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| Cinescope viewing unit |
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| The robot and storage units |
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| Cinescope viewing unit |
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| The robot and storage units |
The Canadian National Film Board's Giant Video Juke Box - A robot that handles video discs. The Cine Robotheque situated in the Canadian National Film Board building in Montreal is a spacious, softly lit room containing 21 personal viewing units, known as Cinescopes, designed for one or two viewers. When you enter the Robotheque you venture into a world of images reflecting 55 years of Canadian film history, where you can select and view films from 5000 Film Board productions transferred from their archives to video disc. Each of the 21 attractive Cinescope modular units includes a Sony XBR 27 inch screening monitor, a Cine Selector, a work table and one or two comfortable swivel seats with headrests equipped with adjustable stereo speakers. The Cine Selector has sophisticated functions that permit choice of film viewing by consulting a database and viewing the film at your own pace using 'slow', 'freeze frame', 'frame by frame', 'advance' and 'fast-forward' features. At one end of the room behind a huge picture window stands the 2.29 metre high Swedish industrial robot surrounded in a semi-circle by 2340 draws containing double-sided video discs and 50 video disc players which are linked to the Cinescopes. The robot has an articulated arm with a reach of 1.54 metres, and at its end a retractable hook and two 'hands', each with three 'fingers'. The computer controlling the robot is an Apple Quadra 700. It receives the viewing requests from the Cine Selector, manages the inventory of laser discs, determines priorities, and transmits them to the robot. When a viewer in a Cine Scope selects the film they wish to see, the robot locates the correct drawer, opens it with its hook that is specially adapted to the draw handle. It checks with the fibre-optic sensors of its 'hand' to determine if the space is occupied. The robot then slides its nylon 'fingers' into the centre hole of the disc, delicately takes it out vertically, and then closes the drawer. Next, with a large circular action, it moves towards the disc player. Along the way it may have to turn the disc over if the film requested is on the other side. In that case, it crosses its six 'fingers' and slides the disc from one 'hand' to the other. On reaching the disc player the robot places the disc in the player, the entire operation taking 30 seconds. If the player contains a disc from a previous viewing the robot empties it with its second 'hand' and places the disc held in the first 'hand' into the player. The disc from the previous viewing is then returned to its correct storage draw. At the end of the day the robot removes all the discs remaining in the players and puts them away in their appropriate draws. Cine Robotheque is open to the public daily except Tuesdays. It is naturally extremely popular with school parties. Apart from being a valuable record of the concerns of any given era, almost every film in the collection is a window on some aspect of Canada's past or present giving a unique view of the places, people and times each one deals with. Cine Robotheque now makes this album of the country's growth and ever changing cultural and ethnic face easily available to all.
BOB ALLEN