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Author Topic: Perspect-A-Card Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-28-2008 04:27 PM                     Hey, does anyone know if the Perspect-A-Card by "Cineman" still exists or can be had? Does anyone have a current email address for the person/company that made it? I'm looking for 2 or 3 of them. Steve  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-28-2008 05:09 PM                     I beleive that was Dion Hansen in the UK ex Dolby  |  IP: Logged Pete Naples Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1565 From: Dunfermline, Scotland Registered: Feb 2001 posted 10-28-2008 05:27 PM                     Steve, Gordon is correct. Try dion@cinemanuk.com  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-28-2008 06:13 PM                        Steve, if you are going to have a few of these built, let me know because I will try to get the powers that we need to have PerspectaSound capability. Let me know if it works out & maybe we can order them jointly. Thanks  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 10-29-2008 08:03 AM                     Dion is certainly still around, I spoke to him at Bradford during the Widescreen Weekend. I think the cards were built to order, I had to wait a few weeks for mine to be built. My card has been in the US for sometime now, I lent it to somebody and haven't had any cause to use it since, so I haven't brought it back. The person I lent it to had problems getting it to work in a modified CP-50; It worked fine for me the three times I used it. It's not clear whether the card has developed a fault, or something about the modified processor didn't like it. Dion did say he culd test and repiar if there was a problem with it. If anybody is interested in trying my card I could ask the person who has it to send it to them; I'm still in touch with him.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-29-2008 08:21 AM                     I've only ever used it in a CP200...worked like a charm. The "Surround" feature will work (though the early cards had an incorrect part stuffed)...however, it does not have the necessary delay to avoid a horrible reverberation effect in a large room....and...probably more importantly...Perspecta films didn't have surrounds. The problem with the CP50 will be the logic it uses and what one will need to do to make the signal path work. You MUST have the NR off or bypass the NR cards. Perspecta depends on the LF tones to pass through. Having even Type-A NR on will so severely attenuate those tones as to render the card inoperative (or locked into mono). You also need to not have any bass-extension (for obvious reasons) and you must also have stereo playback (again obvious). I'm not sure the CP50 will easily allow one to get the logic lines the way they need to be and allow the signal to flow. Steve  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-29-2008 08:46 AM                        What about the Panastereo -- I should have no problem there, right? We do have and external dbx Subbass Enhancement processor that generates half of all frequences below 100hz from L & R (I think that's Hz start frequence) and mixes them back into the L,R, and LFE or just L & R, user choice. That can easily be turned off.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 10-29-2008 09:16 AM                     I've only used it in CP-55 and 65; Dion has used it in CP-200 at NFT and Bradford, all without problems. I can't remember exactly what the problem with the CP-50 was, and I don't know how the processor had been 'modified'. I'm on my way to Bradford again at the moment, should have been tere about half an hour ago, and we're probably still about 40 minutes away; still got to stop at Leeds first. If anybody wants to try my card it's in New York, state, not city.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-29-2008 11:25 AM                     I seem to remember that Chace in the US also made a perspecta card To use a cat150 replacement card for perspecta in a panastereo one would need a edgestrip adapter and some external power possibly and logic switching interface The simplest solution is to find a old Dolby SA4 adapter that was a one unit high box to hold the 150 outboard on a CP100 and use it as a standalone perspecta box  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 10-29-2008 11:30 AM                     Do these cards have the capability to be calibrated? If so, is calibration film available? I know that actual Perspecta Intergrators from the 1950's requrired calibration from test tone control film, much as analog Dolby stereo needs calibration. Each of the control tones needs to be calibrated for the correct volume level.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-29-2008 01:16 PM                     Nope, the cards need not be calibrated...they work right out of the box. They use very stable circuits and don't need tuning. Also, now that most projectors have sync motors...the frequencies are going to be very much on target. That said, I've used it with a Simplex gearbox type soundhead with an async motor without problems. For the Panastereo...it will need to be home brew or via an SA4 as Gord pointed out. You could also use a CP50 frame and power supply. All you need is the power for the card and to feed the inputs/outputs. The Pana has preamp outs and between the Digital 1, 2 or 3 inputs you should be able to have a suitable input. It is possible that the preamp outs may be a bit hot...I forget the buss level. However, since the CM353s are compatible with the Cat 280T...the levels should be close enough. Steve  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 10-29-2008 01:42 PM                     Gordon, I acquired an old SA-4 for that very purpose, though I haven't used it yet. I would guess that just about all processors have something basically the same as the Dolby pre-amp outputs and mag/aux inputs even if they're labeled differently that you could patch the thing between. quote: Steve Guttag I've only ever used it in a CP200...worked like a charm. The "Surround" feature will work (though the early cards had an incorrect part stuffed)...however, it does not have the necessary delay to avoid a horrible reverberation effect in a large room....and...probably more importantly...Perspecta films didn't have surrounds. The 200 is a nice processor if you want to start doing strange things. You are correct about Perspecta films not having a surround channel of course, but it was proposed that they would add one at a later date. It's mentioned in one of the original Perspecta documents in the Widescreen Museum, using a 25Hz tone, if I remember correctly. I've never heard of this anywhere else, and when I asked Bob Eberenz (I hope I've spelled that correctly) he assured me that it was never implemented. I can't remember the exact wording that he used, but it was something to the effect that it was really just a proposal which was put forward, rather than a definite intention which is closer to what the document says. For anybody who is not familiar with the Cineman cards they have the option, which can be disabled by a jumper, to create a surround channel in a quite different way; they send the mono Perspecta sound to the surround output in addition the the three main channels when all three tones are detected. The fact that the card replaces the Cat. 150 means of course that it cannot use the delay on that card, and to have included a delay on the Perspecta card would have greatly increased the complexity and cost of the card. Plus, as Steve has pointed out, Perspecta didn't have a surround anyway. I would suggest disabling the surround option on these cards, which I did on mine as soon as I received it. It might be interesting one day to try it just to hear what it sounds like.  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 10-29-2008 03:42 PM                     How many films were made in Perspectasound? I remember that Forbidden Planet and (I think)Fantasia was, anything else?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-29-2008 05:22 PM                     All VistaVision pictures from the beginning had Perspecta as well as alot of MGM stuff... All Tom And Jerry Cartoons for instance had it. Mark  |  IP: Logged Dick Prather Master Film Handler Posts: 259 From: Portland, OR, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 10-29-2008 05:24 PM                     I have one of Dion's cards and it works great. It was being used in a CP-100 and had no problems. One needs to run in stereo with the noise reduction OFF. I also had a extra SA-4 and was going to try and hook it up through format 3. Have since updated to a CP-200 and have not done anything to it yet. Can the CP-200 Aux Unit be used to house the Perspecta card and something set up for 06 or should I stay with a SA-4 tied in to the 200? Any suggestions??? As for Perspecta films, it was used in the 1950's. Lots of MGM, Paramount VistaVision, some Allied Artists, and probably others. By the late 50's it was gone but was much more popular in Japan. For a mono track it does indeed sound good. Dick  |  IP: Logged

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