The Exhibitor (Nov 1939-May 1940)

BM-5 PERFECT SOUND and SIGHT COMPILED AND PRESENTED BY THE EDITORS OF BETTER MANAGEMENT When the complete record of the industry is written, 1939 will be known as the year of mechanical refinements, when more than one company made its bid for fame (and profits) by introducing new designs, new ideas and new devices which would help the modern theatreowner to maintain a record of as perfect sound and sight as possible. Much has been written in the past of these new developments, but for the sake of the record, let’s take a look at what has happened, taking as our source of information actual accomplishments as recorded in the news columns as well as from authenticated publicity handouts of the companies, themselves. Following the revolutionary E-7 Projector and Four-Star sound presented in 1938 from the International Projector Corporation early in the year, came announcement of a new mechanism, the Simplex SI, designed, manufactured, and priced to supply, according to the company, a definite demand for motion-picture equipment which will provide better sound and visual projection for theatres with a seating capacity ranging from 200800 seats. The new Simplex SI Mechanism has many of the latest and most modern improvements, such as front and rear shutters, semi-centralized lubrication, air deflector and aperture cooling unit, sprocket strippers of the non-wrap-around type, fire shutter safety-trip of advance design, and also has many Simplex advantages which, in long practical use, have proved definitely valuable aids to the theatre owner and projectionist in improving sound and visual projection and reducing maintenance costs. Two items of standard Simplex E-7 projector equipment — the Simplex double shutter attachment and the Simplex air deflector and aperture cooling unit — were later put on the market to be sold as separate items for Super-Simplex mechanisms. During the year, the RCA Manufacturing Company, Inc., makers of RCA Photophone, brought out a new series of sound reproducer systems, headlined by its stabilizer to which has been added the shock-proof drive, and the following advantages: (1) readily adaptible to push pull recording, (2) high-frequency cellular speakers, (3) large size, low frequency speakers, (4) emergency stand-by, (5) tube testing meter, (6) pre focused exciter lamps, (7) frontwall volume control, (8) accessibility, (9) simplified inner apparatus oiling, (10) economical operation, (11) low-cost maintenance, liberal service, and (12) easy payment plan. Considering the question of securing and guaranting a uniformly constant speed, which has long been the problem of sound engineers, the Weber Machine Corporation engineers claim not only to have solved this problem but to have secured the constant speed desired by means of a new magnetic filter with ap Decemher 20, 1939 proximately 40 pounds of flywheel balance. All of the starting load or shock has been eliminated. The film starts gently and maintains as nearly perfect uniform motion as it is humanly possible. One of the developments of the year occurred at the recent meeting of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers when a new type of projector was described. F. Ehrenhaft and F. G. Back, New York engineers, claim to have designed a projector wherein the optical compensation is effected by means of a rotating glass prism to eliminate the intermittent-action mechanism. The problem, the speakers said, was originally attacked from the view point that, by eliminating the errors inherent in the rotating glass prism, a projector could be designed which would be both simple and practical. The dimensions of the rotating prism and its optical placement result from basic optical laws, and the arrangement depends on the size of the image and on the materials. Errors inherent in the rotating glass prism were eliminated, it is said, by (1) limitation of the effective rotation angle, use of a curved gate, establishing the tolerable limits of film shrinkage; (2) calculating the size and displacement of the color at the extreme position of the prism; (3) use of special lenses or additional lenses corrected for glass instead of air, compensation by a curved gate; (4) slipshaped diaphragms; (5) use of diverse diaphragms; (6) use of special lenses or additional lenses; (7) diaphragms for the THE EXHIBITOR condenser and screening off the edges of the rotating prism. Much could also be said of the new Wenzel projector head, with forced oil feed; the Century projector, to be introduced by the Sam Kaplan organization next Spring; the Brenkert projector head, with splash oil feed unit, with RCA sound, among others. Noteworthy, too, was the arrival in this country, via the World’s Fair, of the Phillips projector, used in the Belgian exhibit. Those who have had the privilege of investigating its claim state that here, indeed, may be a revolutionary development in the field of projection if wide enough distribution is given. Projection lamps, also, have come in for their share of progress during the year. The Strong Mogul High-Intensity Automatic Reflector arc lamp, demonstrated by independent theatre supply dealers and manufactured by the Strong Electric Corporation marks a distinct advance in projection arc lamp design and construction. The company also states that it has been designed to project a volume of light even beyond the normal requirements of theatres employing the modern large screens of non -reflective surface and porous structure, screens that require a tremendous increase in light value to maintain a satisfactory level of illumination. The higher efficiencies attained through the use of the Mogul result in this increased light intensity without a corresponding increase in operating costs. In