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Author Topic: Thx certification Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 12-10-2003 04:18 PM                        Bobby Henderson wrote: quote: Virtually every web site that covers theater showtimes nationwide doesn't really lift a finger to separate good theaters from bad. As Evans astutely observed, a widespread system is a logistical challenge to say the least. I've done the best I can to differentiate between theaters in our guide by indicating THX-certified shows and digital sound presentations. The InfoPages also give theaters the opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competition. While these are not guarantees of quality by any means, they are better than nothing at all. Digital sound is so prevalent these days, that people assume its presence. Most theaters don't wish to differentiate between their DTS, Dolby Digital, and SDDS presentations, so even that distinction isn't there. While we have the ability to display DTS-ES, DD-EX, and SDDS-8 flags, very few theaters take advantage of it. I've seen a couple of attempts at rating theaters in the past, all have failed for one reason or another. I would imagine that they faced the challenges that Evans describes, making success a difficult goal to achieve. How do you get lots of people spread across the country to evaluate presentations and theaters in a consistent way? The solution probably lies in lots of training, objective scientific measurements of quantifiable parameters, subjective ratings of theater condition, staff behavior, etc., strict regulation of review criteria, cross-checking of reviewed theaters to verify accuracy, and somehow preventing corruption of the process. OK, let's say we create a plan to do just this and more. How does it get funded? The ever-present problem of money rears its ugly head... I've been mulling the idea of creating something less ambitious, but still provide people with some way to identify the good and the bad theaters. So far, the best of the options that I've come up with so far is similar to eBay. Positive, negative, and neutral reviews, with short text comments. The problem I keep coming back to is keeping people from stuffing the rankings, but I can probably get around that by limiting the reviews per day, and to registered users with more than x days since registration. However, that doesn't come close the detail that Evans provides on his site. But given the challenges facing the scalability of a such a system, I don't think it can be done. I'm up to the task of implementing a theater rating system on my site (while it does not list showtimes for every theater in the country, it does list every theater I know of). If I can get some help hammering out some of the details, that would go a long way to getting it to be a reality. My site does solicit theaters to pay to be listed on the site, so there is a concern about a conflict of interest and pressuring from theaters. The best thing I can think of to address this issue is to allow theaters that pay to be listed to hide the detailed comments from the public, while still allowing the composite ranking to be displayed. EBay does this with some sellers. I'm sure there is some solution that will work for everyone involved, it's just a matter of figuring out what that is. Considering the numbers of staff on this board, I would think that there are some good perspectives to be had. Is anyone willing to help me develop this? Should we take this to a different thread or stay here? [ 12-11-2003, 09:56 AM: Message edited by: Scott Jentsch ]  |  IP: Logged Kevin Wale Expert Film Handler Posts: 167 From: Guymon, OK USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-10-2003 04:28 PM                     We should probably take it to a different thread but I have an interest in the idea of rating theatres. I know I don't want to work for theatres the rest of my life. I would like to have my own someday. I know if I were an owner I would want to know as unbiased as possible what people really think of my theatre. I'm not interested in squeaking by. I want to be the best. I would also want to see how people knowing I'm the best really affects things. I'd still really like to know if THX is really affordable at all. I've just put in some not so conservative but not real liberal numbers and it's about $6,000.00 a month for an 8 screen. With that, payroll is a much larger factor in monthly survival. In fact, assuming a 3 million dollar loan/VC investment, the $30,000.00 a month and the generaly accepted 14% of gross for labour are the two costs that gum up the projection works. Even if the 8 screen brought in 50 thou a month, you're losing money. Not paying THX wouldn't change that. Which leads me to conclude that if THX can increase your business by the 40ish percent they claim, it would be absolutely worth it. I don't know if a new thread is needed, because I addressed the two topics(THX and ratings) in this thread and they were totally interwoven in relevance.  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-10-2003 09:25 PM                       What an interesting and lively debate! I was involved with the origins of THX and TAP, even to taking Tom Holman and Gary Summers to a number of Bay Area theatres so they could conduct surveys and measurements. THX was like a number of George Lucas's startups, Pixar, Editdroid and others come to mind. They were not done for hype but to improve the stae of the art. In fact the tech building at Skywalker was originally designed for digital storage and manipulation of the audio. Alas, the science and hardware were not ready and the facility opened with conventional dubbers which only recently have been replaced with digital dubbers. I have some insight and a viewpoint of my own but it's interesting to note that all participants to this thread have valid and focussed viewpoints and It's hard to disagree with any of the views presented. This is one of the best threads I've seen since I've looked in on this site. Keep up the good work! PS. Nice new photo, Manny  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-12-2003 09:56 AM                     Sam said " In fact the tech building at Skywalker was originally designed for digital storage and manipulation of the audio. Alas, the science and hardware were not ready and the facility opened with conventional dubbers which only recently have been replaced with digital dubbers." There is nothing wrong with mag dubbers they are if nothing else reliable and the output is interchangable with almost any facility one thing a lot of these digital post prodcution house don't have is a universal sharable system Often doing previews the question of soundformat is awnsered by bring in the gear or just strike a mag with SR Analogue Mag rules  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-12-2003 10:01 PM                     quote: As Evans astutely observed, a widespread system is a logistical challenge to say the least. I've done the best I can to differentiate between theaters in our guide by indicating THX-certified shows and digital sound presentations. Sure, it is a logistical challenge. And it does underscore the value of THX. Some may poo poo it. But, agreed, it is certainly far better than nothing in terms of separating better theaters from the larger number of mediocre/bad ones. There may be some ways to get the theater ratings going. One decent idea is having web site visitors rate the theater themselves and post a brief comment about a good or bad experience they had there. Granted, not everyone has the same criteria for rating theaters as Evans Criswell. But every viewer is entitled to his opinion and if you read their comments you can tell if they know what they're about or not. The method seems to work pretty well on a lot of electronics / computer products websites such as CNET. Another point would be theaters truthfully listing their sound formats (and projection formats in the unlikely event something like 5/70 gets revived). Most theaters have to call in their attendance numbers on a nightly basis. Checkers routinely visit theaters to verify proper ads are being shown. So why should it be so hard for things like DD, DTS, THX, etc. to be accurately displayed in ads and website listings? Certainly it is much easier these days when most releases are quad format. Honestly, I see no excuse for national showtime websites to omit such information. quote: Digital sound is so prevalent these days, that people assume its presence. That is true, and it brings up an interesting point. There are still lots of theaters with some, few or no screens digital sound equipped. Many operators prefer to hide that point, so they make no mention of sound formats used in any of their ads or marquee displays. For example, Dickinson Theaters Central Mall 12 theater here in Lawton has never listed which movies it shows in DTS. But oddly enough they mention "DTS Digital Sound" vaguely on the electronic marquee in their box office. The truth is only 2 of their 12 screens have DTS players, which is kind of shocking for a theater which opened only a couple years ago. This is a fact few in Lawton know. They figure, "well, they all must have DTS shouldn't they?" I can't blame Dickinson for all the corner cutting. The Central Mall owners own the theater and only pay Dickinson to operate it. In the intial plans, all 12 screens were to be equipped with either DTS-6AD or Dolby CP-500 units (along with much better booth and auditorium hardware than the bottom of the barrel stuff they installed). Still, it bugs me that they won't say which movies are playing in the two largest DTS-equipped auditoriums. So I never watch movies in the place. I drive across town to the Carmike 8, which lists the movies playing in DTS as well as what is showing on their THX certified screen.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-12-2003 10:42 PM                     "As far as I know, it's impossible to have a theatre "equal to THX specs" without paying for the certification, as the THX specs require the use of the THX crossover, which is (was?) part of the THX booth monitor/crossover, which is only supplied to theatres which pay for the THX certification. It's a good booth monitor, too." _________________________________________________________________ Scott, Are you talking about the older THX X-over, or the present version? As for the older version, there are far superior cards available from Component Engineering to replace the original THX cards. The old monitor was also a piece of crap. Very unreliable. Many units monitor functions didn't work properly out of the box!! Many techs tore their hair out after the 2nd or third unit still didn't function right...luckily I only had one screen that had this problem. After you got one that worked properly it generally stayed working at least as long as the volume pot lasted I used to be a big proponent of THX amd did quite a few nice systems back in Wisconsin and Illinios, but THX over a several year period, in the late 90's, proved themselves not to be able to handle, or perhaps was not interested in the smaller markets. Their very high turnover rate among employees was also very disenchanting to say the least. So I quit selling my customers on it all together. There is however no reason at all that a competant dealer cannot design to that same standard, and any good dealer worth his hourly rate should definately be doing that. Another interesting but valid point was also gathered from the plexes that only installed one or two THX auditoriums out of say 8 or 10 screens. In all instances all of the customers loved those particuluar auditoriums so much that they wouldn't buy a ticket to a given show unless it was playing in one of the THX auditoriums. Many left when they found out it was in a regular auditorium, which in most of these cases were also pretty darn good. So in any given complex it is really best to do all THX, or do none at all but design to those same standards anyway. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-12-2003 11:39 PM                       Regarding Gordon's statement that analog dubbers have advantages; I agree totally and in fact, Lucasfilm modified the mag dubbers for superior results to that of the original Magna Tech's. My point was that Goerge Lucas with help from Tom Holman and others, spawned a lot of technology to improve the state of the art. Some ideas were more successful than others, but they were pure research to lead where it may. Of course the marketing hype inevitably followed the more commercially viable concepts. As to Mark's statement that the original THX monitor was a piece of crap. As a point of fact, it was manufactured by Component Engineering. How could the company that manufactured such a steaming pile as an OEM manufacturer to THX then turn around and manufacture superior replacement cards to the one's THX designed, for the sole purpose of assisting customers who no longer wanted to pay the THX "dues"? Don't the cards end up in the aforementioned frame? As I said, I do have a point of view.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 12-13-2003 12:14 AM                        Ha! Good answer, Sam. To celebrate it, I will now drive off and install 2 RSTR-2000!  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-13-2003 02:58 PM                     Outside of the pots getting noisy I have had 0 problems with the crossover frames and we sure have a lot of them up here. The logic was very simple to troubleshoot as well and the speaker drivers were of excellent quality with a good amp behind them Sam I wasn't being criticle stating dubbers rule by the way is there a reverse scan mount to put a optical reader on a magnatech from bacp yet  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-13-2003 04:07 PM                       News to me that the RSTR 2000 will fit a Magnatech. Hadn't gotten around to that yet. Someone must have done it for me. As to analog sound, the best soundtracks I've ever heard side by side were 70mm Mag. As to the THX 3417 frame; The acoustic chamber as it were was designed by Tom Holman. The speaker was also selected by him. They did have a number of QC problems for a time and there was the issue of the monitor section breaking into supersonic oscillation when the volume pot was wide open. This set off the PTC fuse which shut off the monitor amp.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-13-2003 06:28 PM                     No sam I am waiting for you to do it  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-13-2003 10:43 PM                     Yea, I had trouble with the 3417's oscillating...two in a row at Johnson Creek, WI. location. Actually the C.E. 3417 replacemet cards may be the only real decent product they make and its easy to make up a stand alone x-over out of them. BACP on a dubber... If it mounts in place of the head block then I'll take one for my spare MTM!! That would turn a doorstop piece of equipment into something somewhat useful. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-14-2003 12:10 AM                     Decent CE products? Their basement readers (analog and digital) are decent. The SG-1 is the preferred "Cat 85" for CP-65s and earlier, many like their automations and there is a thread on booth monitors around here where many came out in favor of the MS-100 (not my personal favorite...but then again, I've yet to find a monitor I truely liked). Of the THX 3417s...I've had zero failures other than the odd noisey pot. Perhaps, Mark, you got caught in the bad production run and are acousing the whole line as being bad. I've yet to find a manufacturer that hits it right everytime and to that, I've found no exceptions. Steve  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2003 12:32 PM                     I agree with steve never had any major issues with CE products  |  IP: Logged Sam D. Chavez Film God Posts: 2153 From: Martinez, CA USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-14-2003 11:54 PM                       I agree with Steve on this as I generally do. I have no general gripe with CE products since I helped develop some of them. The SG-1 generator by way of example was a project to improve the existing Dolby Cat. No. 85. The sweep generator was needed to identify speaker rattles that are all but impossible to find using pink noise as a signal source. Since Dolby had other higher priorities, I took the idea to CE to get it built in the short term. Certain other features like "red noise" were added at the request of THX.  |  IP: Logged

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