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Author Topic: CD players Ian Price Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1714 From: Denver, CO Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-13-2003 06:36 PM                     When we opened and money tight we bought portable CD players for $40 a piece and used the one here that worked and Ky brought in his portable. They all lasted about a year. I then bought 5 Teac cd players from J&R in NY for about $80 per player. It seems that nobody makes cheap single transport CD players anymore. Just look for them and you will see. As a result, they have performed well and we get the J&R catalogue each and every month.  |  IP: Logged Dave Callaghan Film Handler Posts: 60 From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-13-2003 06:42 PM                     I tried using a computer: OS Windows ME / Windows Media Player / 128 MB of RAM. The computer runs an intermission video program. With this configuration I was able to play non-sync, but only for a while - a memory error would crash the system after about 3 1/2 hours of continuous play. End of experiment and back to the CD's. Would expanding the amount of RAM make this practical? 185 minutes of Windows Media Audio at 64Kbps takes up about 86 MB of hard disk space. If setting up a repeating playlist transfers the the entire 86 MB into RAM before commencing play, then wouldn't adding another 128 MB of RAM prevent the system from crashing?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-13-2003 08:49 PM                        Dave, a repeating playlist won't load the entire playlist into RAM. At most the current and next song will be loaded, that's it. With that said, why not use at least 192kbps encoding so that the non-sync will sound at least half descent on your expensive kickass auditorium sound systems. Your problem is the operating system. Both Windows 98 and 2000 will run playlists for hours and hours and... I know that for sure, I use a playlist & taskmanager as an alarm clock and sometimes it takes all day for me to drag my but out of bed. And by the way, welcome aboard! Ian, wouldn't a distribution amp be a little more practicle in the long run, now that you've got a little more cash to spend?  |  IP: Logged Dave Callaghan Film Handler Posts: 60 From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-13-2003 10:08 PM                     Thanks, Daryl. The figures I used were for an experiment on my Windows XP Home system, just to determine if the idea would work at all. It does run for hours and hours and ... exactly what is needed for non-sync in a continuous house. So, if 98, 2000 and XP work and ME apparently doesn't, would you know of an MS update that dealt with what looks like a bug in ME, or did MS abandon it because they were busy with XP?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-13-2003 10:16 PM                        My experience with ME is limited as we didn't sell any copies of it due to it being no better than 98 or 2000 (actually nowhere close to as good as 2000) and simply a money grab before the release of XP. The problem may be fixable by upgrading to DirectX 9 or updating to Windows Media Player 9. You may have better luck using Nullsoft's WinAmp though - it's probably one of the most reliable mainstream players. Also, make sure to disable power management in ME... it's pretty flakey and could be contributing to the problem.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 01-14-2003 09:15 AM                        This unit is probably overkill for most cinema applications, but is a very reliable unit. This is the newer version of the one I have in my Mobile DJ rack. DENON DN2100F DUAL CD PLAYER I've used DENON CD players and GEMINI CD players for almost 9 years, and never had a problem with them. They're built very rugged, and can take the abuse of being moved around from night to night. Mine has 3 different types of outputs on the back of the unit. 1.)Standard RCA jacks 2.)BNC Digital outputs 3.)Optical outputs (for use with fiber optic lines) No cheap plastic cases here, all metal units, rack mounted.. just set it and forget it. You can find them on Ebay pretty cheap every now and then. Another option, like the others have said above is to use a computer program. I've used PCDJ before, and it's a great simple program to use. Again, it's features are more than what are needed for cinema use, but it's a rock-solid program  |  IP: Logged Michael Brown Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1522 From: Bradford, England Registered: May 2001 posted 01-14-2003 09:44 AM                     quote: I tried using a computer: OS Windows ME / Windows Media Player / 128 MB of RAM. The computer runs an intermission video program. With this configuration I was able to play non-sync, but only for a while - a memory error would crash the system after about 3 1/2 hours of continuous play. End of experiment and back to the CD's. Woah thats a long intermission. Seriously, why do you need to play non-sync continuously for 3 1/2 hours?  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 01-14-2003 04:40 PM                     FWIW, Barry, the buttons on the Denons tend to fail over time. Specifically, on an extremely heavily-used DN1000F, the open/close button failed after ~4 years. Of course, getting the part and replacing it was child's play, and it's still going strong a few years later, though it gets a lot less use than it used to. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-14-2003 06:34 PM                        Michael, if you've got say 10 screens and one non-sync source, it's going to need to be running a majority of the day.  |  IP: Logged John Walsh Film God Posts: 2490 From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way Registered: Oct 1999 posted 01-14-2003 08:56 PM                     We usually buy cheaper (~$60) Sony players. I try to get ones that self-play on power up. Since we run "MovieTunes" there's no sense getting a multidisk player, although I agree it's getting hard to find a single disk player anymore.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-14-2003 11:09 PM                     If anyone is looking for an all in one...DVD, CD, DVD Audio, SACD type player look at the Pioneer DV-45A. This thing is super convenient, extremely fast at loading the different format disks, and has unbetable sound at three times its price range. I would hope by now that some theatres with huge sound systems are taking full advantage of both of the Super Audio CD formats. Mark  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-14-2003 11:12 PM                        We program our preshow music to the second, so the film hits the screen as the very last bars of music end. For that we need a timer display that can count-down backwards. We have used a Sony 5 disk changer and our currently Denon 5 disc player - both middle of the line consumer models. The Sony worked for about 6 years weekends only and not in constant run mode, then crashed. We are now in our 3rd year with the Denon. For our music-on-hold, we did need a 5 disk changer model running continuously -- I me CONTINUOUSLY -- 24/7. I went through a Teac, a Pioneer, and a Sony -- all mid-end consumer units and all lasted about two years each. Now we play the classical FM Station, WQXR -- it never craps out! I thought about using a computer, but there hasn't yet been a Windows OS that hasn't crashed at some point if the machine was left running continuously for any length of time. I take it back -- I haven't run XP yet, but something tells me somewhere along the line it will do just like all the other Windows OSs and hiccup without provocation and there ya go -- dead air on hold. Besides, a computer is a big chunk of hardware for a simple sound playback. I bet an MP3 player with no moving parts would run forever. That will be my next experiment for a perpetual motion music-on-hold playback source. As for the current crop of "bring anything on" format masters, Sony and Philips both have players now that will play literally ANYTHING you can possibly throw at them --CDs, CDRs, CDRWs, SACDs, MP3s, DVDs....did I miss anything? And both are around something like $200. As for their ability to run from a theatre's opening show to closing show, that's anybody's guess....and luck -- but I would bet on a CD player's reliability over a computer's any day of the week. Frank  |  IP: Logged Mike Rendall Film Handler Posts: 78 From: Southampton, Hampshire, UK Registered: Nov 2002 posted 01-15-2003 03:01 AM                     In our theatre we have a Marantz deck, so far lasted 5 years without any bother. quote: if you've got say 10 screens and one non-sync source, it's going to need to be running a majority of the day. When I was working in a two screen theatre, we used to have a CD player in each rack and tailor the music to the feature in question, i.e. If we were running Titanic in one theatre we would choose either the Titanic soundtrack or something equally related, in another screen we may be running a hindi feature and so would have hindi dance music. I have never heard of a theatre only having one NS source for all houses, is this common in larger theatres? It makes starting the show in time with the end of a track very difficult!  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-15-2003 03:07 AM                        Most distribution amps accept two non-sync sources. Usually you load 'adult' music in one changer and 'kid' music in the other. If you've got a soundtrack for a movie that is popular, you can play it in all the houses. In fact, I hate listening to a movies soundtrack before that movie. I think it's kind of stupid... I don't know, just a pet peeve I guess. Start at the end of a song? Sure, if you want too. Turn on the booth monitor and wait for the end of the song. Since I naturally thread to within a couple frames on an unmarked leader, I know it'll be 3 seconds from the time I hit start to the time the NS is muted. Besides, customers aren't even going to remember being annoyed because you cut off the song after they are bombarded with a billion commercials. On a related note... you could use one computer for two non-sync soures if you wanted too. Heck you could probably do four sources given a good harddrive and processor.  |  IP: Logged Dave Callaghan Film Handler Posts: 60 From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-15-2003 03:19 AM                     quote: Woah thats a long intermission. Seriously, why do you need to play non-sync continuously for 3 1/2 hours? The non-sync source is played over the auditorium sound systems during program intermissions, and also played in the lobby and washrooms through a distribution amplifier. Once the doors open around noon, you need a source that will run without interruption for about the next 10 hours. I guess it might have been better to refer to it as standard switched non-sync with continuous PA. It all depends on where you are listening.  |  IP: Logged

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