quote:

---

Epilog: Projections Objections
[PC Pro]

Cinemas offer such a shoddy experience, the golden age of film could be over once and for all

Sometimes, it's frighteningly easy to see an industry that's doing its best to self-destruct, and it's hard to have sympathy when it finds itself without customers. I'm referring, of course, to the cinema industry. I like going to watch good films. The thunderous sound and projection of a quality image used to be far beyond what you could get in the home, and that was just part of the whole 'going out for the evening' experience.
But over the last few years, the quality of the experience has been rapidly going downhill for me. In the last two months, I've seen over half-a-dozen blockbuster films at a range of cinemas, from the largest in Leicester Square to smaller multiplexes in Manchester. In each case, the experience has been quite horrible, and each time I've vowed not to go again. And now I'm on the edge of fulfilling that vow and not darkening their doorsteps anymore.

So what's gone wrong? Well, the best place to start is with the sound and visual quality in cinemas. The picture quality achieved is a disgrace. Noisy film stock, with awful edits where the film has broken, plus scratches and blow-outs abound. Even worse, the film almost always judders around in the film gate, causing a shuddering of the image. Just look at the titles to see them bouncing around like a cat having a fit. Also, vertical scratches, where the film has been damaged by the projector, are now the norm rather than the exception.

You might think this is my fault for going to a small-scale flea-pit of a cinema on its ninth week of projecting the same blockbuster. But no. I recently went to the opening night of Terminator 3 at a big cinema complex, yet the picture quality exhibited all the errors mentioned above, and more. My long-awaited Star Wars Episode II presentation had the same mishaps too, and that was a film on its second day of release. Maybe there's some truth in the rumour that the film companies bring over worn-out film stock from US cinemas for their European launches in order to cut costs. It makes sense when a film has been released and already peaked in the US, but it means we keep getting chewed-up, worn-out, hand-me-downs.

Sound quality is far from worthwhile either. Booming systems, proclaiming to be Dolby Digital or THX compliant, cut no ice when it's hard to hear the dialogue and the loud crashes are smothered in distortion.

Some of this can be fixed, of course. DLP (digital light projection) has started to arrive in select locations. It does away with the need for film, projecting a digital image held on a hard disk straight to the projector itself. The image quality can be excellent from this, assuming that the cinema has bothered to focus the projector correctly. But it doesn't help the sound quality, although the removal of nasty film-join bangs and pops is a relief.

Worse still is the audience. Two weeks ago, I went to see a 12-rated film at a large cinema in Leicester Square. Some parent decided it would be a good idea to take along their 18-month-old baby and then sit in the front row. Naturally, the baby couldn't cope with the loud crashes and bangs that were part and parcel of the film, so it spent the whole time wailing, doubtless frightened beyond belief by the noise and flashing lights around it. People went to complain to the management, whose response was to shrug their shoulders and claim it wasn't up to them.

Having spent nearly £15 on two tickets, my experience had been ruined by this poor hapless baby, but even if it had been silent and happy the quality of the projection left everything to be desired.

Babies aren't the only problem. Does everyone who goes to a cinema have to discuss the film with their friends during the quiet bits? Do they have to laugh at inappropriate times? And how do they manage to ignore the fact that their bag of sweets or popcorn makes a noise that can be highly intrusive and annoying to the people around them? My worst experience of this was during a particularly emotionally charged scene where the leading lady was passing away, only to have the person behind me sucking noisily on the empty dregs of their drinks container.

What of the alternatives? Well, I can get a decent DVD player and a domestic-sized DLP projector if I want to go beyond the display proportions offered by a conventional widescreen television. I can get surround sound, which beats any cinema system hands down. And I can buy the DVDs for the same price as two cinema tickets. I accept that I'll have to wait a few months between the overhyped release of the film and its appearance on DVD, but it surely isn't a difficult trade-off when faced with the awful reality of the cinema-going experience.

Frankly, the general public isn't a particularly pleasant beast to be around at the best of times. And it's hard to see how I'll force myself to put up with the at-best mediocre cinema experience any longer when the home-grown digital alternative has so much more to offer.

Jon Honeyball

---

 

---

Posted by Antonio Marcheselli (Member # 373) on 09-21-2003, 05:15 PM:
 
Here is worse...

I completely agree with that article, unfortunately too many cinema managers say that "audience doesn't care it" and build poor theater with poor sound, poor image and with teenagers as projectionist that know just how to thread a projector.
I worked for a 16plex here in Italy. A friend of mine was searching for a job and talked with the tech manager / head projectionist of the bulding.

"The job is very easy. You have just to take the head of the print from on platter, thread it in a projector and rewind it on another platter. That's it!"

I worked in that place for 6 months, scratched print were the norm and floor staff was instructed to say everything to the customers but not disturb the projection...
Bye
A
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-21-2003, 05:51 PM:
 
Jon Honeyball is right about many cinemas offering a shoddy-at-best experience. But his technical understanding rates down in the silly/ignorant category. Basically it sounds like he is trying to sell people on just staying at home with their DVD players and hyping that "DLP" buzzword. Everyone who participates in this forum knows DLP does not beat film-done-right.

His complaints about sound format and presentation bring up an issue of taste in how sound is presented. I've seen many different home theater setups. And most are improperly setup. Usually the sub-bass is way overdriven to the point where it sounds like some hip-hop gangsta wannabe's warbling car stereo system. Shit, about all you hear is "thoooommmmm thoooommmm"! If bass lovers are going to complain the movie theater doesn't do that, then the theater operator should take it as a compliment. It's nice for sub-bass to be felt, but it should not be very audible. The standard for all 5.1 systems to stive to meet is clean, even-bodied sound, not stuff that is overly tinny or just overdone with bass.

Home theater does have the capability to surpass the quality of sound delivered in most commercial cinemas, but only if you spend some really serious bucks. You don't do it by buying the itty-bitty $250 home theater in a box deal at Wal-Mart. But many figure if the same logos are on their little pieces of hardware as what crawl up the screen on the movie's end titles, then their setup must be just as good if not better.

Jon would have been more on target if he would be talked about the great presentation quality many movie theaters could deliver, but are not out of just being complacent, cheap and apathetic.

I'm not sure what can be done about disruptive audience members. Basically there has to be a way for everyone else to let those bad apples know we're not okay with their shit. Our silence equals apathy and the bad folks feel enabled by it and then just do what ever they feel like doing.
 

---

Posted by Antonio Marcheselli (Member # 373) on 09-21-2003, 06:04 PM:
 
Bobby

There are theaters that sound really worse than a cheap home theater...

Jon is, in my opinion, analyzing the reality of the facts. Ok, Home Theaters and DLP cannot win against "film-done-right". But who is doing Film-Doing-Right? Few, few operators. So, if this is the real world, let's have DLP and digital images...
You should agree with me that for Customers side a DLP-based Multiplex is better than a 35mm-based Multiplex, basing on the reality of the situation.

Bye
A
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-21-2003, 07:31 PM:
 
No I wouldn't agree, because assuming an all-DLP multiplex will be better than all-35mm depends on the equipment being properly operated and maintained under real world situations.

There is no digital projection system in existence that is easier to set up and operate than a 35mm system. Just about every high-priced video projection setup at any commercial movie theater is at a high end "flagship" class facility that receives a much higher degree of technical attention than the average (and very neglected) neighborhood theater running 35mm. My understanding is the Cinemark location in Plano, TX (just north of Dallas) has its two DLP screens largely operated by technicians from Texas Instruments rather than Cinemark personnel (they at least come in and offload the movie from DVD discs to the file server rather than let one of the booth people do it).

It underscores the fact most digital projection systems are very babied and protected setups, and are certainly not indictative of the performance likely to be seen if run under normal multiplex conditions.

Also, the digital projection installations would be subject to the very same problems in audio as many 35mm installations. Audio quality in terms of the recorded soundtrack might be a tad better if the DLP show is featuring uncompressed 20-bit Linear PCM. But it is not a staggering difference when compared to DTS, Dolby Digital and SDDS. Many audio problems in commercial theaters are happening from bad EQ, blown or worn out speaker drivers, poor quality amps and speakers, etc. An all-DLP setup would have the same problems when operated under the typical method of multiplex management.

The problems in poor quality film presentation is not an issue of analog versus digital. It is an issue of the exhibition industry running things on the cheap. They're not paying their staffers enough to give a damn about show quality, much less make the jobs competitive enough to attract people who love to show movies and put on a good show. Some of this also gets back to the film distribution companies who keep taking more and more away from the movie theater circuits, expecting them to live on ever more narrow margins. Executives are just expecting to throw around that "digital" buzzword and have it be enough.

The movie industry as a whole needs some major retooling since so much of the product out there has a stale "been there seen that" formula to it. With that being said, one of the quiet threats to 35mm projection is underground, video-based movie making where the end product just gets shown in festivals and goes straight to DVD or the Internet. If better stories get told in that venue more people will indeed stay home and watch it on their DLP flat screen TVs.
 

---

Posted by Ron Yost (Member # 1850) on 09-22-2003, 12:28 AM:
 
Most publications are copyrighted. While it's nice to have the whole article archived, I don't believe it's legal to copy articles entirely without permission of the publication. Piracy is piracy.

Ron Yost
 

---

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-22-2003, 01:29 AM:
 
On the pasting whole articles issue I agree - there are no 'fair use' provisions in UK copyright law as there are in the States, and I am cagey about doing this. I have copied and pasted articles once or twice, usually from websites that require you to register in order to read their online content, but don't like making a habit of it. If Brad makes it a forum policy that all online articles must be pasted where available, I fear that, sadly, he could be asking people (especially those who are posting from outside the US), to break the law.

As for the article itself, I really can't see that there's anything new in there. I'm sure that if he rented a DVD from Blockbusters and found it scratched to hell, he'd start moaning at the video rental industry too.

The one interesting issue in there, I think, is that of the screaming baby. A few months ago I read a national newspaper article about a mother who was pissed off at not being allowed into a cinema with her baby. The reason given by the manager was the film's censor certificate (never mind if the baby is too young to understand any of the film, 12 weeks is under 12 years, so that's that). But I later found out that apparently it's quite common practice for UK cinema managers to keep babies out on these grounds, whereas the actual reason is to avoid complaints from other customers if the baby starts crying. That way, you don't have to get into an argument with the parent(s), who will inevitably claim that their little one is perfectly behaved...

Perhaps the way to go on this one is to schedule a few 'family friendly' screenings, perhaps on weekday afternoons and with lower ticket prices, to which babies in arms are welcome, but to have them absolutely verboten from the main evening shows.
 

---

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-22-2003, 03:29 AM:
 
I don't see it that way Leo. A few years ago when I was actively trying to contact every website to get permission for any pasted article, the answer I always got was "no problem, so long as the name of our publication and the website link is credited." The only occasional stipulation I would get was "do not edit the article". Basically they did not want "versions" of their copy out there. They wanted all or nothing. After awhile, I gave up on the effort, as no one had a problem with it and sometimes it took forever to officially get the same answer.

So while I may be technically wrong here, this is something that needs to be done to preserve the integrity of the archives. So long as the person making the post gives credit to the publisher and author with a link to the source, I don't see how that is harming anyone and no publications I have asked has had an issue. If someone from a website complains, I will gladly remove it as well as prevent any and all future links to that base URL just to make sure their request is satisfied and it doesn't happen again. That would indeed be a rare exception though, especially in the situation of news articles where online discussions via forum or newsgroup are common.

In the meantime, if anyone has a problem with that general policy, then please refrain from posting the link or discussion about it. There is nothing more annoying than researching something in the archives only to find the discussed link is dead.

And now back to why video is so much better than film...
 

---

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 09-22-2003, 12:56 PM:
 
I did in fact consider contacting Jon himself via email but as the article was available on the web I used the link instead.
As Leo stated there could well be an issue with his copyright, but as it is freely available I'm not too sure how it would stand up.

I'm don't think he was really suggesting that DLP was 'Better' than film just that the visual presentation does not suffer with each run as film can. The West End of LOndon is certainly not the place it used to be and poor presentation is now quite common.

Just in the same way THX certifies the whole environment of an auditorium Jon's comments addressed the whole experience and for him it's lacking....

There are still some cinemas that give consistently good presentation, but they are getting very thin on the ground due to cost cutting, single manning and lack of training.... all of which have been talked about over and over again.
 

---

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-22-2003, 03:50 PM:
 
It [copyright] is a very grey area. Section 30 of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988 defines the notion of 'fair dealing', though it is ambiguous to say the least as to what does and does not qualify. And if and when the European Union Copyright Directive is implemented in UK law, the situation is going to get even more complicated - and potentially restrictive. The EUCD allows for wide ranging restrictive powers in respect of IPR in electronic form.

Add to this the issue of which country's laws when you publish something on a US website from the UK... and there will surely be a lot of serious legal precedents to be set in the next few years. The thing is, I'd rather not be the person whose court case ends up setting them...
 

---

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-22-2003, 04:32 PM:
 

quote:

---

In the meantime, if anyone has a problem with that general policy, then please refrain from posting the link or discussion about it. There is nothing more annoying than researching something in the archives only to find the discussed link is dead.

---

quote:

---

TDC (Technicolor Digital Cinema) still comes to the location to QC the setup because the studios pay for that service. The TDC techs travel around the country for about 1 week before new releases setting up projectors, media watching the same movie again, and again. I think they hit specific market theatres as they possibly couldn't do all installations.

---

quote:

---

Most customers are lazy and just keep driving to whatever dump is the closest to their home.

---

Some time ago I looked at a survey of UK cinemagoers done in 1947 (sad, I know, but there you are). It included a question, 'What do you look for most of all when choosing which theatre to attend?' (or words to that effect). Out of around 50 different things, the ones which came up most often were proximity of the theatre to home, whether or not the theatre had central heating (less surprising than it sounds, especially during winter, because in those days homes didn't and heating costs were a big expense for lower-income families) and the start time of the programme. Picture and sound quality was only cited by around 20 of the 5,000 surveyed as a positive reason for being there, though around 300 complained of difficulty in understanding the dialogue.

So I guess nothing much has changed in the last half a century!
 

---

Posted by Alan Haigh (Member # 1781) on 09-24-2003, 04:38 AM:
 
For me, my experiences in UK cinemas have been good, or OK. I think the writer of this article must have been either very unlucky with his recent visits, or is he overstating the situation for the sake of "tabloid" journalism. By that I mean that he's propping up a weak argument. What I really, really take issue with is him mentioning "the largest cinema in leicester square" in with these experiences. If he has seen all those faults ("noisy" stock, bad joins, jumps where the film has broken [hmmmm ... that's an interesting one in these days of polyester] and the mysterious "blow-outs"]) at any of the cinemas in Leicester Square then I am utterly astounded. They are the all the biggest purveyours of "film done right" I've ever come accross.

I've also been to local multiplexes occaisionally. Of course the prints are sometimes not as good here, but they are fine. In fact the whole thing is always fine. Everytime I've been it has been anyway.

Also, yes you can get better speakers in the home than cinemas (as long as you aren't worried about bass response), but these do cost considerably more than 2 cinema tickets. More like 5 to 10 years of weekly cinema going. And who has the perfect room and/or perfect neighbours to make it work well?

Alan
 

---

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 09-24-2003, 12:08 PM:
 
I have mixed feelings about this. If you look at the stats that Boxoffice sometimes publishes about the number of calls to Moviefone about a particular theater, at least in NYC, they tended to be the better theaters.

Also, last year, Time Out New York magazine did a cover story that rated almost every single movie theater in NYC and they got it mostly right. For the most part, the theaters they thought were the best were the theaters I thought were the best. So they have to think that patrons are interested enough in this topic to do a big story about it.

Before we state that most patrons don't give a damn about quality presentation, I think an analysis needs to be done comparing the grosses of theaters that one would consider to have quality presentation with ones that don't, when playing the same films.

Also, we don't give patrons the proper tools to evaluate whether a theater does a good job or not. Newspaper listings of presentation and sound formats are either missing or incorrect. There's virtually no information at the theater. I always thought there should be sign posted outside each screen that would say something like, "Presented in 35mm anamorphic Panavision at 2.35:1 and in 5.1 channel Dolby Digital with Surround EX" or something like that. Theaters never try to compete by publicizing the type of amplifiers or loudspeakers that they have. The last time I saw this happen was in 1987, when Mann's Village theater in Westwood rewired the place using Monster Cable -- they got lots of press out of that.

Back in the early 80s, theaters playing films in 70mm far outgrossed 35mm presentations. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, for example, did 20% of its total gross at only the 4% of theaters (68) playing the 70mm version. Grease 2 had only 8 70mm prints out of 1250, but those 8 did 3% of the gross. So that implies that at least back then, patrons did carefully choose where to see a film based on a perception of quality and presentation.

However, the business is configured very differently today with studios releasing thousands of prints and not caring about much more than the opening weekend. In addition, because of the tremendous consolidation in the industry, the chains don't want to pit their good theaters against their bad theaters, so they treat them all the same.
 

---

Posted by Brian Guckian (Member # 1678) on 09-24-2003, 01:58 PM:
 
You have to wonder about the objectivity of articles like these; many magazines are advertising vehicles after all.

Backing up Alan's comments re. Leicester Square, my own experiences watching films in several different theatres there has been never less than excellent, and often outstanding.

Could the (exaggerated) reference to "titles jumping around the screen" etc. relate to jump and weave in the prints themselves? As we know pushing printing speeds can occasionally induce these effects.

In general though the whole process seems to be geared now against quality - i.e. shoot on cheap formats like Super35, finalise the print days before release, rush it through the labs, then show it in theatres where costs have been cut to the bone.
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-24-2003, 10:16 PM:
 
Martin, one thing that props up the "better" theaters in Manhattan is seating count. The Ziegfeld has around 1,100. Loews Astor Plaza is what, around 1,500? These are much larger theaters than the typical neighborhood shoebox screen of only 120 seats.

I think another thing skewed in the favor of better theaters in Manhattan is a well established reputation of some theaters. We're talking theaters where movie premieres are held. Customers see that on TV and want to try out movies there. That's how I started watching movies at the Ziegfeld when I lived in New York. I figured the place automatically had to be good if a movie premiere would happen there. You also have to factor in the point many residents of Manhattan are more highly educated and affluent types, not typical of the average American. More highly educated and well off film-goers are going to be more discriminating in terms of show quality than the average guy.

I think if Moviefone did a survey in more "average" American cities they would probably get a lot of the same results Leo found in that 1947 British survey.

70mm prints would indeed improve attendance numbers at many theaters, especially in New York. But then you also have to consider the way 70mm was advertised then. Paramount's NY ads for "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" debuted what many consider to be the "official" logo of 70mm. Paramount made that sweeping logo huge in the ads. In more recent years, such as with the DTS 70mm bookings of "Titanic", that same 70mm logo was tiny and almost unreadable from ink smear/dot gain.
 

---

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 09-25-2003, 12:39 PM:
 
John, I don't think that I have done a complete release without a visit from TDC. They come to the theatre because the studios have paid them to do this. TDC knows that when they come to the theatre, I will have the lenses changed, media loaded, platters built. The only thing they have to do is screen the movie.

I don't have the QuBit players anymore. They've been gone for 1-2 years now. The playback system is the TDC AMS System.

They let me know when content is being sent to the theatre. Usually, the media comes encrytped and the keys come separately with the tech. These keys are specific to the auditorium number playing the film.

Old content is deleted after final screening on Thursday by me.
 

---

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-25-2003, 04:04 PM:
 
Thanks, Paul.
 

---

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 09-26-2003, 11:57 AM:
 
Just thought I'd pass on the reply from Jon Honeyball regards using his article.

Thanks to Brad for extracting the text.

=========================================================

Hi – I have no objection to you lifting the HTML from the website and using it, providing you give links to www.pcpro.co.uk, and email links to editor@pcpro.co.uk and jon@jonhoneyball.com and say it was copied with my permission

Thanks!

Jon
 

---