Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Going to setup a faux 6.1 setup...help?

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Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 11-06-2003, 01:25 AM:

Hello all. At my college, I am involved with a film club and for our last event of the year we are going to have a Lord of the Rings festival. Part of this will consist of viewing the extended edition DVD's. For this special event, I have elected to setup my home theater system. However, since I will have a good size room at the school, I'd like to use more than two surrounds. I have extra speakers and amps to make this possible. I was thinking about doing the THX setup: 2 side surrounds and 2 back surrounds. Now, all I have is a 5.1 reciever but I have preouts for all channels. Now to my knowledge, I can send the info from the LR surrounds to a separate prologic reciever (I also have) and set it to 3 channel prologic to create a faked Surround EX. This would equal 3 surrounds total: LS, CS, and RS. Now, is there a way to use 2 speakers on the CS with this particular setup? Even if this is not possible, can I merely have 4 surrounds total (2 for LS and 2 for RS)? How would I wire such a system? Thanks for the help everyone.

AJG

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 11-06-2003, 02:02 AM:

actually it is not faked surround ex. You are doing exacly what a 6.1 system would do. The only diferance is that it is not flagged and does not turn it on and off like in the theaters. I actually like it that way so long as you are sending stereo surrounds through the system. So anyways so long as the pre outs are for the left and right surrounds you can send them to the standard pro logic Receiver and run it in 3 channel mode. I have done this with no problems. As far as feeding the speakers just do as you would a front set up from the receiver to the speakers. For having more than one speaker conected to the line this is what I do with great results. Wether it be left centor or right. Take the wire that runs from the receiver and tie each speaker to it with their own wires. You can put some solder on the tied wires and cap them for good conection. Do not space the rear speakers to close to the sides. The effect is not as good.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 11-06-2003, 08:08 AM:

quote:
At my college, I am involved with a film club and for our last event of the year we are going to have a Lord of the Rings festival. Part of this will consist of viewing the extended edition DVD's.

Be careful if your "film club" constitutes a "public showing" of the films, which would require licensing the presentation. Are you charging admission or making money from the event?

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 11-06-2003, 08:24 AM:

There is no charge to see the films. Also, we are going to have a professor speak about the films from philosophical and/or religious perspectives. All in all, this event will be educational. That is one of the goals of our particular club. There is, however, another rouge club on campus that shows movies just to show them. I think they actually had to jump through some hoops because of that. We had a theme of contemporary foreign films this semester and it went over fairly well. The other group just got done showing Charlie's Angels 2. Blech!

AJG

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 11-07-2003, 01:59 AM:

quote:
Be careful if your "film club" constitutes a "public showing" of the films, which would require licensing the presentation. Are you charging admission or making money from the event?

If it's open to the public, it doesn't matter if they're charging admission or making money. *Any* public showing without permission of the copyright holder is prohibited by copyright law. Running it for a class, etc. is allowed under "fair use". But not advertising it to the public or other university students to just come in & watch. This is why the non-theatrical agreements with Swank, etc. contain the provision that there can be *no* advertising for a title rented under the non-theatrical agreement. That includes flyers, mentions in a paper that the public is invited, etc. If you're letting the public in, it's "public performance".

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 11-07-2003, 02:17 AM:

Would students in this case still constitue public? The event is for students, not the general public. This was not my area to look into, but as far as I've been told by the others in the group, we are able to do this legally.

EDIT: It is also not just to watch either. One main purpose is to encourage the students who attend to take a look at the films from an academic, philosophical, and possibly religious point of view. Again, we are inviting someone to speak at the event about such topics in relation to the films. It's not about just watching Lord of the Rings to watch it, but to read into it, analyze it, interpret it, and discuss it from an academic perspective. Again, as far as I've been told, we are legally able to do this in the university setting.

AJG

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-07-2003, 11:13 AM:

Sounds like a legal grey area. The US law has a provision for "fair use," which would include, for example, the showing of a film within the context of a class being taught at a school or college. In that case, the professor could show a film (or xerox a book, play a recording, etc.) without having to license the material. In your case, you would probably be better off renting the film/tape/DVD/whatever through Swank, which would give you a license for public performance (and would allow you to charge admission). Even if it isn't strictly necessary, it's likely that New Line can afford better lawyers than your film club can, so it isn't worth taking the risk. The real problem is that you are inviting all members of the campus community, not just those enrolled in a particular class, to attend the screening.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 11-07-2003, 02:37 PM:

This IS a public performance and you must obtain the proper non-theatrical clearances for you presentation.

Even a dorm movie night or frat movie night is a public performance that needs a non-theatrical license.

Swank College Guide
Legal Liability

Remember, any public showing - even videocassettes - requires a license.

The motion picture titles listed for college use by Swank Motion Pictures, Inc. are cleared by our studios for public performance exhibition by our customers. This means our customers have the legal right to show these titles before groups of students, faculty and their friends on their campuses. The "home use" versions of these same titles, obtained from video stores, retailers, etc., are not cleared for public performance use by colleges, schools, etc. because proper licensing fees to the copyright owners have not been paid for such use. Swank pays these royalties for you. For more information on "Copyrights" contact your Swank Account Executive.

Posted by Pete Lawrence (Member # 130) on 12-02-2003, 10:55 AM:

You can get away with the Fair Use loop hole if you show short clips, maybe 10 minutes or so, in an educational setting, but showing the whole film IS a public performance and should be treated as such. You most likely could get away with showing it for 50 of your "closest friends" in a dorm, but do you really want to take the chance? Showings on campus have been shut down in the past when word got out, and the results of an infringement suit aren't pretty.

Here are a few links offering opinions:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

On the other hand, many colleges have a blanket license that does allow certain film showings and music performance. Check it out with whoever handles the on campus theater or AV systems.

Criterion has the non-theatrical distribution of the LOTR series, not Swank. Criterion USA The first two films will cost you around $250 each. The third, when it's available March 17th will be around $1200. That's no typo, it's really $1200. We have been renting them as they come out for a local Sci-Fi convention held on a college campus. I do films for the convention. Shameless plug follows. I-CON Science Fiction

[ 12-02-2003, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Pete Lawrence ]

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 12-02-2003, 09:19 PM:

Actually, I did find out that our campus does have permission to play this in this particular setting, so all is good. Because of the forum, I raised this issue to our advisor and we found out that we can show it. Should be an exciting event. I just got a new PC and I'm going to run it off of there with PowerDVD. This should improve overall picture quality with the LCD projector.

AJG

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 12-09-2003, 10:12 PM:

Just make sure you disable any screensavers or power managing settings or it will screw things up in some cases causing the DVD to restart from the begining

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 12-14-2003, 11:39 PM:

Well, just got home with all my gear and the event was terrific. Didn't get the turnout I wanted, but we started advertising really late. Anyhow, I did keep that in mind Darryl because it woulda just been great to see Sauron destroyed then a flying window appears! The picture ended up being spectacular! It was a Sharp LCD at about 100" or so running 1024x768 24 bit color. It was truly amazing how well the image looked. I could argue in some ways it looked better this way than it did late in the theatrical run. As far as 6.1, I didn't end up doing it because the Pro Logic unit I had was giving me trouble. The sound in the room was excellent, and better than many multiplexes I've been to. I got many compliments on the show and that is always nice to hear. Makes me want to get rid of my 27" Sony and get an LCD projector for my computer. Thanks for everyone's help!

AJG