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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Does THX Matter Anymore???
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Evans A Criswell
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1579
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 05-31-2005 03:47 PM
quote: Manny Knowles
Something else to consider: all those screwed-up home theatre "systems" contribute heavily to the miscalibration of the audience's ears: they don't know what sounds good anymore. And it doesn't help matters when the THX logo is plastered all over their equipment.
I agree. Most people adjust their home systems to add too much bass and treble and have their surrounds run up too high as well. Teenagers and people in their young 20s are the worst about this. It makes things sound better to them, like it did to me at that age, but the older I got, the more I liked having a system good enough to play a flat signal into and have it reporduce it as faithfully as possible. After doing so for a while, and hear a system with too much bass or treble in a store, it bothers me. But to the majority of the young people, that's what they want. They want overemphasis on so many aspects of the sound.
When people spend the money on surround speakers and the equipment to drive them, they tend want noticeable sound coming out of them, whether it's accurate or not. Most people's ideas of what sounds good have been tarnished. Don't even get me started on those people who have the subwoofers in their cars that cause everything they listen to to have more bass than anything else.
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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 05-31-2005 06:55 PM
quote: Evans A Criswell
Most people adjust their home systems to add too much bass and treble and have their surrounds run up too high as well. Teenagers and people in their young 20s are the worst about this. It makes things sound better to them, like it did to me at that age, but the older I got, the more I liked having a system good enough to play a flat signal into and have it reporduce it as faithfully as possible. After doing so for a while, and hear a system with too much bass or treble in a store, it bothers me. But to the majority of the young people, that's what they want. They want overemphasis on so many aspects of the sound.
Consumers have been striving for inferior sound for a long time. I remember the days when people strove to have a great sounding hi-fi system in which the accuracy you describe was the objective. As a kid, I used to visit the AR listening room in Grand Central Station every chance I got. To hear the AR turntable playing back through the Dyna preamp and D-70 power amps into the AR-3 speakers was absolutely phenomenal. And later, the clean and crisp sound from Advent typified the objective of a good sound system.
But the 8-track tape and the compact cassette format started us down the path to inferior sound. Even with Dolby B, C or S noise reduction and the massive improvements in tape formulations and recording/playback heads, the cassette format was not very good.
Once relatively high-powered and cheap ICs were developed, that gave us the era of the boombox and the car radio that provides 100% distortion of the signal (even not counting the fact that the car doors are audibly vibrating.)
The CD improved things for a while, although it took a while to get the mastering right. Even though the Redbook format permits a dynamic range of 96db, everyone compressed the hell out of the levels anyway. It’s hard to believe now, with the advent of MP3s and other lossy compression schemes, that the CD was criticized because 16bit/44.1 Khz recording was considered to not be good enough.
So now we’ve got everyone listening to MP3 players that have about a half-watt of power, tiny transducers, and lossy compression schemes. Everyone has a perception that it’s high quality because it’s “DIGITAL”. And I have to admit, if I plug my daughter’s i-Pod into my car stereo, it subjectively sounds damned good. But when I plug it into my stereo system, it sound like crap, as does satellite radio (listen to the out-of-phase signal on a satellite radio broadcast – it sounds like a sound effect for a science-fiction movie.)
If anyone cared about audio quality, formats such as DVD-Audio and SACD would be much more successful than they are. But like much else in our society, we only care about convenience, cost and perception.
One other reason for the decline in audio quality is the fact that almost everyone is deaf. Baby boomers are deaf because of their age and all the years of rock concerts. But today, SPLs of the stage monitor system are actually higher than the house PAs from the 1960s and 70s. Levels in the audience cause permanent hearing damage after 20 minutes of exposure. So between ridiculously loud levels in live music and having pods in their ears all the time, today’s generation will be deaf at a lot younger age than we were. Who needs high frequency response when you can no longer hear it anyway?
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 06-01-2005 01:35 PM
It's very unfortunate that elements like THX that were intended to raise the quality bar are being ignored (by theater chains), neglected (by THX), and even disdained (by its detractors).
When Marcus bought the Cinemark Movies 10, their THX certification went away. When AMC bought the GCC Mayfair Mall, their THX certification went away. Then, a few years ago, Marcus must have decided that THX was unnecessary in their remaining certified screens and (I think) are completely THX-free. Maybe that was a result of not wanting to do what it took to stay certified, or that the revenue just didn't justify the cost, I don't know.
As a movie enthusiast and movie-related web site publisher who's been following the industry for 10+ years, I can say that THX could still matter if the parties involved wanted it to.
Perhaps the original tenets of THX have served their purpose and raised the bar across the board, so that the average theater today is better than it was back in 1983. However, the advent of digital sound only increased the need for some of the core things that THX stood for in my mind.
Proper isolation between theaters keeps the action blockbuster from bothering people in the romantic drama next door. Having a low noise level keeps people from being bothered by the air conditioners rattling over their heads. Hearing the projector during a quiet passage is inexcusable.
Is THX certification required to accomplish these things? Of course not. Many people here will be happy to brag about how a certain non-certified theater meets or exceeds the performance of such-and-such THX certified theater. But how are people looking at a list of movies on a web site distinguish between the two?
Avid moviegoers may know where the good screens at which theaters are, but a majority of people are not avid moviegoers. In fact, in a 2004 survey, 46% surveyed said that they attended movies occasionally, which means at least once in six months. This fits the profile of most people I know.
Marketing 101 says that people respond to effective marketing messages. A THX designation next to a showtime is a marketing message that people can use to distinguish one presentation from another.
Previous posts by Bobby and Mark support that if given a choice, people would rather see a movie in a THX screen. In those cases, the theater is fortunate enough to have those people already in the door, so they have a chance to save the customer and get them to buy a ticket and fill up on concessions. When a potential customer is looking at 10-20 showtimes on a web site, they're going to naturally be drawn to those presentations that stand out.
Digital sound is assumed by many, but should still be advertised in my opinion. Many times it is not. On a weekly basis, I have to pursue getting the proper data for those designations, but it's largely hit and miss. Smaller theaters are much better at this than the chains. It's been a very long time since I've seen a digital sound trailer before a movie. Another marketing opportunity lost because someone didn't want to be inconvenienced by placing the trailer ahead of the film.
It baffles me to see THX-certified theaters not include the THX designation in their showtimes, whether that be online, on phone recordings, or in the newspaper ads. It's a selling opportunity, and to not take advantage of that is just bad marketing. Anyone who pays for THX certification and all that goes with it, but doesn't take advantage of it by playing the trailers, displaying the logo, and other steps to inform and educate the public, and then whines about how it's not worth the cost... they just shouldn't be doing what they're doing. They're not cut out for it, and should find a different line of work.
On my site, I have distinct columns where digital sound, stadium seating, and THX graphics will appear, if they are designated by theaters. Here is an example:
http://www.bigscreen.com/NowShowing.php?movie=11329&show=nearby&zip=53719
As you can see, I can't get a theater to designate both the THX logo and the digital sound at the same time, and many theaters don't even bother with indicating digital sound.
In my opinion, the industry is all about showmanship. Theatrical exhibition cannot be about selling the movie, because that's a losing proposition to tightening DVD windows and piracy. It has to be about selling the experience. The circus doesn't put up signs, then just trot out the elephants with no introduction in the middle of an empty field. They call it "The Greatest Show on Earth" and the ringleader makes you excited about the neat tricks the performers can do under a huge tent. That's showmanship!
I can't judge the reality of the current THX situation. I don't know if THX is dropping the ball or not when it comes to upholding their standards and supporting their paying theaters.
I can say with all confidence that anything that helps a theater distinguish itself from another will help that theater succeed. All the elements of that theater have to work together to keep the marketing from being hollow, however. If you say you're better by putting a THX logo on a show, you better make sure that it is better, or people will feel cheated and not come back.
THX alone won't make or break a business, but it's a name people can identify with (the THX logo on home theater equipment helps it be recognizable) and theaters should use that to their advantage. The THX brand may be tarnished in the opinions of people here, but I don't think the general public is at all aware of any issues that may exist. They see a logo that conveys a mark of quality or at least of recognition, and that will make a difference.
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Evans A Criswell
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1579
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 06-01-2005 03:22 PM
I don't think the industry is about showmanship at all anymore, based on what I see in most theatres. One example: I saw Star Wars III recently on Friday afternoon in a sold out show. If the theatre companies cared at all about showmanship, do you think they'd be playing the loud obnoxious "Regal 20" before shows? Do you think they'd be playing the Regal 20 with the projector aimed 2 feet to the right and maybe more than a foot down from where it should be, making it look extremely ugly? Do you think they'd play the movie itself with a foot of aperture shadow on the left edge of the screen? To a sold out show of the most popular movie this year? They don't care! And neither do the customers. maybe less than 1 percent of the customers even care any more.
People are going to go to a theatre if they're convenient and are showing the movie they want to see.
Back in mid April, I decided to stop calculating presentation quality scores (averages) for theatres in my area on my web site. I'm not going to theatres enough for my theatre ratings to be accurate any more and I hadn't gotten a single feedback on that part of my site by email in a year. When I took that off, nobody emailed me to say they missed it.
More and more, I'm waiting for DVDs rather than going to the theatres. I've only seen 4 movies in theatres this year, and it's already June. I blame it on a lack of quality movies to see, coupled with the increase in advertising and the continued decline in showmanship.
I rarely hear anyone mention THX these days. People used to constantly ask me which theatres were the best to see movies in my area. I've maybe been asked that once during the past year.
In my opinion, THX means nothing these days other than a marketing gimmick. When I'm treated to a THX trailer playing in the wrong format (scope set for flat or flat set for scope) without digital sound, in heavily distorted optical sound, what does that say? Now that the last Star Wars movie has been made, I think THX will eventually crumble away into nothing, since most people still associate THX with Lucasfilm in their minds.
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