Having a hard drive stolen compared with having a film print stolen will be a lot less critical. The cost is far less and there is no risk of piracy*.
*Assuming that the DCI encryption is still secure.
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-30-2013, 09:52 PM:
What I am considering is indeed more like a bank drop slot than a simple box left outside. The slot will be mounted beside the door and it will actually go through the wall -- items put in the slot will end up inside the building. The slot will be big enough to accept a dcp hard drive, but small enough to prevent anyone from trying to crawl into it or anything silly like that.
Anything that requires a combination lock or a key or anything else to place items in the slot will simply not work. There are at least five different courier companies that come here (Fed Ex, Loomis, Purolator, Nelson and one other outfit from Regina whose name escapes me at the moment), and probably more than fifteen different drivers. The drivers seem have enough difficulty reading the sign on the front door that says "For deliveries outside of movie hours, ring the doorbell at the BACK DOOR" that I don't want to complicate things for them any further. I have found "sorry we missed you" stickers on my front door literally inches away from that sign, and I have been here all day so I know nobody rang the doorbell at the back door.
My alternative to providing a delivery slot like this is to continue the way that I do now, but as I said before I have on rare occasions returned from an errand and found a DCP hard drive case sitting on the sidewalk beside my door. While it may not provide ideal security, the delivery slot will certainly be more secure than leaving it on the sidewalk.
Theoretically the delivery slot will be little-used anyway; I really am almost always here and when I know or suspect that a delivery is coming I make an extra effort to hang around. But stuff sometimes shows up that I don't know is coming in advance. I remember receiving both of the trailer drives and the movie one week by Thursday so since it appeared everything was here I made a trip to Regina on Friday to re-stock my candy. When I got back late Friday afternoon a DCP hard drive case was on the sidewalk containing a second copy of the movie that I had received the previous day.
I figure a delivery slot with a big sign on it that says "DELIVERIES" should avoid situations like that; if nothing is ever put into it then so much the better. Again, it's pretty rare for something like this to happen but still...
Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-30-2013, 10:49 PM:
For many years here in the US, films in most urban areas were handled by a company
called"Bonded Film Services". The drivers had keys too all the theatres on their route.
Films to be delivered or picked up were left in the lobby.
But some of the larger theaters I worked at had sort of a "night deposit box" door built
into the front of the theater. There were heavy steel doors on both the exterior and
interior sides of the box. Films "to go" were left in the box and the inside door was locked.
The driver came overnight, opened the outer door, and swapped the old & new film cans.
My favorite arrangment was at a big 70mm house I worked at which actually had a small
"film elevator" built into the building. It took two keys to operate.
The 'upstairs' part of the elevator was in the booth. I'd put the outgoing film cans into
it at the end of the night, close the elevator door & go home.
The 'downstairs' end of the elevator was a steel door built into the front of the
theater building. The BFE driver would use one key to open this outer door, then use a 2nd
key to bring the film elevator ( & film ) down to street level. After swapping out the old
& new film shipping cases, he'd send the elevator back up to the booth & lock the outer door.
Sure beat carrying those heavy 70mm shipping cases up & down stairs!
(Although, technically, even if I didn't have the elevator, I wouldn't have had to carry
them up & down the stairs. My union didn't allow the projectionists to carry film cans.)
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-31-2013, 03:29 AM:
The theatre where I worked in College Station had that arrangement as well -- all the truckers had keys to the front door and would leave the film cans in the lobby, just sitting there. In the morning the porters would unlock and clean with no other staff in the building and the prints would just sit there for hours. Anyone with the desire could just open the lobby door and walk away with the cans. It always amazed me that no one ever did that until one day we discovered some drunk Aggies grabbed, not the feature, but the cartoon. We found the cartoon unraveled all 800 or so feet of it all the way down the highway.
But of course those were different times -- BV (Before Video) -- who was going pirate a film in those days? There was nothing to copy it TO, even if you absconded with it.
Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 08-05-2013, 04:36 PM:
Somewhat ot, but this reminds me of some older houses which had an enclosed vestibule off the kitchen where the cooler was located. The outer door would be open so the ice man could put ice in the "refrigerator" without disturbing anyone, and the inner door to the kitchen was locked. I never heard of anyone having their butter stolen.
Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 07-10-2015, 05:01 PM:
It has been 704 days since the last post.
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-10-2015, 05:01 PM:
I finally got my delivery box installed. I ended up building it into the side of my garage.
The hatch opens wide enough to fit a Technicolor case, a Deluxe box and/or a standard mailing tube into the box. The box is designed to be a "secure drop" -- it has a kind of a wing inside of it so you can put stuff in through the front hatch but you can't get anything back out unless you open the door at the back.
It's located beside the theatre back door, so it shouldn't be too hard for the couriers to find.
I didn't want to put it at in a too-obvious location like the front of the building since someone would probably come by and put a cat in it or something. I have a fenced back yard so this is all behind the fence.
Now I just need to figure out how to rig an indicator so I know when stuff is in the box. Perhaps a spring-loaded or weighted semaphore or flag of some kind that activates when you open the hatch...
Should any of you fine folks want a delivery box like this, this is it:
“Deposit” Delivery Vault (formerly “Curbside”)
Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-10-2015, 09:02 PM:
[QUOTENow I just need to figure out how to rig an indicator so I know when stuff is in the box.] [/QUOTE]
Remote security cam in the drop box ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-11-2015, 03:05 AM:
What about a simple Photoelectric sensor hooked up to a Raspberry Pi or some homebrew circuit if you're into that?
But what I'm wondering, doesn't Technicolor and Deluxe ship their drives via registered mail over there? Do they just accept delivery into a black hole?
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-11-2015, 07:08 AM:
Nice. There is/was some company that made an optical sensor for mailboxes that might work for you. It consisted of a solar cell and transmitter unit that would be installed inside the mailbox and a receiver unit with a beeper that could be kept in your house. When the mailbox was opened (and the solar cell exposed to light), the beeper would sound. Something like that might work for you if your deliveries are made in the daytime.
Otherwise a microswitch on the door might work, assuming that random people don't walk by and use the thing as a trash can.
Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-11-2015, 04:28 PM:
