Talk:Showscan

65 mm or 70 mm?
The article and its sources seem to be conflicted on whether the process uses 70 mm or 65 mm stock, with even Trumbull himself saying "70 mm" in his 2009 interview. I went with the Academy Award citation, assuming that Trumbull was using "70 mm" as an imprecise shorthand that he felt his 2009 audience would connect with.

If anyone knows better (and has a citation), please correct the article.--NapoliRoma (talk) 21:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * IIRC 70mm is the project format associated with 65mm camera stock. the projection format is wider to provide room for the soundtrack.  If that's correct, then both terms would refer to the same format.  next step would be to check that.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.196.235 (talk) 13:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

"70mm" technology uses a 65mm negative, which is printed to 70mm film - which uses 5mm of the print for soundtrack. 65mm is a negative format, 70mm is a print format. DanLancaster (talk) 06:48, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

As noted in my post below, there was no optical soundtrack, at least when I was involved in this. The image used all 70 mm. The soundtrack was provided by a synchronized reel-to-reel tape. Ormewood (talk) 06:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Link to IMAX?
It's a bit weird that there is no link to IMAX here. Also no mention of competition between the two formats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.196.235 (talk) 13:42, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

24 vs 48 frame confusion
The article makes the mistake of saying the standard rate of projection is 24fps, which is only true if you narrowly define those frames as unique. However, because each individual frame is projected TWICE (and THREE times for some projectors) then the more accurate rate is 48fps. RoyBatty42 (talk) 20:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I was a Showscan projectionist...some recollections
If anyone is interested...

Showbiz Pizza (now Chuck E. Cheese's) attempted to set up a small number of Showscan theaters in the 1980's, and I was a projectionist at one of these. These were built onto the sides of existing Showbiz restaurants/arcades. They seated only a small audience, I would guess somewhere around 100 people.

The screen used was relatively small, maybe half that of a conventional theater, and the combination of that and the 70mm film made for very high resolution images. The high frame rate added to this made for an extremely realistic experience. You didn't have the sense of remove that you get when watching an ordinary movie. Sometimes, when you were looking at actors in costume, it made suspension of disbelief difficult; in other words, you felt as if you were looking at actors, not the characters they were trying to portray. On the other hand, I couldn't watch a clip they used which was shot from an airplane as it crested the top of a snow-covered mountain with very little room to spare. The sense of motion and vertigo was too much for me; I looked away every time.

There wasn't room on the film stock for an optical sound track, so the sound portion came from a synchronized reel-to-reel tape. They used a very high-end sound system with floor-to-ceiling speaker stacks on either side of the screen.

There were technical problems. The film ran through the projector much faster than it did in a conventional projector. As a result the film broke frequently and spectacularly, usually two or three times during a thirty minute show. When this happened, generally several frames were destroyed. A simple splice wasn't possible, however, since the loss of several frames would put the sound track out of synch from the movie. You had to count the number of destroyed frames, then splice in a block of blackened 70mm film equal to the number of missing frames. This meant two splices instead of one: one for each end of the blackened section you were inserting. This was time consuming. In the meantime, your audience was waiting in the dark. As I said, this happened two or three times for each showing. After many such splices the number of blackened spliced blocks really started to become obvious when you watched the movie.

The film reels weighed about seventy pounds. Mounting them meant picking them up with both hands to about face level, then guiding a small spindle into a small hole in the center. The techs said that some kind of device to assist in this was planned, but I never saw it. It was extremely physically demanding.

That said, it was an amazing experience to watch these films. I have never seen anything which approximates reality so closely; it's just that making film tear through a projector at those speeds really wasn't a workable idea. I'm glad that digital projection is finally making these frame rates practical. Conventional IMAX and 3D really don't come close.

Anyone who would care to use any of this in the article is welcome to do so.