Jurgen's 16SR I-II Video Assist

The Jurgen's 16SR Video Assist System is the only 16SR video assist conversion of the original ARRI J-bar viewfinder I reccomend.

The Jurgen's system is far superior to any other system on the market except P+S Technik. The Jurgen's system is solid and reliable. It hardly ever requires adjustment. The focus stays set for long periods of time, and the centering and tilt of the video assist image are easy to adjust. The 25/75% beamsplitter prism gives a bright, sharp viewfinder image, and allows just enough light for a good image with todays sensitive color CCD video assist cameras. The Jurgen's system is fully compatible with Super-16.

If the 16SR lightmeter is removed, or in the case of the 16SRII-E which does not have a lightmeter, the viewfinder is 20% brighter. In this case, the light loss to the Jurgen's video assist is only 5%! No wonder ARRI adopted this system for the 16SR3 Advanced.

The Lee Utterbach conversion of the J-bar viewfinder arm is claimed to be superior because it do not prevent pivoting of the viewfinder arm. This is really not very useful since the viewfinder arm can only be pivoted with that conversion when the video assist camera is removed. Also, the viewfinder arm cannot be tilted to vertical if the camera has been converted to Super-16 because it hits the PL mount. This system is much harder to adjust than the Jurgen's, and is prone to artifical flaring in the viewfinder due to the split mirror design.

The only other conversion I reccomend is the P+S Technik 16SR Video Assist conversion. The P+S Technik conversion requires modification of the camera and a new P+S Technik Video Handle. It is designed to work with 16SR3 video taps like the CEI Color 5 and Color 6.

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