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Posted by RICK HAMILTON (Member # 115) on 08-21-1999, 11:51 PM:
Maybe someone has an explanation for this? I just went through a 16-plex consisting of CHRISTIE's with basement readers and cleaned up their digital. The theatre is only about 15 months old and most of the digital was reading about 4./F . Some of the units would just give up and stay in SR. I cleaned up all of the pulleys and the CCD's, putting on the gaskets to keep the dust and crap out of the readers. With the L.E.D.'s all maxed out, all I could get was about 3 volts of video voltage. This is o.k., because the error rate on all of them is down to anywhere from a 2. to a 4. , but they are running solid and not faulting out. My question is this.....after I got done, in house "A" the previews ran great, but as soon as the feature started, the film faulted to SR. The error rate was again about 4./F. After the show ended, I ran a trailer pack that ran a solid 3. occasionally a 4. When the film started up again, the same thing....previews ran about 3./4 then the feature would fault out with about 4./F. I was convinced that it was a print problem. The next day.....This feature ran in a different auditorium and ran almost perfect. A solid 3 almost the whole film. This led me to believe that "house A" was not aligned properly. I ran the film that they moved to "house A" and it also ran at a solid 3.
This tells me that the alignment in house "A" is correct, but why wouldn't that first film read digital in there?
please enlighten me!
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-22-1999, 12:27 AM:
The whole basement SRD reader thing in my opinion is a bad idea. You will always get better results with a penthouse reader. That being said...Just like SDDS, every SRD print is a little bit different. Also, every reader will be aligned slightly different. No two prints or readers are alike.
Did you run Apt Pupil in SDDS? Everyone I talked to had problems with this title. However, it was possible to tweek the SDDS reader to track this title...but at the expense of the trailers. The same is also true of SRD. Some prints will be better than others and some readers will be just different than another to track the film.
I'm curious of how that second print in auditorium "A" played in the other auditorium. Also, what were the titles? How long have they been out? Does this theater take care of their print? Any possible scratches or abrasions on the SRD track?
Posted by RICK HAMILTON (Member # 115) on 08-22-1999, 12:37 AM:
The print that would fault out while in "aud A" was "Thomas Crown". When it moved to "aub B" it ran a solid 3. The print that moved to "aud A" is bowfinger. It ran a solid 3 the previous week in "aud C".
Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 08-22-1999, 02:44 AM:
I am having the same problems with the Christie SRD basement readers. Of the 5 I have, ZERO are relaible (so basically my largests houses are analog)...You just gotta love Christie...
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-22-1999, 03:19 AM:
I have had similar SRD problems with my Christies. Most recently 6th Sense will play about 4-F. Never drops to SR (none of them do) but it sounds better in SR. Trust me, the F's are audible! Especially during music. 6th Sense plays exactly the same in every house with SRD. Both prints run with the exact same error rate and the F's in the same spots.Most of my units run anywhere between 0 and 6. I have one that hold 6 and 6 1/2 constantly. Sometimes drops to 5 but usually doesn't F.
I have tried doing this to my Christie basement readers:
Notice the 1/4 nut resting under the upper tension arm. This nearly eliminates vibration (but not all of it). Try threading with 1 perf tension and no tension with the nut there. You should see dramatic results. My Dolby readers are pretty dependable for the most part now, and I sometimes see them hit (and hold) an error rate of 0 on a good print.