Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DCP Equipment Package needed for Theatre

This is topic DCP Equipment Package needed for Theatre in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Svjetlana Oppen (Member # 9624) on 02-14-2017, 01:01 PM:

Hi all,
I am rather new here, but I do need your help. I am looking to price out complete package for our theatre. We are local festival here in Canada and we are deciding on owning instead renting. The screen size is 30' x 15' and theatre seats 560, also the projector sits 70' from the screen. Besides the projector, we use 2 servers so we can load alternative days during the festival (around 8-10 features a day), without interrupting screenings (they run all day). We also use switchers (we used Gefen) for alternative content. Any recommendations about best brand for the price or anything to look out for would be appreciated. Thank you!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-14-2017, 03:55 PM:

Contact Gord McLeod in Toronto.

Posted by Allan Barnes (Member # 5178) on 02-14-2017, 10:11 PM:

I recommend ProjecTech and National Leasing. OK to use my name, as for PA.

Gordon McCloud is GREAT

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 02-14-2017, 10:42 PM:

The Projectech folks do my work too.

Posted by Svjetlana Oppen (Member # 9624) on 02-15-2017, 12:31 PM:

Thank you all for the suggestions. I'll follow up on these.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-15-2017, 12:56 PM:

Be aware that if you buy this stuff and use it once a year, you may have a problem. D-cinema equipment was designed for cinemas that are open every day. If you let it sit for months without power (or even in standby mode), some of the crypto hardware will fail and need to be replaced. I know of one college that learned this lesson expensively. You will want to find a way to power up the projector and server for a bit at least once every month or two in order to avoid this.

Posted by Svjetlana Oppen (Member # 9624) on 02-15-2017, 12:59 PM:

Thanks Scott! Information worth knowing. We are planning to do screenings more then once a year if we purchase the equipment, and I will keep this in mind for sure.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 02-17-2017, 05:49 PM:

I expect Pierre Charron from Projectech will be in touch with you if you don't call him. This is a well watched forum.

You could own one full projection package to do your festival and non-festival screenings, and rent a second server during the festival for your plan to load alternate days. If you get an identical server, you may be able to just swap out the RAID drive set rather than swap complete servers.

There are other options to handle many films - ie a server with larger storage capacity or using an external computer for content storage and moving shows into the server via network - considerably faster than ingesting directly from distribution media. Having two servers and a second projector during the festival allows test screening your films while the main projector is in use - prescreening is usually a requirement at festivals to check subtitles etc.

There are a lot of projector options but once the lamp power required is known (basically this is proportional to screen size) the choices will be narrowed down considerably, each D-Cinema projector brand has models to suit normal screen sizes.

Posted by Svjetlana Oppen (Member # 9624) on 03-10-2017, 01:33 PM:

Thank you all for this valuable input! I am in touch with ProjecTech now, and hope we can work something out.

Posted by Ben Schulz (Member # 9832) on 03-16-2017, 07:07 PM:

Kramer do some really nice Cinema Scalers and other alternative gear for Cinema.

Posted by Allan Barnes (Member # 5178) on 03-19-2017, 08:57 PM:

How did the equipment work out for you? I'm close(ish) 2 hours away in Grand Bend