| Film and Projector Lamps |
How film is projected...The main element in a projector is the lamp (or light source). Carbon arc lamps have been used
since the early 1900s.
Movie exhibition, to date, has centered on the distribution and projection of 35mm film, the longest-lived technical
standard in modern history, having just notched 100 years. Established in 1891, film began when William Kennedy
Lauren Dickson ordered 35mm-wide strips of cellulose nitrate from George Eastman and ran them through Thomas
Edison's original Kinetograph camera. Five years later, 35mm film was used again for the first projected movies in the
United States when a series of minute-long shorts passed through a
Cellulose Nitrate was used for photographic and professional 35mm motion picture film until the 1950s. It is highly
inflammable and also decomposes to a dangerous condition with age. When new, nitrate film could be ignited with the
heat of a cigarette; partially decomposed, it can ignite spontaneously at temperatures as low as 120 F (49C). Nitrate film
burns rapidly, fuelled by its own oxygen, and releases toxic fumes.
In 1890 the carbon arc lamp was developed first to illuminate streets. It was found that if you touched two carbon rods
hooked to a powerful electrical source together, some of the carbon would vaporize. If you then moved the rods apart just
a little, current would flow thru this carbon vapor as a spark "arced" thru a gap between the rods filled with that vapor.
This is the "Carbon Arc" lamp. Carbon arc lamps were used for years in movie projectors.
There was a problem with carbon arc lights they generated a lot of heat. These often needed to be cooled with water to
prevent them from literally burning up! Modern video projectors are air-cooled, but still get very hot.
Nitrate Film Fire -- AFI Theatre at the JFK Center in Washington, D.C.
March 1975. The fire broke out in the #3 machine and destroyed 1/2 reel of "The Lady From Shanghai". There are also
reports of complete theatres burning down due to the combination of nitrate film and carbon arc lamps.
While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® celebrated the year's movie greats of 1954 – "On the
Waterfront" for Best Picture; Marlon Brando for Best Actor, Grace Kelly for Best Actress – at the awards ceremonies a
half century ago, an eventual OSCAR. -Winner was making its debut at the Photokina trade show in Cologne, Germany.
The star, known then as "Xenon" and later "XBO" would forever revolutionize the film exhibition industry.
Recognized throughout Europe in the 1950s as a technical breakthrough, the XBO xenon-filled, short arc, high pressure,
projection lamp replaced the standard carbon-arc projection light source. Carbon-arc lamps consisted of disposable
electrodes that literally made an "arc of light," that was then projected onto a screen by a reflector. The system was
inefficient and labor intensive. By contrast, OSRAM XBO lamps used tungsten anodes and cathodes in an enclosed quartz
envelope filled with xenon gas, which under pressure produces light, and eliminated all the dirt deposits and pollution
associated with carbon arcs.
At the outset, OSRAM XBO xenon lamps set a higher standard and marked a new dawn for the motion picture film
industry. Movie houses soon saw that lighting film using the XBO lamp was immediately more uniform and stable, and
the color was more consistent over the lamp's life. Over time, the modern efficiency of the xenon lamp, coupled with
advances in film handling systems helped usher in today's generation of multiplex movie theaters where a single operator
can oversee the projection systems in multiple viewing rooms simultaneously.
"The introduction and eventual adoption of the xenon lamp as the new film lighting standard was akin to Dorothy opening
the black and white door of her house in the movie "The Wizard of Oz," and stepping into the full-color world of the
Emerald City for the first time," said Paul Caramagna, vice president and general manager of OSRAM SYLVANIA Photo-
Optic Division, whose parent company, OSRAM GmbH, was responsible for the first xenon lamp.
The benefits of the new xenon lamp in the projection room were even more dramatic; it offered theater owners
immediate cost-efficiencies because of their extended service life (500+) hours and low maintenance. The intense white
light produced by the XBO xenon lamps later allowed projector lamp manufacturers to integrate optimized optical
components such as coated reflectors and projection lenses into their film projectors, thus providing brighter and more
stable images up on the screen. According to John Durlait, senior director of quality assurance for Regal Entertainment
Group, "Without question, the xenon lamp has been a boon to contemporary film exhibition. For those of us in the
industry, it certainly has created 'A Wonderful Life' in the projection room."
Today XBO lamps achieve full brilliance almost immediately and have a color temperature ideally suited to the accurate
rendering of color film. OSRAM xenon lamps are the closest manmade light to the color temperature of the sun at 6,000
degrees Kelvin. The lamps can run off adirect-current (DC) power supply and can be easily adapted for existing projection
systems.
In 1984, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® awarded the first of two Scientific and Technical
Achievement OSCARs to technical lighting pioneer and innovator OSRAM for its XBO family of xenon lamps. "While it
would be easy to be satisfied with an OSCAR, we continue to refine and improve the XBO lamp even today," said
Caramagna. "The film industry is still evolving, and so is the OSRAM XBO lamp."
Over 70 percent of the motion picture film industry worldwide use xenon lamps as the projection light source of choice.
Lighting projectors for movie theatres is still changing due to the introductions of Digital film. So progress in the
lamp/lighting field has not stopped.
Sources for some information obtained from the following:
OSRAM SYLVANIA Press Release
Nitrate Film
since the early 1900s.
Movie exhibition, to date, has centered on the distribution and projection of 35mm film, the longest-lived technical
standard in modern history, having just notched 100 years. Established in 1891, film began when William Kennedy
Lauren Dickson ordered 35mm-wide strips of cellulose nitrate from George Eastman and ran them through Thomas
Edison's original Kinetograph camera. Five years later, 35mm film was used again for the first projected movies in the
United States when a series of minute-long shorts passed through a
Cellulose Nitrate was used for photographic and professional 35mm motion picture film until the 1950s. It is highly
inflammable and also decomposes to a dangerous condition with age. When new, nitrate film could be ignited with the
heat of a cigarette; partially decomposed, it can ignite spontaneously at temperatures as low as 120 F (49C). Nitrate film
burns rapidly, fuelled by its own oxygen, and releases toxic fumes.
In 1890 the carbon arc lamp was developed first to illuminate streets. It was found that if you touched two carbon rods
hooked to a powerful electrical source together, some of the carbon would vaporize. If you then moved the rods apart just
a little, current would flow thru this carbon vapor as a spark "arced" thru a gap between the rods filled with that vapor.
This is the "Carbon Arc" lamp. Carbon arc lamps were used for years in movie projectors.
There was a problem with carbon arc lights they generated a lot of heat. These often needed to be cooled with water to
prevent them from literally burning up! Modern video projectors are air-cooled, but still get very hot.
Nitrate Film Fire -- AFI Theatre at the JFK Center in Washington, D.C.
March 1975. The fire broke out in the #3 machine and destroyed 1/2 reel of "The Lady From Shanghai". There are also
reports of complete theatres burning down due to the combination of nitrate film and carbon arc lamps.
While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® celebrated the year's movie greats of 1954 – "On the
Waterfront" for Best Picture; Marlon Brando for Best Actor, Grace Kelly for Best Actress – at the awards ceremonies a
half century ago, an eventual OSCAR. -Winner was making its debut at the Photokina trade show in Cologne, Germany.
The star, known then as "Xenon" and later "XBO" would forever revolutionize the film exhibition industry.
Recognized throughout Europe in the 1950s as a technical breakthrough, the XBO xenon-filled, short arc, high pressure,
projection lamp replaced the standard carbon-arc projection light source. Carbon-arc lamps consisted of disposable
electrodes that literally made an "arc of light," that was then projected onto a screen by a reflector. The system was
inefficient and labor intensive. By contrast, OSRAM XBO lamps used tungsten anodes and cathodes in an enclosed quartz
envelope filled with xenon gas, which under pressure produces light, and eliminated all the dirt deposits and pollution
associated with carbon arcs.
At the outset, OSRAM XBO xenon lamps set a higher standard and marked a new dawn for the motion picture film
industry. Movie houses soon saw that lighting film using the XBO lamp was immediately more uniform and stable, and
the color was more consistent over the lamp's life. Over time, the modern efficiency of the xenon lamp, coupled with
advances in film handling systems helped usher in today's generation of multiplex movie theaters where a single operator
can oversee the projection systems in multiple viewing rooms simultaneously.
"The introduction and eventual adoption of the xenon lamp as the new film lighting standard was akin to Dorothy opening
the black and white door of her house in the movie "The Wizard of Oz," and stepping into the full-color world of the
Emerald City for the first time," said Paul Caramagna, vice president and general manager of OSRAM SYLVANIA Photo-
Optic Division, whose parent company, OSRAM GmbH, was responsible for the first xenon lamp.
The benefits of the new xenon lamp in the projection room were even more dramatic; it offered theater owners
immediate cost-efficiencies because of their extended service life (500+) hours and low maintenance. The intense white
light produced by the XBO xenon lamps later allowed projector lamp manufacturers to integrate optimized optical
components such as coated reflectors and projection lenses into their film projectors, thus providing brighter and more
stable images up on the screen. According to John Durlait, senior director of quality assurance for Regal Entertainment
Group, "Without question, the xenon lamp has been a boon to contemporary film exhibition. For those of us in the
industry, it certainly has created 'A Wonderful Life' in the projection room."
Today XBO lamps achieve full brilliance almost immediately and have a color temperature ideally suited to the accurate
rendering of color film. OSRAM xenon lamps are the closest manmade light to the color temperature of the sun at 6,000
degrees Kelvin. The lamps can run off adirect-current (DC) power supply and can be easily adapted for existing projection
systems.
In 1984, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® awarded the first of two Scientific and Technical
Achievement OSCARs to technical lighting pioneer and innovator OSRAM for its XBO family of xenon lamps. "While it
would be easy to be satisfied with an OSCAR, we continue to refine and improve the XBO lamp even today," said
Caramagna. "The film industry is still evolving, and so is the OSRAM XBO lamp."
Over 70 percent of the motion picture film industry worldwide use xenon lamps as the projection light source of choice.
Lighting projectors for movie theatres is still changing due to the introductions of Digital film. So progress in the
lamp/lighting field has not stopped.
Sources for some information obtained from the following:
OSRAM SYLVANIA Press Release
Nitrate Film
Vegas' Arts & Entertainment Corner
Lights -- Camera -- Action!
OSRAM XBO 1001, world’s first vertical 45 A - 1000W Xenon air-cooled
cinema projector lamp, that replaced the carbon arc light source in 1954.
cinema projector lamp, that replaced the carbon arc light source in 1954.