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Topic: How many Chains are now all digital?

Stephen Furley
Film God

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

posted 07-04-2010 04:03 AM

Mark, I have the answer; what you need is a carbon arc conversion kit for digital projectors. [Smile]

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Manny Montes
Master Film Handler

Posts: 270
From: United States
Registered: Feb 2010

posted 07-05-2010 04:31 AM

Regal has plans to go 100% digital, and all the new builds have at least one digital projector in them (if not all digital). I don't remember the interview I was reading but they were talking about the whole deal with the new Sonys, etc.

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 07-05-2010 07:11 AM

Stephen - then you'd need a change-over modification too since carbons only last an hour.

Judging from how much sense the rest of this makes, that seems like something that would be widely regarded as the perfect solution.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

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

posted 07-05-2010 08:15 AM

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Stephen - then you'd need a change-over modification too since carbons only last an hour.

Changeover shouldn't be difficult; rather expensive, since you'd need two digital projectors.

The first model of the Eidophor projector actually did use a carbon arc lamp; there's a picture of it here on Hugh's site:

http://www.cinephoto.co.uk/eidophor_1.htm

Whether they did do changeovers with them, or only used them for as long as they could get out of one pair of carbons at a time, I don't know.

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-05-2010 09:23 AM

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Stephen - then you'd need a change-over modification too since carbons only last an hour.

I dunno, what's cheaper Digital technology or Carbon Arc technology? I'm sure using 1/3 of the money spent on developing 2k digital, someone could develop the 3 hour carbon arc, that wasn't, you know, about 6ft long [Wink]

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-05-2010 11:33 AM

Actually Lee Artoe had a pair of Jet Arcs in the basement of his warehouse on Belmont Ave. for many years... these had automatic carbon feeders on them. They could automatically install a new set of carbons when the present pair was spent.

Actually the problem with the inlne system is poor design on Christie's part of the heat filter in these projectors. A little bit thicker and it certainly could survive the blast from an exploding 6kw lamp. It would also be worth the 1/2 foot lambert sacrifice in light for the added safety. The other aspect of digital I am at a loss on is where are the metal reflector manufacturers during all this. Optiform, etc... could easily design a compound metal reflector system for these projectors. They may be damaged but they'd survive the blast and a new lamp would get you back on screen. They'd also be less expensive then the present glass jobs.

Mark

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Stephen Furley
Film God

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

posted 07-06-2010 02:26 AM

quote: Martin McCaffery
I dunno, what's cheaper Digital technology or Carbon Arc technology? I'm sure using 1/3 of the money spent on developing 2k digital, someone could develop the 3 hour carbon arc, that wasn't, you know, about 6ft long

There was a carbon arc which could burn for about 100 hours, the Jandus lamp. It was used for streetlighting, and streetlighting arcs were quite different to projection ones. It worked by enclosing the carbons in an inner glass vessel within the outer globe. There was a valve which allowed air to escape as the lamp warmed up, but prevented air from entering.

Maybe some sort of long run carbon arc would have been developed for projection if SHP mercury, metal halide and xenon lamps hadn't become available.

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Justin Fencsak
Film Handler

Posts: 1
From: Rockaway, NJ, USA
Registered: Jun 2010

posted 07-10-2010 05:39 AM

Rockaway in AMC will be all digital by september. 3 screens are RealD 3D/Sony 4k and there's one IMAX digital screen. 12 screens are 35mm.

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Mike Frese
Master Film Handler

Posts: 465
From: Holts Summit, MO
Registered: Jun 2007

posted 07-10-2010 11:16 PM

Anyone believe that AMC is paying Real3d $.50 per ticket for 10 years? Or even 5?

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 07-11-2010 03:30 AM

..prob as long as AMC keeps the contract with "Real Dumb" active..they'll do it til the cows fly home..

But, you gotta look at it on their prospective: it's a huge tax writeoff for them and all of the other venues using "Real Dumb" since they can write it off as business expense ...

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 07-11-2010 07:20 AM

Gotta make a profit first before you have taxes. Louis

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 07-14-2010 07:13 AM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Actually the problem with the inlne system is poor design on Christie's part of the heat filter in these projectors. A little bit thicker and it certainly could survive the blast from an exploding 6kw lamp. It would also be worth the 1/2 foot lambert sacrifice in light for the added safety.

I wonder if UltraFlat can come up with replacement heat filters for these projectors. I've used their heat filters in 35mm consoles with excellent results.

[/quote]The other aspect of digital I am at a loss on is where are the metal reflector manufacturers during all this. Optiform, etc... could easily design a compound metal reflector system for these projectors. They may be damaged but they'd survive the blast and a new lamp would get you back on screen. They'd also be less expensive then the present glass jobs. [/quote]

I'm sure they could, but I'm sure you know these reflectors would reflect a lot more heat forward. Even though there are IR filters in front of the lamps, I imagine that reducing the amount of heat reflected forward is a lot more critical in these digital projectors.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 07-14-2010 08:27 AM

quote: Monte L Fullmer
But, you gotta look at it on their prospective: it's a huge tax writeoff for them and all of the other venues using "Real Dumb" since they can write it off as business expense ...

This statement reminds me a little of the "just write it off" (I don't know the title of the episode) of Seinfeld. Tax writeoffs aren't some magical way to avoid paying taxes. In order to "write something off" you have to have invested and lost the money or paid it as an expense.

If AMC pays Real-D 50 cents a ticket it is a business expense but so what. That money is actually going to Real-D so there is no tax on it from AMC's perspective. If let's say AMC charges a $3.00 upcharge and pays $0.50 to Real-D, AMC will pay income tax (assuming it ends up as profit but let's keep it simple) on $2.50. The $0.50 that they "wrote off" isn't advantageous to AMC at all. In fact, it would be much more advantageous not to pay that $0.50 to Real-D and keep it as profit and pay tax on it. Then they'd end up with 32.5 cents of it after taxes instead of zero.

As pointed out satirically in that Seinfeld episode there is a huge misconception about tax writeoffs. Even if Bill Gates donates $10,000,000 as a tax writeoff to a charity, he will still end up with less money in his pocket at the end of the day than if he hadn't made the donation. The only "advantage" is that had he spent $10,000,000 on a vacation home he would have had to pay income tax on it but by donating to charity he doesn't have to. At roughly 36% top tax bracket if he hadn't donated he'd be left with $6.4 Million in the bank out of the $10 Million but by donating it he now has none of it but donated to a charity.

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Jonathan Goeldner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1360
From: Washington, District of Columbia
Registered: Jun 2008

posted 10-13-2010 09:45 PM

I know that AMC converted all the screens at NYC's Empire 25 to all digital.

here in the DC area, Rave Motion Pictures has converted all it's screens at it's Fairfax Corner complex into all digital screens with Barco (upgradeable to 4K) projectors - the Centreville multiplex is also in transit to all digital.

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Jonathan Goeldner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1360
From: Washington, District of Columbia
Registered: Jun 2008

posted 10-15-2010 08:56 PM

actually as of today, it looks like it all but one screen at Rave's Centreville's is not digital, 11 out of 12 - strange, I'm sure as of next week all the screens will have been converted.

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