Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How many "endless loop" systems were in use during film's heyday?

This is topic How many "endless loop" systems were in use during film's heyday? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=012355

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-18-2018, 02:27 PM:

A guy on Quora stated that "in all the theaters he's gone to," continuous loop projection was used because "it's impossible" to keep up with threading 6 or more projectors in a multiplex.

I was just wondering how accurate that is --- I always thought continuous loop was more of a niche market.

Any of you guys with good memories able to shed some light here?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 10-18-2018, 02:39 PM:

Does it indicate what country he's from?
And though it is one of my recurring nightmares, there was nothing difficult about keeping up with multiple rethreadings.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-18-2018, 03:06 PM:

He's from California. Here's what he wrote about the subject:

quote:
The theaters I’ve gone to all use continuous loop platter systems (It surprised me when I first saw this too). When a multiplex setup has one projectionist running 10 (or more) theaters (6 or 7 running 35mm films) there is no way to keep up threading and re-threading projectors all day every day. Continuous loop systems also increase the over all reliability of projection (limited human intervention and as you mentioned “venues where the same film would be exhibited thousands and thousands of times” implies higher reliability) so the customers have a much better experience.

I have a feeling he is confusing a regular platter system with a continuous one, but I'm still curious about how many continuous systems were actually used. I don't remember ever seeing anyone on Film-Tech talk about using one in a regular theater.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-18-2018, 03:54 PM:

There were several of the Potts and the Christie ELF endless loops systems installed but most had issues
The most sucessfull was the Cinemecanica Loop

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 10-18-2018, 04:06 PM:

Vey few endless loop setups but not or lack of trying. They only really worked well where you were showing the same feature for a long period of time. Museums, etc. I went to Photokina in the early '90's and every projector maker had one that year. It was hilarious to see how each company went at the task.

Kinoton was by far the fanciest, most precise unit, as if to force the film to behave. The Cinemeccanica was the sloppiest unit, even worse than the Potts, but it worked very well due to anti static brushes to calm the film static charge.

As we know the idea never caught on. It took some skill and time to make up and tear down the film. Once made up it was a nightmare to move to another screen.

Boy, good riddance.

Posted by Matthew Ortado (Member # 5620) on 10-18-2018, 06:11 PM:

Sam,
I think that the ORC endless loop had to be worse than the Potts.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-18-2018, 06:53 PM:

Sounds like someone who never worked in a projection booth. When we had film I could thread all 5 of our projectors within about 10 minutes when necessary. I can't imagine a single person would have a problem running at 15-20 screen as long as they were dedicated to the projection room.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 10-18-2018, 07:17 PM:

In the heydays of film, it wasn't unusual to have one projectionist handle 15 or so screens. With "single booth" designs and a bit of planning, organization and a competent projectionist, that should be no issue at all.

Even back then, there was screen management software, often in-house systems that kept track of what was playing.

I've only ever seen continuous loop systems in museums and theme parks, where it makes sense. It's not like those systems don't come with their own mechanical challenges.

Back in the 90's I used to work for a cinema with 5 screens, due to the convoluted layout, it could take you up to 5 minutes to get from one side of the building to another. So, getting all screens set on-time on your own, could be quite the challenge. Even then, endless loop systems would only have limited use, because we quite often did schedule different movies per screen...

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-18-2018, 07:45 PM:

We had just one customer that had many loops in their complex. They had mostly Potts but an Elf (Christie) and a couple of ORCs that were resigned to normal platter use.

A key to them seemed to be watching temp and humidity. What did them in at that complex was polyester. The static build up made them just too unreliable.

Another issue with loops is the eventual mottling of the film as it has to rub a bit on itself.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-18-2018, 08:59 PM:

We experimented with the Potts endless loop when I did the work for Classic Cinemas in the mid 80's. It was a disaster with oily film and then they were mainly a second run chain, so the chances of getting an oily print were pretty high. So we pulled it out and reinstalled a regular platter at that location. After I left and they added some screens to certain sites that had been single screens... namely The York in Elmhurst and The Paramount in Kankakee. They used Christie Elfs in both these places with pretty good success, but these sites also were first run and the prints were not oily.

Museum of Science & Industry also had a Christie Elf in the Space Shuttle ride film exhibit, and it gave very little trouble.

Mark

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 10-19-2018, 03:40 AM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
I can't imagine a single person would have a problem running at 15-20 screen as long as they were dedicated to the projection room.

I ran the 17-screen booth at Tinseltown, here in Erie, from open till close, six days a week and I was often the only person in the booth. It's no problem at all if you know what you're doing.

When I was the service tech for Cinemark, there was a theater where the manager got canned and she knew it was coming so she told all the employees that, if she got fired, they would all be fired, too.

I got a phone call from the regional manager and was told to be at the theater by 8:00 a.m. (350 miles drive from my house.) The regional manager met me at the door and told me the whole story. By opening time only one or two employees showed up.

I ended up running a 20-screen booth, by myself, from open till close for a whole week. The booth was in a shambles so I had to make a lot of emergency repairs on top of the regular PMs that I was supposed to do. Furthermore, when the theater got busy, I occasionally went downstairs to help tear tickets, clean theaters or sell popcorn.

It was not a fun time but, as they say, "The show must go on." Right? [Wink]

Whoever this person on Quora is, he obviously doesn't know much about theaters. It is easily possible for a competent person to run a megaplex booth by himself!

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 10-19-2018, 10:01 AM:

I've never seen an endless loop platter in operation. I have been to MANY theaters. I have run up to 18 screens by myself. No problem at all.

Sounds like someone who's never been in a 35mm projection booth.

Mike, do you have a link so we can see the full conversation? I'm curious about the context.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-19-2018, 12:14 PM:

Here is a link to the original question... if you click on my answer, then you can read his answer to me and my reply to him. To me he seems like a guy who used to go to a lot of movies and he looked in the booth windows a lot, or maybe had a projectionist friend, and now is a typical theater-bashing TV watcher.

Quora link

Quora is really clunky - I get too irritated with it to spend much time reading it, but I do enjoy answering questions on it from time to time.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 10-19-2018, 01:01 PM:

I can only see the first line of your reply. When I click on it, it doesn't expand.

The way I read it, he is not actually talking about continuous loop platters. Loop is certainly not the correct term, since the head is not spliced to the tail to actually make a loop. But it seems he is simply referring to splicing all the reels together to make up one long print as opposed to running 2k reels in a changeover setup.

quote:
They usually come in 5 or 6 20 minute (really heavy) reels and get spliced together into one giant 90 or 120 minute pancake so no rewinding or swapping of projectors. Just one long continuous loop…

No rewinding or swapping of projectors (changeover) is certainly true when platters are used. He probably has no idea that there actually are (were?) continuous loop platters that are distinctly different from normal platters and that "continuous loop" is NOT the appropriate term here.

He doesn't seem to be bashing cinema too much (just a little it seems), and his description is mostly accurate. Except for the part where the hard drive shipping boxes are locked!

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 10-19-2018, 01:38 PM:

The first theatre I was General Manager of - the Springhill 4 in Springhill, Florida had 4 endless loop platter systems. This was 1991 through 1992.

Those things were a bad idea. When we ran JFK, we had to have an intermission and use the "Stacked" endless loop system. Rethread the movie each show.

What a nightmare. Never feared film after that though.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-19-2018, 03:00 PM:

OK just to cut through the Quora clutter, I'll reproduce the whole conversation here.

Original question and this guy's answer:

quote:
Q. Do movie theaters still use traditional reels, or do they just use DVDs?

A. There are still theaters that use reels of film for projection but they are becoming fewer are and far between. The multiplexes will have a certain small percentage of the theaters equipped only for film. It’s just too expensive to maintain and only the old-timers know how to keep things running. Plus the film print itself is expensive to print, ship and splice together for an automated film projector system. They usually come in 5 or 6 20 minute (really heavy) reels and get spliced together into one giant 90 or 120 minute pancake so no rewinding or swapping of projectors. Just one long continuous loop…

I’ve seen some theaters setup consumer high end digital projectors for live events (they have to switch out the lenses because the throw of typical consumer projectors are too short).

DVDs/Blurays are only used for private one time only functions (festivals as such). If a non-affiliated theater has a retrospective series they may get/have some proprietary playback or even separate full-coat mag sound sync setups but those are really rare.

Because of security issues, proprietary portable hard drives are now the standard. They are shipped in a portable lock-box (similar to a handgun safe) from the film distributor and plugged into a custom closed digital projection system. It’s like a mini Fort Knox with multi-redundant safeguards against tampering.

The sad thing is most of the movies you see are no better than the standard Bluray you see at a big box store, and sometimes it’s worse. It seems that you can fool most of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time… yet they still stay in business. My experience with IMAX-3D Avatar was a sorely disappointing experience. That was the last time I paid to go to a movie. Oh well, happy watching.

Then my reply:

quote:
Almost no commercial theaters used “continuous loop” film systems. By far the most common film system was the platter system, where all the reels were spliced together (as you say), but the film had to be re-threaded through the projector for each show.

The main use for continuous loop systems was venues where the same film would be exhibited thousands and thousands of times, such as in a theme park application.

I’m sorry you find the theatrical experience no better than a standard Blu-Ray, but that may be because you’re not looking at the whole package. The picture in a theater is many times bigger than you can get at home; in fact the whole room being much bigger is the best part of the theater experience, for me at least. If your theater has a great sound system and a good presentation, that’s an unbeatable combination. If you’re stuck with a low-quality theater, that’s a sad situation for you.

His reply to my answer:

quote:
Well, I have to respectfully disagree here. The theaters I’ve gone to all use continuous loop platter systems (It surprised me when I first saw this too). When a multiplex setup has one projectionist running 10 (or more) theaters (6 or 7 running 35mm films) there is no way to keep up threading and re-threading projectors all day every day. Continuous loop systems also increase the over all reliability of projection (limited human intervention and as you mentioned “venues where the same film would be exhibited thousands and thousands of times” implies higher reliability) so the customers have a much better experience.

There also seems to be a mis-conception that the larger the room/screen the better the experience. If you enjoy the interaction of the audience with the movie then yes the theater would be the way to go. Other than that the home movie experience can be had with a well setup home theater system that is easily better than 90–95 percent of the multiplexes out there. Today’s large screen direct view home HDR 4K screens easily out performs EVERY carbon arc projection system in existence. A decent 5.1–7.1 sound system can achieve the same (if not greater) staging, dynamic and frequency range that the 20 year old theater sound systems can never even come close to.

So, save the handful of outstanding theaters (you can count them on your hands) in the world, the theater experience is inferior. It seems the folks who have never experienced a good home theater system (iPhone/iPad only experience?) have no idea that they could have it all at home (minus the real estate ads and audience).

So of course I couldn't let it die right there.... my reply (and so far, the end of the conversation):

quote:
I guess I will have to disagree with your disagreement. I’ve been a theater owner for almost 40 years and am a member of a couple of projectionist forums, and I can tell you that endless loop systems were definitely never a common thing. They are hard on film, and projectionists for the most part hated them due to all the problems that would crop up. Only a couple of chains used them, and even there, they weren’t usually in all auditoriums because only the longest-running films would be used with them.

It’s possible that you’re confusing “endless loop” systems (where there is no threading between shows) with standard platter systems, which you only have to thread once per show. Probably at least 90% of film theaters used standard platter systems, not the endless loop systems.

I’ll also have to disagree with your comment that one projectionist can’t keep up with 6 or 7 auditoriums running film off of standard platter systems. I know several projectionists who would disagree with you on that one, including a couple of guys who would routinely run 12-plexes and larger. Provided the shows are scheduled intelligently (not all starting at the same time), a good projectionist can thread a typical platter film system in a minute or less.

Your assertion that the “home experience” is better, well that just indicates the quality of the movie theaters in your area. No home system can ever compete with a well-calibrated theater system for picture and sound quality. (Of course “shoebox”-type mall theaters would be the exception to that.) The commercials are an irritation, I agree, but they are an economic necessity in today’s world — without them, concession prices would be even higher than they already are. Heck, even “Amazon Prime” now includes a commercial before every show.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-19-2018, 04:48 PM:

The fact he thinks theatres still use carbon arcs takes away a good deal of his credibility. He clearly doesn't understand the realities of film projection as it stood just prior to the implementation of digital cinema.

I wonder if he's drawing his conclusion about the movie theatre from the fact that most are running 2K pictures where you can play 4K at home. While I like the idea of 4K at home, I find it's still somewhat limited in it's availability. Even if you are streaming 4K from Netflix or Amazon, you are still limited by bandwidth and the availability of 4K content.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 10-19-2018, 08:22 PM:

Laemmle Theatres in Southern California equipped virtually all of their screens with Christie ELF syatems..including a 5-deck one at the flagship Royal (only one deck was ELF, the other four were standard AW3.)

The chief projectionist worked closely with Christie and Clark Grites (hope I have the last name right) in working out the bugs with the ELF design...at one point I recall the Monica theatre having 3 or four different platter deck designs as they tried to find the best one.

The efforts paid off as in the end, the ELF became a pretty reliable system (though poly prints still gave it fits sometimes.)

I also personally equipped Knott's Berry Farms' Cloud Nine theatre with an ELF system to show the (horribly insipid) 3-D "Sea Dream" short film. I made up seven prints on the ELF for them so that each print ran once per day.

Ahhh, memories... [Big Grin]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-20-2018, 06:58 AM:

The only time that I have seen these in operation is at MOMI in London in the late '90s. They had the Kinoton variant. It seemed to work well enough for them (continuous screenings all day as parts of museum exhibits). If I remember correctly, they required a specific minimum amount of film in order to function (i.e. if one wanted to screen a ten-minute short repeatedly, many prints of that short would need to be spliced together in order to reach that minimum footage requirement).

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 10-20-2018, 09:33 AM:

That is correct. The ELF also had a minimum footage requirement to work properly (IIRC 4,000 feet). The seven "Sea Dream" prints were around 15,000 feet total.

Here is a great video of the Kinoton endless loop in action (try not to cringe at the poor threading of the FP-30).

Kinoton Endless Loop Wackiness

My only concern with the Kinoton version is those "claws" that constantly contact the film and do the cusps necessary to make the film the proper diameter to work...I can see that even the most minute amount of dirt on the film could make for some serious scratching action...scary. Otherwise I give it high marks for design and precision control of the film.

I have a video I produced and shot for a lecture on film technologies that I will someday get uploaded to my Youtube channel, it shows one of the ELF platters at the Monica running.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 10-23-2018, 01:07 PM:

Well, I certainly stand corrected. Even after you explain to him how platters work he persists. Definitely loses credibility by continuing to insist that "there is no way for one projectionist to operate a 10 plex. (Why would there only be 6 or 7 prints running at a 10 plex? WTF?). We all know that is complete bull crap.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-23-2018, 02:11 PM:

You wouldn't get a full feature out of a carbon trim, so something does seem strange about the subject.

As for endless loop anything: The only time I ever saw something like it was when I was paying my due to get into the Seattle union (around 1975). They sent me to a porn shop on 1st avenue that had a room full of reverse-screen booths, using endless loop 16mm machines, hooked up to quarter-driven timers. As long as you kept the film clean, the system worked pretty well. I had far more trouble with the timers than the projectors.

The rest of the story is probably best left to a separate thread.