In Aboyne, a major re-fit serves as a tribute to a gentleman of cinema

At Aboyne, a cinema re-fit that serves as a fitting tribute

Pete Naples reports on a community cinema that’s a lasting testament to the much-loved cinema enthusiast, David Eastwood.

David expected the local council to go 50/50 on a projector. They paid outright.

I’VE LOOKED AFTER THE cinema in the Aboyne Community Centre for two decades. When I first visited, a venerable old Westar 2001 fed by a Westrex 5035 tower delivered images to the screen. Sound was quite respectable given the venue’s part-time nature. The speakers and amps had been begged, borrowed and acquired from closed venues.

Fast forward to the digital era. The Westar was replaced with a Christie Solaria One+. The Dolby CP55 was replaced with a Dolby CP750. Otherwise, little changed. Another decade passed, screenings were popular, and the sound system was showing signs of age. The technical supremo at Aboyne, David Eastwood, with his colleague Brian Forbes, replaced all the LF cones in the surrounds with generic drivers. They were acutely aware the sound could be better. So David leapt at funding from Creative Scotland for technical upgrades. With help from Omnex’s Steve Case, we put together an audio package to bring Aboyne Cinema bang up to date.

Ah... Covid. The audio equipment was ordered and delivered, but as the cinema is housed in a school, no work could take place. So it sat in a store room. David entered into discussions with the council about accessing the site, and when he did, he discovered that the IMB in the projector had passed away. The cinema group now had to find funding to repair or replace the machine.

David’s sharp mind came into play. Armed with pricing and details from Omnex, he met the council. The original projector had been bought by them but, the sound system belonged to the cinema’s volunteers. David expected the council to go 50/50 on the replacement projector’s costs, but to his delight they

agreed to pay outright, on the grounds that they bought the original and their own CV19 rules had contributed to the failure through months of neglect. So we supplied a new Christie CP2310 RGBe, with IMB S3 and NAS.

I headed to Aboyne and removed the old sound equipment and projector then collected my colleague Geoff from Aberdeen. The next day CineLogistics arrived with the new projector, and we swapped it on the pedestal. The Solaria One + and the CP2310 RGBe share a footprint so this was quite simple. We removed the old KEF surrounds, putting in the new QSC 8200. We added QSC 8200s to the rear wall, doubling the number of rear surrounds, and re-wired for 7.1. QSC SC2150s were assembled for the stage, QSC SB 7218 takes care of the lower frequencies. All the stage end speakers have kick-grilles and castors fitted because this is a multi-use theatre and they are moved as required.

It’s worth mentioning that the QSC DPA 4.2 amplifiers hold a loudspeaker database on board, so it’s vital to configure them appropriately. With that done and the CP950 configured using Dolby Atmos Designer software (so it knows amplifiers, speakers and room dimensions), the EQ required to tune the system was minimal. A Blustream matrix switcher allows easy selection of Blu-ray, satellite and PC sources, with a preview monitor connected so it’s not essential to have the projector on, or the screen down when tuning the satellite receiver.

A FEW DAYS BEFORE the re-opening, I received a call from Brian Forbes, with the terrible news that David had passed away suddenly. Brian told me they were planning to open as a tribute to David’s tireless efforts, so I made an emotional visit to put finishing touches on the job.

The leading light in the technical side of Aboyne’s cinema and theatre shows, David was an educator all of his working life — a head teacher, lecturer and vicechancellor at Aberdeen University. In retirement he still wrote regularly for various education journals.

Colleagues at Omnex spoke fondly of their dealings with him. It was a different experience for me to be in an auditorium without the man who pulled the strings to make it happen, but ‘the show must go on’ — as he’d have wanted. Aboyne Cinema re-opened on 4 March, showing ‘Encancto’, with Brian at the helm. The cinema is of a standard that Aboyne, the cinema team, and Omnex should all be as proud of as David would have been.

Aboyne Cinema is now at a standard of which the late David Eastwood would have been proud

Delivering multi-use versatility in St Andrews

Pete Naples heads north for the refit of a theatrical institution — the Byre, a cultural hub of renown in St Andrews.

The Byre hosts no fewer than 800 events annually, including film, theatre, dance and lectures

THE BYRE THEATRE is a vibrant hub of cultural activity in St Andrews and is a focal point for the arts in North East Fife. Founded in 1933, the current building opened in 2001. With one auditorium and a studio space, the Byre Theatre hosts no fewer than 800 events annually including film, theatre, dance, comedy and music.

The recent work Omnex undertook in both spaces included removing and decommissioning existing Soundweb DSP. These were 20 years old and becoming increasingly temperamental. Their functionality for a theatre like the Byre can now be provided by a modern digital mixing desk.

The QSC processor selected sits in the signal chain where the Soundweb was — the QSC when in theatre mode is, to all intents and purposes, transparent. Its multi-channel input is routed to the outputs at unity gain, with no equalization or delays on. This is easily achievable on the QSC because it has three equalization/gain/delay presets available which can be assigned to any format in software. So, when a cinema format is selected, the EQ and gain structure we would expect comes in.

SCREENS AND B CHAIN equipment was all extant, as both theatres had already been equipped for 5.1. This is