ICMP-x battery issue on a Barco DP2k-8s

[Frank Cox]

I have changed xenon lamps many times over the years but I really hate doing it so if a tech is here for anything else and the lamp is anywhere near expiry I have him do it for me.

[Leo Enticknap]

As others have said. We don't service any big chain sites except in the odd emergency (something breaks and they can't get their own tech to the site in time to avoid significant down time): almost all our service work is for independents and high-end residence theaters. No-one in the residence theaters wants to have anything to do with the system besides pressing buttons on a pretty Crestron touchpad, and of the indies, they vary from mom & pop shops with an owner who is comfortable doing everything, including handling xenon bulbs, to managers who dimly remember from the 35mm days being told that xenon bulbs can kill you, and therefore have us change them out. Of course, we try to combine bulb replacement visits with other planned maintenance wherever possible, and place a lot of emphasis on this if a long haul trip to the site is involved. We are very conscious of the fact that bringing a service tech 500 miles to a site represents a major investment, especially for an independent theater, and prepare carefully to be able to get as much done as possible during the visit.

NC900s and 1000s (and to a much lesser extent, Barco DP2K-6Es) are very popular with both residence theatres and independents. The residence theaters like them, because it's possible to put them out of sight and out of mind in a pod, without the need for a xenon lamphouse exhaust system (which is great until the time comes to replace a component that can't be got at with the projector in the pod, at which point a 200lb projector needs to be lifted down); the independents like them, because the lamps can be replaced without the need for safety precautions and PPE.

[Carsten Kurz]

A large and well running 12plex nearby ALWAYS call their integrator for bulb changes. Admittedly, it's not a long drive for the tech. But it's still stupid, as they could long have trained one of their own techs to do it (They do actually have a few dedicated tech staff.). Plus, they have Dolby 3D, so, with 3D movies, they run down bulbs like nothing. As far as I remember, they say it's more 'convenient' to have the external tech do it.

[Steve Guttag]

I'd say that we change the majority of the lamps in our service area. But it all depends on the customer, like everyone else. Some do it themselves some have us come out. We only have a few sites with HMI lamps and our customers, by and large, change those themselves (but we reset the hours for them since going through the menu on the NC900 can be frustrating if you aren't used to it). The one site we change the NC900 lamps is not a conventional cinema and it is always done as part of a PM call...the lamps last YEARS there and they made it to 3000 hours on gen 1 NC900 lamps! A key to that was the cooling it gets in its environment.

[Leo Enticknap]

Carsten: Likely a calculated business decision. Even if they do have people on the staff who were trained to handle xenon arc bulbs, they might not have enough time in their schedule to do it, the liability issues involved might not be covered by their insurance, and there could be all sorts of other reasons why they decided to subcontract all maintenance and repair of everything in the projection booths to an external, specialist service vendor.

By the same token, I know how to flush and replace the coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, serpentine belt and spark plugs in my wife's car. But we had a shop do all of those tasks in one fell swoop recently, because I didn't have the time, either to do them myself, or to deal with the consequences of making a mistake in the course of doing them (e.g. misthreading the serp belt, or cross threading one of the plugs). The chances of the auto shop tech making a mistake are a lot lower, because he does these tasks every day, whereas I do them once or twice a year, if that. The same in reverse applies to xenon bulb swapouts: they are no big deal for me, because I do several a month. But for a theater manager who only has to replace a bulb every few months, it makes sense to decide that this is a task best left to someone who does it for a living.

[Carsten Kurz]

Leo, with 12 screens, some dual projection, Dolby 3D, you can certainly imagine how often a tech needs to drive out to them. They could only save some money by accumulating some bulb changes by either sacrificing bulb run time or risking bulb issues. At that schedule, there could be hardly any other maintenance to be done during most of his visits. Also, what if a bulb gives up before or during a show?

[Marcel Birgelen]

Maybe they do have some kind of flat-fee service contract that includes a fixed number of interventions? It's not uncommon for big sites to have such a contract. I do know a few that essentially run without techs. When a machine goes down and it can't be fixed by the NOC remotely or by powercycling some gear on command, they have a tech dispatched on-site. This also includes any bulb that may exit prematurely.

I also know a few sites that are so badly managed, only about 20% of their Barcos actually show a green tail-light...

Like indicated before, this might also be a liability thing. If an outsourced tech kills your machine, it's their liability. If you never perform any intrusive maintenance on those machines, then it's easy to blame any failure on someone else. This kind of ass-coverage is quite typical in bigger companies.

[Leo Enticknap]

I service two large 'plexes, both of them indies (one 11 screens plus a 2-screen drive-in, the other 12 screens). They are on flat fee service contracts that specify what planned maintenance gets done, and how many emergency callouts are in the bundle. The only thing not inclusive of the annual fee is parts. One of them has laser projectors (so no bulb changes); the other's contract specifies that bulb changes are included. They are pretty good about giving us decent notice and we monitor them remotely, so each trip typically consists of two or three bulb changes, one or two "A" or "B" PMs, and maybe a "C" (this is a Barco site). I get there at 5am (when the janitors arrive and someone is there to let me in), and work through until the shows start, which is usually around 11am. Under normal (as in, pre-coronavirus) circumstances, I'm usually there around once a month, sometimes twice.

[Harold Hallikainen]

A bit off the topic, but I've noticed that a lot of people like to get up REAL EARLY to do work in the theater instead of starting after the last show and working until done. That's what I did when I worked in radio. For me, it's easier to stay up late than get up early, so it works well for me. It also keeps you from bumping into the first show of the day.

[Leo Enticknap]

Everyone's body clock is different. I'm an early to bed/early to rise person naturally (in fact, I'll be heading for the shower and bed shortly after typing this), and fighting my body clock was one of the things I hated about being a chalk face projectionist running evening shows. But the real reason why theater service work happens early morning is that that is how the theater works. At the end of the last show, everyone gets out and goes home almost as soon as they can. The janitors are then in early the next morning, to make the place nice again for the first shows, which take place late morning to around lunchtime. So if I wanted to service projectors from, say, 1am to 7am, the theater would have to eat the cost of having someone there to keep the building open between around 1am to 5am. But if I arrive at the same time that their people do, the projection service work gets done at no extra staff hours cost to the customer. It's just a happy coincidence that my body clock wants me to go to sleep at about 9pm and get up at about 4am - fits in with this job nicely. When I was a regular projectionist, my body was constantly battling with the requirements of my job.

[Carsten Kurz]

Hmm, interesting. I felt a bit sorry for you when I heard you left theater and went tech. But seemingly, not so bad...I sometimes get home from the cinema when you leave for work (not by absolute terms, of course )

[Steve Guttag]

It all depends for me. If I get into a "PM" mode, I try to string as many as possible that week and switch to 3rd shift. I'd much rather start as the theatres come off screen and work through the night. I can get 8-12 continuous hours of work in without people getting in the way or sharing the space (until custodial comes in). It is MUCH more efficient. My PM calls average about 2-4 hours a screen...it all depends on what needs to be done. If you are doing an 8 or 10-plex. You might be able to knock it all out in one night. I often have another tech with me so then the two of us can normally do 10 full PMs in one night and if one gets bogged down on an unforeseen clogged cooling system, the tech can attend to that and not worry about everything else getting put on hold.

Now, if the theatre doesn't run matinees or is willing to shift their show times around for us, then yes, I work normal hours too. The problem is, predicting when I'll be done on a particular screen. That 2-4 hour spread adds up real fast when in a multiplex.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess the last few months must have been odd for techs working in the field, as they could actually work on a lot of the equipment during normal office hours.

[Steve Guttag]

Just nobody has the money to pay for it!

[Marcel Birgelen]

Yeah... I guess the fallout from all of this will now slowly take hold on society as a whole... Interesting times, not just for this industry...