Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 70mm projectors in Poland.

This is topic 70mm projectors in Poland. in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-20-2008, 04:17 PM:

Anybody know what these rather strange looking projectors are?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HWecpDgw4HM

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-20-2008, 05:57 PM:

According to the nameplate, Pyrcon UP 700. Several links

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 12-20-2008, 06:12 PM:

Adam, thank you for that link.(Filmmuseum Potsdam).one of the most exciting things for me was to see a photo of the Mechau4 projector (it used moving mirrors and NO intermittant) and horizontal reel placement. The excellent James R. Cameron books (not the TITANIC guy) published in the 20's and 30's described how the Mechau worked. Specifically, you can find it in the Fourth Edition of "Motion Picture Projection" (1928) pgs 897-903

They also cover briefly the Graphoscope, an unusual machine with both reels under the head, and it projected out sideways from what would be the non-op side of a modern machine.

Here's a link of a nice pic of the Pyrcon from within the links:

Pic

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-20-2008, 06:33 PM:

interesting to note is the Mechau was used as a telecine projector at the BBC in the 30's with a sound head

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-21-2008, 04:44 AM:

And was also used 'in reverse' with a film camera for film recording. Take a look here:

web page

Also, follow the link on that page to 'Telerecording at Lime Grove'

Used for its recording function the Mechau survived for a long time; it was still being used in 1953 when some of the recordings of the coronation were made on it. I think it probably lasted until the introduction of stored frame recording equipment. Although replaced earlier in its telecine function some BBC staff still referred to telecine as 'Mechau' long after the actual machines were long gone and Cintel flying spot was the normal equipment. I certainly herd the term used when I wisited BBC Television Centre in the early '70s.

The rest of the bbctv-ap.co.uk site was also worth seeing, but sadly disappeared some time ago. Much of it has since been recreated from archived material. (Lots of pictures of Mechaus there Tony)

web page

Anybody who remembers the 'Elephant's foot' version of the Kalee 21 projector will find the design of the original Cintel flying spot telecine rather familiar; Kalee, along with Cintel, Odeon Cincmas and Strand Lighting, was part of Rank at that time.

Cintel telecine

The three 'Quatermass' films were released on DVD a few years ago. They are technically interesting because the three episodes were film-recorded using three different systems, the Mechau, a suppressed-frame (surely it should have been called suppressed field?) system, and a stored frame system. It's available from

Amazon

Remembering that the original video was only 405 lines to start with, the stored frame system was a major advance over the suppressed field.

[ 12-21-2008, 06:34 AM: Message edited by: Stephen Furley ]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 12-21-2008, 10:24 PM:

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
The excellent James R. Cameron books

I've got the 1921 and the 1943 editions of his books.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-22-2008, 07:55 AM:

There is... Or at least was a runnable Mecahu at a museum in San Francisco....

Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 12-22-2008, 09:16 AM:

Polish projector manufacter, PREXER from Lodz did also made prototype of 70mm machine, but it newe did get into serial production.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 12-22-2008, 03:49 PM:

Stephen, thanks for the links..very interesting to see. The Mechau design certainly lent itself to telecine use quite well. I do wonder how a newly-made version, with today's superior lenses and mirrors, would perform in its original purpose, i.e. cinema?

Monte: Bet the differences in technology from those two years are interesting to note..and I think everyone here who has never read one of those books should check one out and see how things were done back then. They also have a lot of good information on optical theory, etc. which is useful today.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
There is... Or at least was a runnable Mecahu at a museum in San Francisco....

Do you recall which museum it may have been in?

Or maybe one of our Bay Area members could find out?

I'd love to get a close-up look at one.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-22-2008, 05:41 PM:

Tony,

There are two generations each of telecine and film recording use on that site. The 'Flying Spot Mechau' at the top of the page I linked to, and the 'Moye-Mechau' recorder on the 'Telerecording at Lime Grove' page are the second generation, and probably less interesting to you if you want to see what it looked like as a cinema projector. As far as I can see the pair of telecine machines with the engineer crouching down next to one of them is in pretty much original condition, except that for cinema use they would have had a larger lamphouse with an arc lamp. The long horizontal tube connecting the Mechau to what seems to be a standard 1930s Emitron studio camera was obviously added for telecine use, but the curved part that it connects to on the Mechau, above the angled mirror drum, is original, and contained a fixed mirror via which the beam was directed towards the screen. The 'lump' on the camera below the lens housed the neck of the tube, containing the electron gun. These cameras were obsolete for studio use by this time, but were still used for film transmission.

Some years ago the Projected Picture Trust (www.ppttrust.org) published an article on the Mechau in their magazine, with pictures and a description of how it worked. It's quite complicated, not just a simple mirror drum , the mirrors moved as they rotated. It might be possible to obtain a photocopy from them.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-22-2008, 07:36 PM:

perfectone tried to re design and market that machine back in the 60's and I believe the SONDOR machine has bit of the the original Leitz designs

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 12-22-2008, 08:56 PM:

quote: Gordon McLeod
perfectone tried to re design and market that machine back in the 60's and I believe the SONDOR machine has bit of the the original Leitz designs

Any of those machines still around?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-22-2008, 10:20 PM:

http://www.sondor.ch/intro.html

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 12-23-2008, 04:54 PM:

Another Mechau projector is on display at Deutsches Filmmuseum, (Frankfurt, Germany).

There is a book about the inventor Emil Mechau, unfortunately available in German only:
Emil Mechau Story

Two Pyrcon UP700 projectors are still running at the "International" theatre in Berlin, maybe they will be used for the 2009 70mm shows, although there has been some talk about replacing them with DP70s (which have to be rebuilt for that purpose). A look into the "International" booth:

Pyrcon UP700 (scroll down to pic with platter)

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 12-23-2008, 06:22 PM:

Dick Bartel has one running in his shop in San Bruno. It is slightly modified to fit a Super Lumex. Bartel Audio Visual has been renting out film projectors in the Bay Area for maybe 50 years.

I'll get you in touch with him Tony.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 12-23-2008, 07:02 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
There is... Or at least was a runnable Mecahu at a museum in San Francisco....

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
Do you recall which museum it may have been in?

Several years ago, Dick Bartel (mentioned in Sam's post above) had a number of the machines from his projector collection on display at a branch of the Museum Of The City Of San Francisco near Fisherman's wharf. I beleive they were there to commmorate the 100th anniversary of motion picture exhibition in SF.

I seem to recall seeing the Machau there.

The exhibit was there for several years and then (I guess) was retired back to Bartel's warehouses or shop as Sam sez.

My favorites of the display were a mint pair of those art-deco styled Brenkert projectors. (Can't remember the model number) that apparantly were used on Treasure Island during the 1939 Golden Gate Worlds Fair Exposition here in San Francisco

I have several of the Cameron books from the 1930's, and somwhere around here I also have a book that a friend bought for me in a used book store that was published in the Soviet Union around the same time that has an entire section and many pictures of the Machau projectors.

The text is all in Russian, so I'm not sure what it sez, but the pix were very detailed.

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 12-23-2008, 08:00 PM:

He also has a pair of shiny black Zeiss and and my Gaumont Kalee complete with a lamphouse that resembles a British steamship.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 12-23-2008, 11:46 PM:

quote: Sam D. Chavez
Dick Bartel has one running in his shop in San Bruno. It is slightly modified to fit a Super Lumex. Bartel Audio Visual has been renting out film projectors in the Bay Area for maybe 50 years.

I'll get you in touch with him Tony.

Wow, thank you so much Sam! It looks like another road trip for me in the near future. [Smile]