16mm changeover projection with Kinoton FP38E

[Phillip Grace]

Hi all
I have a bit of a problem to do with screening 16mm with Kinoton FP38E projectors. Until now we have used one machine in 16mm mode in single projector configuration with feature films built up onto 5000 ft spools, and we have never before struck a requirement for archival screening conditions for 16mm films. We have a pair of FP38E's which are used for 35mm changeover projection in normal operation, so are notionally set-up for 16mm changeovers, but have struck a problem with the way the machines operate.
The 16mm soundhead is placed above the gate, and the sound is read 98 frames in advance using a digital delay of around 4 seconds to synchronize it with the picture. The soundhead takes a long time to stabilize after motor start, so starting from "8 in the gate" produces a colossal wow in the sound at the start of the reel. We cope with this by allowing a much longer start-up time - usually threading with the "Picture Start" frame some way above the gate. All well and good for single projectors, but conventional operation with standard cue marks seems to be impossible. We could place a motor start cue in advance of normal but I would prefer not to do that - making a temporary cue on a 16mm frame, large enough to be visible, but small enough to be unobtrusive seems a pretty tall order.

Does anybody else have this problem, and is there a technical fix?

I have laid out the frame counts for clock leader, reader offset, and motor start frame, in graphical form and it looks like there are only 3 or 4 frames available for the motor to run-up and film motion to stabilize before the soundhead starts to read. I cant think of any conventional projector which can achieve that.

Ideas which come to mind include

• Flywheel accelerator - did Kinoton offer this?
• Soundhead damping - the 16mm sound head uses a Davis film drive, but has no damping whatsoever that I can see.
• Was the FP38E designed to run 16mm changeovers in the first place?

Any suggestions are welcome.

[Steve Guttag]

I have numerous FP38E(S) systems installed...none ever complained about a wow on changeover. The 16mm soundhead comes up to speed quite a bit faster than 35mm.

No, they never offered a flywheel accelerator for 16mm. And Kinoton's solution for shuttle is to just detension the 16mm sound and let the film slip through (kissing the drum).

I would verify that none of the bearings are binding or otherwise causing things to spin up slower (remember, 16mm is running at half the speed of 35mm too. So, it takes half the time to get up to speed. The tension of the arms in the soundhead are adjustable as well as how far they open for correct tension.

Another thing I did on my 2-projector installations is set the ramp up speed faster. I noted that a typical 35mm projector takes about 3-3.5 seconds to come up to speed, not 5-seconds, as Kinoton sets it. I, therefore set my changeover Kinotons the same. So, I set parameter C12 to 12s for a 3-second ramp up (based on 35mm). The extra 2-seconds of ramp up may benefit a platter but with reels, either mechanical or electronic, the reel "knows" that the move is starting and is (normally) turning an empty reel. It has no problem with the accelerated ramp up. If you don't have studio soundheads, then the faster ramp up will allow 35mm changeovers to avoid wow issues. Right at the end of production, Kinoton came up with the special "CO" version of the RSSD that used a special drum that allowed for the o-rings to contact the outboard edge too as well as a lighter drum for a faster ramp up.

Changing this parameter is also fast/free and can be quickly undone if you don't like it. I can also be tweaked to get just the ramp up desired. Again, for me the 3-second ramp up better matched mechanical projectors such that projectionists didn't have to thread up differently just because they were Kinotons.

[Phillip Grace]

Thanks for your reply, Steve.

The slow ramp-up speed has always worried me. We thread with "7ft" in the gate for 35mm and I'm always on edge wondering if the intermittent will kick in before the start of the picture. It always does, of course.
The problem with the wow on 16mm start-up has been there since the machines were first installed. Allowing more running time for the machine to stabilize was the solution that had to be found quickly and has worked "well enough" up to this point.
We found during installation that there were a number of aspects of the 16mm system which one might have expected to have been set-up in the factory prior to shipment which weren't. The delay line wasn't set, and all the machines were different - (that caused some confusion), and the skate height had not been adjusted. The installation techs were frequently on the phone to Kinoton.

I will try increasing the ramp-up and see what effect that has on the film motion at the 16mm soundhead. At present the outgoing roller arm is pulled right out to its end stop when the motor starts, and seems to be very lightly connected to the incoming arm. Having read about the Cardan oil solution to the motion issues in the FP-18, and the normal operation of the RSSD I wondered if there might be a similar arrangement for the FP38E, which was overlooked at our place.

[Jerry G. Axelsson]

Philip, I have worked with Kinoton FP-38E Premiere machines for many years. Like you stated, mainly with one machine only for 16mm film were the reels spliced together.

I never felt that our ramp-up speed were and issue like what you describe. The FP-38:s I worked with were among the last ones made at Kinoton before they closes the production in around 2014.

We have had some other issues though with too high-torque/force on the electric frcition and pick-up axis for the spools. My thoughts were that some of the shortcomings we have experienced were due to some of the talent already has left Kinoton during the last year. Which gave us some odd problems which should not have excisted. Like a loose grounding cable which were not attached which caused the machine to stop at random before we could locate the issue. When the projectors work properly they are very nice and produce the best 16mm projection I have seen.

[Phillip Grace]

Hi Jerry.

There is no doubt at all that the Kinotons are very fine machines. We were very fortunate that they were available at the time the cinemas were built (2002) as they met our needs completely - dual format with continuously variable speed, and flicker-free projection, and abundant even light. No other type could have done that particularly within the constraints of our building. And the image steadiness was astounding.
The "E" series machines are fairy rare beasts in this country, and I think they were not fully understood at the time they were installed. That is not to criticize the technicians who did it, they were of the very best, but the Kinoton E Series move in mysterious ways.

It's interesting that you did not have the same ramp-up issues for 16mm. Added to Steve's comments above it looks like we do have our own problem, but that it can be cured.

Cheers.

[Benjamin Ruder]

Great timing for us on this topic as we have been dealing with 16mm ramp-up wow for a while on our newer machines (2013 install). We show shorts as individual reels and are more frequently screening 16mm features as changeover and this sound issue sticks out. Waiting to get some more free time in there to adjust the settings and hopefully can reduce/eliminate it.

[Phillip Grace]

Hello Benjamin.

We have been at full stretch running a Film Festival this month, so I have not had time yet to tinker with the projectors. Shortening the ramp-up is straight-forward, and sounds like a good place to start. The manual for the Lenze motor controller tells how to do it. Then I will see if that has any effect on the uncontrolled film motion at the sound head. It may be turn out to have been "tuned" to the higher speed. I'll probably stay away from altering the shape of the curve unless specific data turns up. Steve says the damping is adjustable so that is where I will go next if more work is needed.