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Topic: How many "endless loop" systems were in use during film's heyday?

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-18-2018 02:27 PM

A guy on Quora stated that "in all the theaters he's gone to," continuous loop projection was used because "it's impossible" to keep up with threading 6 or more projectors in a multiplex.

I was just wondering how accurate that is --- I always thought continuous loop was more of a niche market.

Any of you guys with good memories able to shed some light here?

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-18-2018 02:39 PM

Does it indicate what country he's from?
And though it is one of my recurring nightmares, there was nothing difficult about keeping up with multiple rethreadings.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-18-2018 03:06 PM

He's from California. Here's what he wrote about the subject:

quote:
The theaters I’ve gone to all use continuous loop platter systems (It surprised me when I first saw this too). When a multiplex setup has one projectionist running 10 (or more) theaters (6 or 7 running 35mm films) there is no way to keep up threading and re-threading projectors all day every day. Continuous loop systems also increase the over all reliability of projection (limited human intervention and as you mentioned “venues where the same film would be exhibited thousands and thousands of times” implies higher reliability) so the customers have a much better experience.

I have a feeling he is confusing a regular platter system with a continuous one, but I'm still curious about how many continuous systems were actually used. I don't remember ever seeing anyone on Film-Tech talk about using one in a regular theater.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-18-2018 03:54 PM

There were several of the Potts and the Christie ELF endless loops systems installed but most had issues
The most sucessfull was the Cinemecanica Loop

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Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 10-18-2018 04:06 PM

Vey few endless loop setups but not or lack of trying. They only really worked well where you were showing the same feature for a long period of time. Museums, etc. I went to Photokina in the early '90's and every projector maker had one that year. It was hilarious to see how each company went at the task.

Kinoton was by far the fanciest, most precise unit, as if to force the film to behave. The Cinemeccanica was the sloppiest unit, even worse than the Potts, but it worked very well due to anti static brushes to calm the film static charge.

As we know the idea never caught on. It took some skill and time to make up and tear down the film. Once made up it was a nightmare to move to another screen.

Boy, good riddance.

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Matthew Ortado
Film Handler

Posts: 20
From: Halethorpe, MD, USA
Registered: Jan 2010

posted 10-18-2018 06:11 PM

Sam,
I think that the ORC endless loop had to be worse than the Potts.

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Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 10-18-2018 06:53 PM

Sounds like someone who never worked in a projection booth. When we had film I could thread all 5 of our projectors within about 10 minutes when necessary. I can't imagine a single person would have a problem running at 15-20 screen as long as they were dedicated to the projection room.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 10-18-2018 07:17 PM

In the heydays of film, it wasn't unusual to have one projectionist handle 15 or so screens. With "single booth" designs and a bit of planning, organization and a competent projectionist, that should be no issue at all.

Even back then, there was screen management software, often in-house systems that kept track of what was playing.

I've only ever seen continuous loop systems in museums and theme parks, where it makes sense. It's not like those systems don't come with their own mechanical challenges.

Back in the 90's I used to work for a cinema with 5 screens, due to the convoluted layout, it could take you up to 5 minutes to get from one side of the building to another. So, getting all screens set on-time on your own, could be quite the challenge. Even then, endless loop systems would only have limited use, because we quite often did schedule different movies per screen...

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 10-18-2018 07:45 PM

We had just one customer that had many loops in their complex. They had mostly Potts but an Elf (Christie) and a couple of ORCs that were resigned to normal platter use.

A key to them seemed to be watching temp and humidity. What did them in at that complex was polyester. The static build up made them just too unreliable.

Another issue with loops is the eventual mottling of the film as it has to rub a bit on itself.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-18-2018 08:59 PM

We experimented with the Potts endless loop when I did the work for Classic Cinemas in the mid 80's. It was a disaster with oily film and then they were mainly a second run chain, so the chances of getting an oily print were pretty high. So we pulled it out and reinstalled a regular platter at that location. After I left and they added some screens to certain sites that had been single screens... namely The York in Elmhurst and The Paramount in Kankakee. They used Christie Elfs in both these places with pretty good success, but these sites also were first run and the prints were not oily.

Museum of Science & Industry also had a Christie Elf in the Space Shuttle ride film exhibit, and it gave very little trouble.

Mark

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-19-2018 03:40 AM

quote: Justin Hamaker
I can't imagine a single person would have a problem running at 15-20 screen as long as they were dedicated to the projection room.

I ran the 17-screen booth at Tinseltown, here in Erie, from open till close, six days a week and I was often the only person in the booth. It's no problem at all if you know what you're doing.

When I was the service tech for Cinemark, there was a theater where the manager got canned and she knew it was coming so she told all the employees that, if she got fired, they would all be fired, too.

I got a phone call from the regional manager and was told to be at the theater by 8:00 a.m. (350 miles drive from my house.) The regional manager met me at the door and told me the whole story. By opening time only one or two employees showed up.

I ended up running a 20-screen booth, by myself, from open till close for a whole week. The booth was in a shambles so I had to make a lot of emergency repairs on top of the regular PMs that I was supposed to do. Furthermore, when the theater got busy, I occasionally went downstairs to help tear tickets, clean theaters or sell popcorn.

It was not a fun time but, as they say, "The show must go on." Right? [Wink]

Whoever this person on Quora is, he obviously doesn't know much about theaters. It is easily possible for a competent person to run a megaplex booth by himself!

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 10-19-2018 10:01 AM

I've never seen an endless loop platter in operation. I have been to MANY theaters. I have run up to 18 screens by myself. No problem at all.

Sounds like someone who's never been in a 35mm projection booth.

Mike, do you have a link so we can see the full conversation? I'm curious about the context.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-19-2018 12:14 PM

Here is a link to the original question... if you click on my answer, then you can read his answer to me and my reply to him. To me he seems like a guy who used to go to a lot of movies and he looked in the booth windows a lot, or maybe had a projectionist friend, and now is a typical theater-bashing TV watcher.

Quora link

Quora is really clunky - I get too irritated with it to spend much time reading it, but I do enjoy answering questions on it from time to time.

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Ken Lackner
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1907
From: Atlanta, GA, USA
Registered: Sep 2001

posted 10-19-2018 01:01 PM

I can only see the first line of your reply. When I click on it, it doesn't expand.

The way I read it, he is not actually talking about continuous loop platters. Loop is certainly not the correct term, since the head is not spliced to the tail to actually make a loop. But it seems he is simply referring to splicing all the reels together to make up one long print as opposed to running 2k reels in a changeover setup.

quote:
They usually come in 5 or 6 20 minute (really heavy) reels and get spliced together into one giant 90 or 120 minute pancake so no rewinding or swapping of projectors. Just one long continuous loop…

No rewinding or swapping of projectors (changeover) is certainly true when platters are used. He probably has no idea that there actually are (were?) continuous loop platters that are distinctly different from normal platters and that "continuous loop" is NOT the appropriate term here.

He doesn't seem to be bashing cinema too much (just a little it seems), and his description is mostly accurate. Except for the part where the hard drive shipping boxes are locked!

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 10-19-2018 01:38 PM

The first theatre I was General Manager of - the Springhill 4 in Springhill, Florida had 4 endless loop platter systems. This was 1991 through 1992.

Those things were a bad idea. When we ran JFK, we had to have an intermission and use the "Stacked" endless loop system. Rethread the movie each show.

What a nightmare. Never feared film after that though.

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