Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 35mm film viewer thing

This is topic 35mm film viewer thing in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-11-2011, 03:28 PM:

A friend of mine suggested that I post this. Perhaps someone here is interested. Neither he nor I have any relationship to the company, but it seems like some might find this to be a useful item:

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There's an outfit in Elkin, NC, which has a whole stack of Vanguard 35mm XR-35 tabletop viewers which they are selling on Ebay right now for $99 each. Shipping is a pain since they come with a floor stand, but they will allow pickup at their warehouse for free.

These things are intended as cinefluorography viewers for radiologists. They take 400 feet of film on core and can show it on a 20-inch screen with a bright and very sharp image at 24 fps or 2 fps.

The thing about these machines is that, weirdly, they use claw mechanisms like 16mm projectors rather than a rotating prism. This means you cannot flange the film back and forth by hand like with a Steenbeck, but it means that the image is incredibly steady and sharp compared with any flatbed. Razor sharp, sharp enough that you can judge focus on the thing.

No soundhead on them. No continuous speed adjustment, but a really fine image quality and they appear to be in good condition.

The company right now has three of the units left. One of them has a thermofax printer attachment to allow you to print a frame on the screen. One of them has a Marc-300 lamp and external power supply (and the power supply seemed to be good but I could not get the lamp to fire when I tested it). The third one is stripped down.

They also have a more modern version of the same type of machine, which is about four times the physical size and which I didn't get a careful look at.

In any case, I highly recommend one of these things in the booth for anyone who does film prep work, just to quickly check things over. They are light on film and you can safely run a nitrate print on one; the gate is cool enough that you can keep your fingers in it without becoming uncomfortable. Would not be hard to add reel arms for larger reels.

Sold by Tekyard Medical, tekyard-kk on ebay. These are cool machines and deserve a home.
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