multi slide projector dissolve shows

Hi

back in the late 80's I worked in AV and around many AV shows which made use of multiple Kodak carousels. Some of these were quite extensive involving dozens of projectors.

I was discussing this with a fellow the other day who was the same age as me but was surprised to learn he'd never seen them or heard of the concept.

I realize that I never took a single picture of the rigs I worked on and started hunting round the net for some.

nothing

anyone else out there ever had experience on this and have any photo's of the setups?

A two projector setup had one above other usually, and a dissolve unit. Some dissolve units were automatic, others manual. As I recall, some auto dissolve units could work off an inaudible signal on a recorded sound track.

Saw a great setup like that at a Great American Photo Weekend workshop, Bill Fortney I think was the guy that set it all up. Has since moved on to other things, but he would be the contact I would try to make. Seems like he 4-8 units and drove them all through a seperate device. He used to offer workshops on setting up a slideshow. Sorry, don't have a link for him, might google the name(think that is the correct spelling) - Bill is a great guy.

I used to oversee that type of presentation in Yosemite. We favored two projector shows with lapse dissolve, typically four-seconds between images. Unlike our counterparts at NPS, which had prerecorded programs, most of our presenters cued the presentations live, and delivered the audio portion live as well.

The projector stands were made by Chief, and could be stacked three high (anything higher was scary). Pretty sophisticated. Target slides were used to get the images from the various projectors to line up. To assemble a prerecorded program, one cassette played the music track into one channel, and the electronic cue to advance and dissolve rate was recorded on a second channel.

There were many manufacturers of dissolve equipment, some which were self contained projectors and dissolves. There were two of the all-in-one units in our stable, but they were troublesome.

We used separate projectors, dissolves, and a mixing board to control music and audio levels.

The most sophisticated show I ever saw was an eight-projector programmed show in Ouray, Colorado that was put together by the mayor at the time--some guy named CW Mcall, as in the hit song "Convoy" and the musical group Manheim Steamroller!

Kodak made the Ektagraphic projectors and lapse dissolve units we used (since we needed to be compatible with NPS). I've still got my own dissolve unit, manufactured by ARION.

The photo club I've been attending recently has a few people in it that are really enamoured of specialized software ("ProShow") that is used to prepare digital versions of slide shows. Whenever I see one, I'm in danger of having flashbacks - and they involve Ektagraphics, dissolve units, and stereo cassette recorder/players designed to record music and/or narration on one track, and specialized timing beeps on the other.

Warning - the software makes it way too easy to prepare shows involving hundreds of digital images, a huge number of different fade effects, and really cheesy music.

I will admit, however, that there are at least some people who are really good at putting these together.

I have a couple of projectors and a dissolve unit and they are just great. I wish the days of film based projection being popular were still here. It's great.

Ok

well at the Canada pavilion in Expo 88 there was something like 50 projectors for the show.

why didn't I photograph more back then?

That's pretty awesome! I have seen some photographs of large set-ups in my travels. They may have even been in some of the paper work that came with my Ektagraphic. I'll check it out when I get a chance.

Around 1980 I saw a show presented by Shell Oil which (if I remember correctly) had ten screens and therefore twenty projectors. It was all synchronised to an audio music and speech track and the projectors showed single images, one image over all the screens and a combination of single and multiple screen images.

I was impressed by it then and I think I would be today.


Steve.

In the 70's and 80's, when I was writing for a living, I often did multiple projector slide shows for corporate clients. They were complex with upwards of 12 computer controlled projectors, tape recorders and somtimes video. Fun to do, and the results were often spectacular.
Photo club members here in town used to do a lot of 2 projector slide shows - now of course they're all digital.
Morry Katz, Lethbridge, Alberta

In the late 80`s I worked for a company in soho London , we made animations for an 18 projector rig it could run at about 6 frames per second , if my memory serves me right. The projectors were computer controlled and when you hit the button it was very very noisy. One time i took the 18 carousels to a facilities house who loaded them up on a different 18 projector rig. The rig was circular and the projectors were all pointing to the centre where there was a series of lenses which bounced the pictures in correct numerical order onto a sensor. This stream of images was then transferred to a video disk. which was used to project the images with none of the loud mechanical distractions. This is the only time i have used this system it was superseded by the ubiquitous PowerPoint. I did not enjoy mounting the hundreds of slides and loading them up onto carousels.

Ektagraphic said:

I have a couple of projectors and a dissolve unit and they are just great. I wish the days of film based projection being popular were still here. It's great.

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Hi guys.

I have the possibility to buy a - kodak s-av programmable dissolve control.
I have one projector Kodak Carrossel S-AV 1010 and one Kodak Ektalite 2000, does anyone knows if there is possibel to syncronize this two projectors with this dissolve unit?

Thank your for your help.