Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Most popular digital projector for Drive-In

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Posted by Frank Jerkic (Member # 2446) on 07-22-2014, 07:37 AM:

Just as a matter of interest I just had a retired projectionist visit and have a look at my Drive-In, he used to work with Century, Toshiba projectors, he looked at my NEC and asked the question what is the most popular Digital projector used in Drive-ins today and why he's seen photos of the image on the screen not filling the big screen was it because of the throw?, I said I have no idea but would ask the question as someone must know I have no idea how many brands there is available in Australia or America plus I am interested as well,the same for the smaller picture, our throw is 132meters and we fill the sheet, Tanks in advance [Razz]

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 07-22-2014, 09:31 AM:

All three brands, NEC, Christie, and Barco have been used for Drive In's.

I did a project last year with a Barco DP4K 32B. It's a 40 x 100 screen, about about a 190 Ft. throw.

Barco seems to be a favorite for this application in the USA as its light output seems to be the highest in the large projectors. Others may say otherwise.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 07-22-2014, 10:14 AM:

Yep, basically the HighLumen 2k and 4k models of all manufacturers are in use.

Barco was keen enough to get into the Guinness book of records with their DP2k-32B, that sort of set it slightly in front of the Christie 2230 and NEC NC3200S on the 'brightness awareness scale'.

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/8000/brightest-digital-cinema-projector

Of course, as this was a planned test, this projector and lamp was tweaked to the max, and the test used a wide-angle lens, which is the most light-efficient, so, no wonder that the machine under test delivered a lot more brightness than spec'd.

It's competitors spec'd brightness is not so different from each other, but I still think that under real world conditions, Barco is first, followed by Christie, then NEC.

Their 4k variants will yield a bit more brightness due to the larger imager (at a price!), although they suffer contrast-wise - which is mostly not a problem as there is usually a lot of ambient light at drive-in locations anyway.

As to filling the screen - traditionally, Drive-Ins of course have the longest throw of all cinemas and the available lenses for that kind of throw range are fewer in choice, so you may not always get exactly the zoom range you require. Or someone simply took a cheap shortcut and ended up with a suboptimal solution.

- Carsten

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 07-22-2014, 11:52 AM:

Almost everyone in the drive-in circles I run in all have installed Barco's. Since both my screens are only 60 feet wide, we installed the DP2K-23B's. The folks with the bigger screens went with the 32B's. Listening to them talk on the drive-in forums, they are going through lamps as fast as they can change them. I just got 1,100 hours on my 4k lamps before I got a blue tail light.

Barco's have a sealed light engine, which was a big selling point for most of the drive-in owners I know. For me, having a $40k projector sitting 15 feet away from 6 deep fryers, a sealed light engine was a plus. Finding the right lenses can be a pain as well. We had to use an "Event Lens" in order to accommodate our throw (354 feet) and screen width (60 feet).

Some have put in Christie's, but not many. It seems the ones who put in Christie's did some sort of lease arrangement where the the Christie was part of a pre-packaged deal.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-22-2014, 12:03 PM:

NEC actually makes the most sense for a drive in because of it's full heppa filtration on all of the air intake's. All the NEC's I've installed in Drive In's still look like brand new on the inside. While other DI's that I service that are Barco or Christie have filthy insides. The latter two brands will end up requiring much more maintenance operating in a D.I. situation. Just because the light engine is sealed in one of the brands doesn't preclude the electronics, lamp module and angle mirrors from being covered in dust and having a shorter life span as a result the need for more frequent cleaning and or inefficient cooling. It is virtually impossible to clean a front surface mirror without leaving microscopic scratches in it and lowering it's overall efficiency. Then there are chips that run as hot as 60 deg. C on the ICP's! They get a layer of dust on them and they are apt too fail sooner as will any of the umpteen fans. NEC's fans are behind the heppa filters.

I could care less what server you choose, all of them are going to suck in what ever crud is in the air and all will give you the same end results.

Mark

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-22-2014, 12:30 PM:

Two drive-in's in my area are 32B users. One drive-in just repainted their screen and has a beautiful picture on it now. Never had such a wonderful picture before, which this is the big selling point in using digital on drive-in screens is the increased foot lambert numbers.

For the recent 32B owners and the potential new owners: Check for the arc stabilizing magnet polarity that is mounted in the bottom of the module.

If one takes the bottom cover off (the 4 allen screws are 3mm), the bar magnet lays across the bottom with South to the left looking from the back of the module.

Use a compass, or a magnet with marked poles to do the check.

If reversed, magnet just sits in the position and is easily removed to turn it around.

We have two, 23B's and the light coming from that 4k bulb to fill a 50 plus wide screen at 70 ft is quite amazing.

It's the sneaky trick to use 1.2inch chipset instead of the .98 as with the "C" units.

What's the big seller with BARCO's is that the company took the DLP setup and enhanced it for better F/L numbers for all of their projector line , but true ... they do get dusty inside.

-Monte

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-22-2014, 12:43 PM:

A lot of the DI guys were well aware of the dust issues and many of them have completely renovated their booths, redoing walls, floors and installing A/C units. From what they are saying, it's not like they are just plopping the BARCOs into the exact same booths they had the film projectors in.

Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 07-22-2014, 01:57 PM:

Yeah, it doesn't just affect drive ins. Over here, more than once I've had to strongly suggest (and always thus far won!) that the client undertakes some renovation in the booth before DLP installation.

I think Mark's point about dust is valid, but can be addressed such that NEC is not the only viable option.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 07-22-2014, 02:09 PM:

That's an interesting point - what CAN you actually do to reduce dust and dirt buildup in a booth in order to prevent it from getting into the projector?

- Carsten

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 07-22-2014, 03:25 PM:

My two booths are 10x12 enclosed rooms. We completely renovated our booths when we converted. Our building was relatively new (2003), so we didn't have many of the un-insulated wall & roof issues that some drive-ins had. We put in new ports, sealed everything and put filters on all incoming and outgoing duct work and transfer grills.

I vacuum and clean my filters once a month as per the Barco recommended maintenance schedule, and give the projectors a good wipe down every night while I'm waiting for the exhaust stacks to run out. I'll have to check the electronics cage to see if I'm building up dust in there.

Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 07-22-2014, 04:48 PM:

Carsten, floor covering in good condition, no gaps and tight to walls. Walls in good condition with any loose plaster or damage repaired and painted/sealed. Same goes for ceiling. Any gaps where services breach the walls, floor or ceiling need to be sealed. (Often that needs to be intumescent sealant to comply with fire regs). Same goes for gaps on doors, windows and frames.

It's always best to keep the room under positive pressure, using filtered input air. At the least install filters to air intakes.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 07-22-2014, 04:55 PM:

pollen filters on the intake ventilation. Your equipment will be spotless after years.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 07-22-2014, 10:08 PM:

The drive-in I manage has a 40'x90' screen with about a 450' throw. We went with the Barco 32B, and it's amazing how bright and crisp the picture is. I have no basis for comparison with the other digital projectors, but our picture is probably double the brightness of when we had film.

With film we had to pass on many dark pictures (think Harry Potter or Dark Knight) because the image was just too dim and lacked the contrast to put an acceptable picture on the screen. Especially during the full moon since it shines right on our screen. While the picture can be a bit washed out during the full moon, now we don't have an issue playing movies with a lot of dark scenes.

As others have mentioned, we did have to take steps to improve the ventilation of our projection room. We stripped out the ugly shag carpet that had been there since the 1970's, sealed the windows, added roof ventilation, added a door to seal the room, and a few other things.

Posted by Frank Jerkic (Member # 2446) on 07-22-2014, 11:08 PM:

Well we are in the process of getting the box sealed or dust proofed as we are in the midddle of sugar cane padddock and we get dust plus black snow (ash from the burning of the cane)and getting it own air con, my screen is 80ft x 40ft and throw is 430ft we screen our first digital movie this Friday (Train your Dragon 2 Plus Mr.Peabody) I cant wait to see what it will look like, should be pretty good as the screen was only repainted 3 years ago but the painter didn't put in the one knotch of blue to the 5 gallons of paint to give us the whiter white, I heard that Maleficent was a pretty dark print for both Drive-Ins and Cinemas

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-23-2014, 12:13 PM:

Actually, I don't think DIs would be any worse off than standard booths in terms of environmental impact on the projectors. In in fact, from what I have heard on the DI group/blog/list thing, they all seem to be taking the right first steps in preping for the digital installs by basically reconstructing their booths as Barry, Justin and Frank have described here, taking lots of measures to make the booths fairly air-tight and insulated . In fact, I would guess DIs may be even better off than lots of hardtop booths in that I have seen installs in standard booths some in older theatres, where the digital box is just plopped into an exisiting booth with nary a hand lifted to better insulate against dust and contaminants. So I wouldn't jump to any conclusions that DIs are any worse impacted by their environment vis-à-vis projector or bulb or components' shortened life-span.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-23-2014, 01:07 PM:

All of my customers did at least some updating to the booths to seal them up better and all installed air conditioning. That still does not stop the dust from getting into the booth (or box for you chaps). Here is a DP-2000 I acquired for a customer last year. This projector was running in an indoor situation in a modern plex in Bakersfield, CA for just two years before the whole plex was converted over to series 2 equipment on VPF. I had to dismantle the entire projector just to clean it up before reinstalling it elsewhere.

^ This Vs. This 2 year old NC-2000(manager installed the lamp wrong)

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-23-2014, 03:14 PM:

I can attest to the NEC having clean insides. Our booth (in an 84-year-old building) is pretty dusty but I just changed a bulb, and the projector still looks the same inside as the day we installed it in 2010.

Posted by Frank Jerkic (Member # 2446) on 07-23-2014, 07:49 PM:

Deadly photos there Mark it's amazing how and where dust manages to get in

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-23-2014, 10:17 PM:

Yoke finger through the anode seal? Pretty sad indeed.

I do miss changing bulbs this way instead of dealing with the modules of BARCO - more wide open spaces.

-Monte

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-24-2014, 06:51 AM:

A flaw in Barco's air movement (still) is that fan on the side that blows on the cathode side of the lamphouse...it has NO filter at all...just a bug screen. Their Lamp Power Supplies too have no filtering, just louvers.

If you are going to move air, you are going to also be moving dust/dirt...it needs to be filtered at some level to keep it out. NEC is the only one of the DLPs that tries to filter ALL of the air that is moved. Christie leaves the lamp area unfiltered, Barco has the two areas I mentioned unfiltered. Barco's wire-mesh filtering is definitely not as good as a paper or HEPA filter. I should note that in Barco's "S" series, they have gon to a more HEPA type filtering system though it is washable...but takes up to a day to dry (so have a spare set on hand).

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-24-2014, 12:36 PM:

Yea, this is why theater managers shouldn't be allowed to change a lamp! Hey, but I got a service call out of it because they only had about 4 fl of light on the screen...

Mark

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-24-2014, 05:56 PM:

I wonder if one could make some sort of external filters using some filtering material that the completed filter units could reside outside and next to the case where the fans are drawing in the air for the Barcos.

Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 07-29-2014, 12:33 PM:

Does anyone know whether such a thing as a Drive In DCP exists? When I worked at the local film service we would routinely have "Drive In" prints come through the door during the summer months that had special lab work done to make them look better in the ambient light conditions of drive ins. I'm not even sure if it's relevant with DCinema but just thought I'd ask.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-29-2014, 03:29 PM:

If there is a 3D version of the movie...you could fake it. Run the 3D version that is timed for 4.5fL (or 7fL). You'd need a projector running on a link decryptor (HDSDI cables), And set up a macro that only looks at one of the HDSDI lines (just one eye)...those are timed for low-light.