This is topic Projector question-Motiograph AAA in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Erich Loepke (Member # 166) on 12-11-1999, 09:41 PM:
I will soon be receiving a Motiograph AAA projector and SH-7500 soundhead. I'm looking for advice on what are the good and bad points for this particular model. When did Motiograph introduce this model (I didn't find mention of it in the "Story of Motiograph" download on this site), and what is the advantage, if any, of the 4" lens barrel over the standard barrel?Thanks in advance,
Erich
Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 12-11-1999, 09:53 PM:
That wasn't the one on E-bay was it?The Motiograph AAA came out around 1956 I believe. You could use just about any lens in that 4" lens holder.
Posted by Erich Loepke (Member # 166) on 12-11-1999, 10:03 PM:
Yes, that was the one on Ebay. I hope I did OK. Guess I'll find out when I get the thing here!
Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 12-11-1999, 10:20 PM:
I saw the picture of it and it looks like you got a good deal!
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 12-11-1999, 11:26 PM:
Years ago, lenses were not as good, and you needed a larger peice of glass. Today, they are made smaller. You will need an adapter to put the a 'newer" lens in (Century called them "bushings.")Did a Motiograph AAA have barrel shutter?
Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 12-11-1999, 11:33 PM:
Yes, Motiographs and DeVrys had the barrel type of shutter.
Posted by Derek Maxwell (Member # 234) on 12-12-1999, 12:30 AM:
There is an old run down drive-in in ROME, N.Y. called the WEST ROME DRIVE-IN near my home town which still has a pair of these machines in use and let me tell you I was impressed with how well they ran and I have never heard a quieter machine anywhere. There was absolutely no clatter from the film or movement at all. As a matter of fact, It sounded like they weren't even running. The only way you could tell it was running was when a splice went through and you heard a slight click. I would love to get a nice quiet machine like that one.
Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 12-12-1999, 12:45 AM:
Derek:
Check out the pix of my Motiograph in the Chehalis Theater on the Projection Picture Warehouse here on this site. It runs beautifully---great steady picture and whisper quiet. Not bad for a 50 year old projector! And don't forget the intermittent runs in a grease pack.
Posted by Mike Carro (Member # 232) on 12-12-1999, 10:34 AM:
I had a pair of the AA's and they were great machines. All ball bearings and if you could replace them at your nearest ball bearing supplier cheap. Nothing ever wore out. Which is why I'm told they went out of business. No one ever ordered parts! One drawback was the shutter. I never did like that thing. The one I had came with a drive- in shutter for maximum light. It had a horrible ghosting problem. Never could adjust it out so I had to fabricate extensions onto the barrel. It worked fine. Good luck they're great projectors.
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 12-12-1999, 11:01 AM:
One problem with Motiographs was that the barrel shutter took up so much room (between the aperture plate and the lamp) that you could'nt focus the lamp correctly. (The lamp could not be slid closer to the aperture to get the correct distance for focus.)I don't know who's 'fault' this was. Did lamp manufacturers not want to be bothered designing in a wider range of working distances; or was Motiograph (and Devry) the _only_ manufacturers using a barrel shutter, thus creating a a problem if you wanted to use some other companines' lamp. (I'm sure a Motiograph lamp fit OK!)
But, it was sort of too bad; I thought the barrel shutter idea was pretty good (less maintance than twin opposing shutters, like JJ's.)
Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 12-12-1999, 11:30 AM:
Never had a problem with lamphouse working distance and Motiograph projectors. Maybe the problem was true in the carbon arc days, but I've got a Super Lume-x (with 2000 watt lamp) behind mine at the Chehalis Theater and the picture is plenty bright. I never had any problems aligning it.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-12-1999, 03:53 PM:
My first screening room has AAA machine still installed and The only lamphouse I ever heard of a problem was the futura2 not getting closenough. ALl Xenons will. They are the queitest machines ever built and will run very damaged film without problems.
I have run nitrate on mine that is so shrunken the perf are visable on the screen.
The curved gate for them is very interesting in that it was cyclindrical
(the pro35 copied it)
I read in an old International Projectionist that at the Atlanta fox the curved gate in the Motiograph AAA there produced a 90 wide scope picture with less than a 1/4" jitter and weave
The cinemecanica V10, The ernaman 7 8 and 9's and the Westrex 7000's all had barrel shutters
The optical soundhead had one problem in the excitor lamp bracket was fixed
The penthouse was sell designed though and usually had very low flutter
Mine are complete with the 5000' fluid drive magazines sh7500 opital and motiograph mag with Ashcraft c70's
Posted by Robert Throop (Member # 61) on 12-12-1999, 04:39 PM:
The Ashcraft Core Lite lamphouses had a problem with Motiograph as they had only a 29 inch working distance. The Core Lites didn't come out till about 1963 and I believe Motiograph stopped manufacturing in 1960. Just about all lamps made while Motiograph was in production would work with it.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-12-1999, 04:53 PM:
Wouldn't the corelite also have had a problem with a Vic 10 and a AA-2 as well?
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 12-12-1999, 08:04 PM:
Yes, I must confess that it was a tech that told me about the barrel shutter/working distance Motiograph thing. This was in about 1979 (which was sort of the carbon arc days, or the end anyway.) So I've been thinking it was true for everything since.
Don't you hate it when someone tells you something, and years later you find out it was total B.S.!?
Posted by Erich Loepke (Member # 166) on 12-12-1999, 09:38 PM:
Many thanks to all of you who took time to answer my questions. I'm new at this whole 35mm thing, so I really appreciate the information you gave. Since the topic switched to lamphouses, I have another question:I'm guessing the best way to go is a Xenon lamp, probably about 450W or so. I don't imagine having a throw of more than 20-25 feet with a screen size between 5 and 10 feet, possibly. I'd be setting all this up once I move out of my parents' house, so I really don't know what my screening room will be yet. How much lamp power would work for my needs, and which model lamphouses are good or bad?
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-12-1999, 11:19 PM:
Gee thats the forst machine that I serviced way back about 18 years ago. Interestingly,I service a theater in Burly,Idaho that has 5 Motiograph AA's and I just installed LED reverse scanners in the last two machines. Kelmar makes up a few of them now and then. If ya need one talk to Tom there and let him know you need one. The Motiographs produce the best projected image of all the theaters I service with the exception of theaters that have 70mm machines and run 35 on them. Those seem to have an edge. Basically, the Motiograph is an extremely good machine. The good points of the machine far outweigh the few problems that the drum shutter may give. One thing to oint out is that to be sure that yours has the indoor shutter. Alot were made with the Drive In shutter. Shutters are no longer available from Wolk.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 12-13-1999, 12:20 AM:
Tokiwa projectors also use a barrel shutter...
Aaron
Posted by Bill Purdy (Member # 202) on 12-13-1999, 11:17 AM:
I think that you will enjoy your Motiograph. It is well suited for home theatre operation mostly for the reason Gordon mentioned above....it is extremely gentle with film and will run just about anything you put through it. To add to the barrel shutter comments, if you can find a carbon arc lamp, look at the curvature of the mirror and imagine the cone of light that it will produce and how far back from the aperture it will be. Now do the same thing for a Xenon lamp and I think that you will notice that it has a much shorter working distance. It is quite common for the barrel to mask off some of the light from newer designs of Xenon lamps because of this. Older Lumexes were a good compromise, but in any event, you don't really care since your use will be occasional and maximum efficiency isn't a problem. When I had a home theatre my screen size was 5 X 12 with a 23 ft. throw and I had a beautiful 16 FtL picture from an ORC M-1000 running a 750 Watt bulb at less than full power.------------------
Bill Purdy
Comonent Engineering
Posted by Erich Loepke (Member # 166) on 12-13-1999, 01:29 PM:
Hi guys-I'm assuming 16 FtL is probably brighter than most theaters. Sounds like it wouldn't be too hard to achieve with the smaller screen size and short throw, though.
Also, how would I be able to tell the difference between a normal shutter and the drive-in shutter several of you mentioned?
Thanks once again, you've all been a great help!
-Erich
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-13-1999, 03:09 PM:
A normal shutter completely blocks the light while the film frame is being pulled into position. For a normal 4:1 Geneva movement intermittent, this means the each shutter blade is about 90-degrees (360/4=90). A 5:1 high speed pulldown "drive-in" intermittent needed a shutter of about 72-degrees (360/5=72). The actual shutter blade angle required depends upon the cone angle of the lamphouse illumination, placement of the shutter in the beam, and amount of "play" in the gear-train. If the shutter is too small, travel ghost cannot be timed out. If the shutter angle is too large, you are wasting light."Drive-in" shutters basically cheated on the size of the shutter blade, using a smaller blade angle to get slightly more light. The rationale was that the travel ghost that resulted was not as visible at the typically low screen luminance found on huge drive-in screens. ANY visible travel ghost is unacceptable in a quality theatre.
Travel ghost is best seen in the closing titles of a film, when you have white letters against a black background. Ghosting (streaking) above OR below the letters can usually be eliminated by correct shutter timing. Ghosting on BOTH top and bottom of the letters usually indicates the shutter blades are too small or are damaged. If the ghosting varies, there may be excessive "play" in the gear train between the intermittent and shutter shaft.
------------------
John Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Professional Motion Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Eastman Kodak Company
Rochester, NY 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 12-14-1999, 08:17 PM:
When I had this projector in service, I was using a Peerless Magnarc lamphouse running 7mm positives and 6mm negatives at about 48 A, to light a seven-foot-wide screen at a 16-foot throw. I got some flicker. Is it safe to say the system was over-lamped?
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-15-1999, 11:51 AM:
The M1000 works well on the motiograph and so do most of the twin mirror verticle lamphouse (zies, and the zenieth 4000)
also the Kniseley Xenex1's that have the glass mirror they ahve a longer working distance vs it's F stop number
The Pup with a 750 watt would also work very well