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Topic: Digital Cinema = The death of theaters?

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-22-2010 03:18 PM

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Yet, I can start seeing 3D as the death of DCinema unless prices can be more respectable

A great idea would be for the 3D charge to get less and finally disappear as the weeks went on. Might help attendance in week 3, 4, 5, 6 and the uberfans would still come in week 1 anyway.

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Geena Phillips
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 198
From: Norcross, GA / USA
Registered: Apr 2006

posted 09-27-2010 09:26 PM

Y'all must have nice servers. If we tried to play a film on our theatre's (former, as I no longer work there) Qube units directly off a CRU drive, we would crash and burn.

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Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 11-08-2010 04:58 PM

quote: Kyle Butler
But everyone usually agrees that 35mm will make a comeback in this case. This is about the suggested "end" of movie theaters.

I've been reading some of the comments in this thread, and it took a while to go through everything but the future "IS" digital cinema, there no question about it.

More specifically, movie theatres that are immersive and get you more involved will be the winners. Technologies such as Digital 3D/D-BOX/GIANT extra screens will get people into the theatre.

Just today I heard the latest ad on the radio promoting Empire Theatres new "Extra" concept. Just like BigD, Ultra AVX etc this where it is going. Some may not like it, but the chains are doing it. For example, I can't stand Cineplex's new Ultra AVX...the screen is just to big for the theatre. Also, there is no angles seating which is one of the most important aspects of movie watching

Also, Dolby for example has done a brilliant marketing move by called "Dolby Surround 7.1". "Dolby Surround 7.1" has much better marketing power than Dolby Digital. "Surround = immersive" to many consumers. Also, so many younger gen consumers know what 5.1/6.1 is always talk to me about how DTS sounds better in the "Surrounds"....Whether or not it is, Is besides the point. The consumer thinks this.

Concepts and marketing such as:

Crystal clear digital picture
35 million colors
12,000 watts of power or whatever it is
3D Digital
7.1 Surround or more (to my knowledge, this is D-Cinema exlusive in some cases(1*)
Immersive surround sound
Wall-to-wall screens
Reserved seating
DBOX

You can still get these technologies without digital but I can't see many theaters building new cinemas without the use of digital projection.This is going to be popular going forward. It has a lot to do with marketing. These are not digital exclusive, but they tend to go hand-in-hand with digital when marketed.

This is just my opinion it has nothing to with which is better (film vs digital) as it has more to do with what the consumer wants, and digital will marketed very well to the consumer. Like I mentioned earlier, most of these can be done with film but I have never seen so much adverstising of digital cinema until recently.

(1*) "At this point, it should be clear that the added sound and pressure levels are only possible because of d-cinema and that 35mm prints will not carry the 7.1 imprint." filmjournal

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 11-08-2010 05:25 PM

quote: Tom Petrov
Also, Dolby for example has done a brilliant marketing move by called "Dolby Surround 7.1". "Dolby Surround 7.1" has much better marketing power than Dolby Digital.

Whaaa?? Dude, you really must be a troll because if you've read this forum you'd know that the opinion runs nearly completely opposite. That's not to say that 7.1 sound is bad, but that it's not being marketed well at all and nobody seems to care about it, just like Dolby EX (which was marketed). It wasn't even implemented very well on Toy Story 3.

quote: Tom Petrov
Concepts and marketing such as:

Crystal clear digital picture
35 million colors
12,000 watts of power or whatever it is
3D Digital
7.1 Surround or more
Immersive surround sound
Wall-to-wall screens
Reserved seating
DBOX

You can still get these technologies without digital

How can you get 3D Digital without digital?

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Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 11-08-2010 05:28 PM

quote: Joe Redifer
Whaaa?? Dude, you really must be a troll because if you've read this forum you'd know that the opinion runs nearly completely opposite. That's not to say that 7.1 sound is bad, but that it's not being marketed well at all and nobody seems to care about it, just like Dolby EX (which was marketed). It wasn't even implemented very well on Toy Story 3.

Plese stop it with the troll calling. Immediately. I AM NOT TROLLING> This is just my opinion. STOP it will the trolling comments.

quote: Joe Redifer
How can you get 3D Digital without digital?

As oppossed to Technicolour 3d which has very little marketing power.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 11-08-2010 05:39 PM

I calls 'em as I sees 'em. You seem to be living in a fantasy world if you think the marketing behind 7.1 is "brilliant".

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Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 11-08-2010 05:43 PM

quote: Joe Redifer
I calls 'em as I sees 'em. You seem to be living in a fantasy world if you think the marketing behind 7.1 is "brilliant".

Well all I keep hearing on the radio is Cineplex and now Empire call their sound "immersive surround sound"....no mention of digital..IMO, Dolby made the right move by linking surround and 7.1 together for the movie theaters.

Only at home on DVD did I ever see Dolby Digtial 5.1. I have never seen a movie theatre adverstise the 5.1 part.

This is why "marketing" is going to be very important with digital cinema.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 11-08-2010 05:52 PM

Homes already had digital sound by the time LaserDiscs and DVDs came out with 5.1. Digital sound was new to theaters so they didn't really need to call it anything more. People already knew it meant "immersive" surrounds/bass, etc etc. But now with home audio being what it is, they NEED to differentiate if they can, but they still really don't. They never mention uncompressed audio or whatnot. There is only so much the movie-going public seems to care about. They are initially brought in by catch phrases such as "immersive" but anyone can use that phrase or any others for virtually any theater.

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Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 11-08-2010 05:57 PM

quote: Joe Redifer
Homes already had digital sound by the time LaserDiscs

Actually, laserdisc never called it 5.1 for homes at first.

It was originally marketed at Dolby Surround AC-3 Pro-logic and AC-3 Surround Digital.....later 1997-1998 laserdiscs simply called it "Dolby Digital" ....some did call it 5.1 later on like Criterion Seven which calls it "Discrete 5.1 Channel AC-3 Soundtrack"

Early home theatre never mareketing it as Dolby Digital 5.1 it came a little later.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 11-08-2010 07:41 PM

First of all the "5.1" thing has never really been a part of the Dolby Digital logo. That's just an add-on since Dolby Digital can feature a variety of channel layouts from 1.0 to 5.1 and 5.1 EX.

Dolby made a few mistakes in marketing when they introduced Dolby Digital to the public in the early 1990s.

When the theatrical SR•D version was launched in 1992 it was called "Dolby Stereo Digital." The original "train" trailer featured that logo and also featured a substantially better mix.

In the fall of 1993 Dolby rolled out the very misleading "tri" logo which combined the Spectral Recording moniker for optical tracks and "digital" together into one all purpose Dolby Stereo logo. The first version had a tagline "in selected theatres worldwide." In 1994 the off putting "verify theatre format" tagline appeared. Thankfully Dolby never incorporated that logo into any of their sound format trailers.

In the Spring of 1995 Dolby introduced the simplified Dolby Digital logo.

The Dolby Surround brand has traditionally been tied to consumer and broadcast applications. That's why Dolby initially tried to use an unreasonably complicated Dolby Surround AC-3 Digital logo on the first AC-3 encoded Laserdiscs. It took Dolby a while before figuring it was better to use the Dolby Digital brand on anything that contained a Dolby Digital audio track. I think the rivalry with DTS and developments happening with DVD convinced Dolby to make the change.

Dolby went back to differentiating between theatrical audio on home theater with Dolby•EX, but did so inconsistently. In theaters the audio track was branded Dolby Digital with a "Surround EX" tagline underneath. The same audio track on DVD was called "Dolby Surround EX" or "Dolby Surround EX 5.1." They couldn't use "6.1" because that would not be factually accurate, but many people called it "6.1" anyway. Movie studios were forbidden to use the Dolby Digital Surround EX logo seen in the movie's end credits. On top of that, the home theater hardware suppliers had to use a Dolby logo with a "Digital•EX" tag line underneath. I think all this inconsistency created confusion among consumers and apathy in theater operators and electronics sales people.

I think some of those mistakes helped DTS. And DTS offered a truly discrete 6.1 format in the home version of DTS-ES. I think DTS was more consistent with its use of logos.

Now we're seeing similar brand inconsistencies between audio formats on Blu-ray and in movie theaters. Dolby launched its Dolby TrueHD format years ago. I think the public is fairly familiar with this brand name since it has appeared on many Blu-ray cases and pieces of home theater hardware. My PS3 "Slim" has the logo on it (along with Dolby Digital Plus) although it is very faint and pretty hard to read. One would figure Dolby would try to find some way to get that "TrueHD" brand into movie theaters. But no! Let's dig up the old Dolby Surround brand and apply it to an audio format that doesn't have any Dolby encoding to it at all.

D-cinema audio is uncompressed Linear PCM. There's no Dolby, DTS or any other brand name encoding happening. At least on Blu-ray the Dolby and DTS formats do feature specific lossy and lossless compression schemes distributed by Dolby and DTS. I think DTS has been gaining in popularity both by home theater fans and home video distributors in recent years partly because DTS doesn't have a bunch of different, confusing arrangements of their brand (and there's also the issue that DTS may not be charging studios as much for licensing as Dolby).

By having a more simplified logo scheme it will also be more idiot proof in how it is used in advertising. I've seen the various logos from Dolby, DTS and others used incorrectly -particularly in newspaper advertising and other areas where an increasing amount of amateur hour graphic design and layout is taking place. Basically you can't trust that everyone is going to read and observe the rules in a brand guidelines publication. Some of these goons are just going to grab a counterfeit logo off Brands of the World and then screw it up whatever way they see fit.

If movie studios and theaters want to make a serious effort of selling 7.1 they need to come up with a better marketing scheme. Dolby Surround 7.1 isn't going to cut it. Theaters might just do better by using a generic "7.1 Surround" badge. Since Linear PCM is seen as a generic form of audio then generic "7.1 Surround" would be a more accurate marketing term.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-08-2010 08:41 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
D-cinema audio is uncompressed Linear PCM. There's no Dolby, DTS or any other brand name encoding happening.

Maybe that's why Dolby doesn't really distribute their sound logos digitally. (They have a 7.1 logo, which is VERY cool especially in 3-D but that's all I've seen.)

I still wish they would promote their 3-D better. That stupid logo never shows up anywhere, while RealD is all over the place.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 11-09-2010 12:44 AM

Ask Dolby to send you a thumbdrive with their logo files so you can load them on your server...

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-09-2010 09:32 AM

Joe... I hear that Dolby is going to begin marketing a new sound format... 9.5.1! There will be just a single stage speaker and the rest of the channels will split up amongst the existing 7.1 surrounds and the new ones. The sub woofer has also been eliminated so there will be no further complaints from all the elderly crowds that are now flocking to cinemas because of the conversion to digital...

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-09-2010 11:27 AM

Monte - I have emailed Dolby and also filled out the "contact us" form on their website, and have filled-out and sent-in the "order form" for promotional stuff and have never gotten a response on any of it.

Once they have your money you are dead to them apparently. (Unless you have 2500 screens, maybe?)

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 11-09-2010 11:41 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
I still wish they would promote their 3-D better. That stupid logo never shows up anywhere, while RealD is all over the place.

It's a repeat of what has taken place in home theater. The DTS logo has been all over the place while the Dolby logo has seemingly been reduced to a generic status. Hardly any of my DVDs have Dolby Digital trailers on them while many of the ones with DTS 5.1 tracks do. Lately a new DTS-HD Master Audio trailer has started appearing on Blu-ray discs (the BD of Kick Ass has one).

It can't be good for Dolby that so many Blu-ray discs are using DTS-HD Master Audio for the primary audio track. Toy Story 3 helped launch Dolby Surround 7.1. But the new Blu-ray released last week has DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1.

Digital 3D marketing in theaters is pretty confusing, particularly with phony formats like "Disney Digital 3D" constantly being publicized. Real-D is indeed "everywhere," probably as much if not more than the IMAX-3D brand. The logo is commonly used on movie posters, movie trailers and TV commercials (I haven't seen it in any end credits though). We all know others 3D formats exist, such as Dolby 3D -but they don't get any publicity.

I expected to see the Dolby 3D trailer when I watched Toy Story 3 at the Warren Theaters Moore 14 in Moore, OK. They played the Dolby Surround 7.1 trailer, but no Dolby 3D trailer. Perhaps Dolby figures it's enough for people to see the Dolby logo on the 3D glasses.

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