What is the best way to position the guidance rollers so that we can use either the platter or reels (6000' preferred, but at least 2000' needed) without needing to remove and replace the guidance rollers?

We're currently using the platter for prints which will run for more than a few shows, but would like to easily be able to run reel-to-reel for special shows, mint prints with uncut leaders, festivals, late-arriving prints, etc. Most shows will probably be platter-run, since there will probably only be a projectionist in the booth on weekends and for special shows. Yes, this situation is sub-optimal, but this is a low-budget operation at the moment.

(Cue thread on the evils of manager-operated booths.)
(Cue thread on platters-vs-reels.)

I'm normally partial towards reel-to-reel operation in single-screen houses, but I really like this setup. We run trailers and (hopefully) shorts on the second machine and then changeover to the feature on the platter machine. Since most prints will probably run for at least a week, this is probably better for the prints and offers less opportunity for error by inexperienced operators. It also gives flexibility for festivals, special shows, etc. I'd prefer to have a Christie platter, but the Speco (which I hadn't used before) seems decent enough.

Kelmar, and probably others, sell wall mount rollers generaly used for interlocking situations but can be used to feed to and from platter systems. This should leave you enough room to run the 6000 foot reels.

Speco's are very reliable platters.

Here is how I did it with 2 projectors and a platter...

Notice there are 2 rollers instead of one. The first roller is positioned underneath the upper magazine arm (or in your case it will probably be "beside" the arm). This roller is kept to pull film level and straight from the platter. Then the lower roller serves to bring the film "inline" with the projector and shoots it back upward to the top of the penthouse stack. (You WILL be having lots of penthouses here, right? )

Operator side view of the same.

Even with a 6000' reel on the spindle, film can still be ran off of a platter without the film scraping on anything. Of course I never do this because it is harder to thread around the reel than to just remove it, but it can be done. When running dts70, the reel of course has to go for clearance issues.

In your situation Scott, the easiest method may be to combine the two ideas (assuming of course you are like me and do not like angled feed rollers). Mount two rollers on the wall in front of the projector. The first roller will pull the film from the platter in a "straight up and down" alignment toward a roller mounted a foot or two below. That second roller can then send the film straight into the projector (as if the supply reel was sitting in front of the projector).

Of course angled rollers are acceptable in "constant tension" situations...lower magazine rollers and interlock rollers.

By the way, here is what Darryl is talking about, in case anyone didn't follow it...

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We ran reels & platter with no reel arms, just wall mounted rollers.

The top roller was high enough to just use the top fire roller on the Century going in.

It didn't have magazines, & the bottom whatever-you-call-it-magazine-skeleton had a roller mounted on it about 6 or 8" below the sound head, a little behind the film path for going to the takeup reel. For platter use, the film went around that lower roller & off to another on the front wall.

I've just edited this post because I realized that the projector was at an angle of about a million degrees, making the film entryinto the projector a straighter shot from the wall roller. It might not work as well if the projector is closer to perpendicular.

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Also that is not a Teco conversion but the Kniesley conversion