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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: will five front channel sound ever make a comeback?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-30-2011 01:06 PM
For the exhibitor, it is ALWAYS about $$$. If he doesn't get any sense that 7.1 or any other format has a palpable public-driven demand that will bring his grosses up, no way he's going to invest. Does anyone see a MAJORITY of the public clammoring for 8 or 10 channel sound? And it is ALWAYS about the majority of the public, not the niche audio/cinemaphiles. Even if Hollywood supplied it, would they even advertize it in a way that would fullfil that key exhibitor question: will it give me a decided economic advantage?
We just read about the great efforts made by lots of dedicated, creative people, tops in their field, at Chase who reconstructed the original 5 across sound mix for WEST SIDE STORY at great time and I am assuming at great expense. Now go to the AFI-Silver website and see if you can see even a cursory mention that the 70mm print they will be playing will have that Oscar Award Winning sound mix. Sure, a number of us myself included are all excited about it and might even be thinking of trecking down to MD to see it, but we are not Joe Public Moviegoer.
Occasionally we get lucky that there are still a few left in Hollywood who still care about quality and not the bottom line and will go thru the trouble to do this kind of work, BUT, it is the exception. And you have to wait 50 years for an anniversay for something like this to happen. It won't be the norm.
If I were a betting man, I certainly wouldn't put my money on 7.1 or higher track counts becoming a new standard any time soon.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 01-30-2011 02:55 PM
I agree with those who think that we should have better formats theatrically and theatres must always keep ahead of what's available for the home.
Having said that, I really don't think we're going to go back to five screen channels and even if we did, it would be a joke (like it became in the late 60s) because movies won't get mixed for them. Which is why Dolby created the 70mm baby boom format in the first place.
Five screen channels in the traditional format is not going to happen for the home because there's nowhere to place the extra two channels except in the most esoteric of home theatres. It's hard enough for most people to get that center channel in the right place. And for those people who can afford and are willing to put up with extra speakers, they're already going for either wide or height channels.
Furthermore, I disagree with Bobby that there's so much interest in high quality audio for home theatre. There is among the kind of people who populate sites like bluray.com, but those are a tiny niche fraction of consumers. For a variety of reasons, consumers don't seem to be very interested in high quality home audio anymore. There will always be a few people who buy $10,000 loudspeakers and have $ million home theatres that look like movie palaces, but those are certainly the exception to the rule. I don't think a single new higher end A/V receiver was announced at CES this year aside from a slight upgrade from NAD.
So sure, the capability for 7.1 or more is there for the home, but only a fraction are using it. Also, the cards on Blu-ray aren't in yet. While Blu-ray did about $1.7 billion in the U.S. in 2010, it was still only a 15.2% share of the market for physical video media. And certainly a fair number of those sales would have been DVD had BD not existed. Also, if you look at the best selling titles, by the time you get to #10, it's selling maybe 5% of what the top title is selling, so this (at least so far) is solely a hit-driven business in spite of some really fine catalog releases. And as downloading video has more impact, it's not definitely assured that BD is going to be around or if around, that it will get as much attention and releases. So if BD doesn't do well, I think we'll see far fewer 7.1 mixes or the extra channels will be generated by automated processes.
I agree that newspaper advertising has been severely lacking in providing good information about presentation formats. Even when New York City had THX certified theatres, it was never advertised. What was the point, if you're not going to promote it? Not that Dolby's 7.1 format is really going to make a perceptible difference, but try finding a theatre that has it (even though a fair number do). Los Angeles theatres were always much better at this, although I don't know what they're doing today. I think one of the issues is that now that there's far less competition in the theatrical presentation business, a chain doesn't really have any vested interest in moving customers from one theatre to another. It would only make sense for them to push formats if they were playing the same film as a competing chain.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 01-31-2011 10:00 AM
I seriously doubt that five screen channels would ever become popular, either in commercial theaters or (especially) in the home. I've never come out of a movie theater wishing that there were some extra screen channels (except for when the center channel is buzzing or isn't working, which might be helped if there were more speakers to pick up the slack, but that's another issue). I have a 100" wide screen in my home theater, I see no need for additional screen channels.
There isn't source material to make it worth it, IMO. If studios were to begin mixing directional dialogue again, maybe, but I don't see them doing that any time soon.
I have problems with the position that theaters must see a direct correlation to revenue in order to make any kind of investment, but that's no surprise to anyone here that's had to read one of my rants on that topic. I can definitely see the business need to keep an eye on the bottom line, and to control one's costs and to maximize the return on investment, so I get that.
The difficult thing is that we are not talking about an assembly line making widgets. If you can make a $10 investment in the widget-making process, and save $5 on every run, it's a no brainer to do something like that. It's a cut and dried, all-numbers comparison of cost vs. benefit.
Machines are nice that way, but when you introduce lots of variables, like you do when you are dealing with people, it's not so cut and dried.
Presenting movies to a paying audience has an incredible amount of variables involved, and anyone that thinks that they can nail down a firm spreadsheet comparison of the return that can be made on a particular investment in a movie theater is delusional.
Many theaters are perfectly fine delivering mediocrity. I compare them to McDonalds, as the best you can hope for is that the experience is consistent, so that at least you always know what you're going to get even if what you're getting isn't that great to begin with.
In Wisconsin, we are dominated by the Marcus chain. There's an AMC here and there, one Cinemark, and some independents, and that's it for competition. I've been to the Marcus Ridge Cinema three times in the last month and a half (which has to be a new record for me), and every show has had some issues that mar the presentation.
The thing is, most people probably don't notice, at least not enough to say something. So using the bottom-line approach to doing business, one would say that nothing more has to be done. The audience isn't complaining, and therefore, why spend money taking care of the issues or doing anything to improve the presentation?
But what would happen if those issues were resolved, and some extra steps were taken to improve the movie-going experience? I was in a packed 250-person auditorium on Saturday seeing Tangled (which impressed me, since it's been out so long), so that's probably 100-150 paying adults to which an impression is being made.
How many more tickets could the theater sell to other movies in the future if the presentation were more impressive?
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