Equipment used in new 70mm Installations

[Ryan Gallagher]

When I took over my booth, finding no magnet detectors amongst the tools, and many magnetic tools around. I assumed the worst. I had a prior thread on which tools to acquire and ended up with a cheap digital gaussmeter, and a used analog RB Annis style guage meter as well as one of their hand held parts de-magnetizers.

On our Century JJs, it was primarily the drive sprockets that had an offending charge (seemingly around the shaft area). Easily cleaned up and confirmed clean with the right tools off the projector. Our platter in storage would have been fun to check but did not get a chance before it went away.

But as others have mentioned, the real risk to those remaining prints is now more about the poor shipping and booth handling. I think the magnetism topic, tools, and techniques remains a good litmus test if a venue should even be booking and their projectionist should even be touching those prints, relative risk aside.

For new installs unless the integrator provides that training, maybe the answer is predominantly no?

[Stefan Scholz]

My setup is capable of magnetic, but that's been built in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Panastereo, Dolby 363 for A/SR. Yamaha DME as the main control gear...
I was lucky to get 2 new in box Vacodur Telefunken clusters for Bauer, so that in theory would last a long stretch. Unlike the laminated iron heads, which wear down in 200 hours, these are rated for some 1000s.

But quite soon to find out, that in most cases the tone and noise loops were lost, or in a different state than the print itself. Unfortunately the later prints use Dolby NR in both form, and SR is so level dependent, that it is impossible to get a quality playback. With a little fiddling, you eventually set the levels for A so it sounds OK.
So in reality I am happy, that magnetic striping is a thing of the past. Datasat does a great job job, so why bother? For faded, red prints? You can't screen these upfront an unprepared audiences without massive complaints, leaving me with a few blow up prints, like Die Hard and so.