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SMPTE has released a huge projection manual. Has anyone bought it or seen it? What do you think of it? At 89.00 is it something the booth can use?

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com

I've heard that it's not anything as good as the old manual. The new one just reprints stuff from the British manuals.

Is the "old manual" a SMPTE product? I have never even seen a manual so anything would always be better than nothing. Does anyone else have a manual? We had to learn almost everything on our own. With a lot of help from Boston Light and Sound of course!

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Mike Hurley
www.bigscreenbiz.com

I have a Theatre Presentation Manual from SMPTE but it was a reprint from the 1950's and covers mostly carbon arc and the upcoming new xenon technology. Its shows lobbys and suditoriums and has standards and reccomended practices but it is mostly outdated. i got it five or so years ago and found that it had never been updated since the 50's

I also have an SMPTE manual. It was published in the mid 60s and has some information on xenon and automation systems. I find it interesting that it explains how important curtains are in front of the screen, not just for appearance, but for protecting the screen from dust kicked up during cleaning, as well as other more obvious reasons. It is a great manual even though it doesn't cover the new technologies.

I also have a loose leaf manual put out by UA theatres in the early 70s that covers platters, sound systems etc. of that era as well as everything else in a theatre.

I would be interested in seeing what position the SMPTE has taken in the new manual on many issues that previously they held as highly important to professional theatre operations, but are almost never carried through today.

[This message has been edited by RoxyVaudeville (edited June 12, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by RoxyVaudeville (edited June 12, 2001).]

Here's a link to purchase SMPTE publications and standards:
http://smpte.org/smpte_store/

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
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The current SMPTE manual is in two parts the first half of the book is a reprint of the BKSTS manual from great britain and deals in great detail with film handeling from lab to screen. It also deals with elevators, HVAC boilers etc as they are the legal obligation for maintance of UK projectionists.
The second half is articles from American sources on lens sound etc.
It is well worth the trouble to read