Cinemark Tinseltown Plano 20 Projection Booth
Plano, TX, USA
Featured in this flagship theater is Cinemark's standard 1990's equipment, except with Century projector heads instead of Simplexes
CFS lamphouses of 4000 watts are utilized in the small auditoriums and 7000 watts are utilized in the large auditoriums. Platters are SPECO.
This booth is very spread out with tons of hallways, ramps and stairs to navigate.
These SPECO platters have the newer style center feeds.
No hallway features more than 3 projectors, as seen here.
The interlock rollers are mysteriously missing from their brackets.
Hopefully there won't be a need for an interlock without warning!
A bird's eye view of the standard equipment placing.
Another hallway with 2 projectors.
Many projectors are positioned on their own little platforms, due to the stadium seating requirements.
Another example of a projector on a platform.
Here is a new CFS digital dimmer unit that this theater is testing out in the lucky number 13 auditorium.
(Guess it wasn't too lucky for CFS.)
This is the main buildup station, located at the highest level of the booth between the two large auditoriums.
Here we have a standard sound rack. The only difference between the small auditoriums is the digital playback format. This rack features SDDS.
A sound rack for a medium sized auditorium utilizing a Dolby CP500 with built in Dolby Digital.
Another medium size auditorium's sound rack featuring DTS and SDDS.
But what is that thing on top of the sound rack you ask?
It's two bumper stickers clearly stating that this is a "MEGA Digital Sound System", just to make sure there is no confusion.
But if there is a "MEGA Digital Sound System", could there possibly be anything better?
You bet! Check out the "SUPER-MEGA Digital Sound System"!!!
(Ok before you ask, there is no "Super-Duper-Mega Digital Sound System".)
A wide shot of the "Super-Mega Digital Sound System" that powers the large auditoriums.
Oh no, the manager has just declared that the latest Costner epic isn't doing good business and you must move it!
Down these narrow stairs you must go.
And then down these stairs...
...and then around this corner and down another set of stairs...
...and down MORE stairs past some projectors...
...and then up this flight of stairs to it's final destination. When you get there with the print, you are just happy that #1 it did not fall apart during the move and #2 it wasn't from one end of the building to the other. Whoever designed this booth obviously has never had to move a 3 hour print up and down stairs and through narrow hallways! This booth has the most stairs and doorways known in any megaplex.
We leave this tour with a shot of the film work station at the lowest point of the booth, some several levels down from the other work station.