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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: D-BOX rant
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-02-2014 06:17 PM
quote: Frank Angel
How many directions of movement can there be...Left, Right, Forward, Back, maybe bouncing up and down? And people complain that 3D is distracting when stuff is purposely throw at the audience for effect. Imagin the production design that requires lots of superfluous "motion" shots thrown just so they could vibrate the seats to make it worth the surcharge.
Nobody in his right mind would make a motion picture for general release targeted at D-BOX. The market is way to limited for that.
Furthermore, this whole concept is just bollocks for any normal movie I can think of. Those seats also don't qualify for any realistic theme park experience, because that should be focused on creating a real sense of motion. Those seats haven't anything near the freedom of movement required for that and your feet stay on the ground almost all the time. Maybe it works a bit better for kids, dwarfs, hobbits and short-legged people in general.
Besides that, the motion of those seats feels clunky and of rather low resolution.
This is nothing close to a motion simulator experience, it's even not comparable to the "movable" floor of Disney's Honey, I Shrunk the Audience (which got later converted back to Captain EO, although now with "movable" floor).
quote: Frank Angel
Just like Sensurround -- it was a massive system and it really only worked for EARTHQUAKE; and the handful of othersw where it was tried with little success.
I've never experienced the Sensurround system, but from what I've read and heard about it, I guess that many modern sound systems can probably generate sufficient sound pressure with "ordinary sub woofers" to get close to that effect and probably with much more flexibility and accuracy than just a pseudo-random rumble effect.
quote:
Can you imagine how lame an audience member would think it was if you saw a big explosion on screen, your seat rocked back from the "impact," but the sound only went "boom" instead of "BOOOOOM!"
And if you can really make it "BOOOOOM!", that effect will be much more realistic. The Atmos system in the room and the accompanying heavy sub array produced a much more realistic "rumble" than the sinusoidal rumble of those seats.
quote: Jason McMillan
Frankly, the seats were so hard to police to keep people from sitting in those rows that didn't pay for them that I don't think anyone was upset to see them go.
The theater that I visited that had them, uses reserved seating only. Their solution is rather straight forward: They only enable the seats that have been paid for.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-03-2014 02:54 AM
Wow, Mark, you are right about that -- lots of big name titles, some of which I have. Funny, they certainly haven't marketed this system well at all. I asked around and even theatre people hadn't heard of consumer BRays having DuhBox encoding. My copy of JACK AND THE BEANSTALK which is listed as being a DuhBox title makes no mention at all of the feature. I would assume there would be no reason for dual BRay inventory, i.e., with and without the seat-kicking encoding.
Thing is, there are really only a very few titles in the list that I would guess could "benefit" from my seat pitching and yawing under me while the movie is going on. Seems that would be just about as distracting from the movie as if some kid were kicking the back of my seat. Does anyone really want to be jostled around when watching say, BORN ON THE FORTH OF JULY or ALL QUIETY ON THE WESTERN FRONT?
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I've never experienced the Sensurround system, but from what I've read and heard about it, I guess that many modern sound systems can probably generate sufficient sound pressure with "ordinary sub woofers" to get close to that effect and probably with much more flexibility and accuracy than just a pseudo-random rumble effect.
Marcel, I have seen EARTHQUAKE in Sensurround three times, all in different theatres, once in Chicago and twice in New York and let me tell you, I haven't heard any modern cinema system that can do what that system did. There were dozens of Cerwin-Vega 18in subwoofers in folded horn bins across entire width of the stage (all single screen rooms with stages at least 50-60ft width & nothing but bins you could practically walk into. There were vertical bins with fanned out mouths that were designed to couple the sound to the side walls of the theatre which were stacked floor to ceiling in either side of the proscenium, and then vertical bins stacked in both rear corners of the orchestra AND the balcony.
When this random low frequency rumble that represented the sound of an earthquake kicked in, you couldn't speak because the sound pressure was so intense that it made your voice sound like something was vibrating your neck and vocal cords. In fact, the sensation made you feel like your entire body was being buffeted and sympathetically vibrating with the rumble -- you felt this in the pit of your stomach and literally down in your gonads. It was VERY impressive and nearly viagra-esque.
In some theatres -- I think I heard it happened at Grauman's Chinese -- they couldn't play it at the spec level because it was knocking loose the plaster facade, not to mention loosening decades of dirt and debris that had collected in the ceilings and walls of those old houses. Not sure many modern cinemas could reproduce the effect as intensely as the original Sensurround system.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-03-2014 03:33 AM
quote: Mark Lensenmayer
More movies are encoded with D-Box than I would have thought.
There is a Wikipedia page that maintains a pretty complete list. Most "event" movies and many action/thriller movies have this D-Box Motion Code.
I'm still not sure who is responsible for creating that track, is this something done by the studio or is it something that D-Box does themselves?
From what I've experienced, it's not really very sophisticated, it felt like somebody randomly pulling on a joystick and pressing the rumble button every time something exploded. So I guess with a little training, you can create such a "mix" in a few hours...
quote: Frank Angel
In some theatres -- I think I heard it happened at Grauman's Chinese -- they couldn't play it at the spec level because it was knocking loose the plaster facade, not to mention loosening decades of dirt and debris that had collected in the ceilings and walls of those old houses. Not sure many modern cinemas could reproduce the effect as intensely as the original Sensurround system.
That doesn't really sound structurally safe to me ![[Wink]](wink.gif) . I guess you don't want to have such a system in your average multiplex either, because it will render the rooms next to it quite unusable.
It reminds me a bit of an experimental setup some years ago in one of the multiplex cinemas in the vicinity, where they put some large woofers below the wooden stadium seating floor. That probably didn't generate equal sound pressure levels in the room, but also caused a heavy rumble to permeate trough the room.
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
One thing I am sure not a fan of is what AMC Prime is offering, recliners with subwoofers installed into them is ridiculous.
For me, that's about on the same level as D-Box. And I guess, there are sufficient signs that, once the novelty wears off, people will stay away in droves, especially if you need to pay a premium of up to $5 to $7 for the additional massage.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 01-03-2014 11:27 AM
Unless you've tried out something like the Buttkickers first-hand, don't knock it until you have. I installed them in my home theater chairs two years ago, and I like the effect, but as with anything like this, there is a time and a place for it, and less is more.
I wanted to try the concept out, as it seemed interesting. I wasn't expecting anything revolutionary, but I was curious, and thought it could be fun in certain situations.
I initially succumbed to the temptation that people first have when they get surround sound or a subwoofer, and I turned it up too high in order to "get the effect" as much as possible. Even the small one that I ordered could shake the hell out of my chair and there were some points where it bottomed out, which caused a really nasty metal-on-metal banging that immediately told me that I had gone too far.
There are two adjustments that are key with the Buttkicker. The first is the crossover frequency, so that you aren't getting voices and normal bass vibrating the chair. The second is the vibration level. By tweaking both of these with plenty of experimentation for what fits your personal taste, you can get a really cool effect that complements the LFE track nicely.
I would equate the proper setting to how surround sound was calibrated in the early days. If you notice it when it's on, it's too high. If you notice when it's missing, you've got it just right. Your natural expectation is that when you see an explosion on-screen and hear it, the floor should shake from the impact. Bass transducers like the Buttkicker are intended to reproduce that effect.
But the tech has to match the movie.
I don't turn them on for watching comedies or dramas, as that would be out of place. But when watching the latest action, sci-fi, shoot-em-up and blow-them-to-hell thrillers, they're a good addition to the theater.
Picking the right movie would be key to DBox as well, I would imagine (I've never had the opportunity to try them). You don't sit in a DBox seat to watch Saving Mr. Banks, but if done right, I could see it being a novelty for something like Fast & Furious.
The fact that people were trying to sit in the DBox seats without paying means that they were interested, just not in paying extra. Maybe they were just curious, but the interest was there nonetheless. The reports I've heard about DBox experiences was that the chairs were selectively powered if that reserved seat was purchased for the movie. That would prevent the problem of seat-jumping.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 01-03-2014 11:47 AM
IMHO, the D-Box thing is ridiculous. It's not what I consider a real motion simulator seat. True ride film seats do a hell of a lot more. These are gussied up regular movie theater chairs that just shake around a little bit. The price premiums being charged to sit in one of these seats is insane, particularly for the weak "MFX®" effect being delivered.
But I guess that's just my take on it. Quite a few movie theaters are installing D-Box seats, so there must be at least some segment of the movie-going public perfectly willing to get price gouged for it.
I'm not sure I get the point of seat-mounted sub-bass speakers either. On a technical point, wouldn't all those seat mounted subs in a AMC Prime theater cause some cancellation issues with the primary subs in the sound system? I'm just wondering.
Do you know what I consider impressive? A sound system with very clean yet tight, punchy sub-bass powerful enough to pound the air in your chest. That's one of the real marks of a truly well setup and maintained sound system. I don't care so much about feeling my seat move. Any sloppy, overly loud theater sound system can do that. Very few have the power to manipulate the air in your lungs. To be honest, I have yet to visit a stadium seated theater anywhere that has been able to deliver that. One theater that was able to do that, on a dependable basis: the old General Cinemas Northpark #1 THX screen in Dallas. That theater blew away all these alphabet soup labeled theaters in terms of overall sound quality.
Brad Miller's old screening room in Rockwall had so much bass power in it that it literally produced wind.
![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
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