Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Low Digital Error Rate On "Phone Booth"

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Posted by Greg Pauley (Member # 503) on 04-06-2003, 04:20 PM:

I was at one of our theaters over the weekend and just happen to check the error rate on the CP500/CAT701 and saw it was reading a “1" on the print of “Phone Booth”. This unit usually reads 3's and 4's most of the time and I have never seen a “1" on any of our units before. The next day in a different town, I was in the booth that was running the same film and check the rate on another CP500/CAT701 and it was running a “2". This booth is normally running 4's or 5's on most prints. I was just wondering if anyone else notice a lower than normal error rate on the print of “Phone Booth.“

[ 04-06-2003, 06:32 PM: Message edited by: Greg Pauley ]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-06-2003, 04:27 PM:

We always see 0 - 2 on our error rates. 3 will happen occasionally, but 4 is not common at all. I will look at Phone Booth next time I am at a theater running it.

Posted by Greg Pauley (Member # 503) on 04-06-2003, 06:41 PM:

Just realized I wrote photo booth instead of phone booth [Big Grin]

Brad
What type of equipment are you running to get 0's to 2's? I haven’t seen any of our 701's reading that low before on a regular basis. I just installed a new 702 out of the box that was just reading 3's on 530 test film. Are you doing anything special to get that low of a reading?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-06-2003, 07:54 PM:

This is based on cat701 readers. The cat699 and 700 readers I am responsible for hardly ever leave 0-1.

I calibrate the readers with a known "average" loop of film. Never ever use the actual Dolby loops to set up your readers. Instead get a bunch of trailers out of the cabinet and run them through while looking at your DRAS10 screen. Make notes and find a good average trailer, which will then be your loop to calibrate to. Also, all of my theaters run FilmGuard on every show. Without it you will have track wear (some projectors more than others) and the error rate will be higher. No that's not a sales pitch, but proven in tests that many people have done. Other than that, no secret.