to be true on a few projectors, and thought I might make mention of it. Make of it what you will?

Didn't know that about the DTS readers...why wouldn't the DTS reader lose the timecode when jumping between randomly spliced trailers? Just curious how that would work...


 |  IP: Logged

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99


 - posted 01-09-2002 05:59 AM      Profile for Brad Miller   Author's Homepage   Email Brad Miller       Edit/Delete Post 
You probably have the older black rollers that were prone to "wobbling" on their shafts, thus causing a bounce. If you have the green rollers, than someone in your booth is rough-handling the brain rollers when they thread. Find him and either get him to not be so rough (never run your fingers in-between the rollers as a time saver) or fire him. You can have the AW3 up to 15 feet away from the projector without using those springs.

DTS uses timecode to tell the player what trailer/feature is running and at what frame it is at. Cut up a couple of trailers and watch for yourself. It'll track your edits perfectly.


 |  IP: Logged



All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3 
 
   Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic    next oldest topic   next newest topic
 - Printer-friendly view of this topic
Hop To:



Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.3.1.2

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.

© 1999-2020 Film-Tech Cinema Systems, LLC. All rights reserved.