It's cool to see that people are still interested in this media, and trying to fix a number of problems. There are a couple things about this proposal that are admirable, such as switching to dimmable LEDs and open-source/3D printable parts.
I also liked the bit about not trying to reinvent the wheel ("We believe that especially the central mechanical elements of the old projectors – claw mechanism, shutter wheel and film transport - are in most cases so well engineered that a new development here would be a waste of time and energy.") But what follows is an extensive list of new specs that would make the project vastly more complex.
16mm/35mm is already fading, with a finite population of prints that dwindles every year as film deteriorates or reels are lost/destroyed. Some of the technical features ("Manual vario-speed from < 1 to 30 FPS") are a niche within a niche. Really, how many artists or experimental studios are there who want to play back a 16mm print at .75 FPS? Who would watch them?
This project would be far more realistic if such features were scaled back and the focus was on getting a bare-bones, open source projector that works with 16mm optical film (the majority of existing stock) as well as some of the low-hanging fruit on the list. I think is doable. Low cost, simple plastic film projectors were once a thing with another type of film (Super 8, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_8_film)
If hard stuff is added to the list, at least focus on practicality for a wider range of people, such as a tool to safely evaluate print quality before playback at normal speeds or some sort of print cleaning mechanism for reels that have been sitting in someone's basement for 30 years.
They are still publishing films in 35mm and at least in popular US cities the format has a following. For example in 2021, Last Night In Soho was printed in 35mm. To be fair the 35mm print was only exhibited in some select locations and only for special screenings. But then we also have 70mm IMAX that despite only has X number of screens left, still manages to attracts sold out screenings for weeks whenever a film (Like Oppenheimer) appears. I also spoke to the people running the Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, NJ (They screen 16mm, 35mm and 70mm and they promote Fort Lee as the birthplace of the American Motion Picture Industry). They told me that you can order up thousands of different 35mm films from studio's storage centers (I think there are only two left in the country) and the main issue is delivery costs make it usually not worth it to screen most films.
I am closer to middle age but I have met a lot of youngins who are die hard film people.
The move to digital projectors everywhere was very shortly after I left.
Always cool to see people help keep the medium alive.
Opinions differ, but 800+watts through a 2-fan radiator, in an already hot environment, is likely not enough. If this was an 800-watt CPU I would be going with either some wickedly powerful fans or 2x as much radiator.
The Cob array of leds is the problematic choice, while on paper you get a lot of light, you don't get a point source.
If you look at the large theater projectors, I remember laser sources (but no speckle, is this pumped phosphor?) or expensive xenon bulbs. At least 10years ago...
I remember a solution (car headlights?) of decoupling the phosphor (for converting uv to while light) from the UV Led. So you have multiple diodes pumping a small piece of phosphor for a nice bright point source. Not sure how this can be replicated open source.
Another approach (studio led lights) wasomething with glass mixing rods? You insert the light of multiple leds into a glass rod, and a uniform beam emerges. But I guess this was more to improve CRI, rather than to increase brightness/point source.
Why not scan film in instead of.. projecting it on a wall and filming that to archive?
At least thats what I’m extracting from the blog with my fair but limited knowledge, if someone could enlighten me it’d be greatly appreciated!
It's a different experience: When viewing film, the picture flickers and shakes. Film grain is substantially different than pixels.
As much as I enjoy modern digital formats, it's important to appreciate the goal of preserving viewing film.
The only answer I can imagine is for viewing newly-discovered film to determine its content and condition, in order to decide whether it's worth scanning.
I think the question was more about the capture of fine detail. A scanner will digitize much more image detail than any capture of the projector output. Although, reading the article it seems an emphasis was placed on color accuracy. I'm not sure if a scanner is necessarily as good at that.
This can be emulated with a post processing effect.
>Film grain is substantially different than pixels.
The grain can be recorded at a high enough resolution that the human eye will be unable to tell the difference when it's being projected.
The other being that just operating a suitable projector as intended is the simplest and most accurate way regarding timing compared to finding or writing software to handle scans. I'd think they'd want to do both.
It can similarly be very difficult to find aperture masks to fit the unusual aspect ratios of older films, so a projectionist might have to fabricate one. Fortunately that's pretty easy with a file.
Did you mean "gave" way? Took me a few reads to remember that g is next to h.
(I've been struggling with a Das keyboard for a few years... Brings back the feeling of learning to drive stick.)
Money. A lot of silent movies were filmed around 16-18 to save on film costs. Also sometimes they'd crank it up or down for dramatic or comedic effect so a film could have a variable frame rate.
Then along came sound with the audio track printed on the side of the film and they had to bump up the basic frame rate to 24 (or 23.9something) which was the lowest they could go without it sounding bad.
