'rgb' asserts that: >Any theatre with a 35mm projector could project it with modification to >the head only. If you're talking about showing full-gate 35mm prints in a cinema, then that statement is quite simply not true. I don't know what you mean by the 'head', but to show full-gate, a projector needs to be equipped or modified as follows: 1. A three-blade shutter needs to be fitted for speeds below 24fps, and the lamp output upgraded to take account of the additional light loss caused by the shutter. 2. A lens of the appropriate focal distance needs to be obtained. If an existing 'scope lens has a prime lens which is detachable from the anamorph, the 'scope prime lens on its own will usually do but not always. 3. The lens, lamphouse and reflector alignment needs to be offset to take account of the different optical centre on a full-gate frame. Remember that the centre of a full-gate frame is in a different place to the centre of a frame offset from the centre of the film by the width of an analogue soundtrack. Some lens turrets have adjusting screws that enable you to do this without major engineering. For those that don't, you can buy 70.6mm steel milled barrels offset to compensate which slide into the lens holder: you then place a 63mm lens inside that holder. The lamp alignment has to be done the hard way. 4. For this MaxiVision business, the projector motor and/or drive train needs to be modified to run the film at 48fps. If you're planning on running the print from a platter or tower, they'd have to be tweaked to ensure that they're capable of feeding and taking up at double the usual speed. Some models are easier than others to adjust. 5. What are you doing about sound? Assuming your print will have synchronised sound, none of the current off-the-shelf systems will accommodate full-gate and 48fps. Full-gate and 24fps would be fine - you could use Dolby digital or SDDS, as both these systems store data vertically between (Dolby) or outside (SDDS) the perforations. DTS is no good because the timecode sits between the analogue track and the picture, which in your format would be slap bang in the middle of the frame. But, AFAIK, no off-the-shelf Dolby or Sony kit will deal with film running at 48fps. It probably wouldn't be that difficult to modify (you might even be able to print Dolby data blocks between every two perforations rather than every one and thus fool the reader into thinking the film was running at 24, but there again the increased speed at which the data block passes the reader might prevent the CCD from picking it up), but there would certainly be research and development costs. Unless, of course, you're planning to do reduction prints from MaxiVision originals onto standard 35mm release prints - in which case they'd be showable in virtually any cinema, assuming the aspect ratio is a standard one - Jessica is quite right: these prints would not be showable in any normal cinema without extensive modifications to the equipment there. Leo Dr. Leo Enticknap Director, Northern Region Film and Television Archive School of Arts and Media University of Teesside Middlesbrough TS1 3BA United Kingdom Tel. +44-(0)1642 384022 Fax. +44-(0)1642 384099 Brainfryer: +44-(0)7710 417383 ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite