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Author Topic: Barco Escape Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-15-2015 11:30 PM                        I have yet to see one item on the internet or anywhere saying this is cool, it's a good idea, it's worth the investment or anything. All I've seen is stuff about how terrible it is. And no other movies have used it that I know of except the original Maze Runner which wasn't even a smash hit. All of which leads to the question, WHY is this "system" still being installed anywhere??  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-17-2015 04:42 AM                     To carry on with this: We're just about done with our install and one simple conclusion is apparent: If one is going to put in this process, please, if building a location, or adding a house, design it from the ground up for Barco Escape instead of retrofitting a house that makes the install look so "add-on" where modifications are definitely noticeable.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-18-2015 01:39 AM                     To add: Installation was completed. Images on all three screens looks great and sharp due to the smaller size of the projected image. Quite impressive for the public to witness where they've never seen this process before. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-18-2015 10:33 AM                        How about some pictures? Does the installation stay after Maze Runner is done? I've never heard of any other movies released in the format.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-18-2015 12:12 PM                     What do they do about surround speaker placement in these auditoriums? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged John Roddy Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Spring, TX, United States Registered: Dec 2012 posted 09-18-2015 02:14 PM                        Our install was just finished too. Pretty interesting stuff. quote: Carsten Kurz What do they do about surround speaker placement in these auditoriums? - Carsten Nothing. The screens are perforated, so any speakers already on the wall are totally OK. The side screens cover up two speakers each, but it didn't really make an audible difference. We re-EQ'd the auditorium afterward anyway. It was due. Current sound quality is pretty freaking good, with or without escape. quote: Mike Blakesley Does the installation stay after Maze Runner is done? I've never heard of any other movies released in the format. The side screens are motorized on angled tracks. When escape is disabled, they rest parallel to the side walls, about one or two feet off the wall. They also have curtains attached to an oversized tie rack at the top, also motorized. They wrap around and cover the side completely to prevent glare from the center screen. They also didn't need to modify the main screen at all. In escape mode, you lose about 1/3 of the horizontal space, but 100% of the area is maintained otherwise. We were running both FLAT and SCOPE movies after the install, and it looked exactly the same as it always did. Oh, and for all of you curtain-junkies, the answer is yes: escape is fully compatible with center-screen masking. Our particular setup didn't line up correctly, so we're being forced to leave it open for now. But that can totally be fixed.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-19-2015 03:49 AM                     BARCO Escape install Side screens are at 30 degrees angle from the side walls. This house contains a silver screen, thus the panels are a grey screen material to closely match the main silver screen. Side screens are on a motorized track setup so that the front of each screen, swings back to parallel to the side walls when the Escape system is not in use. Using the "Cinerama" terms: "Able" (left) and "Charlie" (right) projectors (Barco 20C units) suspended from the ceiling facing its respective screen, while "Baker" (center) projector (23B unit) is the existing unit for this house. "Baker" projector received a longer lens to reduce the image to fit with the respective side screens to make one long image. Yet, the lens has enough zoom to enlarge the image on the screen to fill when Escape is not in use. A different server setup is used for this three projector procedure. Each projector has its own internal server and storage where each screen's content is ingested from a main storage unit that is attached to all three projectors. Total files comes on a 1Tb drive that is ingested into the main storage unit Operating controls made by Barco controls the Escape program. Very interesting  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-19-2015 06:48 AM                        Eww. That looks super-ugly. Isn't the noise of the two projectors in the auditorium bothersome to the audience? I haven't seen this in action, but it really does scream "low-rent imitation of Cinerama invented by people who have never seen the real thing." And the sad part is that a proper D-cinema implementation of Cinerama could have been really interesting, since it is now possible to combine images from multiple projectors without visible seams.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 09-19-2015 12:45 PM                     I thought the same upon seeing this picture, however, hardly any auditorium nowadays is actually built to be seen in daylight. Once it's dark and all the screens are lit, it will probably look decent enough to the expectations of the audience. Not that I would ever have something like this built into our auditorium. I'm sure this gimmick won't last. And yes, the noise from two regular Barco machines would annoy the hell out of me. But that's a matter of the sound scape being produced by the features running in Escape mode (no pun intended). For 'ordinary' features, the machines won't be running, so no additional noise. There is always interesting technology behind stuff like this, but from a cinema experience point of view, this is just bad, bad, bad... What's next? ATMOS+ESCAPE in 3D+MassageRecliner-MotionSeats+Smellorama+Philips Lightvibes, all cluttered into one auditorium? Sounds like Dante's inferno to me... I never imagined the end of the digital rollout would be the start of this rubbish... - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-19-2015 01:51 PM                        There's a long list of things I would love to do in our theater but that sure isn't on the list. I read in Hollywood Reporter that the new Maze Runner has roughly 20 minutes of Escape footage, and that they have "grown" the installed base of audioriums to 20. Seriously??! Owners are investing this kind of money for 20 minutes of "created" non-essential extra footage which, in order to be shown, depends on covering up half of the existing screen thus making the picture much smaller? Does the picture height match the side screens? If so, I would run not walk to the nearest "regular" theater to see that movie. With an installed base of only 20 screens it doesn't seem all the likely that studios will be lining up to produce all that many movies in the format. The HR article says there will be "multiple" films in the Escape format over a 5-year period, which commenced with the first Maze Runner last year. One of the films will be a new Jerry Bruckheimer project, one will be a "reimagining" of a classic Bruckheimer film (Top Gun?) with new footage created to "enhance" the original film, and one will be a Lady Gaga concert. The whole thing screams "short lived novelty" to me...  |  IP: Logged Bertrand Samson Film Handler Posts: 6 From: MONTREAL QC CANADA Registered: May 2009 posted 09-19-2015 02:12 PM                     The Cinerama screen had a 146 degree curve and was 80 feet wide.If you want to see pictures of early cinerama installations in America go to Altec Lansing FACEBOOK the one with the Maestro Avatar.As For Barco unfortunately the max aspect ratio is 2.4 where as Cinerama is 2.65 .  |  IP: Logged John Roddy Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Spring, TX, United States Registered: Dec 2012 posted 09-19-2015 02:45 PM                        Barco has actually specified that their goal was never to mimic "cinerama" or any of those panoramic formats. They designed it this way specifically so that it would have three separate screens. Some of their demo content makes this pretty clear since it'll throw completely different angles of the same scene on each of the three screens. Keeping that in mind, this makes less sense for movies, but has a lot of potential for other types of content. Sports/eSports, concerts, etc.. Movies could still work pretty well, but they need to be designed with escape in mind from the beginning. The escape content in Scorch Trials is pretty half-baked. Some of it does work a little better than I'd have expected, but the total-CGI side screen stuff for only a few chunks of the movie? Meh.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 09-19-2015 05:02 PM                     Eventually, there will be, from BARCO, "Hush Boxes" that will totally enclose the two units along with a traveller system that will allow the entire setup to be lowered down for projector maintenance. Yes, image on center screen is the same size as with the side screens. If you look at the total image from about dead center and towards the back, you definitely have a "bowtie" looking image...almost a "Smilebox", but with straight edges instead of the traditional curve edge. Right now, there is a "hush device" attached to the front of the projector that quiets down the sound from the two front fans that cool down the boards, but one still has all of the internal fans blowing away along with the illumination from the touch panel and the rear status light. Yes, while during intermission, you do hear the units clearly, but with show going, it's not too bad where the more distraction is more of the lights. Yet, the public likes this presentation concept, both upstairs and downstairs and that's is what counts. We're the only location in the entire state with this install. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Buck Wilson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 894 From: St. Joseph MO, USA Registered: Sep 2010 posted 09-20-2015 09:31 PM                     Dear lord. This garbage has rendered me speechless. How about we start with Scope done right?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-20-2015 10:44 PM                        I'm really curious what this setup costs. 2 projectors...they obviously don't need to be full-featured projectors, let's guess $20,000 apiece? 2 screens with frames - not silver but special gray matte, but smaller than a normal screen so maybe...$4000 total? Traveler mechanisms, "hush boxes" and all the attendant electrical work for everything -- maybe $12,000? All of which totals up to $60,000. Has anyone gotten a quote for one of these systems? How close is my guess? It's all very curious to me especially considering the small amount of Escape footage in the movies, and the small number of movies that are coming in the format. I think if I was going to spend that kind of money I'd put in Atmos instead.  |  IP: Logged

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