I thought some of you might like to see this projector, a Royale 150. Perhaps some of you even used one. It was designed and manufactured by Colin Balls FRPS who got interested in AV in the late 1960s while working for the automotive conglomerate, British Leyland. He later went into business making the Royales which in the early 1980s sold for £1500, a cool £5200 today. They were mostly bought by institutions but also wealthy amateurs who toured the camera club competition circuits projecting Diaporamas.
The unit is hand assembled with some bespoke parts alongside existing equipment. I do wonder if the chassis of this isn’t a couple of Kindermann or Reflecta projectors strapped together. The 150 was the top of the range model which comes with a Pioneer car cassette deck that allows for slide-tape projection and an Imatronic hand dissolve which also looks hand made. Additional speakers were available.
These units came to market at a time when professional multi-image shows were becoming very complex and both amateurs and artists were seeing potential in this medium. In Colin Ball’s book The A to V of Slide-Tape there’s a nice glimpse of his thinking as he worked toward the Royale in the late ‘70s. The unit offered a lightweight, portable, and easy to set up option that differentiated itself from the Kodak S-AV options. Colin Balls is still active in AV, but today the medium is totally dominated by video file playback, it seems the growth in all things film has not reached the AV world.
The example I have here is not working well, the top deck transports the slides fine, but the bottom deck will not move. The bottom fan is also sluggish and bottom controls don’t respond at all – maybe that slow fan is a clue to the underlying problem. It’s also got fungus in both lenses (which seem surprisingly cheap). The Imatronic works fine and it’s nice to imagine the potential of this unit which is much quieter than my Ektapros. Unsure how to get the cassette deck working. I’m not sure if I have the time and energy to put into making this work or finding another. We’ll see.
The unit is hand assembled with some bespoke parts alongside existing equipment. I do wonder if the chassis of this isn’t a couple of Kindermann or Reflecta projectors strapped together. The 150 was the top of the range model which comes with a Pioneer car cassette deck that allows for slide-tape projection and an Imatronic hand dissolve which also looks hand made. Additional speakers were available.
These units came to market at a time when professional multi-image shows were becoming very complex and both amateurs and artists were seeing potential in this medium. In Colin Ball’s book The A to V of Slide-Tape there’s a nice glimpse of his thinking as he worked toward the Royale in the late ‘70s. The unit offered a lightweight, portable, and easy to set up option that differentiated itself from the Kodak S-AV options. Colin Balls is still active in AV, but today the medium is totally dominated by video file playback, it seems the growth in all things film has not reached the AV world.
The example I have here is not working well, the top deck transports the slides fine, but the bottom deck will not move. The bottom fan is also sluggish and bottom controls don’t respond at all – maybe that slow fan is a clue to the underlying problem. It’s also got fungus in both lenses (which seem surprisingly cheap). The Imatronic works fine and it’s nice to imagine the potential of this unit which is much quieter than my Ektapros. Unsure how to get the cassette deck working. I’m not sure if I have the time and energy to put into making this work or finding another. We’ll see.
