SDDS with 8 channels in ALL screens/Dolby Digital/dts
HPS-4000 speaker systems fired by Electro Voice amps
Kinoton FP30E projectors with EMK1 plus network-controlled automation
and multimedia-equipment such as an Apple Macintosh G4 dual-processor video-editing station/8-track digital recorder/video and audio bus connecting the cinemas and plasma displays around the house

Again, my qustion is not meant to be aggressive. It´s simply that in our team, we are all enthusiasts, and I am curious if there are other cinemas with this kind of equipment...
By the way, this is my first post on this forum, so hello everybody!
Mike

Are there any pics available yet?

 

Share some pictures with us, both downstairs and the booth!

BTW, I think you will find that there are too many variables in opinion regarding equipment for anyone to be able to say this theater is the best, or that theater is the best. Some people hate SDDS, some people love it. Some people may not like HPS-4000 systems, others love them. Maybe I don't like the kind of screens you put in, perhaps your seats are not "large" enough for Ian, maybe Joe doesn't like the choice of projector, and perhaps Steve will personally pay you a visit to explain why any theater that runs off of a platter is automatically disqualified. It's all opinion on equipment, design and setup.

Now the ultimate part relies on you. How's the presentation? You can have the best damn setup in the world, but your presentation may be poo if the guys in the booth aren't perfectionists. Until the theater can run a print for at least 3 months without a speck of dirt from the first frame to the last, no theater is worth bragging about. Give it your best shot and be sure to send in those pictures.

With respect to the reliability issues, I am speaking of the older first-generation SDDS units, which are what seem to be most common in the US. Apparently this has been improved in the 3000-series units, but I wouldn't know. I do know that I have watched many lab-new prints where the SDDS track has dropouts on the first show. This may well be a lab issue, but SR-D and DTS don't have that problem.

I don't mean to totally trash SDDS here. I am a big fan of 5 screen channels and panned dialogue and it's great that SDDS chose to support that format. If only more films were mixed for 8-channel playback, this advantage might actually mean something to the average moviegoer and theatre owner.
 

Yup. I know someone who has a screening room that is equipped with 8-channel SDDS, DTS (35mm and 70mm), Dolby Digital EX, CDS, Dolby CP200 with "the works", 70mm capability as well as 35mm mag, Christie/Pennywise CA-21 automations, platter AND changeover, video projection with DVD 5.1 sound from DTS and Dolby Digial AC-3, screen brightness exceeding 16fl, and near-perfect registration ALL ON EVERY SINGLE SCREEN IN THE COMPLEX! True!

Brad, is your monster screening room operational yet? I know you had been building this top-flight setup for awhile. The Northpark Mall #1 theater was one of my main reasons for driving down to Dallas, but that screening room would certainly give me a great excuse to drive my new pickup down there.
 

<Drools>
 

By the way, where are these pictures on the website linked above? I don't remember anything from my German classes.

So Michael Schaffer will be a unique position of telling us what he runs the most after he has been open a few months. If I had all Dolby digital, I wouldn't run anything else. Sony can sound just fine but there have been some reliability issues. I just hope there is not sound bleed between auditoriums.

When a film comes in all three sound formats, which one will you use? How will you choose?

The impression I got from the photos on the website is that there are a lot of stairs and escalators at this theatre.

As for how large I am; I am very, very large!
 

I'll have pictures of my screening room setup on the site sometime in the near future. Look for them.

"As I wrote earlier, when a SDDS track drops out, it´s due to the printing quality (or rather, the lack of it). I have seen completely wasted prints on which the SDDS track still performed very well - if the print was done correctly in the first place."

I have also seen the same with SRD, and DTS simply can not be beat in this department. There is just no argument there. Anyway, I think a lot of the general population's dissatisfaction with SDDS is not in the printing, but that the SDDS data is most easily damaged than the other digital formats and as such has a greater tendency of dropping out. Personally, I do not like the sound from the digital EQ found in the SDDS units. It's just too harsh and metallic. That being said, I have found that the SDDS sound when EQ'd through a Dolby processor with good old fashioned cat64B cards simply can not be beat. As AMC says "there IS a difference!"

While print wear is not an issue with me and *most* films are printed properly at the lab, I do have two beefs with the format. First we have that annoying BUZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZ from the singing sprocket. On a DFP-2000 the reader can be threaded with one perf less tension, which stops this (and actually improves performance). Unfortunately, there is no way around the noise with a DFP-3000 and it is an unpleasant noise to deal with in the booth. Add to that many port windows are not fully sound proof, and in some auditoriums I can not hear the projector, but that buzz is there loud and clear.

My only other beef with SDDS is that the technicians refuse to add the one feature that I want...to have a user selectable disable control for that damned "digital concealment" mode. If the film was printed right at the lab and there is no wear on it, this of course does not matter. Unfortunately, I see lab printing where a brand new print DCMs. Many people claim this can not be heard, but I can hear it happening and it drives me nuts. It should just drop to SR instead of "covering it up" with highly compressed backup audio tracks. I also wish the "return to digital upon valid data" time frame was user selectable.

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to turn into an SDDS rant, for with the improvements that Sony has made, it is no longer on my hated list and I have been very pleased with it's results. However, until they can fix those problems, it will not stand out as being the clear winner, 8 channel prints excepted.

While at this stage you are rightfully concerned with the architecture
of your theatre (which reminds me of the Pompideau Museum in Paris)
and of the machinery within, I hope your theatre will excel in another
area as well.

For in the US many promising multiplexes have quickly deteriorated and failed because too little attention was paid to the human dimensions of theatre operation. Huge sums are routinely spent on construction, too little on maintenance, while salaries are so meager that major corporations are dependent on workers and managers paid
miserably small wages and salaries. It takes more than mechanical and electronic technology; what is needed is a happy work force of
supervisors and workers content with their working conditions, their remuneration, and their loyalty to their co-workers and employers.
This cannot be achieved unless workers feel that the welfare of the theatre and their personal welfare are interconnected.
Will your new theatre excel in the input your workers will have in determining their working conditions? Will this be achieved through collective bargaining, union contracts, realistic pension plans that
reward workers for their service? Promotion policies? Recognition
of workers' rights to form unions?
Or will your theatre be dependent on part time teenage labor at minimum wage, exploiting those too young to think of planning for the future, causing annual turnover of half the staff? Will there be opportunities for the ambitious to advance through proven competence as well as rewards for long service of those who prefer to remain where they are, perfecting their abilities and providing staff
solidity?

I ask because I know nothing about how theatres operate in Germany,
but have experienced some of the weaknesses of operation of some of the biggest theatre chains in the U.S.
Good luck with your beautiful new facility. I hope you will be able to share some of the human operations that it will enjoy as well!
Gerard

 

quote:

---

Hello there,
I am technical manager of a new 7-screen multiplex which is going to open in early May in Berlin. We might be one of the most modern cinemas in the world, at least I have never heard of one which is better equipped. My above question is not a taunt, I am merely wondering if anyone else has such an array of toys under their roof:
SDDS with 8 channels in ALL screens/Dolby Digital/dts
HPS-4000 speaker systems fired by Electro Voice amps
Kinoton FP30E projectors with EMK1 plus network-controlled automation
and multimedia-equipment such as an Apple Macintosh G4 dual-processor video-editing station/8-track digital recorder/video and audio bus connecting the cinemas and plasma displays around the house

Again, my qustion is not meant to be aggressive. It´s simply that in our team, we are all enthusiasts, and I am curious if there are other cinemas with this kind of equipment...
By the way, this is my first post on this forum, so hello everybody!
Mike

---

Well i have Dolby Stereo in my one screen

As this is a thread on a new theatre project, I'll finish here.
As Brad pointed out, some persons like things, others dont, I feel the idea behind the project is worth thinking about. I assume the investor must also work within an economic business schedule, and has no money to waste, so he must have a reason why they go for standards higher than the rest of Berlin, which I tell from my knowledge. Home theatre is a big thing, and too many theatrical presentations are s till offering no or sub standars. There is a former butcher shop featuring 31 seats upfront a bedsheet with communist portable projectors, or some never invested in mono houses, as well as new plex operation, that feature distorted sound, 3 footlambert brightness and no movie going experience at all.
The Ice Age disk which high school kids gave me, probably downloaded and burnt, looked great, had very good Virtual Dolby Surround on my Mac, and was exciting to watch. Certainly much better and more envolving than many Berlin theatres.
At least I assume that's the pointr. To gain commercial success in an overscreened city, where everybody, beside one classic film palace of the old time, tries to go away with as low as possible standards, this is the opposite. I think it will have it's chance, as it might bring back the movie experience and hopefully offers true showmanship.
This craft depends on YOU, Mike!
The best harware and the nicest equipment can only work with well motivated, well paid people behind it. Hopefully this is also true.
 

Ken, the main advantage of the CA21 automations is that you can custom design them for your particular needs. Joe Redifer had a custom chip made a couple of years ago when he was working at the Chinese in Colorado and got all of the major bugs worked out. I simply had them start with that chip and added other features that I needed, the most important one being automated changeovers that are more accurate than any human. (Well, maybe except for Steve Guttag.)

Originally, the CA-21 came to us with the Xenon tied to the Motor relay. We had that separated out so that "Auto Start" now strikes the Xenon. This was to avoid Xenon strikes every time the motor was activated (including "Run Down").

We also had the F1 and F2 keys programmed with "Interrupt" and "Resume" sequences.

------------------
And, hey! Let's be careful out there.

~Manny.
 

Mark at Pennywise in Australia did mine for me...in like...December 1998. There was no mention of this being a problem.

I hope they're not going to tell me I can't get my new ones done to match...

------------------
And, hey! Let's be careful out there.

~Manny.

By the way, this thread is seriously wandering from the original subject. The next person to reply to CA21 or Pennywise issues, please open up a new thread titled "CA21 / Pennywise automations".

Thanks.
 

When Sony acquired the Loews' Theatres,they built a state-of-the art flagship theatre a block long in the center of New York's theater-opera-ballet and film center, Lincoln Square. It's twelve auditoria were stacked vertically on both sides of a series of stainless-steel escalators rising "to the sky" within a central atrium.

To utilize the memory of Loews' movie palaces of the 1920's and 1930's, all of which were by then demolished, abandoned or converted to other uses, Sony revived the name and theme of eleven of its grande
dame single-screen theatres, creating a thematic fascade for the entrance to each auditorium in the new 12-plex. The last to be completed was an Imax.

As a child I enjoyed family trips to Loews' Valencia, with its Spanish decor, goldfish pond in the lobby, and domed ceiling displaying moon, stars and clouds, all in motion as in the outdoor sky. Double features, newsreel, cartoons, short subjects and ten acts of live vaudeville in this wonderful castle-theatre were a real treat.
As a union relief projectionist I often worked vacations at a Loews'
theatre in the Bronx, with a gilded interior and an articulated statue, St.George slaying a dragon above the marquee.[Loews' Paradise]
Each Loew's palace had its own exotic, magical environment, named after a city or land of enchantment. And unless memory fails me, there was also a Loews' Alhambra, the fabulous Moorish citadel popularized by Washington Irving into a tourist attraction every US traveler longed to visit. Perhaps its Berlin namesake will have similar popularity...

[Photos of Sony Theatres At Lincoln Square are in the PICTURES
section of Film-tech.com ]

Once you have pictures submitted to the site so everyone can look at your theater and people are generally convinced that excellent film handling is going on there, I think you will get more replies. As it is, very few if any people here know you and few here care much for SDDS due to a lot of reliability issues, regardless of who's fault that is. And no, I am not aware of any "all SDDS-8" equipped theater complex in the states.

Hopefully others will jump in here and give you some comments, but do remember that all the equipment in the world does not guarantee a good presentation, and people's opinion of a "good presentation" varies wildly. Just settle in and let everyone get to know you for awhile and send us some pictures!

Thanks for the input on my center channel problem and the SDDS unit im using. What you mentioned makes alot of sense and will be looked at when my tech comes by. He was suppose to be here today but things fell through. God i hope its up when Spidey comes swingin in.

UA has a wonderful single screen here in San Francisco named the Coronet. This theatre is equipped with two Norelco's and set up for change overs if needed. However the second projector is used for back up if the other fails. The theatre is equipped with eight channel SDDS and Dolby Digital. Speakers are all Electro Voice with double stacked bass bins. Four subwoofers are used behind the screen with 20 TS12-2 surrounds along the side walls. All the amplification is QSC with a Dolby CP200 processor. The system is biamped with EV electronic crossovers. From what ive been told by some reliable sources is this sound system was all re done personally by Lonnie Jennings from Dolby back in 93 or 92 when they remodeled the whole place. I must say this is probably one of the best sound systems ive ever heard. THX or not. The subs integrate beautifully with the stage speakers. There is a seamless transition from stage to surrounds with the surrounds having a tremendous amount of punch and clarity. I think one of the main reasons this place sounds so damn good is the massive amount of amps up there. This is one of the places where the proper amount of power was used and it really pays off . The sound is really open and uncompressed with tremendous punch in the sub bass section. The only weak point to the Coronet are the acoustics, which cause some echo and some movies can sound a bit bright but other than that its a great theatre and still gets two prints on major films.

The screen is roughly 60 feet wide and 30 to forty feet high. I could be off a bit on the height and seats 1235. This is also one of George Lucas's favorite theatres and opened Star Wars when it was first realesed and has played all the others except for Empire Strikes Back when it was first realesed but played it on the re - release in 97. There gearing the place up for Episode 2 in May. This will be the place to be in SF when Episode 2 opens.

Cheers,
Glenn

------------------
Jan Hackett
Theater Operations Manager
Extreme Screen Dynatheater
NM Museum of Natural History Foundation