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Topic: Digital Screen Network Problems

Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 08-14-2007 01:02 PM

quote: Mark Hajducki
Just hitting the stop button should remove the old playlist, on pressing play the current playlist should start.

It usually does; just once or twice it hasn't done, and I've had to restart Cinelister.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-14-2007 04:01 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
It isn't like this stuff has a huge service life to begin with.

Well, you're the one that refered to "Digital" stuff not having a long service life not me. When I sell any digital based product no matter what it is I just make sure the customer unsderstands that before he buys. With D-Cinema you will never see a single system sold by me... only leased. This way the longest the customer is stuck with the gear is 7 years. Leasing D-Cinema stuff is both very practacle and very affordable.

As for CP-50's I am somewhat partial to them myself. Its just that the cost to upgrade them for digital playback is not worth it. If the rest of the industry had a good reason to keep them they'd still be running all over the place... and they're not. The single CP-50 thats still running on one of my service routes is going to stay there running until they upgrade that screen to DTS or SRD or what ever. Since its just analog its fine to remain.
P.S. There are long life Short Gap Xenons available that have a warranty life the same as this company's regular cinema lamps. This not only makes Short Gap lamps affordable they can also be used in film projectors with a rather large offset in power savings in some areas of the country.

Mark

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-14-2007 04:55 PM

I have yet to see any of the ultra short gap lamps have the same warranty as their regular gap cousins

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-14-2007 05:27 PM

The Christie CDXL Lamps offer basically the same warranty as the CXL Cinema Lamps.

Mark

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John Caswell
Film Handler

Posts: 35
From: Liverpool, Merseyside, UK
Registered: Oct 2006

posted 08-14-2007 06:27 PM

Hi,
In the UK the reason for installing Quvis and then swapping to Doremi was down to the fact that at the time they were working out a suitable 'package' to offer, they wanted a cinema player that could adequately support 2K, and the Quvis did this. AFAIK Arts Alliance didn't really intend to keep the Quvis, they just needed to use these at the time til they had a better option available to them (a la Doremi).

We've now had the Doremis installed at our cinema. Before that, with Quvis, we'd had a few occasions where, for no reason, the film would freeze for a minute or so, or there would be a large amount of pixellation. Usually the soundtrack would continue, and eventually the image would catch up. No cause, just one of those random little things that occur with modern technology.
So far so good with the Doremis though. [Wink]

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-14-2007 06:41 PM

There are alot of Doremi's in Salt LAke City and they seem to perform on a par with the Dolby stuff. I just don't know if the longevity of the equipment is going to be as long as Dolby's.

Mark

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 08-14-2007 08:27 PM

"There are alot of Doremi's in Salt LAke City and they seem to perform on a par with the Dolby stuff. I just don't know if the longevity"

Fear not, there'll be an upgrade next year to the "FaSolLa."

One of the huge problems here is that so much of the critical machinery is now in software, and the skills and techniques for debugging it are completely different. And, because of the fundamentally different nature of the beast (intellectual property, etc., etc.), the tools to properly debug this stuff are not just available to projectionists and service technicians...

I guess we can take comfort that this is not a movie-industry -specific problem, and the whole world is suffering...

--jhawk

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 08-14-2007 09:45 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
This is why if you're going to claim this stuff here ya need to get to places like Showest to see whats really going on. In fact Kodak demoed a 3K based ILA system about 3 or 4 Showests ago but immediately afterwords abandoned it.

Mark, you can say all you want. However, your claim that 2K digital cinema has been around for nearly 10 years is baloney. My own personal background is irrelevant and doesn't make that fact any less true.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 08-15-2007 07:51 AM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
This not only makes Short Gap lamps affordable they can also be used in film projectors with a rather large offset in power savings in some areas of the country.

Mark, I don't understand this; can you explain please.

quote: John Caswell
In the UK the reason for installing Quvis and then swapping to Doremi was down to the fact that at the time they were working out a suitable 'package' to offer, they wanted a cinema player that could adequately support 2K, and the Quvis did this. AFAIK Arts Alliance didn't really intend to keep the Quvis, they just needed to use these at the time til they had a better option available to them (a la Doremi).

I haven't heard this before, and I don't know if it's true, but if it is then it seems to indicate that the DSN scheme was implemented too soon; they would have done better to have installed just a few units as a pilot scheme, and then waited for a few years before going to the full roll-out. Buying something like a couple of hundred of the things, and then replacing them after a year or so doesn't seem to make much sense.

quote: John Hawkinson
One of the huge problems here is that so much of the critical machinery is now in software, and the skills and techniques for debugging it are completely different. And, because of the fundamentally different nature of the beast (intellectual property, etc., etc.), the tools to properly debug this stuff are not just available to projectionists and service technicians...

I guess we can take comfort that this is not a movie-industry -specific problem, and the whole world is suffering...

I agree John. Take the case where the film jumped back to the start after a few seconds; it then played ok, but what if it hadn't? I could have completely powered down and then re-started, but if that didn't fix it, them I'm stuck and we've lost the show. With film projectors it's pretty obvious how they work, and if they don't, why. slipping take-up belts, broken springs, screws which have worked loose, sticking relays etc. are all pretty obvious, and easy to fix in a few minutes.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
With D-Cinema you will never see a single system sold by me... only leased. This way the longest the customer is stuck with the gear is 7 years. Leasing D-Cinema stuff is both very practacle and very affordable.

If the equipment is expensive, and its life relatively short, then the cost of leasing is going to be high, otherwise the leasing company won't get their money back over the life of the equipment. On top of this, the leasing company are going to want to make a profit on the exercise, so I can't see how leasing is going to be 'very affordable', compared to buying.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-15-2007 06:26 PM

quote: Stephen Furley
Mark, I don't understand this; can you explain please.

Sure... If you look at the brochure you will see an increase in performance of each short gap lamp over the normal cinema type lamp. This means you can utilize a lower wattage lamp.... say if you're running a 4kw regular cinema lamp you could go to the 3kw short gap. The decrease in power consumption on the west coast means a savings of about 600.00 per year. In other areas its going to vary... here in Bountiful, Utah our power is one of the least expensive in Utah and the nation. Our town has its own power company and we are the only folks in the state that get our power from Glen Canyon Dam... the rest of that power is routed to Phil's house. The increase in price of the short gap lamp is about half of that $600.00 so there is a 300.00 savings in one year. In other cases where you have say a 2kw lamphouse and just need more light you gain an average of 26% more light. Also, these lamps do not bahave like the LTI Helios does... the Helios has a relatively short period where you have alot of extra light. The CDXL lamps are more like an LED... a bit of taper off after a few hundred hours use and then its a very slow drop off until the end of life.

quote: Stephen Furley
If the equipment is expensive, and its life relatively short, then the cost of leasing is going to be high, otherwise the leasing company won't get their money back over the life of the equipment. On top of this, the leasing company are going to want to make a profit on the exercise, so I can't see how leasing is going to be 'very affordable', compared to buying.

Last I checked intererst rate through NEC Leasing was about 7%... the more systems you lease the lower it goes... or should I say its negotiable to a point. That is a very reaosnable interest rate. There are many other leasing companies in the USA that offer similar deals.

BTW: Christie is disconntinuing its 7kw lamphouse and console in favor of just making the 4kw units. You actually get more light on screen with the CDXL45 in the 4kw console that you do running the 7kw lamp in the 7kw console!! The power savings will offset the slightly higher lamp cost by a long shot.

quote: Bobby Henderson
My own personal background is irrelevant

Well, I COULD say something but since I promised Brad that I'd be a gentleman I will refrain from making the comment that immediately came to mind.

Mark

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 08-17-2007 10:57 PM

Meaning that you were completely spit-balling trying to claim that 2K digital cinema has been around for 10 years. Right?

Some trivia doesn't exactly require attendance at a ShoWest or ShoEast convention to know.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-18-2007 02:02 AM

The presumption that a shorter arc lamp will immediately increase one's light in one application because it does in another is absolutely false.

I've been doing quite a bit of xenon testing over the last couple of years and coming up with what works best (in terms of quantity of light) really varies on reflector, lens and lamp. I have 4KW lamps that are brighter (on screen) than 5KW lamps...in other sysems the 5KW wins. I've tested 6KW HP lamps in non-HP applications and found they had less light output in standard set ups than Standard 6KW lamps. Barco had Osram design a 6.5KW specific lamp for the DP100/DP90 light engine to yield significantly more light than a 6K or 6K HP.

Right now I'm testing ASL XM4202 lamps (4200 short arcs) and they look promising in a Kinoton application as to have 30% more light (initially though after the first 100 hours of decrease...it seems to stabilize a bit and still out illuminates standard 4K HS lamps).

So in short, it isn't as cut and dried as some are making it out...it really depends on the optical design of the system as to what works most efficient (and that can even include the aperture plate or imager since the size of the opening will affect how large the arc can be).

Steve

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-18-2007 11:04 AM

My experience is the same as Steve's one can not just willy nilly swap lamps and expect an increase in light
There are many variables that come into play

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-18-2007 11:24 AM

quote: Steve Guttag
So in short, it isn't as cut and dried as some are making it out...it really depends on the optical design of the system as to what works most efficient (and that can even include the aperture plate or imager since the size of the opening will affect how large the arc can be).

Steve,

I think you'll find that the Christie claims to increase in performance as listed in their brochure do hold true when used with Christie SLC and SLH reflectors. D-Cinema aside its doubtful that Christie would be testing their lamps in other than their own film lamphouses.

Mark

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 08-18-2007 01:26 PM

Mark,

It is a combination of the reflector, aperture and lens from what I've found. When the CDXL lamps came out...I was one of the first to inquire about their suitability in film systems. They were very non commital then. Anytime you reduce the wattage to achieve the same light is good. Normally when one increases wattage, they increase heat at a greater rate than they increase light output (from the arc itself, not taking into account the optics of the system).

I'm kinda curious about the CDXL-45 myself...it looks most promising like the ASL XM4202. Fortunately, Kinoton now has an "HTP" adapter for their lamphouses/consoles so if they are an improvement, they can be used without too much hassle. I will say that the Christie CXL-40SC is a wonderful match to a Kinoton Universal 2-7K lamphouse with probably the best lumen/watt ratio. The CXL-50SC actually has fewer lumens coming out of the lens in the same equipment. I've heard that the same holds true on the Osram side of things.

Steve

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