posted 10-19-2018 03:00 PM                       

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Q. Do movie theaters still use traditional reels, or do they just use DVDs?

A. There are still theaters that use reels of film for projection but they are becoming fewer are and far between. The multiplexes will have a certain small percentage of the theaters equipped only for film. It’s just too expensive to maintain and only the old-timers know how to keep things running. Plus the film print itself is expensive to print, ship and splice together for an automated film projector system. They usually come in 5 or 6 20 minute (really heavy) reels and get spliced together into one giant 90 or 120 minute pancake so no rewinding or swapping of projectors. Just one long continuous loop…

I’ve seen some theaters setup consumer high end digital projectors for live events (they have to switch out the lenses because the throw of typical consumer projectors are too short).

DVDs/Blurays are only used for private one time only functions (festivals as such). If a non-affiliated theater has a retrospective series they may get/have some proprietary playback or even separate full-coat mag sound sync setups but those are really rare.

Because of security issues, proprietary portable hard drives are now the standard. They are shipped in a portable lock-box (similar to a handgun safe) from the film distributor and plugged into a custom closed digital projection system. It’s like a mini Fort Knox with multi-redundant safeguards against tampering.

The sad thing is most of the movies you see are no better than the standard Bluray you see at a big box store, and sometimes it’s worse. It seems that you can fool most of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time… yet they still stay in business. My experience with IMAX-3D Avatar was a sorely disappointing experience. That was the last time I paid to go to a movie. Oh well, happy watching.

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Almost no commercial theaters used “continuous loop” film systems. By far the most common film system was the platter system, where all the reels were spliced together (as you say), but the film had to be re-threaded through the projector for each show.

The main use for continuous loop systems was venues where the same film would be exhibited thousands and thousands of times, such as in a theme park application.

I’m sorry you find the theatrical experience no better than a standard Blu-Ray, but that may be because you’re not looking at the whole package. The picture in a theater is many times bigger than you can get at home; in fact the whole room being much bigger is the best part of the theater experience, for me at least. If your theater has a great sound system and a good presentation, that’s an unbeatable combination. If you’re stuck with a low-quality theater, that’s a sad situation for you.

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Well, I have to respectfully disagree here. The theaters I’ve gone to all use continuous loop platter systems (It surprised me when I first saw this too). When a multiplex setup has one projectionist running 10 (or more) theaters (6 or 7 running 35mm films) there is no way to keep up threading and re-threading projectors all day every day. Continuous loop systems also increase the over all reliability of projection (limited human intervention and as you mentioned “venues where the same film would be exhibited thousands and thousands of times” implies higher reliability) so the customers have a much better experience.

There also seems to be a mis-conception that the larger the room/screen the better the experience. If you enjoy the interaction of the audience with the movie then yes the theater would be the way to go. Other than that the home movie experience can be had with a well setup home theater system that is easily better than 90–95 percent of the multiplexes out there. Today’s large screen direct view home HDR 4K screens easily out performs EVERY carbon arc projection system in existence. A decent 5.1–7.1 sound system can achieve the same (if not greater) staging, dynamic and frequency range that the 20 year old theater sound systems can never even come close to.

So, save the handful of outstanding theaters (you can count them on your hands) in the world, the theater experience is inferior. It seems the folks who have never experienced a good home theater system (iPhone/iPad only experience?) have no idea that they could have it all at home (minus the real estate ads and audience).

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I guess I will have to disagree with your disagreement. I’ve been a theater owner for almost 40 years and am a member of a couple of projectionist forums, and I can tell you that endless loop systems were definitely never a common thing. They are hard on film, and projectionists for the most part hated them due to all the problems that would crop up. Only a couple of chains used them, and even there, they weren’t usually in all auditoriums because only the longest-running films would be used with them.

It’s possible that you’re confusing “endless loop” systems (where there is no threading between shows) with standard platter systems, which you only have to thread once per show. Probably at least 90% of film theaters used standard platter systems, not the endless loop systems.

I’ll also have to disagree with your comment that one projectionist can’t keep up with 6 or 7 auditoriums running film off of standard platter systems. I know several projectionists who would disagree with you on that one, including a couple of guys who would routinely run 12-plexes and larger. Provided the shows are scheduled intelligently (not all starting at the same time), a good projectionist can thread a typical platter film system in a minute or less.

Your assertion that the “home experience” is better, well that just indicates the quality of the movie theaters in your area. No home system can ever compete with a well-calibrated theater system for picture and sound quality. (Of course “shoebox”-type mall theaters would be the exception to that.) The commercials are an irritation, I agree, but they are an economic necessity in today’s world — without them, concession prices would be even higher than they already are. Heck, even “Amazon Prime” now includes a commercial before every show.

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