Powerage Vintage Projector??? QC fail
Cybersox
Posts: 9,078
I haven’t been spending as much time as I used to in the store, so I just finally took a look at this product https://www.daz3d.com/vintage-projector and... I would say that I'm amazed this ever got through QC, but given that DAZ has allowed a prop plane to be labeled a jet, ... Anyway, to be kind, let’s just say that it’s pretty clear that the PA had no ideas how film projectors work. The first and most glaring sign was that the projector appears to be loaded with reels of videotape (smooth, brown, featureless tape with no sprocket holes) rather than film (sprockets either both sides or on one side counterbalanced by a optical or magnetic sound stripe, surface composed of sequential images) but once I started looking, it was hard to miss: 2) at no point does a light from a lamp appear to ever shine through the film and into the projection lens so this film projector literally doesn't project film, 3) the control panel on the side appears to be a standard design for a tape recorder or videocassette player, 4.) the film cans are labeled 35mm, yet the projector itself is gauged no larger than 16mm, 5) the position of the sound head is on the wrong side of the where the film gate should be for this kind of projector (directly behind the projection lens) so that any audio would end up playing 2 seconds behind the onscreen image (as the sound on film is placed a second’s worth of frames ahead of the image), 6) the film arms are in a fixed position rather than moveable to accommodate different size film reels and bypass the film path for rewinding… and I could go on a bit more, but I will say that the projector table itself is very nice and if the PA wants to make that available as a breakout, I'll gladly buy that.
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Comments
I would not say it is an oversight by the tester, as long as the product is working as it should be when it has movable parts and so on.
The Design is not what is tested, but the functionality.
Like the motorcycle with no swingarm to keep the rear wheel in place...
Those are design issues, not QA issues per se
If QA was to reject everything that is not an accurate model of a real thing, then they would have to reject all fantasy and sci-fi models ( plus a lot of female morphs
)
There's a difference between a fantasy prop and a model of an existing (real world) design. Nobody would expect a model of a clock to have all the internals, much less accurately designed internals, but they might expect it to have moving hands at least. Yet most of the clock props I have in my library do NOT have moving hands so if I use them in scenes of the same room at different times of day or night, I can't indicate the time. I know that there are clocks with moving hands - I'm just suggesting that, as a minumum, they all should have them.. I do agree that QA should demand slightly more in order to meet basic expectations.
Or digital clocks. I've had to create custom readouts for a multiple digital clocks over the years.
I really should get around to finishing some of the prop sets I started making, because I've solved a couple of these problems, including an editable 7-segment LED.
I just couldn't resist.
...as someone who has set up and operated AV equipment in the past, I couldn't help but concur with everything the the OP mentioned. Also in the animation on the product page, the reels were turning anti clockwise instead of clockwise. The rear reel is always the takeup reel.
It looks quite close to some ancient tape recorder for me... but on the other hand not close enough to work as one...
Could be a vintage video tape player/projector.
How about this one.
Not only is this not the qc team's area, it's just ridiculoas to assume they should know how each item submitted is supposed to work and how accurate it is.
This is an example of clipart made by someone who has NO clue how real projectors work. Follow the film stock it doesn't even pass the projectors bulb and lens.
I still have my Bell and Howell super 8 projector, which is a lite version of the 16mm version pictured here. It was one of the early influences that got me interested in film-making.
if it were a magnetic tape feeding some sort of charge coupled device there are no heads either
But but but the description said it was realistic!
Looks like there are several versions of this mysterious device:
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/cinema-projector-oldfashioned-high-resolution-3d-161349197
Yeah, now that even most of the cinemas have converted to digital, I suspect that the art of threading a projector is going to become an increasingly more mysterious and arcane concept, just as the shodding of a horse has become. A friend of mine's hobby is collecting old computers, so he periodically goes out to scavange the local Thriftshops and Goodwills, and on one of those trips one of his teenage kids said "Dad! I've found this really weird computer but I can't figure out how to hook it up to a monitor." It was a typewriter.
...the Radio Shack™ brand?
On shoeing horses, out here I know of at least 4 farrier outfits as well as a couple of farrier supply and blacksmith shops.. There's still a fair bit of work for them in these parts..
...precious.
Speaking of "old school", I'm looking to dust off my old manual 35mm SLR camera kit as film photography is apparently coming back into vogue.
It's always so amusing to find that the things that I once had to use because there was no other choice have now become trendy with those who've grown up blessed with so many cheap and easy solutions. ;) As it is, I do miss some things about film, but now that Kodak has killed off Kodachrome and the cost of stock and processing are beyond bonkers, I've found all the options that come with digital to be a more than amenable alternative. :)
You comment about having no other choice sounds right to me. I grew up with vinyl records and I was really happy when I could finally adandon vinyl and listen to all my music on CDs. The whole idea of a "vinyl revival" sounded crazy to me. But I suppose if you don't have to put up with the crackles, pops, swishes and other rubbish and you can always go back to high quality digital sound then it might be fun to try it.
I've always thought that this audiophile obession was utter nonsense. I grew up listening to and enjoying pop music from Radio Caroline on a cheap transistor radio with a single mono earphone as I hid under my bedsheets pretending to be asleep. When I got my first stereo amp, deck and speakers I was in music heaven and could listen to Jethro Tull and Cream at what I considered to be audio perfection. Even then there were people spending fortunes on valve amplifiers etc., but I could never hear such a difference that justified spending all that money. It was an obession and I suspected that they were not even interested in the music.
In later years there were arguments about different digital audio formats but I am perfectly happy listening to an inferior quality .mp3 and couldn't care less that some other format might bring out some high frequencies that I may have missed listening to the .mp3. My ears are probably too old to hear those frequencies anyway.
It really depends on where your hearing range is, and most people's hearing degrades significantly as they get older. There is a difference between digital and analog, and the rates of compression make subtle changes in the sound but it is, as you say, offset by all the surface noise issues and stylus issues. Ironically, the best audio sources I've ever heard from any commercial grade gear was neither digital or an LP, but rather that of the helical scanned/depth-multiplexed HIFI tracks of a VHS HI-FI deck, as the audio was laid down inside the tape under the video layer, rather than on the surface.
I was indeed more fun working with photography back then. And you were more careful taking good shots because of the price. Quality rather than quantity, contrary to today.
...to replace the old camera kit I have with comparable digital equipment would be cost prohibitive on my income today. true film stock and processing isn't cheap (never went to those cheap quick process places anyway as they quality was mediocre at best so used to the cost of a high quality lab).
@Cybersox: Yeah I'm disappointed Kodak did away with Kodachrome and Ektacrhome 64 as well. Both produced such nice rich colours. I got used to working with K-100 and 200 as well as 400 for available light photography. Maybe with this "renaissance" in film photography Kodak will rethink that decision.
As to vinyl, I have a large collection, most of it classical, as well as a fairly sizeable library of CDs (again predominantly classical and some jazz). Never got into MP3. particularly when it went to "music by subscription". I still have my old 1960s Kenwood Hi-fi (hand soldered transistors) which an idiot flat mate unfortunately killed one of the channel transformers of when he overloaded it trying to bash together a home theatre system while I was away at work (need t find a vintage Hi Fi repair shop to fix it and actually still have the original owner manual which includes the full schematics). A major portion of my record library are recordings of legendary performances as well as vintage recordings (like the entire Mozart Sonata Collection and piano works of Debussy from the 1950s) and a number of rare recordings.
Having worked at a radio station for a number of years (before the advent of CDs) I am pretty up on careful handling, storage, and care of records.
I just had a revelation
maybe it is simply mislabeled
it's one of those devices for detecting and recording paranormal activity from an electromagnetic field