Kodak VP-1 Film Player

[Tony Bill]

After reading various posts on film to video transfer, I would like to see thoughts on the Kodak VP-1 film player. I have one, but haven't used it for several years. Had problems and sent it back to Kodak for about $500. repairs and then it seem to develope artifact in part of frame. Someone at Kodak was even kind enought to give me a complete service manual, but at this point I am wondering if it is worth fooling with. At the time I thought the images were good, but I can't compare to this rank system because I haven't used rank. If I recall correctly, the Kodak VP-1 used a flying spot scanning system. With Final Cut Pro it seems that it might be useful to get back into this since I have some customers who want us to do work for them. Anyone have an idea how this system compares to the Elmo machines. Anyone else still using this beast.

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Tony Bill

[MikeBrantley]

Tony,

I've got one of these things in storage somewhere that I bought used a few years ago, but I never could get mine to work properly. I don't know how to describe the problem, but the image just rolls. It's almost as if the the film doesn't ever "stop" in the aperture (how I would describe the problem if it was on a regular projector). Any ideas?

I don't have any documentation at all on this beast, unfortunately.

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--Mike Brantley

[Alex]

I know what you are talking about!

We had one of those in Film Art when I was going to college back in the day.

I used to be amazed at the blind faith one needed to simply let a device gobble up your film and magically play it back.

I don't remember how it worked, just that your film would disappear and suddenly play.

Wow, I hadn't thought about that projector for 20 years.

Hopefully I'll never think of it again, what a yowee leap of faith Kodak expected its customers to exhibit when using this "projector".

But, it was a decent projector if I recall correctly.

-Alex

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[MovieStuff]

Yes!

I worked at a place that had one and looked at the insides when it was in the service department (which was often). Just like an old top load 3/4 Umatic deck, it would give you a heart attack if you actually saw what it was doing to your precious footage. Man, on some of the projects we had, it seemed like the leader necessary was longer than the program! So-so picture, too.

Roger

[Alex]

Describe it as it lost it's loop?

-Alex

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[MikeBrantley]

That's probably a good description for what it looks like, Alex, although it has been a couple of years since I fooled with the thing. It's in "deep storage now," so I can't even get to it without considerable effort.

One thing I never liked about it was that when you feed it the film, it takes it and threads it inside the innards. The take-up reel is inside, and you can't really see what's going on. I think Kodak made this part of the mechanism too complicated from an engineering standpoint in an effort to make things simple for the user.


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--Mike Brantley

[Alex]

I think the relief one felt that the projector was actually projecting your film and not eating it was so vast, that the relief one felt made the picture look even better!

-Alex

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