This is topic Digital Cinema...Knee pads not included. in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Randy Bowden (Member # 587) on 09-08-2010, 10:09 PM:
 
I can think of at least 2 theatres that we service, both installed in the past 2-3 years and both lacking the typical projection booth. It's just a D cinema projector up there, all by itself in a small cubby space. In order to access it you crawl in through the port window or through an access panel. The projector sits on the floor and you get to crawl around on your hands and knees to service it. The control panel and servers are in another completely seperate room.

I realize that might not be anything new to a lot of you, but that was my day today.

Oh goody.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-08-2010, 10:18 PM:
 
I remember reading one of those "prediction" articles a while back which said that "the balcony" would make a comeback, since that space wouldn't be needed for a booth anymore, and the projector would just hang from the ceiling.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-08-2010, 11:15 PM:
 
Changing bulbs sounds like loads of fun.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-08-2010, 11:27 PM:
 
I have 4 machines installed in tiny rooms like that.

Less than half a year later 2 of them have had catastrophic light engine failures.

The real failure is the bonehead that thought it was a good idea to throw a heat generating piece of electronic equipment into a tiny room that can't allow the machine to breathe.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 09-09-2010, 12:42 AM:
 
..as long as you got three feet from the rear end of the machine to the back wall, doing a bulb change is still easy.

Brad, when you told them on the poor cooling that caused these failures, what was their response, or did they just ignored it ....

-Monte
 

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Posted by Randy Bowden (Member # 587) on 09-09-2010, 12:59 AM:
 
In my case I could barely fit between the wall and the lamp door to the Christie ZX I was working on. There was just enough room to completely open the lamp door, remove it, then get in there and replace the igniter.

As long as you have proper ventilation both into and out of the space, it's not really a problem.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-09-2010, 01:39 AM:
 
Randy - to counteract your comment, no HVAC system is perfect, and few seem to be properly designed for the room and the load. Sooner or later the system WILL die. Its like a hard drive. Its not if it will die, but when. At that point the booth heats up like a son-of-a-bitch and failures start to happen. That is exactly what happened to us.

(And no, the HVAC design was not mine.)
 

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Posted by Randy Bowden (Member # 587) on 09-09-2010, 02:22 AM:
 
I completely agree with you Brad.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 09-09-2010, 06:22 AM:
 
Speaking of which...how many of you all change your filters as often as you should (once per lamp change)? I've seen projectors (not serviced by us) CHOKED with crud...I'm amazed the projector didn't go out on thermal protection.

Same goes for the servers...there are no filters on those things and they have fans blowing air every which way. Why do these idiots (all rack mount devices, except QSC) blow air INTO the rack rather than blow it out? And why do these same idiots not filter ALL air that is moving. Without a filter, a fan is a "dirt pump."

-Steve
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-09-2010, 06:56 AM:
 
Don't these projectors and servers have internal temperature monitors? If so, it should be pretty trivial to set up a monitoring system that will tell the manager (or service technician) when something is wrong before things start breaking.

Alternatively, lots of companies make thermostats that could be installed in these "booths" and set off alarms (through contact closures, SNMP, or some other means) when a predefined limit is exceeded. This stuff is standard in a data-center environment. It should be standard in the "booth of the future" as well.
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 09-09-2010, 11:56 AM:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw0zZttfUaw
 

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Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 09-09-2010, 01:20 PM:
 
And the joys of D-Crapema continue....
 

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Posted by Randy Bowden (Member # 587) on 09-09-2010, 02:27 PM:
 
and they may never end
 

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Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 09-09-2010, 03:38 PM:
 
The problem is that most roof-top-units are not really designed for cooling an electronic environment. There are very little, if any, humidity controls. Additionally, the coils are designed for a higher proportion of latent cooling, instead of a higher proportion of sensible cooling.

If the environment is critical, then a precision cooling approach should be designed. There are several options that would work for the mini-booth designs that could work, such as Liebert's Mini Mate 2 which would use up no floor space in the enclosure.

Additionally these can be remotely manged and monitored.
 

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Posted by Randy Bowden (Member # 587) on 09-22-2010, 02:27 AM:
 
Yesterday I had the good fortune to visit our other "cubby hole" theatre. I was called out due to a dmd over temp error. As it turns out, the coolant block on one of the dmd's had developed a leak. This is a Christie M machine that we installed about 3 months ago. We will be pulling the machine out in order to work on it. What a pain. I have not had a single film related call all week, but 3 separate D-Cinema issues.


 

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Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 09-22-2010, 09:41 AM:
 
The previous site I worked at has the D-cinema projector located outwith the projection booth. It is only accessible using a ladder from the main auditorium (cables/ventilation ducting can be run through an old port window).

The installers Arts Alliance Media currently feature a picture of the projector being hoisted into position on the homepage of their website.

I suspect that, over time, there will be more cinemas without 'proper' projection boxes, or booths not easily accessible when shows are running. This will be particularly noticeable in conversions where space is at a premium, but may also occur in some newbuilds.

quote: Mike Blakesley

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I remember reading one of those "prediction" articles a while back which said that "the balcony" would make a comeback, since that space wouldn't be needed for a booth anymore, and the projector would just hang from the ceiling.

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