Steve, have you ever dumped a house running 70mm DTS? For Vertigo, a press screening got dropped due to reader failure. For Titanic, the show was cancelled due to player failure. (Neither incident were at the Senator) but you live you learn...two players, two readers NO PROBLEMS.

Steve

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I don't wanna piss of those 88 patrons, i've got room for, either, but i have been offered a maximum 3 shows run of 70mm dts Play Time (Jacques Tati), and have no 70mm platter. -That means 2 tcr for each dp70 plus an extra dts unit, and there are just one 70dts print available in Denmark, beside this one on loan from Paris. -The other one is Titanic. -No more tickets to be sailed home on that one, I think...

Is is going to be heart or brain. -It's definitely not for the money.
Being a special event, i might get away with asking 20 $ a head, still without making the extra gear look cheap. But it sure would be great sport !

The Copenhagen Imperial Bio ran Titanic premiere in 70 dts, using platter and only one dts reader. -First couple of times bad - but after installing several wapour machines (steam, airwash, what do you call it) the static went away, and they had no more drop-outs. -But, as my kind tech says: "Going over the Atlantic on one engine"...

Better think it over once more.

In a single, one doesn't have the option of offering any other shows or using one screen's equipment to repair anothers...everything has to be perfect on every show.

Steve

Also, which kind of DTS player is more reliable? The original 2 drive units or the newer 3 drive variety? The Carmike 8 here in Lawton has three DTS-6 players and five DTS-6D units. Three of the 6D units have drives that have went on the fritz and need replacement kits. But the original two that were installed in this theater when it opened in 1994 have not had a single problem at all.

Regarding 70mm capability in Dallas, there used to be a pretty good number of theaters with it. Lots of UA locations, some from AMC, some from Loews and the best ones maintained by General Cinemas (with the Northpark 1-2 towering above all others in quality). But, yeah, many of the 70mm capable places have been replaced by 35mm-only stadium seated theaters. When the AMC Grand 24 opened in 1995, my heart sank from the place having nothing for 70mm. It was the start of a very negatively destructive trend.

As for 70mm (mag capable or DTS) being completely gone in Dallas, I thought there were still a few screens left. Didn't the Inwood theater have a 70mm screen? What about the UA Plaza, AMC Glen Lakes 8 or the Loews Preston/Park in Plano? 70mm all gone there?

Plaza's 70mm stuff has been mostly stripped last time I saw. I don't know why it would have been put back since they haven't run 70mm since I last was up there.

Glen Lakes 70mm stuff never worked properly from the start. They mutilated 70mm there. Last I saw (again a few years ago) the 70mm components had been stripped.

The "street" prices of the units you listed are often less. And for a player only DTS-6D (as the back up) is quite a bit less).

As to reliability, I'll take an original caddy drive over any of the caddyless drives currently in use. I don't think DTS had any say in this though...who makes Caddy Drive units anymore? The original DTS-6 had nice Jensen tranformer outputs the 6-D does not but I believe it has a higher potential output level.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

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When the AMC Grand 24 opened in 1995, my heart sank from the place having nothing for 70mm. It was the start of a very negatively destructive trend.

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I must try the loan or rental version somewhere.
The actual screen (#1) has the good old dts-6, and when screen #2 went dts, this was sold out, and i got the 6-d (which had to have new drives 1½ years later), and as far as i understand, the two dts units for a back-up must be alike. If that is not right, please let me now, cause, then the problem is just 2 x 2 readers (RELATIVELY cheap)...

When i bought my platters, there were only three ( 3 !) 70mm prints in cirkulation in Denmark and no distributor would promise any new ones to come, and i decided that IF it should happen, i would gladly run c/o for a month or two for what i could save by buying 35mm platters only. -DTS/70 was not up a that time to give ideas...

Yes - i have had a price about 1450 Euro on the reader - so the prices seems to be unaltered. -And 4 times 1450 - that's enough for those three runs, so please someone tell me, you have experimented with dts-6 and 6-d together - with luck !

DTS does manufacture a "failsafe" board to allow one reader to fead both players (works for changeover houses too...just one reader per projector). The failsafe boards are different for the 6 and 6D, as I recall.

Depending on your host processor, you will want to get the logic right. For a CP-200, it is easy...since you are on the JM-11 and JM-21 signal path, the daisy chain method of the audio takes care of always having sound if either player is playing...for the subwoofer and the Cat. 560, you will need to have a set of dry contacts for each player to have it switch to Digital subwoofer (again, both players can provide this with the appropriate breakout board or failsafe board).

For other processors, it can be more complicated on the logic standpoint. For that I would use the DTS failsafe board and make custom cables. That is, if you get the 6D failsafe board, have the 6 with a custom cable for the logic to match the 6D's connectors.

Steve

CP 200 did never reach Malling - A CP 65 is doing the job here, -doing it very well for 10 years now.

Thank God for Kinoton and Herr Mueller - This is not for me alone to do. -But still worth trying, i think.

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Instead of embracing "digital projection" commercial theaters need to try to bring 70mm back to life.

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Actually, with the tiny amount of screens that installed DLP for Star Wars: AOTC, I would hardly say that exhibitors embraced it. And the only reason it showed in DLP at all was because Lucas, not the theatres, pushed it. And the same thing would happen with 70mm. If the studios pushed it, then some theatres would install it. If Lucas was sky high on 70mm, then he could have gotten exhibitors top show it as well. Many theatres installed 70mm for the big explosion of 70mm prints in the 80's, yet many of these theatres couldn't get hold of 70mm prints at all, having to settle with 35mm. The studios aren't going to say, "hey there are a lot of 70mm screens out there, we need to get 70mm prints in there." It happens the opposite way. Yes, the large number of theatres with 70mm let the distributors open with as many 70mm prints as they were interested in striking, but bottom line, they still would limit that number for most releases.

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If there are next to no commercial theaters able to handle 70mm, then that gives any movie studio the perfect argument to prevent any filmmaker from shooting a new movie in 70mm format.

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What argument did the studios have to not shoot in 70mm when the country was saturated with 70mm screens? Very little 70mm prodution going on then. Most of it from indie sources (Baraka, Hamlet, Little Buddha). Just Far and Away (and the "live action" material in Tron). And some of the lack of interest seems to be with the filmmakers themselves. If Ron Howard could get the OK to shoot in 65mm, surely Steven Spielberg could have if he had wanted to. Yet he hasn't. I can't remember the article, but years ago (late 80's), MGM asked filmmakers to consider the possibility of budgeting their movies to include 65mm production. No takers.