Graham Lodge, 
Managing Director, Sound Associates

CinemaCon News:

Laser Projectors - The New Black

Image courtesy of Barco

The cinema world should be full of lasers if we are to believe the recent announcements from the DCinema projector manufacturers. Big ones, little ones and maybe even ones with bells on them!

The benefits of lasers are clear to see (pardon the pun!):
• bright pictures (especially for 3D),
• better colour space,
• black is truly BLACK
• no xenon lamps to change
and the economics of adopting lasers is starting to look better and better as each month passes. But these are cost savings based on a 10+ year life span of the equipment.

Cinemeccanica are offering a kit that allows a laser to be retrofitted to any existing DLP projector and Barco will be offering Laser retrofit kits to their current ‘C’ and ‘B’ series projectors – so Lasers will be available to existing customers without them having to buy new projectors.

Still, in these days of low inflation and lower interest rates maybe there are finance institutions out there that are now more willing to look at financing a laser projector over 10 years with the promise of lower operating costs, less maintenance and none of those pesky xenon lamps that need technically minded people to change them on a regular basis – time will tell!

Mark and I also had the honour of seeing the first public demonstration of Dolby Cinema at the Coliseum theatre in Las Vegas during CinemaCon. They showed the great new Disney / Pixar film, ‘Inside Out’ using Twin Lasers offering a ‘million to 1’ contrast ratio which gave a truly outstanding picture quality alongside Dolby Atmos sound.

There were also launches for new immersive audio systems at CinemaCon, DTS:X and Barco’s AuroMax – both designed to use the newly proposed ‘open standard’ for multi-channel immersive audio systems that are currently being discussed and should be agreed sometime before the end of 2015.

It will be a fascinating few days at the end of June when another CineEurope conference kicks off in Barcelona. If you are out there then I hope to see many of you and catch up on all that is new in the world of Digital Cinema but as always, if you can’t make it to Barcelona but have questions you want answering or investigating on your behalf, then please let me know and we will do our best to answer them either before, during or after the show. Click here to send us an email.

Automation Building blocks

The engineers at Sound Associates have used their extensive knowledge of cinema equipment together with their vast experience of installations and repairs to design and manufacture cutting edge automation systems that tie together servers and sound systems.

First used in Sheffield Curzon and recently in Home, Manchester, these systems, which to the untrained eye look as if they are made up of Lego blocks, are having an impact on the way we work at every level. They can either be part of the initial design and installation of a digital cinema system, or they can easily be retro fitted.

These plug and play blocks are smaller than their larger, more cumbersome predecessors, but it is the ease of use that is most exciting. Each accessible block enables easier and faster diagnosis of problems but also allows for bespoke requirements to be fulfilled.

In addition to the many functions, the automation features a dedicated Fire Alarm input which can automatically mute the sound system, turn off the lamp in the projector and raise the auditorium lights.

We are very excited by this evolving system and Senior Engineer, Will Phillips, who builds the units, is keen to emphasise that using them makes onsite wiring faster, and their clear functionality and ease of use help engineers meet installation deadlines.

The automation blocks can be used with any system, so far they have been used with Datasat AP20s, Sony, Dolby and Doremi IMS servers. They come with 8 outputs but could be expanded to 12 or even 16. This is a product that can be adapted to suit the specific needs of a cinema, from the initial design stage or added retrospectively. Full schematics are always provided to the client which go hand in hand with instructions written on the board itself.

“After an interesting installation it was good to see the grand opening of Home, Manchester at the end of May was so successful. With the fireworks came a great sense of excitement around this new Arts Hub.

Each of the five screens brought unique challenges with state of the art digital projectors and sound systems from Sony, QSC and Datasat (see article above). This is a project Manchester is proud of and we wish them every success and look forward to maintaining their cinema equipment.”

Derek Soden, Project Manager

“Over the last few months the engineering team have been very busy, with a great number of sites to open in such a short time frame, and it fills me with great pride to say that due to careful planning and dedication from the installation teams, and sheer hard work we managed to fulfil our customers’ requirements and achieved every screen opening on time.”

Steve Case, Engineering Manager