One of the reasons we are still using much older equipment is that just like the mom and pops back home we have to pay our own way. We receive no taxpayer or military funds. All our investments must come out of our operating profits. Another reason is that with good machines like the Simplex and a competent staff it really is not necessary to change much. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We do manage to keep with the times by upgrading optics and audio wherever possible.

The Navy also has a similar system on their side of the house.

Bill Bunch
Misawa, Japan
Army, Air Force Exchange Service

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I tried getting all our sound heads changed to reverse readers when the dye track issue came about. But my superiors did some "research" and discovered that dye tracks were never gonna happen and there would be no need to change out. I wish we could. I have even heard that the RCA9030s are tough to retrofit. Anybody know about that?

As for the LEDs. There is not only one by itself, right? Rather something like 36 tiny LED segments that make up the one bright spot. Also heard that over time these individual segments will wink out one at a time having some adverse affect. Though not much. I read somewhere where there is a modification where you can decrease the voltage to make them last longer.

But things keep changing. The longer I have to wait the cheaper and better things will get. But you know what these incandesent lamps are getting hard to find nowdays.

One bright spot is that we have gotten approval to upgrade some of our premier theaters. One of them is at my location. Going all the way up to a Kinoton FP-25E and Dolby Digital. All new equipment, even the screen. EAW speakers. We are looking for something to last the next 50 years.

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I know of one technician here who has been installing a relay with a series resistor across the contacts to drop the LED current down to about 10mA when film is not running. He is claiming greatly increased LED life and reduced light level fall-off. The relay is controlled by the projector motor switch so the resistor is shorted out whenever the motor is running. We have not been able to verify if this really makes a difference but it makes some sense given the physical nature of the LED array. This is the essentially same idea as what Mark is doing in relation to running exciters at 10%, which he mentioned earlier in this thread.

There was a panel discussion on cyan dye analog soundtracks at last week's ITEA (International Theatre Equipment Association) Seminar in Los Angeles. Representatives of Disney, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Warner Bros., and New Line endorsed the conversion to cyan dye analog tracks, which will require red LED readers. Miramax has successfully tested cyan dye analog soundtracks on two recent features ("Get Over It" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back". According to Ioan Allen of Dolby, cyan dye track prints sent to theatres with red LED readers had no problems on playback.