AIRBORNE MOVIES WITHOUT VIDEO (May, 1967)
AIRBORNE MOVIES WITHOUT VIDEO
Airlines have been showing movies on jet flights for some time. The first system used a single projector and a single screen (like a conventional theater). But it was hard for some passengers to see the screen, so a video system was tried. The film was projected into a Vidicon pickup tube (like a TV station does) and the image displayed on several picture monitors scattered around the cabin. These monitors, through a master receiver, could also pick up off-the-air TV.
Now comes a nonvideo, multiple-screen movie technique for air travelers. American Airlines has begun using Astrocolor (developed by Bell & Howell) on their 707 Astrojets. A number of viewing screens are placed around the cabin, each illuminated by its own projector. Film is shuttled from the supply reel (in the cockpit) through a special channel from one projector to the next, and finally back to the takeup reel (also in the cockpit). Each screen serves only a few passengers, who are close enough to see the images clearly.
A separate sound head is used at each projector, and audio is fed to earphones at each seat. There’s a 5-min-ute lag between the first and last screens on the loop.
Advice to air travelers: Get a seat near the supply-reel side; if you miss some action, you can step across the aisle and catch the repeat.
It must have been a major job threading a spool of film all the way round a 707′s cabin from one projector to another. I hate to think about fixing the mess if the film broke.
I would guess 6 minutes of leader (heavy duty plastic shaped like film) and
a ‘Is the film moving? Is the film present?’ sensor at each projector.
Didn’t/Don’t motion picture theaters do this for popular films?
Run the same film from projector to projector?
Usually, the film was in a cassette for the airline projector (otherwise could you imagine threading that projector?.) Granted, Bell and Howell did have self threading 16 mm projectors available at that time.
Jay: Some do, but some distribution contracts specifically prohibit it.
My current favorite cinema is all digital, or so they claim. I haven’t been in a projection booth for decades – they’re probably much duller places than they used to be. (I have a distinct memory of a manual rewind of reel one of “The Deep” getting away from me while I was watching the t-shirt in the second reel.)
Checking Wikipedia, looks like most theatres have gone to or are in the process of converting to all-digital projectors.
If it is digital… can you call it film?
Video is an electronic process, film is a chemical process.
Mike: I’m sure that falls in the same category of calling a plastic tumbler a “glass”.
Can I still call music disks “albums” even though they don’t come in big books with multiple 10″ “78s” in them? Can I still “dial” a phone?
Toronto: If you’re asking my permission, it’s most graciously granted.
All kidding aside I still refer to the act of entering numbers into my cell phone as “dialing a number”.
Put another way, my internet provider offers DSL and “dial up” although I’m sure there’s no wee person using a rotary dial in the modem.