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Any theaters out there have these in there booth?

I have Century, Christie, Simplex. No Kinoton.

The Pacific's Cinerama Dome & Arclight complex in Hollywood, CA. has Kinotons. I have the Magna-Tech upgraded FP-20s in my booth.

[This message has been edited by Avco (edited October 08, 2007).]

I looked into Kinoton and had myself posted this about ayear ago. My answers that I had got that no one used them and that they were an overseas operation.
It was risky to deal with them. I thought they looked good casue of the models that were all in one. That would fit well in a small booth and leave a lot of room and not take up the whole booth with a seprate platter.

If anyone's in the market, it might be a good time to investigate this again. Comments on other boards are fairly positive about Kinoton... one such observation being a rock-solid image.

We have a few of them in the Seattle area. One I've seen is at the Seattle Cinerama Theatre. I don't know the screen size, but it's on the huge side. We watched several trade screenings there, and I was impressed with the quality of the picture.

If parts are now easily available, the brand might be worth looking into.

Went to see them but you cant get a price out of them .STRANGE......

I have three PK 60 kinotons in Farmington with super lumex lamps. At the Strand I have kinoton fp35's complete setups.
These are a German projector sold through Kinoton of America(Boston Light and Sound) Considered by many in the industry to have the best picture quality of any projector I like these projectors though they are pricey. A bit tempramental though as long as you replace the skate and other plastic parts regularly you can get a good solid picture. The basement digital reader is by far the best in the industry. Talk to John Galucci at Kinoton of America for more info.

I have one new PK60D with SRD sound reader and manual turret. It is running a rental show over thanksgiving, and then it could be for sale. As John says, they put on a super image that looks better focused, because they're so rock steady. But you;ve got to put up with wearing delrin gates, and expensive parts. They're also very persnickity, and need a real projectionist to keep them running perfectly. If everybody had good running Kinoton projectors, D-Cinema wouldn't be as impressive as it appears.

I have never found kinoton to be very fussy about operators
In fact I had FP20 that I serviced for years that were run by ushers in a 6plex and other than once a year chnageing the skate they required little work
The parts were not that expensive
If one were to kill the intermitent then that would be a different story

There are 5 main "novice" errors that I have encountered in the 40 screens equipped with Kinoton equipment that we directly service.
1. Since the skate and runners are delrin and nylon, and wear progressively, novice operators aren't aware when the skate needs slight adjustment in tension or height to maintain classic "Kinoton" stability. Lack of qualified operator, means the service company needs to be on site quarterly to keep this up. Worse, if the skate gets replaced by a notice operator, they might not reset the tension/height, and ultimately ruin the part in record time.
2. Gate temperture is critical given the low melting temp of the runners/skates. During a lamp change, it is important to focus the lamp carefully to avoid melted parts.
3. A misthread in the gate, that results in a lost lower loop can literally pull the loop stabilization roller pair into the skate, pushing it upward to the sprocket. If left unnoticed by a novice operator, rapid wear of the skate occurs.
4. Rough handling of the oil fill tube of the intermittent results in a small fracture of the tube where it is glued to the threaded base. This results in a slow leak that "appears to be seal failure" of the movement. ..and a big oily mess.
5. Novice operators, who thread out of frame frequently, operate the framing knob that slides the framing bushing on the shaft splines, and thereby shortening the lifespan of the bushing.

Any theatre that can maintain a projectionist for a reasonable length of time, and can learn the idiosyncrities of the Kinoton projector, will not have these issues. However, for the theatre that employs a round door policy of short tenure operators with diminishing knowledge passed from hand to hand, Kinoton equipment is not the best choice. In all likelihood, this same theatre would have low regard for screen image quality, and wouldn't consider the extra dough to purchase Kinoton in the first place.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Narrow Gauge:
<B> I have three PK 60 kinotons in Farmington with super lumex lamps. At the Strand I have kinoton fp35's complete setups.
These are a German projector sold through Kinoton of America(Boston Light and Sound) Considered by many in the industry to have the best picture quality of any projector I like these projectors though they are pricey. A bit tempramental though as long as you replace the skate and other plastic parts regularly you can get a good solid picture. The basement digital reader is by far the best in the industry. Talk to John Galucci at Kinoton of America for more info.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As a patron (gas prices make my patronage more occasional of late than I would prefer) I can testify to the superior image stability at the Narrow Gauge. Whether the screens I patronized were the ones equipped with Kinotons I can only speculate. The Regals I visit are invariably afflicted with judder of varying severity, even the state-of-the-art, all-stadium 15-plex I visited last month in Newington, NH. Christie, I presume...

Regal has an ongoing agreement with Ballantyne for their Strong consoles. They're basically the latest incarnation of the XL projector. I've seen those things run rock-solid. I've also seen them jump all over the place. Every Ballantyne (VIP) I've ever seen (or worked on) had Parkinson's, to one degree or another.

The Seattle Cinerama (read; HUGE screen) has a Kinoton, and the pictures there look like they were painted on the screen.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rodeojack:
Regal has an ongoing agreement with Ballantyne for their Strong consoles. They're basically the latest incarnation of the XL projector.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I stand corrected, then. They use Christie projectors for their digital pre-show, however, right? When I did my unguided tour of the Regal in Newington, NH the single digital screen (a smallish auditorium showing Beowulf in 3D - $2.50 ticket surcharge) was equipped with a NEC projector like the (New England) Cinemagic chain uses.

Yes they do. I always thought that when they decided to roll out digital cinema, it would look something like that. They made their decision and got it done in pretty short time. That the big chains haven't yet done so, in spite of the manufacturers' (and studios') best efforts is the stuff that a lot of these conversations revolve around.

As for Regal's projectors: You will find other brands in their booths, but that's mostly where they've bought operating theatres from other companies.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rodeojack:
As for Regal's projectors: You will find other brands in their booths, but that's mostly where they've bought operating theatres from other companies.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Regal's theatres in my area are all ex-Hoyts, with the qualified exception of Falmouth 10 which opened as a Flagship (and it shows) then was acquired by Hoyts.