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This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Author
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Topic: End of proper wide screens = the end of moviegoing for me
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Daniel Schulz
Master Film Handler
Posts: 387
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 12-16-2016 10:07 PM
quote: Scott Norwood
On the subject of TV: what are people watching on their 4K TV sets? As far as I know, there is no such thing as 4K broadcast. Does 4K exist for cable television? 4K Blu-Ray exists, but there is little to watch that has not been upconverted from HD or 2K. Is there anything other than (maybe) video games that takes advantage of the resolution?
Netflix and Amazon are both streaming UHD content, often with HDR as well. DirecTV also has UHD content. I think some cable providers may as well, but I'm not sure about that (I'm suspicious of the DirecTV and cable options, though, as their 1080P signals are typically inferior to broadcast).
We're still several years away from Over-The-Air broadcast UHD - the ATSC 3.0 spec is still being finalized, and deployment will take time. Plus, only about 15% of American households get their TV OTA, so there's not as much incentive there for broadcasters to invest in the upgrade.
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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 12-17-2016 05:44 AM
quote: Ken Lackner
What if it's side masking, so the audience sees the visible screen area become larger when transitioning from preshow to feature?
I still don't like that- the preshow is just something to put on the screen between showings, nothing more. When I go into a theater, I want to see the screen masked for the movie I'm going to be seeing, and if I don't even know about masking then I won't notice anything. With both film and digital, I've always seen trailers shown in the same ratio as the movie (even on these new masking-less screens, so some trailers have a beautiful smaller 1.85 image in the middle of the screen!) so why should the preshow get special treatment? The only mechanical thing that should happen in front of the screen is the CURTAINS opening (just one more reason to hate pre-shows!)
quote: Daniel Schulz
We're still several years away from Over-The-Air broadcast UHD - the ATSC 3.0 spec is still being finalized, and deployment will take time. Plus, only about 15% of American households get their TV OTA, so there's not as much incentive there for broadcasters to invest in the upgrade.
Ever heard of cord-cutting? Some people are finally realizing what I've known for 25 years- cable isn't worth having. Even then most of broadcast TV these days is an unwatchable mess, why would I want better picture quality when most shows are going to have a permanent logo on the screen, or infomercials on most stations in the late hours? (We've even got TWO sub-channels in this area that show nothing BUT infomercials 24/7- of course their picture is compressed to hell.) If I hadn't worked in the movie theater business I probably would've worked in TV during that time instead, and I'm REALLY glad I didn't do that! At least a fraction of theater managers still have some concept of showmanship, that word doesn't even exist in TV anymore!
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 12-17-2016 08:22 AM
Wow! 6 pages already... so far...
Well, I'm afraid the industry will lose you without much notice. Most likely, only the sympathetic ears here really care, and then there's probably only a percentage of them.
When I was new(er)to this business, there was a company that moved into every town they saw an opportunity, putting up ugly, cheap buildings, screens with (yep) no masking, no curtains, jumpy VIP35 consoles and crappy mono sound... even after Dolby came out. Where they bought operating theatres with union projectionists, getting rid of that expense was high on the list of imperatives.
Their presentation was downright terrible. That started in the early '70s and PEOPLE FLOCKED TO THEIR THEATRES! Why? Because they used their booking power to muscle out the smaller exhibitors that had, until then, been doing a better job of presentation.
Did you hear people scream?.. see editorials in the paper from local critics?.. picket lines in front of the theatres? Nope... just long lines to see the latest, first-run movie in that company's locations... which was in the end, their primary goal.
Letters to the company? Complaints to the managers? Long-term boycotts? Pages of angst on Film-Tech (after Brad invented the internet)? Sure, I would imagine, maybe a few. Did that result in any changes? Nope. Just hog all the product so people will have few options.
In the end, only the projectionists and, perhaps, a few staff and patrons really cared much, and that didn't represent enough of the bottom line to make the company change their marketing plan.
This kind of lousy service isn't exclusive to the movie business. Last month, I went through the drive-up line at a well-known taco franchise. Upon reaching home and digging into my intelligent choice of nutrition, I found they had left out the meat... from tacos, for cryin' out loud! I called the store, dragged the night manager out from his cigarette break and told him what his minimum wage ($15/hr, probably) staff had done to me. He told me to drive the 15 miles back and he'd put some meat in my (then cold and soggy) tacos.
A call to the company's customer service line and another to the local franchise managers resulted in........ nothing.
What an ultimate insult! To think a major, national chain of 4-wall taco stands would turn their back on someone who might spend $10 or so, maybe 2 or 3 times a year!
Do you think they care that I won't be back? Nope.
Do you think the theatre you're railing against cares, either?
And as for the public... if something like the lack of masking will send you from a 30-foot screen to some highly-compressed image on your 5" smart phone, then there's probably something else going on here.
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 12-17-2016 09:47 AM
quote:
I'll bet you would be back to that taco stand if that was the only (intelligent) source of nutrition available! [Razz]
All the more reason why it will only take ONE day-and-date release, no matter how small and insignificant, to light the fuse to kill off movie theaters for good. But just you watch. Greed for the now will get in the way and it will happen. As I've stated before it won't happen on any sort of even half-ass movie. It will happen on some complete turd of a movie that nobody wants to play anyway, but then a slightly less-turdy movie will come along and then one slightly less-turdy than the one before and soon enough a decent sized movie it will happen on and that's the end of it...day-and-date will be a reality and movie theaters will officially die.
No argument there, Brad (on both points).
It's just that the consumers have never been that discriminating... only a few diehard showmen that remind us all how things used to be.
Personally, I hate hate hate the preshows that have all-but taken over the time when we could find our seat in front of a closed curtain and (gasp) actually talk to the person next to us. But... I get around it by showing up, pretty much, at the published time. I get around most of the preshow and only have to tolerate one or two Geico commercials, maybe something to tell me how to whiten my teeth and one more, suggesting I show up early to watch the entire line-up of commercials.
Nobody around here runs curtains anymore. Only a couple of theatres run masking. However, most of them do a pretty good job with the rest of the presentation. Sound is good, seats are new, or recent, temperature is within my comfort range and the picture, so long as the projector isn't a Sony, is almost always without distractions.
I might note the masking, but it doesn't ruin my night. That's probably because the digital image is sharp to the edge and really doesn't need it.
I spend well over $40 to take each of my family members to a live show, and a whole lot more than $60 to haul them to a ball game, not to mention concessions, which are way over what I pay at a local theatre. Kept in perspective, the experience is still better than vegging at home all the time.
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 12-17-2016 03:46 PM
I get your point Jack (and others) that most people don't know any better, but having done photography in the past, seeing the effects of a dirty lens (or port window) or even a light smudge on my own glasses...I just can't stand it. It kills the contrast and makes everything look dull!
Heck, I can't even deal with the optics found in most prescription glasses. It's like projecting through a Kollmorgen lens!
Masking actually does the same thing, and it's exaggerated with curved screens too due to the cross-reflections. However with dirty port glass and so forth that is easy to demonstrate to people. Few people are able to see two identical auditoriums side by side, one with masking and ond without, running the same content, lamp, power, projector, etc on a real life side by side to truly understand the negative effects NOT having masking really does to the image.
As you stated yourself, most people use the logic that masking's only real job is to create a sharp edge. While with film yes that was a prime reason for it, but the overall image improvement is a lot more than you would think it would be.
That being said, I hate going into an auditorium even if it IS masked and seeing medium to light colored curtains and 6-12 inches of black around the image. That is just not the right way to make the image look it's best. The ENTIRE FRONT of the auditorium must be black...and the image will just "pop" off the screen with more vivid colors, blacker blacks, whiter whites, better contrast as well as perceived sharpness. It's just how our eyes work.
The general rule I follow is to always have at least 15 feet of solid black on the side walls as measured from the screen surface, but more is encouraged. It doesn't distract from the design of the room at all doing it this way.
Here is an example (still under construction, but you get the idea).
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-18-2016 01:12 PM
I can accept pre-shows and trailer packs since they're part of the business model for a theater to pay its bills. I just think they should be presenting such things in a better manner. I agree with Brad that the actual movie everyone paid to see should have the biggest and best quality image and best quality, most dynamic sound. A properly masked (and curtain equipped) common height screen is going to deliver better on that than the un-finished common width crap infecting so many new theaters.
Back when I liked movie trailers more, I thought it was great if they had a 5.1 surround mix. But too many of them are louder (and more obnoxious) than the feature's sound mix. So I would prefer it if they were dumped down to TV volume to throw a middle finger back at the sales-marketing assholes who order these mixing practices. Movie trailers tend to suck anymore since they all have the same boom-whoosh sounds, stylistic editing touches and used up tag lines like "get ready for the ride of your life." Why even bother?
quote: Joe Redifer
HBO is still a thing?
They do have that Game of Thrones series and some other original programming, such as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, that make HBO one of the few channels on cable worth watching. If I didn't care about sports programming I would get rid of Dish Network and just get the HBO Now streaming service.
Now, channels like MTV, Discovery Channel, National Geographic or even big media companies like Viacom really do bring up the question "how are they still a thing?" If I could pick and choose my own specific pay TV channels to watch I'd end up with less than a dozen, and that's including a few HBO channels!
quote: Scott Norwood
On the subject of TV: what are people watching on their 4K TV sets?
Aside from UltraHD Blu-ray and Daniel's answers about Netflix, Amazon and DirecTV people can watch 4K content other sources on the Internet. Plus there are lots of consumer devices available now that capture 4K video (some smart phones, point and shoot cameras, DSLR cameras, GoPro or other action cameras).
quote: Jesse Skeen
Ever heard of cord-cutting? Some people are finally realizing what I've known for 25 years- cable isn't worth having.
It depends on the viewers and the kinds of programming they like to watch.
If you enjoy live sports programming you're stuck worse than ever with cable. So much of that programming has abandoned traditional broadcast networks and gone to cable networks. Premium cable networks like HBO, Shotime, Starz, etc. are showing more edgy and chance-taking content than what plays in movie theaters. The Spartacus series on Starz absolutely would have been tagged with a NC-17 rating if the same content was put into a conventional theatrical release. Even the season debut of The Walking Dead on AMC, a "basic cable" channel, took serious chances with its graphic violence. Casino was threatened with a NC-17 rating for trying to depict the same kind of graphic violence as shown in that episode of The Walking Dead.
One thing is certain: cable/satellite TV companies have been price gouging the hell out of customers lately. I think high price and relative lack of value for that high price is the key reason why so many people are cord cutting. Media company executives are very nervous about younger generations of viewers not even signing up for cable at all. Their own business model and programming paradigm is on the verge of collapse.
quote: Mike Blakesley
That's why I can't understand why NATO is so soft-talking on windows. Why don't they just come out and say "Studios, STOP SCREWING WITH THE WINDOWS because you will KILL YOUR BUSINESS AND OURS." Instead they keep yammering about "our studio partners" and "our friends in distribution."
The movie theater business is being subjected to the "death of a thousand cuts." I agree, the movie distributors will ease more day and date releases into the mix, acting like the policy has no effect. But you can gradually add tiny amounts of poison to somebody's food. He might not taste it, but eventually he's going to get sick and even die from the crap.
Distributors are trying to test the day and date thing with art house movies or other movies that would have gone "straight to DVD" anyway. But when they start going day and date with bigger, more legit movie releases the theaters will get hurt badly by it. Since customers by nature are pretty impatient they'll expect and demand the day and date thing to be the new normal once they get a good taste of it. Then movie theaters will be done. But the death of movie theaters will be the death of the movie business as we know it too.
quote: Rick Raskin
If theaters become a thing of the past, what are all the tweens going to do on date night in Babylon?
They'll sit in some college aged grown-up's house, watching stuff streamed from the Internet while drinking beer and smoking pot. Or they'll just go eat out at some better quality chain restaurant and then go home (and smoke some pot).
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Evans A Criswell
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1579
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 02-17-2017 04:00 PM
I haven't been on Film-Tech in a while and just read through this several-page discussion and am amazed that not having masking at all is becoming a thing. Some of you remember how I used to complain that Cobb built their multiplexes in the 80s and 90s (before Regal acquired them) with only a few large auditoriums and had 1.85:1 screens in all the others and showed scope movies with the sides chopped off, filling the 1.85:1 screen. Regal put top/bottom masking in its two Huntsville locations in 2003 so that the whole image was shown in every auditorium for both formats (common width in the small auditoriums and the original masked common height screens in the wider auditoriums). I hate to hear that we're now going backwards again. Of course, since most of the moviegoers are younger, after a decade or two of a negative change, nobody will remember the change and it "will always have been this way". Teenagers who go to theatres with no masking, 20 or 30 years from now, will never remember it. You don't tend to miss something that was never there, just as hardly anyone under 30 would remember TV shows without logos plastered in the corner because it's been part of TV since the early to mid 1990s. I have only been to 5 or 6 movies in the past 10 years and I've been wanting to start back going, but everything I read about the industry is discouraging in terms of what to expect if I start going to movies again.
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