Cinema Product Reviews
Christie CA-21 Automation
Christie Incorporated and Pennywise Peripherals
Grade: F+
Reviewed January 2000 by Joe Redifer
NOTE: This product has been re-reviewed.
NOTE: This product has been re-reviewed.
Here is Christie's top of the line automation. This is as fancy as it gets. And it's pretty fancy, too. It will control your volume via remote fader, it will switch your lenses and masking, heck it'll even dim your lights! But this is no ordinary automation, goodness no. It can be programmed to do just about anything you would want it to do, such as stop and close the curtians for intermission, wait a preprogrammed amount of time and restart the movie again. You can have it so that it starts with the traditional "9 second delay" before it opens the changeover and switches the sound, or you can have it wait for the cue at the end of your 90 foot leader before it does all of that. The only thing it won't do is feed your cat and recognize the failsafes. Oh well. Those whacky yet lovable engineers at Christie and Pennywise thought that neglecting the failsafes would add to the overall fun and excitement that is the CA21 Automation. And it really does!
Whoever came up with the idea for this automation is a good person. Up to 16 different cues (sequence of events) can be programmed for a feature, and each cue can trigger 21 different events simultaneously. The changeover and switch from Non-Sync happen at exactly the same time, unlike UA/Kelmar's barcode automation where each relay takes it's own turn in sequence. Also unlike UA/Kelmar's automation, the CA21 knows to close the changeover when doing a lens change. Especially impressive is the remote fader. Simply place a cue on the film and when it passes the volume will adjust to a preset level. Finally you can play the trailers at a reasonable volume level without having to worry about turning it up for the feature. Volume increments are in sets of ".2's" so you can't play something at a volume level of 7.5. You'll have to settle for 7.4 or 7.6. A minor drawback. The timer/clock is in real time, albeit 24 hour time. If your movie starts at 11:35am just set the clock to 11:35 and press "GO". Your movie will start at 11:35am. If you must start a movie in the pm, you must translate from "people time" to 24 hour time. Occasionally a movie will start an hour early because the projectionist is too stupid to figure out 24 hour time. An option for "people time" would have been appreciated. On the picture above the volume is set at 7.2 and the time is 5:37pm, the show is running.
The cues themselves are fairly tiny. You can't see them at all in flat and only barey in scope. They are foil cues and go on the frame line across the film, and are about as long as the width of the frame itself, perhaps a bit shorter. It does not matter if you put the cue on the base or the emulsion side, it will work. In fact, the CA21 NEVER EVER misses a cue. Never. You can interlock a whole bunch of CA21's and it does not require the typical master/slave setup. When it works, it works well and is very flexible and easy to use and manipulate. It is by far the most flexible automation that I have used so far. The status panels on the wall around the building tell you if the movie is threaded, unthreaded, timer set or not, running in trailers, in feature, or in credits. The CA21 also has a bunch of little red lights and beeping noises that add to the fun and excitement.
So why an F+?
The CA21 does not properly execute the correct actions regarding what is happening with the failsafes. You can thread your movie and not engage your platter properly (or the take up platter fails), your movie will start at the programmed time, motor some leader onto the floor until the failsafes drop, the projector will shut off as one would expect. What's wrong with that? Well, it does not set off the alarm like any professional style automation would. Even the status panel shows that the movie is running fine. So there it sits for a good ten minutes until a customer complains that the movie hasn't started. This wreaks havoc in a giant 16-plex like mine with multiple booths. Is this my only gripe? Jumpin' Jesus NO! If the failsafes are down for any reason or the platter disengages before the failsafes activate at start, the CA21 will start and run the movie normally, only dumping all of the film ONTO THE FLOOR! The staus panel suggests everything is fine. You see, the failsafes are not always active. It takes several seconds after the movie starts for the automation to even look for them in the first place. Yes, the Christie CA21 will run your film regardless of what position the failsafes are in!
Even more fun is when all 16 projectors are up and running just fine, all of them in the feature. Since everything is going great, the projectionist is asleep at the desk or otherwise goofing off, as all projectionists do (just kidding everyone--don't flame me!) All of a sudden, you get a power surge or dropout. The platters stop and drop the failsafes since it takes the projectors a few seconds to spin to complete stop. Does this stop the CA21? Hell's bells no! The CA21 decides that the show must go on! It then restarts everything when the power comes back on and motors each and every film in the building ONTO THE FLOOR until the poor, lazy projectionist can run and stop them manually. Again, in a giant 16-plex with multiple booths, this can take quite a long time. That's a lot of film on the floor. Christie should be charged for any film damage. Whoever came up with the idea of the CA21 is a good person. Whoever engineered the thing makes Dan Quayle look like Albert Einstein's superior. Add to the fact that every single installed CA21 unit in North America has failed---every single one! I do not exaggerate in the least. This is fact. Every single one.
Inside each CA21 lies an EPROM chip, which tells the unit how to behave. A simple reprogramming of the EPROM would solve ALL of these problems, and the CA21 would be as good or better than anything out there (hence the F+ and not an F-). All it needs to do is learn what to do when the failsafes are down. So why not just e-mail Christie and have them send out a new EPROM with the fixes? I did that, and Christie says that "Pennywise controls the source code, changes to the software must come from them." This tells me that Christie does not support this product. Not at all. Sure, they'll sell it to you, but forget it after that. Unfortunately, Pennywise does not support this product, either. They will not issue a new EPROM. They keep saying that they will, but they really aren't doing anything. This says volumes for the tech support at Christie and especially Pennywise. How long have I been bugging Christie and Pennywise about this? At least 5 months now, maybe longer. This makes the CA21 a waste of time and money. Christie and Pennywise are literally ripping you off for what they charge for this thing. What does "CA21" stand for? The "CA" stands for Crappy Automation. The "21"? That's the number of months you must wait to get your unit fixed.
Bottom Line: Avoid the CA21 at all costs.
NOTE: This product has been re-reviewed.