Best Pro 16mm capable Projectors?

[Jack Ondracek]

Back in my probationary days with the Seattle union (1975-ish), I spent some time, running movies-of-questionable-repute. In one venue, next to a pair of conventional Century projectors, sat a full-sized Hortson 16mm xenon machine. Floor to ceiling, it was about as tall as the Centurys. We used it as much as the 35mm gear and, as far as my memory serves, it was reliable and put out a good picture. The biggest challenge was teaching my fingers to lace up a left-handed machine. That made the projector much more memorable than any detail about its performance. I do recall it didn't take any more attention than anything else, though.

[Ed Gordon]

There is a Hortson for sale on Ebay.

image.png
https://www.ebay.com/itm/286437862085

[Jack Ondracek]

That looks familiar, but it appears to be missing the door and has a lot of miles on it. There's a nicer example online, if you care to Google it up.

[Tim Reed]

I ran into several Hortsons in the field over the years. I always thought they were solid machines... even with the LH threading. And, one of these days, I'd like to get a Kodak Pageant for myself. They are fine little machines, especially the models with the sound lens presets to accommodate A-wind or B-wind prints.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

The FP16 and FP18 never had the D suffix. Nor did the FP38, that was just the FP38 for the "stick a FP18 on the back of a 30" version, and then the FP38E for the "single gate with electronic intermittent" version. There's also a myriad of non-16mm other versions that we won't get into here - the FP30M, SP75ES, and FP30R come to mind!

There wasn't an FP75D, it was just the DP75 I think.

It is also true that an FP38E is not transportable in any way - last week I moved an FP38EC and an FP30EC down some stairs, and it was a big task with lots of people involved - and that was with the lamphouse and upper and lower motors removed!

You are absolutely wrong. (These machines were installed in early 1999.)

See this: https://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/...292&category=1

HIB018.jpg

and this: https://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/...293&category=1

HIB019.jpg

from my pics in the forum Warehouse.

Both ran well, except for the 16mm which suffered from "inverter whine" in the sound from the motor. (Microphonics from the tiny exciter filament.) I was working on an LED retrofit to the 16mm before I left there.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

"D" stood for "Direct Drive" where the motor was coupled directly to the intermittent (no belt) so no...there were no "D" versions of the 16mm machines. The DP75 did have a D version at the very end of the run.

After 2000, the "A" suffix denoted a non-D version. As Larry Shaw used to say, "A is for Affordable." The A versions omitted other little things too but the big one was the direct drive (and possibly the lens turret was less friendly in the "A" version. This also meant that the non-op side didn't have to stick out quite as far to house the spinning motor.

Prior to 2000, the various FP20/28 and FP30/38 had all sorts of suffix letters to denote different options.

Premiere (cinema) and Reference (studio) are on projectors from 2007 onwards to denote the FPS motor controller and intermittent motor instead of the original "E" system which used the "MDE" motor/drive. The FPS was stronger/faster (but I've found more finicky) and could yield significant light improvements.

Also wrong. Here it is:



Now, I'd consider their definition of "Direct Drive" to be somewhat questionable:

HIB037.jpg

As you can clearly see here on the 35mm side (the 16mm side is very similar) the actual intermittent seems to be driven off of the yellowish belt shown between the motor pulley and the flywheel of the movement. The motor IS mounted to the intermittent by the large plate., soooo..... The outer belt and pulley was added by me to drive the encoder below the motor for the dubber I donated and the frame rate display.

My pic of the 16mm side doesn't really show the drive clearly, but here it is anyways:

HIB038.jpg

[Josh Jones]

We had a Kodak 25 with a 1600W ORC behind it when I worked downtown at the arthouse. It was much dimmer than the 35/70 machine, but also half the lamp wattage. I do remember we ran Patton on it once, in addition to the silent movie nights, and a few rentals over the years. We did have a few TV carcasses in the basement we would rob parts from. Most of those came from telecine chains at local TV stations.

[David Ferguson]

Thanks Tony, I had never come across or heard of a FP38D, but I love being proved wrong!

[Steve Guttag]

Thanks for the pictures Tony. I have no idea why they put FP38D on that projector unless that is what they had for labels. It isn't a D by their own definition. No, that isn't a direct drive. It would be what late-model machines would have called an "A" drive. It is unfortunate that they put the "D" badge on it as it clearly confuses the issue.

We probably have a dealer price book of that era. If I can locate it, I'll see if they really were calling that an FP38D back then, without direct-drive. Mind you, I've also done projector conversions on FP28, FP30E to FP30E premier, that sort of thing.

Here is a picture on the day of the conversion:

image.png

I later brow-beat Kinoton into sending the actual badge.

The belt, when new, is more of a natural/whitish color. The yellow happens from belt dressing (Kuberplex). Neither the 35mm or 16mm in that machine were direct drive.

It is clearly a late-model FP38 series mechanical machine since the 16mm skate is the "J" style that came out in the early 1990s.

It's cool that it has torque motor reel drives. I hadn't seen that on 16mm mechanical machines.

[David Ferguson]

I've also done projector conversions on FP28, FP30E to FP30E premier, that sort of thing.

I don't want to get too off topic, but I'd like to know more about that conversion. Was it a motor and control cards upgrade? Or just motor or control cards? Shutter as well? I've read a lot about the Premiere projectors but I don't know what the technical equipment difference between them was.

[Steve Guttag]

Ah...my apologies, grammatical issues.

The conversions I've done have been an FP28 to the equivalent to an FP28A (instead of the original async motor, I put in the late-model Pabst 3-phase motor with Lenze controller while adapting it to the original buttons so it operated the same. The inching knob, originally on the async motor was moved to the upper-feed sprocket. They also got a multi-speed preset. The FP18 side had no changes made. The FP20 side's sound was upgraded to the late model RSSD.

So, as a separate statement, I've converted FP30E to FP30E premiere. That did involve a change in the intermittent motor, FPS motor controller, power supply, including toroidal transformer and associated chips. I don't recall, anymore, if the mainboard had to change or not, I don't think so. That is normally required when one went to the "vario-shutter" motor, that required different power than the standard shutter motor. Note, despite the name, the standard shutter motor can do vario (variable speed), it just isn't as strong so if you hit it with a strobe, you'll see it be more erratic than the vario-shutter motor. In fact, Kinoton started with heavier (I think steel) shutter on the "E" projector and then switched to a lighter weight (and thinner) so the motor wouldn't be overcome by the blade.

This was not a sanctioned conversion, in that there was no "kit" for it. I had to order it piece-meal. The benefit was a significant light improvement, particularly when running variable speed (variable speed shutters were less efficient to ensure one didn't get ghosting at certain speeds). But even on straight up 24fps, you could, often drop a lamp size.

I have not taken a mechanical projector (e.g. FP20, FP30D) to an "E" projector, in the sense of an electronic intermittent. That would be substantial in machine work. The entire gate area is different, plus how the shutter mounts...etc. You'd have to replace the entire center section of the projector, at the very least.

Now, putting inverter drive (VFD) in Kinoton, Simplex ,and Century legacy projectors...all of the time, just like a lot of people.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I ran into several Hortsons in the field over the years. I always thought they were solid machines... even with the LH threading. And, one of these days, I'd like to get a Kodak Pageant for myself. They are fine little machines, especially the models with the sound lens presets to accommodate A-wind or B-wind prints.

I brought back a Hortson from Canada once on one of my equipment runs back in the 1990's. Unfortunately I never did run the thing. I sold it to a guy in Chicago that had the exact same machine and he wanted it for spares. I can't really fault the Kodak Pageants in any way. The abuse they got at the School District I was working for back in the early 80's always amazed me. We never did actual tracking of which machines came in the least, but out of 800 projectors in the school district, the Kodak's came in the least. And there were about 300 of them give or take. The Eiki's came in the most, and always for a worn nylon runner on the pull on the pull down claw, and occasionally for take up problems. There was one point in time we could not get any new pull down claws for several months from Eiki. So projectors piled up and the wait began...

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Thanks for the pictures Tony. I have no idea why they put FP38D on that projector unless that is what they had for labels. It isn't a D by their own definition. No, that isn't a direct drive. It would be what late-model machines would have called an "A" drive. It is unfortunate that they put the "D" badge on it as it clearly confuses the issue.

We probably have a dealer price book of that era. If I can locate it, I'll see if they really were calling that an FP38D back then, without direct-drive. Mind you, I've also done projector conversions on FP28, FP30E to FP30E premier, that sort of thing.

Here is a picture on the day of the conversion:

image.png

I later brow-beat Kinoton into sending the actual badge.

The belt, when new, is more of a natural/whitish color. The yellow happens from belt dressing (Kuberplex). Neither the 35mm or 16mm in that machine were direct drive.

It is clearly a late-model FP38 series mechanical machine since the 16mm skate is the "J" style that came out in the early 1990s.

It's cool that it has torque motor reel drives. I hadn't seen that on 16mm mechanical machines.

You're welcome Steve. I think your theory of the name plates is correct, and would be a typical move from the "installer" those were purchased and installed by. The installation (and purchase) was done sometime around 1995-1998 (I can't find my screening log for that facility to get the actual dates.) I ended up finishing the install when the original company literally disappeared about two weeks before the opening day. I was brought in about 9 days before opening day and worked 16 hours each day to get things fixed and tuned up...and STILL got into a fight with the number two projector's turret about an hour before the screening (which I won by snapping the drive belt and moving it by hand.) The full story of that room can be found on the old forums.

Have you located that old price book? I too am curious if that was the actual designation or nameplate foolery by the installer. The only actual invoice I ever saw in my time there was the one for our roll down Stewart screen. I had to get that info to justify installing key switches on the screen controls after a professor damaged one of the other classroom screens...by duct taping a poster to it! (After he took the poster off, the tape residue caused the screen to rip in several places when it was unrolled the next day.)

[Emiel de Jong]

Here are some pictures of the EL5000 / EL5001 (not much difference between those, straight gate) from the 1950's and the EL5100 (curved gate, like the ones Kinoton produced later) from the 1960's.

EL5000.jpg
GateEL5001.jpg
EL5100.jpg

[Christian Anner]

originally, the "D" stands for a direct drive Intermittend, the Motor was there, where the flywheel was, Kinoton used this term to distinguish it from the former motor - belt construction. The designation "D" later refers more to how the motor is electrically controlled, i.e., whether it is "directly" controlled via a frequency converter or whether an asynchronous motor is used - the "D" designation is retained even if a toothed belt was used between the motor and the intermittend drive, provided the motor is not directly flanged has no belt slippage – a prime example of German logic, so to speak.

The distinction between "D" and "E" ultimately only applied to the servo drive. Later, a simplified "A" version was introduced, which – contrary to the logic – used a toothed belt drive with an frequency converter controlled motor was used (and some other simplifications where made)