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Author Topic: NEC Series 2 Projectors (NC1600C, NC2000C, NC3200S) Issues, Tips, and Tricks Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 09-22-2011 06:25 PM                        With so many theatres having digital projectors now, I was thinking Film-Tech needs to have threads for each specific brand/type of D-Cinema equipment in order to address the issues specific to each. And maybe lumping all of the NEC series 2 projectors into one thread is too broad for this. It might even be worthwhile to have a separate forum specifically for DCinema equipment, without general DCinema discussion. One thing I discovered is that when you build format changes into your play list, you need to make sure to allow enough time for the lens to move accordingly. And it's best to program duplicate cues because the first is sometimes missed for some reason. I also have my format cues programmed as the first thing on my play list. I allow about 12 seconds between the format cue and any other cue. Under normal circumstances I am running our advertising slide show through the DVI-A input, so the lamp is already on at show start. Because of this, I have format changes twice for every showing - once to DVI-A, and once to the show format.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-22-2011 06:30 PM                     I've see 15 up to 25 seconds for format cue durations. I have one NEC where I have a 15 sec format cue set in the SPL template. this allows for the masking change and lens zoom adjustments.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-23-2011 01:54 AM                     As a matter of fact, the longish change to scope can be used 'theatrically'. We used to have a final digital slide in our electronic preshow programming to signal 'Cinemascope' in 35mm. That is, we had a 20-30s intermission to change lens, masking, etc., During that intermission, the '...now converting for Cinemascope' slide came up. If you play such a slide with dowser open WHILE the lens and masking is adjusted, this gives a nice 'wow' effect on screen. Only if you have constant height, of course. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-23-2011 03:12 AM                     quote: Carsten Kurz ...now converting for Cinemascope' slide came up. If you play such a slide with dowser open WHILE the lens and masking is adjusted, this gives a nice 'wow' effect on screen. Only if you have constant height, of course. I worked in a large cinema where we had both top and side adjustable maskings and doing the above really produced the "WOW!" effect when trailers were in flat and feature was in CinemaScope..with the trailer reel in Machine Nr.1 and the Feature in Machine Nr.2 and doing the changeover along with controlling the maskings.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-23-2011 08:51 AM                     The amount of time it takes is purely a matter of which lens you happen to have. Each model lens is different and a couple are actually pretty dam quick, I believe the Fujinons are the quickest. I have experienced focus drift with three of the the N-Vision lenses. They are actually very sharp lenses but I plan to steer clear of them until this issue has been solved. Has anyone else had this issue? The slow lamp light time is due to the fact that NEC ramps up the lamp current slowly and this also gives the lamp time to stabilize. Even after you hit the screen with an NC-2000 or 3240 the lamp will still slowly continue to climb to it's pre-set current level over a few minutes time. I have had several failures of the white on-off/circuit breaker switch. To those users that go to fully off every night beware of this issue. You won't find this out until you go to turn it back on some day... it fails mechanically inside! Interestingly it is a German made circuit breaker and IS NOT available off the shelf. Other than the above switch issue the NC-2000's have been extremely reliable projectors. Mark  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-23-2011 11:22 AM                     quote: Mark Gulbrandsen ramps up the lamp current slowly I've noticed that on our 2500 that we have..that it starts out around 70% at the beginning then by end of the prevues, I'm up to 94% by time the feature hits. We leave our breaker switch alone - just use the standby button to power down the unit. Only time I do use the switch if the unit gets a brain cramp where the macros doesn't work and have to reboot the projector.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 09-24-2011 04:22 PM                        In the last two weeks I've had two instances where the NEC and GDC lost communication and I had to restart both (one time on two different houses). In both cases, the lamp had been on for 15-20 minutes running our pre-show content, so I had to wait for the lamp to cool for 5 minutes to reboot the projector. When this happens, do I actually need to wait for the lamp to cool, or can I switch off the projector power and turn it back on. Will switching it off before the 5 minutes are up create any kind of error on the projector?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-24-2011 05:15 PM                        Justin - no need to wait for the cooling, you can just switch it off and back on again. I've had to do that here a few times.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-24-2011 06:41 PM                     Most definitely - why you have a stack fan to pull the heat out. I'm with Mike - having to do a restart with the lamp on, but knowing that my roof exhaust on to help out.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-24-2011 09:20 PM                     If it has not been done so already, in the DCC, there is a tick-box on the main page to allow restriking the lamp during the cool down period. -Steve  |  IP: Logged Michael Brown Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1522 From: Bradford, England Registered: May 2001 posted 09-25-2011 02:13 PM                     quote: Monte L Fullmer I've see 15 up to 25 seconds for format cue durations. We have our NEC's set for 13 seconds to change from flat to scope. Nice to have the customers sitting in the dark for 13 seconds. One of the advantages of 35mm - a turret can spin in about 2 seconds.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 09-25-2011 04:23 PM                        quote: Michael Brown Nice to have the customers sitting in the dark for 13 seconds. That's a matter of where you place your house light cues. Nothing says those cues have to be placed before the light will hit the screen.  |  IP: Logged Mark Hajducki Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 500 From: Edinburgh, UK Registered: May 2003 posted 09-25-2011 04:47 PM                     One workaround for long lens change issues is to run the adverts and trailers with the lens in its scope position, scaling the 1.85 image to the right size on screen. The other is to close your curtains, raise the tab warmers and play a short clip of appropriate music. Unfortunately most cinemas equipped to do that have been demolished or are sitting derelict.  |  IP: Logged Steven J Hart Master Film Handler Posts: 282 From: WALES, ND, USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 09-25-2011 06:55 PM                        I think I may finally see an advantage to the Common Width screen our theater is stuck with (Because of our very narrow auditorium). Our NEC 2000 simply switches to a different Screen File When switching from flat to scope so there is no zooming and really is no delay at all. A question this brings to mind.... I see that there are provisions for anamorphic lenses in the dcc software for the NEC, but wonder if there are any formats where an anamorphic lens is actually used. It seems kind of a waste that the resolution for flat is actually higher than for scope with digital projection. I assume that common height screens just zoom the lens to make the scope image fit the screen.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 09-25-2011 07:07 PM                        My projector is a Christie but it has an auxiliary lens that automatically slides into place for Cinemascope. The tech that installed it told me that my screen is a borderline size that required the auxiliary lens as a simple zoom wouldn't do the job. He also told me that it was the first auxiliary lens he had set up on a digital projector.  |  IP: Logged

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