- Kinoton platters vs. Cinemeccanica
- Kinoton automation vs. Cinemeccanica
- Kinoton consoles vs. Cinemeccanica
- FP30 vs. V5
- FP75 vs. V8
 

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

I cannot say nothing on V5 vs Kinoton. I can say that Cinemeccanica is not so bad but I heard that Kinoton are way better.

About platters, CNR are not platters, are toys. Kinoton's platters are waaaay better. The reason is that Kinoton platter can rotate in both way.

Bye
Antonio
 

FP30 all the way, assuming that you care about picture quality. I assume that it is more expensive than the V5, but I've never bought one, so I don't know.

I've never used Kinotons with lens turrets, so I don't know about those problems. Does Cinemeccanica make a single-lens V5? (I doubt it makes a difference, but I've only run Kinotons in a changeover booth and V5s with platters...)

The best non-rewind, in my opinion has to be the Kinoton ST200. It was the original and runs for years with little or no maintenance.

In my theatre I took out four awful FP20's and replaced them with four Cinemeccanica Vic 8's running with Kinoton ST200 non-rewinds. The best few weeks work I've ever done.

I wouldn't change them for anything!!

Cost of spares is a real issue as they are both very expensive, in the UK at least.

p.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

quote:

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All other models does full justice to the nick-name "Rock and roll projectors".

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The 'Shakameccanica' V5's with the new style gate are pretty steady and as long as you frame the older style gates so that the intermittent sproket is within one perf of the top of its travel, it is also pretty steady.

Also, another drawback with FPs (unless the situation has changed a lot in the last 2-3 years) is that routine spare parts are a lot more expensive.

Not an issue for multiplexes, obviously, but for a venue showing silent films regularly I would always prefer a Vic because the shutter is easily changed and because the film path layout makes it possible to lace the film bypassing the sound pickup altogether, thus reducing print wear (especially with tinted and toned prints) and the risk of accidental damage. All the FPs I've used will go down to 18-19fps with only a very slight flicker, though.
 

Agree totally. The Kinoton has a spherical shutter - the V5 has flat. I was told years ago that the spherical gave more light, which on paper it does, but i've not noted any real difference. We continue to use V5s for hire - they're easy to move with a few mode in their virgin state. The FPxx are our hachine of choice for installs - of note the FP20s described as "awful" have since been installed (by the author of the "awful " comment) elsewhere and the operators love then - I guess it's personal preference. From an operators perspective the Christie is a nice machine (straight film path, quick to lace up) however few real engineers would agree. I guess it's like a car - it's easier to drive an automatic Fiat than a manual BMW, but which is the better car ?
 

The install at Stratford of the FP20's was a disaster as you are fully aware. Picture quality and steadines was dire to say the least. To be fair it was a combination of lamphouse, projector, cheap short focal length len's and the fact that the equipment was not put back togeather very well after its refurbishment. In our smallest screen the front of the FP20 had to be filed away as the picture was so big as it came out of the lens it was cut by the edge of the projector. The first two rings on the lens holder also had to be cut away to allow the light out!! All of this on a 2k lamp. Quite simply they were NOT up to the job. Talk about pushing it to the limit.

A lot of things were learned at Stratford and I trust, Peter, you will not make those mistakes again!

The install of the Vic 8's however cured all of that and was done TOTALLY in house, one projector by Tom Pain and the other three by me. The only thing I would like is some new len's.... but we all have a wish list I'm sure.

To be fair to the FP20 it can give excellent results, but trying to fill a 33' wide screen on a 16m throw with a 2k lamp using a standard silver mirror using crappy len's was too much for them. The len's used to get so hot you couldn't hold them after a few minutes!
When you then installed a 3k lamp in screen one in the same lamphouse it became a joke.... The lamphouses you specified were not up to the job.

If the projectors had been purchased new then the equipment would have been 'properly' specified from the outset and we would not have had soooo many problems.

The company I work for agreed with all of this which is why they spent so much money on a basically new install.... that worked!

I like the FP20+ projectors but I prefere the Vic series, especially when they are installed well!

Regards.

The lessons learned are simple.... don't cut corners with an installation. You don't have to buy top of the range.... just don't buy cheap! Heat has become a big issue in recent years with larger picture and short throws, again part of the installation as a whole and should be given very serious consideration at the very start of any project and not an after thought.

The Vic's are better able to cope with heat than FP's but that is not to say they should be pushed to the limit. When you are melting runners and damaging len's with heat then you have a real problem.

We no longer have that problem and I put a lot of that down to the Vic 8's.

As I've said before everyone has an opinion and in their own way they are all correct. I consider this forum a place to share experiences, good and bad, so that others can learn from the experience of others. A lot of mistakes were made and they have on the whole been corrected by a change of equipment that was better able to cope with what it was required to do.

I don't have a problem with that.......
 

Please guy's don't argue over who did or didn't do a job correctly.

Just argue over the pro's and con's of the machines in question.

As for my preference, as I once worked in a Film Lab I found the FP30ST the perfect machine as it had reverse and variable speeds. The picture stability was excellent until the framing bush went ( that's fun to change ).

But, spares were expensive.

I worked with Vic 8's when I was a projectionist, a good machine and as long as you kept it clean, oiled and belts adjusted it ran and ran.

Guess it comes down to preference and money.

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Les Brock
Principal Engineer
SDDS Systems.
Priestley Road Basingstoke,Hants
United Kingdom, RG24 9JP

Phone +44 1256 484924

Les.Brock@sonybpe.com

Website www.sdds.com
 

I had hoped to make the point that its not the projector alone that makes a good 'projector'!!

That aside, the framing bush is easy.... once you've done it. 30-45 min is about right if everything is to hand. Vic 8 is about the same to change the entire intermittent.

Changing sprokets is easier on the Vic's than the FP's. All in all both have things in favour.... but the Vic's are easier to maintain.

As for which gives the better picture, which is what counts at the end of the day, how long is a peice of string? I've seen stunning results on both so it comes down to the combination as a whole not just the mech itself.... oh and how deep your pocket is!
 

Water cooling..... whats that? In all my time in the industry (trade?) I've only ever seen one water cooled installation. Seems we Brits don't go in for it.

This was a DP70 with 2k lamp. Seemed a bit of over kill to me.

You guys seem to be very much more aware than we are generally, of the finer points. I don't mean that in a mocking way either, I'm serious.
 

I wm a very strong believer in water circulators on projector gates
Every FP20 and DP75 I have ever seen has the water jacket and pipeing installed just usually not hooked up

 

Small world - I believe that you have worked on two of the V8's in question in a NW London location - a certain three screen with a foyer that would swallow most peoples' houses ! The other two came from the Haymarket. Out of interest, the two V4s from the same site - one is in a 16th century church in Hastings, running occasional archive stuff, the other in the Isle of Skye, in a Scottish culture centre (now if I really wanted to get bitchy I'd start on the Scots, but it would surely provoke a correspondence over which country has the best sheep so best not !)

How's Sony ?

Cheers

Peter
 

Peter, I just installed a Dolby on that Vic 4 on Skye, the little film club up there is doing well, so they felt a sound upgrade from the PA mixer they had been using was in order. They have a tower up there too now. Truly beautiful part of the country!
 

The manual for the Ashcraft lamps and coolers is available on the Film-Tech site, and the coolant circuit is from cooler to positive jaws, to gate, to cooler. This surprised me, I would have expected the gate to have come first, receiving the coolest water. Any comments?

The Ashcraft coolers, like others I have seen, just cool the water in a copper coil, using air at whatever the ambient temperature in the projection box happens to be. I believe that at least the larger of the new Kinoton collers, actually has a refrigeration to cool the water. How much difference does this make when running large lamps?

How are Imax projectors, running very large lamps, cooled?

I would have expected that the design of the lamphouse and reflector would have a greater effect on gate temperature than that of the projector itself.

Peter, I know that the Empire has replaced one of their DP70s with a FP30. Do you know what lamp wattage they are running? This is the largest screen I know of running an FP. Have they had any problems?

Ken, what lamps are you running at Stratford, and what lamphouses are you using on the Vic. 8s. Since you are using 8's, are you equipped for 70mm in any of your screens?

 

The water cooling on the Loews Jersey FP20's resolved the problem with the gate getting hot, but did not resolved the focus problem caused by the film buckling due to the heat. That was resolved by adding an air blower consisting of a little fan blowing cool air on the film (lamp side). The projectors now stay nice and cool and we have no more focus problems.

/Mitchell
 

IMHO, for flammable nitrate prints, a water cooled gate is almost mandatory, as older prints may be quite unstable if they have begun to hydrolyze.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

Vis 8's have air cooling of the gate and with cold mirrors and the heat shield don't 'normally' require water cooling.....

The West end is of course an exception in so many ways and in the largest screesn do indeed have water cooling. If its there then use it but I doubt many would have put it in if they were to build new. However, in general cold mirrors and heat sheilds seem to be the option taken. There are always exceptions of course.

Les, as a note I was at The Granada Harrow for a while, where two of my Vic 8's came from. They were very early RK60's but had been quite well looked after. Had to change an intermittent in one of them recently.... but thats not bad considering their age. The other two came out of the Haymarkt in the West end and I'm sorry to say had not been so well looked after. But they now all run beautifully and will run for many years I'm sure. As for the two Vic 4's from Harrow they were again in good condition. The only problem was with a motor that needed to be re wound, about a year before it closed. I'd changed the oil pumps and the fire shutter govenor apart from that they were very quiet and steady right up to the day it closed. I know the chief that was there when it closed and he treated them very well. Over the years that site had spent very little money on the equipment apart from the rare replacement of the usual consumable parts. A great tribute to the Vic's in general.

As for best sheep... I'm not personally aquanted with any so I'll let you have that one Peter
 

Wales is very cold right now so a woolly jumper might come in handy!!

Enough already...
 

Owen
 

What size lamps you running with... As I said before I've not seen any water cooled system for a long long time, West end excluded. Is it a tub behind the projector with a circulating pump or more elaborate? Vic 5's don't have any built in gate cooling, Vic 8's have a fan system just for the gate, so are you running big lamps, 3k and over?

What cinema is it...
 

In Belgium in 1989, a Kinoton FP30 (was it already FP30 or still FP20?) costed about 1.000.000 BEF and platters costed about 600.000 BEF (so that's 25.000 USD and 15.000 USD in todays's $ value). Well, that's what a guy who worked for a theatre installation company had told me...
 

Owen
 

The ST-200 in the states will typically price out around a Christie AW-3. The Makeup table is a bit pricey though though they now have a Christie "knock-off" that is notably less expensive.

The FP-30D prices typically around a similarly equipped American machine.

One thing to remember when comparing the Kinoton stuff to American equipment is that the Europeans have always considered the pedestal as part of the projector and the lamphouse attaches to the projector.

So an FP-30D is the equivalent of a pedestal, reel arms, projector and soundhead. All you add is the appropriate sized lamphouse to finish the system. Automations and such can be mounted on the projector (rear) in their quasi-rack.

Kinoton America pushed for the PK series (Projector Head) to work with the American style of thinking...that is...everything is unto itself...so if you wanted a Brand XYZ console you could still use a Kinoton projector.

The FP-50 was also a thing primarily for the American market...the FP-50 would be the Kinoton projection mechanism (essentially the guts of the FP-30) mounted to a Kinoton Console.

As to parts prices...I have never found Kinoton to be that expensive to keep running (they are mostly in special venue situations due to their bells and whistles plus 16mm capability for us). On a "D" series, I'd be willing to wager that the cost of operation is less that just about any other machine out there that is made today. Now a Simplex XL on an SH-10XX soundhead with a semi-competent operator that keeps oil in them is by far the cheapest projector to keep running.

The Cinemeccanica, to me, seems rather expensive for repair parts (sprockets and such). Of the two, I'd take the V-8 over the V-5. I hate belts with a passion (be they on American machines, Italian machines or German machines). I've only met one pair of old V-8s that I thought put out a decent picture and never met a V-5 I liked.

I like Simplex and Kinoton, but that isn't any big secret.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

Projector comparisons are a bit more difficult. The Europeans are much more a la carte. The PK-60D is about as close of a comparison to an American projector. A Simplex is slightly more expensive, a Century is approximately 10% more than either Simplex or Kinoton.

Now if you get into the fancy Kinoton projectors with electronic intermittents ("E" Series) and all of the "tap dancing" features...their prices start to skyrocket. But they quickly become a party of one in those markets since they are the only ones that offer the fancy features.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

And I thought the cost of living here was a ripoff!
 

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

And the other cinema I currently work at, have three water cooled Philips DP75's, now 30 years old, but still a good picture.
 

Darren
 

Some of the small screens had the old CX2000 lamphouses with heatshields so F****d (dirty/scratched) about 20% of the light was lost, since these were thrown away, there is better light on the screen!.

Give me a Kinoton FP30E anyday

Re the vic 4 that was scratching the v 5 trap is essentially the same so I would sujest extra cooling. I have fitted many Vic4's with velevet banded traps. Also I just did the prototype LED reverse scan install to a vic4

quote:

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Early Vic 8's had reduced blade size on the shutter, not too sure why but they did.

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I'd hazard a guess that it was to maximise light output. Early Vic 8s would mean late 60s/early 70s, when carbon arcs were still widespread and xenons weren't as powerful or reliable as they are today.

Interestingly, this was also the reason why shooting and projection speeds gradually increased from around 16 to around 24 fps during the late teens and early 20s. As cinemas went from being small auditoria in converted buildings to large, purpose built theatres with long throws to large screens, the illumination technology of the time just couldn't cope with three-blade shutters. So projector designs moved to two-blade configurations, and the studios were forced to increase their shooting speeds so that the films could be shown without flickering.

The standardisation of 24fps for sound on film was not, as is commonly supposed, a bandwidth requirement of the early variable area systems. In fact, the National Film and Television Archive have several musical shorts from 1927-28 shot in RCA Photophone at 18 and 20fps, and the sound quality is perfectly good. By the late 20s, 24fps had become the de facto standard used by the Hollywood studios (though not by many European ones, especially in Germany), which was why Fox and RCA went with it. Warners' Vitaphone also used 24fps to synchronise with the discs.
 

1 EUR = 1 USD

I don't know if those prices include tax or not though.
 

INterested in your V4 prototype - was it SRD or analogue only ? How did you go getting the drum off ?
 

One other thing to check regards the ghosting of your picture is the coupling springs on the shutter mounting. Try holding the motor handle firm and reaching in and moving the shutter. It should move slightly and return to its original position when you release it. Try it both ways. If these springs are very tired or even broken the shutter will move within the coupling and give you an unstaedy ghost.

Nice to hear you're keeping in touch with Tom.... he's been keeping me informed of a few things as well Seems there's some half truths going around again... can't think where or who they are coming from..... NOT! Mind you Tom's not silly enough to belive half of it, the source is renowned for its unreliability. Tom's got more sense than the guy that's spreading it.

He's busy installing a second screen with a Vic 8 and Vic 5 in Wales so he's having fun fun fun!!

Regards.

It strikes me that film projectors are generally very reliable devices, much more so than cars or computers, for example. I have only once known a breakdown while I was watching a film, it was fixed in about two minutes, and there are plenty of machines well over forty years old, still giving good service; a record which most other devices would find it hard to match.

 

Now when it comes to turret and apertures...I can't comment...I only deal with the single lens holders...again Kinoton is pretty darn good on that front.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"