 Photographs © copyright Gretag Corp
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Eidophor
Eidophor (Image bearer) from two Greek words
EIDO = Image
PHOR = Phosphor = light bearer
The Eidophor large screen television projector was the brainchild of Dr Fritz Fischer who, in 1939, drew a pencil sketch of his idea for a television projector on the back of a cigarette packet whilst on a train journey from Berne to Zurich
The first demonstration of Eidophor was New Years Eve 1943
Eidophor was last used in year 2000
During the intervening years the machine was updated, as new technology became available, and was used in cinemas, (the Odeon Leicester Square, London, being the only cinema in the world to purchase an Eidophor, model EP21, as a permanent installation, but there were some permanant Eidophor installations in a few American cinemas. These machines remained the property of the Gretag Organisation), university lecture theatres, medical & dental lectures,film and television studios, outdoor events, NASA for the moon landings, flight and marine simulators. In these simulators as many as five Eidophors were used at any one time
The first machines used a carbon arc as the light source, but an Osram 1.6k xenon arc was used from 1958 (Eidophor model type ep1)
In 1962 a 2.5k xenon was used in the EP21, and all future machines had this wattage or higher fitted
The machines could not only project B/W pictures, but also sequential colour wheel pictures.One frame green, the next frame red, and the next blue
In 1956 the first 4 colour machine was developed
The most impressive show ever made was at the World Exposition in Seville, Spain in 1993: projected from two Gretag Eidophor projectors across a distance of 210 meters, a video picture of 675 square metres entirely covered the external wall of the Spanish pavilion, a building seven stories high."
Please click on photo for larger view
 The first Eidophor
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 Eidophor type ep21
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 Eidophor Arrangement
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 Eidophor Cassette Case
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 Eidophor Cassette Inside
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 Odeon Leicester Square
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 Four Colour Eidophor
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