Eidophor commercial

[@technicolor1956]

I once designed a conference set for The Royal Albert Hall, London and we used The Eidophor - the extra powerful model. The quality was stunning. The problem was that this enormous beast had to be treated with great care. It had to be man-handled up a staircase by a team of experts to one of the Logia level boxes which was equipped with a special power supply. Any careless movements could have been a real issue. It was completely silent running, and an engineer had to be standing by next to it permanently in case of any minor problems. Despite all of that, fantastically reliable with a picture quality that was (at the time ) second to none.

[@wellend89]

Thank You very much for your comment - I'd never have guessed that these huge beasts ran silent! Always thought it strange that on some images I've seen of these in operation, the units would be literally one metre from the guest seats but if it's silent, it obviously makes sense :)

[@TheSynthnut]

Thanks for posting this! The Eidophors were a real sight to behold back in the day. I remember encountering one in the Sheraton Grand conference centre in Doha when doing an exhibition. NASA had many for doing their launch control displays too.

[@IvanJohnsonMedia]

A friend who was running an Eidophor got us in to Wrestlemania in Anaheim, CA back in the day. For all the complicated works, these projectors were amazingly reliable.

[@mikeissweet]

Thanks for uploading!

[@tiago6206]

2:17 25 orders of magnitude brighter than a CRT projector? That would brighter than the sun.

[@appliedengineering4001]

Ya! I did the math on that. that 10^25 or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 time brighter. or if you want to look at it on a decibel scale. that is a gain of 250db.

[@8BitNaptime]

Well, they did say it was in a class by itself.

[@lbochtler]

i want one of the HD type Eidophors!

[@wellend89]

Me too! But I'd take any Eidophor.

[@lbochtler]

@@wellend89 true that. I also have the suspicion, that using my knowledge of electron optics, and electrical engineering, it should be possible to upgrade any Eidophor to a high resolution version. Also knowing the hassle that can come with vintage high vacuum gear, i suspect that if either one of us gets a hold of an Eidophor, that its rubber seals will likely need replacing. I have had luck with vintage high vacuum gear in the past, but have also had the opposite happen, when it took me a week with a helium leak tester to track down a faulty rubber seal.

[@altebander2767]

@@wellend89 I am not sure if I'd like to have an Eidophor. After all you cannot fully turn them off. The vacuum pumps need to be running continuously... day and night as the design of the light-valve tubes is leaky... as they need to have a way to replace the cathode... as because of the oil they cannot use getters in there....

[@wellend89]

@@altebander2767 I wouldn't mind leaving the pumps on and would love to have an Eidophor. The light valves are not "leaky" - they're as tight as they can be considering the need to change the cathodes.

[@altebander2767]

@@wellend89 Yes, but compared to a CRT they are leaky. Plus the oil leaks vapor into the vacuum. I wouldn't be surprised if, for the inflation increased price of a new one, you could still commission one to be built.

[@multicousa8569]

Years wait for this video

[@roberthorwat6747]

Two million bucks a pop back in the day

[@robertjakobe7809]

That is so amazing

[@Muonium1]

this is....kind of amazing. I didn't think they lasted so long into the 90s! I wonder how they kept the oil layer flat with it vertical like that though.

[@wellend89]

The last big rental events were around 2002 AFAIK.

[@jtveg]

This unit below I believe operates on the same principle as the Eidophor. It shows a teardown of the tube (light valve) containing the film of oil and how it works. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpuuq3aIoMhqe9k

[@rkan2]

There is great video done by Mikeselectricstuff on a teardown of a similar type projector tube by the name of GE Talaria but actually using even more advanced system with only single tube for color!

[@Muonium1]

@@rkan2 literally open in another tab as I read this

[@TheSynthnut]

The oil film for the schlieren effect was prodced on a slowly rotating ,slightly concave "dish" rather than a tank and had a smoothing blade, this ensured there was a always a fresh patch and prevented overheating. These machines, whilst bright for their time, were hugely inefficient and needed extremely high-power xenon lamps. The "light-engine" portions operated in a vacuum and took a while to draw down to operating levels. They were marvels of optical engineering and surpassed the early generations of CRT based projection such as those from Barco. Barco and Christie won out though as they developed much more convenient packages that were cheaper.

[@tremorist]

The early ones only had one imager and a color wheel for sequential color generation in the lightpath, just like todays 1-chip-dlp projectors. Rainbow effect included.

[@kozmokohler]

When every seat must have the heart pounding excitement of //-afrontrowseat-//...

[@DanFrederiksen]

Never heard of that projection principle before

[@cabasse_music]

i wonder when gretag made their last eidophor, and who they sold it to. also would love to know more about the HD capable model. this reel was from the laste 80s right? cutting edge stuff

[@WolfmanDude]

Are there any working projectors like this left in the world? Would they even last this long? The technology is highly critical, I cant Imagine that light valve tube lasting for more than a decade.

[@wellend89]

I believe there are one or two working examples in Germany. The Eidophor is different from the GE Talaria in that it's more modular and doesn't have a sealed light valve tube, hence why it has a built in vacuum pump.

[@TheSynthnut]

The Sheraton Grand's convention centre in Doha had one back in 2004, not sure which model, guessing a late 1970's unit as it was completed in '79.

[@BGTech1]

Just wait till these guys see 4K OLED

[@Brushedmetal69]

Eidophor is still technically better than OLED but they are very different one is used for projectors the other is used for televisions phones and monitors

[@rkan2]

1:25 Why the SAIC logo?? :D