my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Digital Cinema Forum   » Most popular digital projector for Drive-In (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Most popular digital projector for Drive-In Frank Jerkic Film Handler Posts: 77 From: Ayr Queensland Australia Registered: May 2004 posted 07-22-2014 07:37 AM                        Just as a matter of interest I just had a retired projectionist visit and have a look at my Drive-In, he used to work with Century, Toshiba projectors, he looked at my NEC and asked the question what is the most popular Digital projector used in Drive-ins today and why he's seen photos of the image on the screen not filling the big screen was it because of the throw?, I said I have no idea but would ask the question as someone must know I have no idea how many brands there is available in Australia or America plus I am interested as well,the same for the smaller picture, our throw is 132meters and we fill the sheet, Tanks in advance  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 07-22-2014 09:31 AM                       All three brands, NEC, Christie, and Barco have been used for Drive In's. I did a project last year with a Barco DP4K 32B. It's a 40 x 100 screen, about about a 190 Ft. throw. Barco seems to be a favorite for this application in the USA as its light output seems to be the highest in the large projectors. Others may say otherwise.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 07-22-2014 10:14 AM                     Yep, basically the HighLumen 2k and 4k models of all manufacturers are in use. Barco was keen enough to get into the Guinness book of records with their DP2k-32B, that sort of set it slightly in front of the Christie 2230 and NEC NC3200S on the 'brightness awareness scale'. http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/8000/brightest-digital-cinema-projector Of course, as this was a planned test, this projector and lamp was tweaked to the max, and the test used a wide-angle lens, which is the most light-efficient, so, no wonder that the machine under test delivered a lot more brightness than spec'd. It's competitors spec'd brightness is not so different from each other, but I still think that under real world conditions, Barco is first, followed by Christie, then NEC. Their 4k variants will yield a bit more brightness due to the larger imager (at a price!), although they suffer contrast-wise - which is mostly not a problem as there is usually a lot of ambient light at drive-in locations anyway. As to filling the screen - traditionally, Drive-Ins of course have the longest throw of all cinemas and the available lenses for that kind of throw range are fewer in choice, so you may not always get exactly the zoom range you require. Or someone simply took a cheap shortcut and ended up with a suboptimal solution. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 07-22-2014 11:52 AM                        Almost everyone in the drive-in circles I run in all have installed Barco's. Since both my screens are only 60 feet wide, we installed the DP2K-23B's. The folks with the bigger screens went with the 32B's. Listening to them talk on the drive-in forums, they are going through lamps as fast as they can change them. I just got 1,100 hours on my 4k lamps before I got a blue tail light. Barco's have a sealed light engine, which was a big selling point for most of the drive-in owners I know. For me, having a $40k projector sitting 15 feet away from 6 deep fryers, a sealed light engine was a plus. Finding the right lenses can be a pain as well. We had to use an "Event Lens" in order to accommodate our throw (354 feet) and screen width (60 feet). Some have put in Christie's, but not many. It seems the ones who put in Christie's did some sort of lease arrangement where the the Christie was part of a pre-packaged deal.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-22-2014 12:03 PM                     NEC actually makes the most sense for a drive in because of it's full heppa filtration on all of the air intake's. All the NEC's I've installed in Drive In's still look like brand new on the inside. While other DI's that I service that are Barco or Christie have filthy insides. The latter two brands will end up requiring much more maintenance operating in a D.I. situation. Just because the light engine is sealed in one of the brands doesn't preclude the electronics, lamp module and angle mirrors from being covered in dust and having a shorter life span as a result the need for more frequent cleaning and or inefficient cooling. It is virtually impossible to clean a front surface mirror without leaving microscopic scratches in it and lowering it's overall efficiency. Then there are chips that run as hot as 60 deg. C on the ICP's! They get a layer of dust on them and they are apt too fail sooner as will any of the umpteen fans. NEC's fans are behind the heppa filters. I could care less what server you choose, all of them are going to suck in what ever crud is in the air and all will give you the same end results. Mark  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 07-22-2014 12:30 PM                     Two drive-in's in my area are 32B users. One drive-in just repainted their screen and has a beautiful picture on it now. Never had such a wonderful picture before, which this is the big selling point in using digital on drive-in screens is the increased foot lambert numbers. For the recent 32B owners and the potential new owners: Check for the arc stabilizing magnet polarity that is mounted in the bottom of the module. If one takes the bottom cover off (the 4 allen screws are 3mm), the bar magnet lays across the bottom with South to the left looking from the back of the module. Use a compass, or a magnet with marked poles to do the check. If reversed, magnet just sits in the position and is easily removed to turn it around. We have two, 23B's and the light coming from that 4k bulb to fill a 50 plus wide screen at 70 ft is quite amazing. It's the sneaky trick to use 1.2inch chipset instead of the .98 as with the "C" units. What's the big seller with BARCO's is that the company took the DLP setup and enhanced it for better F/L numbers for all of their projector line , but true ... they do get dusty inside. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-22-2014 12:43 PM                        A lot of the DI guys were well aware of the dust issues and many of them have completely renovated their booths, redoing walls, floors and installing A/C units. From what they are saying, it's not like they are just plopping the BARCOs into the exact same booths they had the film projectors in.  |  IP: Logged Pete Naples Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1565 From: Dunfermline, Scotland Registered: Feb 2001 posted 07-22-2014 01:57 PM                     Yeah, it doesn't just affect drive ins. Over here, more than once I've had to strongly suggest (and always thus far won!) that the client undertakes some renovation in the booth before DLP installation. I think Mark's point about dust is valid, but can be addressed such that NEC is not the only viable option.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 07-22-2014 02:09 PM                     That's an interesting point - what CAN you actually do to reduce dust and dirt buildup in a booth in order to prevent it from getting into the projector? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 07-22-2014 03:25 PM                        My two booths are 10x12 enclosed rooms. We completely renovated our booths when we converted. Our building was relatively new (2003), so we didn't have many of the un-insulated wall & roof issues that some drive-ins had. We put in new ports, sealed everything and put filters on all incoming and outgoing duct work and transfer grills. I vacuum and clean my filters once a month as per the Barco recommended maintenance schedule, and give the projectors a good wipe down every night while I'm waiting for the exhaust stacks to run out. I'll have to check the electronics cage to see if I'm building up dust in there.  |  IP: Logged Pete Naples Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1565 From: Dunfermline, Scotland Registered: Feb 2001 posted 07-22-2014 04:48 PM                     Carsten, floor covering in good condition, no gaps and tight to walls. Walls in good condition with any loose plaster or damage repaired and painted/sealed. Same goes for ceiling. Any gaps where services breach the walls, floor or ceiling need to be sealed. (Often that needs to be intumescent sealant to comply with fire regs). Same goes for gaps on doors, windows and frames. It's always best to keep the room under positive pressure, using filtered input air. At the least install filters to air intakes.  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 07-22-2014 04:55 PM                     pollen filters on the intake ventilation. Your equipment will be spotless after years.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 07-22-2014 10:08 PM                        The drive-in I manage has a 40'x90' screen with about a 450' throw. We went with the Barco 32B, and it's amazing how bright and crisp the picture is. I have no basis for comparison with the other digital projectors, but our picture is probably double the brightness of when we had film. With film we had to pass on many dark pictures (think Harry Potter or Dark Knight) because the image was just too dim and lacked the contrast to put an acceptable picture on the screen. Especially during the full moon since it shines right on our screen. While the picture can be a bit washed out during the full moon, now we don't have an issue playing movies with a lot of dark scenes. As others have mentioned, we did have to take steps to improve the ventilation of our projection room. We stripped out the ugly shag carpet that had been there since the 1970's, sealed the windows, added roof ventilation, added a door to seal the room, and a few other things.  |  IP: Logged Frank Jerkic Film Handler Posts: 77 From: Ayr Queensland Australia Registered: May 2004 posted 07-22-2014 11:08 PM                        Well we are in the process of getting the box sealed or dust proofed as we are in the midddle of sugar cane padddock and we get dust plus black snow (ash from the burning of the cane)and getting it own air con, my screen is 80ft x 40ft and throw is 430ft we screen our first digital movie this Friday (Train your Dragon 2 Plus Mr.Peabody) I cant wait to see what it will look like, should be pretty good as the screen was only repainted 3 years ago but the painter didn't put in the one knotch of blue to the 5 gallons of paint to give us the whiter white, I heard that Maleficent was a pretty dark print for both Drive-Ins and Cinemas  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-23-2014 12:13 PM                        Actually, I don't think DIs would be any worse off than standard booths in terms of environmental impact on the projectors. In in fact, from what I have heard on the DI group/blog/list thing, they all seem to be taking the right first steps in preping for the digital installs by basically reconstructing their booths as Barry, Justin and Frank have described here, taking lots of measures to make the booths fairly air-tight and insulated . In fact, I would guess DIs may be even better off than lots of hardtop booths in that I have seen installs in standard booths some in older theatres, where the digital box is just plopped into an exisiting booth with nary a hand lifted to better insulate against dust and contaminants. So I wouldn't jump to any conclusions that DIs are any worse impacted by their environment vis-à-vis projector or bulb or components' shortened life-span.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.