• SDDS dropouts, probably due to flawed prints. Steve Guttag and Brad noted this on their prints, a couple others have mentioned it too.
  
• The above theater switches from SDDS to DTS, but apparently forgets to change a cue on the print, and shows then run in SR.
  
• Sound drops out of DTS in the middle of a show, and the booth is unaware until a customer complains.
  
• 15 or so public shows and the print is full of black specks, and one part looks like a track of dirt was laid down the middle of the print.

None of the above would be likely to happen with DLP. No sound-on-film printing defects. No cues to screw around with on the print. No outboard disc playback units to freeze up (I bet they rebooted the DTS player to fix that problem). And of course no dirty prints or need to even consider Film-Guard (Brad, do you have some replacement product in the works to take its place?)

We all know that cinema chains are not going to spend more money on booth training or Film-Guard, or enforce stricter procedures to make personnel pay more attention to what's going on. Not gonna happen. That means it comes down to how much the individual employee cares. Some of them do, but evidently not nearly enough of them.

Therefore George must be right. Quit wasting energy fighting a losing battle over film presentation quality. Embrace the new technology. If digital cuts the chances of presentation problems in half as compared to film, maybe it's worth a little loss of image quality. Who cares, nobody in the general public can tell the difference anyway, so might as well take the easy road.

"None of the above would be likely to happen with DLP. No sound-on-film printing defects. No cues to screw around with on the print. No outboard disc playback units to freeze up (I bet they rebooted the DTS player to fix that problem). And of course no dirty prints or need to even consider Film-Guard (Brad, do you have some replacement product in the works to take its place?)"

IMHO, you trade these known (and very fixable) problems for a new set of problems. See the postings on Digital Cinema "hiccups". Also, those things common to both film and digital cinema would not likely change in their problems. From the postings here on Film-Tech, it does seem that ATOC had a higher percentage of printing problems than normal.

"We all know that cinema chains are not going to spend more money on booth training or Film-Guard, or enforce stricter procedures to make personnel pay more attention to what's going on. Not gonna happen. That means it comes down to how much the individual employee cares. Some of them do, but evidently not nearly enough of them."

Why would these factors be any better with Digital Cinema?

"Therefore George must be right. Quit wasting energy fighting a losing battle over film presentation quality. Embrace the new technology. If digital cuts the chances of presentation problems in half as compared to film, maybe it's worth a little loss of image quality. Who cares, nobody in the general public can tell the difference anyway, so might as well take the easy road."

IMHO, the "easy road" to fixing the problems you cite is "Film Done Right".

If I don't change the oil in my automobile and the engine seizes, I have only myself to blame. Buying a new car every few months is an expensive and foolish solution to negligence. And it's likely I'd neglect the batteries if I bought an electric ("digital") car, that doesn't match the performance of today's internal combustion ("film") car. Extending the analogy, hybrid or electric automobiles have advantages, but it will take years before they match the performance of today's cars and dominate the market --- and they still need to be maintained and have a competent driver at the wheel.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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I know you already corrected that in a later post, but as you no doubt know by now it's skill, caring, regular online film cleaning and properly maintained equipment that is the solution to the ongoing problem of poor presentations.

As for that manager, just ignore him. That guy is just showing off how easily he is brainwashed from his corporate office. (Remember kiddies, a manager who can think for himself is a bad thing.) It's such old news. I've heard the same thing over and over from managers across the country working for that chain and it comes from a personal beef one guy has with me regarding my continual strive for perfection with presentations. This was over 10 years ago from that guy who is now working in the purchasing department who seems to be going out of his way to convince all of their managers that anyone who participates in Film-Tech is a lowlife, wannabe moron who has no business in the industry. (That's paraphrasing it nicely.) Yeah, ok whatever. Thankfully I don't have anything to do with that chain anymore. In the meantime, maybe they will buy up all the DLPs that TI can make.

If I were working the booth for an Ep2 show, I would be obsessive about babysitting those systems to make sure everything is right. I know some of you are doing that too and you should be applauded. [I'm applauding you right now. ] But what about the other 95% of the Ep2 shows? How many of them have some problem that's related to finicky film and lack of personal attention to details in the booth? George's wacky little space movie tests the limits of image and sound quality (even in film), and too many theaters are probably failing the test ("failing the test" probably also applies to labs).

It baffles me why theaters don't have hard and fast rules for booth personnel about paying attention to what's going on. How the hell can you run a booth like that? Even with minimal staffing, they should be able to figure out better ways to keep on top of technical problems. And why doesn't booth equipment include audible alarms for when something isn't right? I mean, if the sound is flipping in and out of digital, or if there are excessive block errors, or if the show completely drops out to analog, why can't an audible alarm go off or something? Why is the equipment designed to require constant babysitting? And if you're too cheap to use film cleaners & Film-Guard on all movies (understandable if the print is going away within a couple weeks), why not at least mandate the use of a film cleaning system for big "Event" movies like Ep2? Why is that so hard to figure out?

Instead we get: Start the show, check to see if there's picture and sound, and go back to selling popcorn and tickets. Walk away and forget it. Yep, that's how to run a booth. Again I know this is not news to anyone here.

DLP will have its share of problems, and a DLP problem seems more likely to be a show-stopper, literally. But it also seems like the sheer number of things that can go wrong will be greatly reduced. Just think of all the small details that have to be done right with film but which don't factor in with digital.

I'll bet you LucasFilm is collecting comments from web sites such as Film-Tech to build up their arsenal of compelling reasons why theaters need to switch to DLP.

Brad, you know what I meant about that mgr's comments so glad you didn't take anything personally.

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Man I can't remember how often I've played a movie in SDDS and wanted instead to play it in DTS but forgot to switch the cues! In fact, I NEVER switched the cues. But DTS worked just fine anyway. Why's that? Well because DTS runs itself. I've never seen a theater that actually had to cue into DTS although I'm sure that at least a couple probably exist.

While I'm on the subject, my policy is for the projectionist to get up off of their butt and walk the booth once every 15-20 minutes and check every screen for lights down, sound format, proper fader setting (we have 2 faders, one for trailers and one for feature), focus, framing and smooth film operation. While 99.9999999999999% of the time the walk turns out to be essentially useless, every once in awhile there is something that is caught.

The projectionist on duty is also to walk the auditoriums and spend 1-2 minutes in each room watching and listening to the presentation as the customers experience it. This is to be done once all projectors are on screen for the first round of the shift. I agree with Tal that whoever is designing these recent multiplexes is putting zero effort into a well designed booth. Some of the things I see are just ridiculous. Stairs everywhere, narrow doors and hallways, multiple booths, platforms for the console/platter that Ian Price himself could not fit around and so forth. The best example I can think of is the Cinemark Tinseltown 20 in Plano, TX. This is hands down the WORST booth design of all time (that I have seen). It takes the projectionist a good 2 minutes moving pretty darned fast to get from one end (say #8) to the other end (#13) and there are several flights of stairs that must be navigated. The projectionists there say frequently it is quicker to go downstairs and cross through the lobby than it is to stay in the booth to get from machine to machine. Adding to the horrid design is there are no status panels in the building, nor projector alarms! Cinemark's continual cutting of corners by running the AC at 80 degrees doesn't help matters much either (Hey, the customers don't go into the booth, why waste the electricity?) I feel very sorry for anyone who has to run that place.

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