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Topic: You can tell when you have been had when your technician tells you:

Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 08-18-2002 11:56 AM

SPL check at the port window

Especially when "they" have scientific formulas to figure SPL loss at window position + type of speakers and dispersion + room size + position of port to room + room treatment = guy too lazy to walk downstairs or to have a helper

Richard Fowler
TVP-Theatre & Video Products Inc. www.tvpmiami.com

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-19-2002 12:15 AM

When the new PAC manager tells the newspaper that rep movies will be shown from videotape now because "the old projectors will not show the new movies".

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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man

Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 08-19-2002 04:20 AM

When your tech tells you that you need a "reversing gear" for your xenon power supply.

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Dave Williams
Wet nipple scene

Posts: 1836
From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-19-2002 04:24 AM

Mark G. can remember this one. How about when your tech (Mark G.) is trying to install new sound systems, and your head projectionist (not me) keeps rewiring them overnight for you, stalling completion by days.

I think he is still there too.

Dave

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Martin Dean
Film Handler

Posts: 11
From: Duluth, MN, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 08-19-2002 09:59 AM

When a venue with no experienced staff, are told that in order to run a 1600W lamp at a decent current they will have to upgrade to three phase in the booth in order to run the replacement rectifier as only three phase rectifiers can handle this load. As the booth had no three phase within 100' it would have been a costly excercise. Luckerly the venue checked other companies and saved a small fortune.

Another venue, when questioning the reliability of their CP-500, were told by somebody from Dolby that 1 in 10 CP-500's were like that and it wasn't their problem. The CP-500 was duly removed and replaced with a second hand CP-200.

------------------
Martin Dean

martinidean@charter.net

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Mike Babb
Master Film Handler

Posts: 250
From: Norwich UK
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 08-19-2002 12:11 PM

I had a sound head bearing so loud it could be heard in the auditorium, and in the one next door, and both across the hall. It was diagnosed over the phone as ok to run until tomorrow...I'm not sure if that was technically true but nobody in 4 houses plus the operator in the booth could hear much of anything over the noise...

Mike

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 08-19-2002 01:54 PM

That the lens turrets always have to change to flat at the end of the show because the scope lenses will bang against the projector when open. Also when your tech comes out to fix a dead left front channel in one auditorium and leaves without LISTENING to see if it's fixed (it isn't), then when you call him to ask if he's coming back to fix it he says no but orders you to have the top masking switch to flat so the (outdated) slides can get "the biggest screen possible", then you come in early the next day and fix the sound problem yourself and no-one thanks you for it!

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-19-2002 09:32 PM

quote:
How about when your tech cuts the wire to the exhaust fan in your rectifier because it was making noise?

This basically happened to me too. Just after I became an "owner," in 1980, we put new equipment in the booth. The theatre had (and still has) an exhaust fan for the booth mounted on the roof. The technician (same guy from my post above who told me we had to buy the new projector head) did not hook up the roof fan, but instead stuffed the wires up into a vent hole in the booth ceiling.

The new lamphouse had a sensor which would not allow the lamp to light if there was insufficient ventilation. This guy DISABLED THAT SENSOR because he thought the small squirrel-cage fan in the lamphouse was providing enough cooling for the bulb. Of course me being brand new to Xenon, I had no idea he was fulla shit, so we ran that way for about 17 years. We did not go thru an inordinate number of bulbs, so nothing appeared to be wrong and I never thought about it again.

Cut to around 1997 when future Film-Techer John Eickhof visited my booth for the first time. He noticed the lamp was running hot, and then found the disabled sensor. He asked about the roof exhaust, whereupon I said we had one, but it was not hooked up, and he about had a cow.

We investigated, found the wires still stuffed into the booth vent, rigged a makeshift power hookup for the fan (which still worked fine after sitting idle for 15 years) and now the lamp is running great, and a lot cooler.

For anyone who missed my other post above, I will repeat here: The bonehead techician who disabled my lamphouse sensor is now dead, and the company he worked for is now out of business. Good riddance to both.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 08-20-2002 01:45 PM

...Not to post questions on Film-Tech about technical problems, ask him first (even if said problems were around for more than a year, giving him plenty of time to catch them beforehand.)
...When you have a screen with both SDDS and Dolby Digital, but the Dolby Digital drops out frequently, and you're running a film that only has a SRD soundtrack, and you email the technician to let him know the Dolby Digital's dropping out and the film only has Dolby Digital, he emails you back "Why not run it in SDDS?"
...To cover the film with splicing tape to keep the foil cues from wearing out!

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Pete Naples
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1565
From: Dunfermline, Scotland
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 08-20-2002 05:14 PM

That aligning the A and B chains isn't part of the installation of a sound system, and is therefore chargeable extra.

That all two projector set-ups change over the sound on the exciter lamps, and that the Proj 2 input on the CP55 is a spare!

I hasten to add that these are things I've come across and put right.

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David Favel
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 764
From: Ashburton, New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 08-21-2002 02:08 AM

That the muffled & distorted speech coming from the surround speakers is industry standard & while sitting in the centre of the auditorium it creates a discreet track.

After that I found another guy.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 08-21-2002 01:44 PM

...not to worry about any problems with the analog sound reproduction, because nobody uses it anymore anyway. (I didn't actually hear this firsthand, but someone I worked with said a tech actually said that to him.)

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Matt Walker
Film Handler

Posts: 4
From: Ponca City, OK, USA
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 08-22-2002 12:56 PM

That he couldn't fix the variac on the payout side of a red-head platter but after looking into it the variace motor in the control box was un-mounted moved away from the variac and a relay was pulled out. At this point speed control was set by hand inside at a speed that wouldn't cause problems. (so he said) I had another relay, put it in and re-mounted the motor 6 months ago and still no problems. why he decided to unhook all this is a question we will never have answered.

( and he has done the radio shack spl meter holding out the port window)

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Brian Tristam Williams
Film Handler

Posts: 93
From: Johannesburg, South Africa
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 08-22-2002 04:24 PM

When you go through an entire night in the booth, watching Star Wars II twice, connecting to two DTS units simultaneously to do a scientific test, verifying that both units creep out of sync by the same amounts in the same places, not to mention catching cold in the booth, only to have the tech tell you that you and your 6 projectionists are obviously not threading the film properly.

------------------
"One man can make a difference."

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 08-22-2002 06:46 PM

This is the one I meant to post in the first place. But I kept forgetting it!

The guy who ran the cables for one of our theatres fancies himself a genuine booth tech. (He's a pretty good electrician.)

Anyway, he tried to argue with me that each movie required a different EQ. He was also known to sneak into the booth and raise fader settings on the surround amps because "they weren't on."

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