Things I Never Knew About BARCO

[Jim Cassedy]

As you know from some of my recent posts, my venue has been completely Barco-ized.
Since, for better or worse, I probably spend more time around my equipment than with
my family or friends, I feel should know as much as possible about it, and I've recently
discovered a few things I never knew about BARCO.

For example, I learned BARCO is an acronym for "Belgian-American Radio Company",
and they've been around since the early 1930's, and began, not surprisingly, making
radios, everything from cheap tabletop models, to expensive consoles. Most of them
had MW and SW bands, as was common in radios for the European market.

A BARCO Radio From The Late 1930's (Note Logo On The Speaker Grille)
BarcoRadio_1.jpg
In the late 1940's, they branched out into television. When I worked in professional TV
production and editing for several years, I recall we had several rack mounted professional
BARCO color-critical monitors that were used for QC and air-checking.

An early BARCO Television (appx 1949)
BARCO_TV-Orig.jpg

My favorite BARCO product would have to be this combination coin operated radio
and juke box from the 1950's, that they called the "BARC-O-MATIC"
BarcoMatic_1.jpg

I'm really tempted to 3-D print several of these logos and stick them on our BARCO projectors!
BarcoMatic_2.jpg

Lucien DePuydt-
The Founder Of Barco
BARCOLucienDePuydt.jpg

> photo credit: various internet sources

[Frank Angel]

Thanks for that Jim; really some fun info. I'm printing out pics of that BarcOMatic Jukebox (freaking AWESOME!!) and putting them up in the projection booths of our two screening rooms, next to the two BARCOS. It says something about a company that can hang on for just shy of a full century! If you do decide to 3D print that BarcOMatic logo, I'll be in line to buy two, if you feel like selling some!

[Ryan Gallagher]

Thanks for that Jim; really some fun info. I'm printing out pics of that BarcOMatic Jukebox (freaking AWESOME!!) and putting them up in the projection booths of our two screening rooms, next to the two BARCOS. It says something about a company that can hang on for just shy of a full century! If you do decide to 3D print that BarcOMatic logo, I'll be in line to buy two, if you feel like selling some!

I had the same thoughts regarding the BarcOMatic, re-produce that plate branding graphic and slap it on your projector. (Just don't cover any exhaust intakes). ;-)

Or just make a sticker and put in on whatever device does walkin music (if you are lucky enough to have some).

[Leo Enticknap]

There are two cities called Barco in Portugal, a Lake Barco in Florida, and an unincorporated community by that name in North Carolina!

The Barco that we're interested in is a very big player in the medical imaging sector. Many of the physicians in my family had heard of them, thanks to their line of specialist monitors for viewing x-rays, ultrasound images, endoscope footage, and that sort of thing.

[Ryan Gallagher]

There are two cities called Barco in Portugal, a Lake Barco in Florida, and an unincorporated community by that name in North Carolina!

The Barco that we're interested in is a very big player in the medical imaging sector. Many of the physicians in my family had heard of them, thanks to their line of specialist monitors for viewing x-rays, ultrasound images, endoscope footage, and that sort of thing.

Yep, a Barco saved search in ebay is “mostly” medical imaging stuff. ;-)

[Marcel Birgelen]

My dad worked in Air Traffic Control, all of the screens in the OPS room also were special Barco LCD screens with an 1:1 aspect ratio. Before the LCD screens, the screens still were special SONY Triniton CRT screens that needed a few days to calibrate. Before that generation, it was back to the old monochrome CRT screens. If I remember correctly, those were actual vector screens rather than raster-based screens.

I've seen some BARCO branded CRT TVs over the years, most of them broadcast monitors. It seems they were quite popular for that purpose around here in the CRT-era.

Also, Barco was a major supplier of CRT projectors, back in the day. Their Barco Reality projectors were pretty much the best thing you could get on the market, alongside a few Sony models and some Electrohome Marquee models. I still remember calibrating edge-blended Barco 909 CRT projectors. Converging them was kind of a black art, something like a ritual, at least if you wanted to get it as close to perfect as possible. I still miss the film-like image of those CRT projectors, alongside the perfect black.

[Marco Giustini]

Barco CRT projectors were the pinnacle of that type of projectors.

The BarcoReality 909 was just the best of the best with all the best you could desire from a CRT projector: I'm going by memory but I remember Electromagnetic focus, Scheimpflug, liquid coupled CRTs, 9" CRTs! They were sold at stupid prices well into the Digital world. They were ore than 100Kg and would take forever to adjust. The peak brightness was poor but contrast ratio was very high if properly installed.
There were a few aftermarket add-on boards to allow HDMI directly into them - HDMI wasn't a thing when they were designed!

When I started working with Barco DCI projectors, I had already heard of Scheimpflug from the CRT projectors - my Sony didn't have it and some mods were attempted to add it to the lenses!

[Leo Enticknap]

It seems they were quite popular for that purpose around here in the CRT-era.

If I read the Google map correctly, Maastricht and Kortrijk (Barco Central) are only about 100 miles apart, so that figures.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Barco CRT projectors were the pinnacle of that type of projectors.

The BarcoReality 909 was just the best of the best with all the best you could desire from a CRT projector: I'm going by memory but I remember Electromagnetic focus, Scheimpflug, liquid coupled CRTs, 9" CRTs! They were sold at stupid prices well into the Digital world. They were ore than 100Kg and would take forever to adjust. The peak brightness was poor but contrast ratio was very high if properly installed.
There were a few aftermarket add-on boards to allow HDMI directly into them - HDMI wasn't a thing when they were designed!

When I started working with Barco DCI projectors, I had already heard of Scheimpflug from the CRT projectors - my Sony didn't have it and some mods were attempted to add it to the lenses!

That's right, even the Sony G90 didn't have Scheimpflug adjustments, which limited the angles at which you could mount it.

I remember quite a few of those projectors, which were being phased out by the industry, ending up in home theater enthousiasts hands, where they indeed received upgrades like HDMI interface cards. I think I still have a dead one one lying around for a Barco 909, somewhere. I did a demo back in 2011, where we stitched four Barco 909's together on a scope screen, to prove that you could both have a digital source and perfect blacks. I used those HDMI boards from Curt Palme (a pretty well known name in the CRT projector revival scene back then) for that purpose. I still think that that presentation beat most of anything I've seen coming out of a DLP projector since this very day... Yeah, I really like my blacks being black and not 49 shades of grey...

If I read the Google map correctly, Maastricht and Kortrijk (Barco Central) are only about 100 miles apart, so that figures.

Next time you're in this neck of the woods, you should give Maastricht a try instead of Amsterdam. Quite a few people seem to say that it's worth it.

But yes, Barco used to be more common around here in the past. I don't really know it as a prevalent consumer brand though, it seems like they quit that market quite early. Compare that to a former juggernaut like Philips. Eindhoven (Philips' origin) is really just around the corner, as is Hasselt in Belgium (former important research lab for Philips).

But Barco is still around and going strong as a professional consumer brand in their specific niches. Barco's involvement in cinema was in no small part motivated by the Belgian Kinepolis chain, which was also used as testbed for their early digital products, like the DP60 and later the DP100.

Meanwhile, Philips has been torn to pieces and besides their failing medical business, is just an IP company that licenses their name to other OEM manufacturers. Philips strategy of the last 25 or so years has been nothing but braindead... It has been shedding off units that then became profitable companies of their own. ASML (wafer steppers), NXP (semiconductors), Signify (LEDs)... Each of those companies is now bigger than Philips themselves.

[Marco Giustini]

ahah I used to follow Curt's forum a lot. I also got a box of spares for my Sony once, he circulated it through Europe, each customer would ship to the next and use what was needed (for a fee of course).
I tried my best to acquire a G70 but never made it. Once I moved to digital projection (DILA, JVC) it was difficult to stick with a washing machine weighing 100Kg and requiring constant adjustment bolted just over my head!