The answers:
One dollar - 29%
Two dollars - 7%
Three dollars - 3%
Four dollars - 2%
Would not be willing to pay any extra - 59%
--------------------------------------------
Thank God Technicolor is going to give us all free projectors for 12.5¢ per ticket.
 

• the people responding to the survey think that movie prices are too high anyway and that they should be getting a "perfect onscreen image" at current prices without having to pay more for it
  
• the people responding to the survey are trying to rig the survey to avoid giving whoever reads moviefone survey results any idea that they would be willing to pay more to watch movies
  
• the people responding to the survey disagree with the premise of the question and do not believe that "digital cinema" will provide a "perfect onscreen image"
  
• the people responding to the survey are unwilling to pay extra for _any_ technology which will provide a "perfect onscreen image" (depressing, if true, since it implies lack of interest in properly-presented 70mm!)
  
• the survey is totally worthless, considering that the people who responded were not selected at random and, thus, their opinions are not representative of those of the general movie-going public
  

But happily I'm gradually becoming aware of some nice family-run houses out in the country. Trouble is, awfully long ways to drive.

 

I don't understand the economics of all this?

I would have thought that digital movie projection would have been cheaper than film.
In fact with the ability to send the film over the Internet distribution costs should be slashed.

cheers Peter

 

"There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics."
 

Most of the potential savings would seem to be on the production side, but with digital projection systems costing 5 to 8 times as much as a film projection system the rest of the economic package doesn't yet fit. Lots of questions to be answered before economic feasability is addressed.

As for the survey, all good points. It might ask more questions than it answers. Ask the same question after a great film presentation and see what the answers might be. Film done right is still awfully good.

Pat
 

I went to get the oil changed in my car today. I pulled into the Jiffy Lube place and the guy came over and asked what I wanted. I told him, "Give me the works.. Penzoil 5 W 30, please." Then I looked up at the sign and it said that they do North Carolina vehicle inspections. I thought "No better time than the present", so I told him, "While you're at it, make my car legal in NC, would you?" The guy said that they weren't doing any more inspections today because the inspection mechanic was going home. (It wasn't even 4 PM yet.) I just told the guy that I was going someplace else and drove off. I went down the road and found another place. By this time it was almost 5 PM. The guy made an appointment for me "first thing" tomorrow morning. I'll be there 15 minutes before he opens in the morn.

What I'm saying is that if companies are going to make money, they are going to have to do a better job of giving people what they want. By the looks of the survey, they don't really want to see digital movies... They just want to see the movies we have now being done RIGHT!

I don't think that when you have ushers all standing around talking to their girlfriends while customers wait to get into theatres, people are going to want to come back to the movies. No form of digital projection is going to make them come spend $$$ if the rest of the theatre is run like CRAP! I just think this digital movie kick that people are on is borne out of nothing but pure LAZINESS!

Joe Schmidt is correct -- people driven away from theatres by poor presentation quality may never return from their "home theatres". Unless we "Do Film Right" today, "Digital Done Right" will not be in theatres, but in homes.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Whether or not it is the "Film Done Right" thing, would you spend 7 bucks or more to watch some twisted POS without a plot and horrible acting that is called a movie?

Hollywood ran out of ideas. They are grabbing for straws. The last good movie to hit the boxoffice and had legs to carry itself was, I believe, Titanic.

90% of the BS that film companies are making isn't worth the effort to watch. The boxoffice grosses verify that.

You hit the nail on the head with that statement. I have said it a few times in other posts that hollywood needs to concentrat on better movies that are worth seeing instead of laying the blame on how the movie is presented.

People don't really care how the movie is projected as long as they see it. If the movie is a POS word of mouth gets around and nobody will come. We care because we know how things work and shold be done. You know it's bad when you have a movie that is color and incorporates a black and white scene and someone comes out and asks if you can fix the color.
 

Don't be so critical of the equipment manufacturers. There are only about 110,000 theatre screens in the world. Since film projection equipment is so durable, I would be surprised if the worldwide market for new projection equipment exceeded 15,000 units per year, divided among competing manufacturers. So the economies of scale just aren't there to bring prices down with mass production methods. If GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, or Toyota sold only a few thousand cars per year, the prices would be much higher too.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

Just think: I can go to an electronics store right now, today, and buy an HDTV set with a resolution of 1920x1080. Technicolor (so far the only company that has unveiled a serious plan for large-scale digital cinema installation) is talking about putting 1280x1024 in theaters. You do the math.

Right now there are two factors that prevent competition from HDTV from being too big of a problem:

• HDTV is too expensive for the average home viewer
  
• There is a limited availability of full-resolution HDTV source material (just a few broadcast and cable channels)
  

Both of those a very much temporary. In a few years, an HDTV home video format (one in which pre-recorded feature films are available) will probably be available, and then it will really take off. Economy of scale will bring the prices down, so it will become affordable to more and more people. What are theaters going to do then?

The companies that are pushing for digital -- particularly Technicolor -- seem to be rushing blindly into it because they see a way to save a few bucks. However, those savings will only come if they can keep all other factors, especially ticket sales, the same. Once people get the ability to have better quality at home than in theaters, they will simply stay home, and not come back! Bye-bye, savings!

I realize that's been said before, but it bears repeating. Just think about how many home theater freaks there are who already (incorrecly) believe their setups are superior to any theater. Their ranks will swell tremendously once HDTV gets going full swing. And for once, they'll actually be right -- they really will be getting better quality at home!

If companies like Technicolor had any long-term vision at all, they would probably wake up and realize doing things like giving away 1000 very expensive projectors which are pretty much already obsolete is not a smart investment. Of course, this is corporate America we're talking about, so it's pretty much a given that they will be short-sighted and not figure that out.

If it's the first senario, let's everyone order the projectors, run them for one day and then make Technicolor pull them out!

Color TV, as we currently know it, was a success because it was "compatible" with the B&W system that was running in the early 50's. One of my old electronics profs. was a part of the original RCA color development team. Folks then didn't have to throw away a TV (or buy some "adaper") to still be able to watch programs when color was being broadcast. Remember how NBC started their programs: "this program is being brought to you in compatible color, pioneered and developed by RCA". (Guess I'm getting old to remember that!)
 

I don't think new projectors are too expensive to buy. It's the parts to keep them going that are too much.

Also, I don't think it's possible to run out of ideas for a film. It's tougher to make good films, but there will always be ideas. Remember when everyone thought the industry was dead in 1976... then Star Wars came out and re-engerized it.
 

------------------
Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
 

About digital TVs costing a lot and there not being enough programming:

I'll bet that many people purchasing digital TVs right now are ones that want to watch DVDs in progressive scan 480p on a 1.78:1 screen, rather than to watch actual HDTV material. If I bought one right now, better DVD viewing quality would be the reason, and not HDTV.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

If you can't have a free lunch, what makes you think a free Digital Projector is any more likely?

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Jonathan Haglund
Edwards Theatre Circuit, Inc
Park Place 10
 

It's my belief that in 5 years from now, most of the local tv stations will not have converted to digital as the FCC has mandated. Instead, they will be off the air, dark, gone, no more.

Why? Do the math. Every year, the broadcast networks lose more viewers to the hundreds of competing satellite channels. I saw an article in Time magazine a while back which suggested they were down nearly to only 25% of the market THEN. So if you have 4 local stations in a market with CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX, that 25% is divvied up between the 4 of them. One of these days the local merchant advertisers are going to wake up, and say: HEY!! WE'RE PAYING ALL THIS MONEY AND NOBODY'S WATCHING OUR COMMERCIALS! When this hits it is going to snowball very fast and local tv darkness will follow.

Eventually the 4 networks will become just another 4 pay channels, if, that is, all 4 survive somehow. I've heard the disney interests are losing a lot of money in abc and aren't happy. Within next 5 years switches may be pulled somewhere.

Only stations in the major markets are likely to survive. There are about 140 being carried on DirecTV, within channels 860-999.

 

As I understand it, a local channel is assigned another channel for digital broadcasting. ie. Channel 8 may be assigned, say, channel 18 for their digital signal. Then when everything goes digital, they are supposed to surrender the analog channel 8 allocation. The FCC, in their infinite wisdom, will then reassign the surrendered frequencies for other purposes. (Like we really need more cel phones and pagers!!)
 

I think the "local flavor" of broadcast TV stations will diminish more as time goes on. The way things are now, even the national cable network stations have local commercials. They usually stick out like a sore thumb because of the audio and video quality.

Broadcast TV is being hurt by people that don't want to use antennas. I lived in the country for 15 years and we had to use an antenna with a rotator and amplifier to get anything, and what we got was often snowy. We could get approximately 30 different stations, but only a couple had good picture quality. Many people in the country got satellite dishes for the cable networks and they end up not watching the broadcast channels because they can't get a good picture with an antenna and the local stations are not available on the dishes. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see broadcast TV go completely away and be replaced totally by cable and dish systems. Antennas are just too problematic. Even if you live in the city where the TV station is, it doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to get a good picture free of ghosts and interference.

------------------
Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

The 50s and 60s oldies are my favorite music, and although I hate to see local radio stations swallowed up by national networks, in this case, I'm glad that it allowed us to have a 50s and 60s rock station. It is what I listen to 90 precent of the time in the car, which is the only time I listen to radio.

About TV: I'd like to see TV return to the days of pictures not corrupted by logos, with fewer commercials. I'm so spoiled by watching movies in theatres and DVDs that I'm spoiled and hate the interruptions in TV programs and the stupid logos. If HDTV is going to have the logos, what is the point? Why even bother with it?

------------------
Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

As for tv, things look much grimmer. It takes a lot more money to operate a tv station than a radio station. In the 1970s my dad built an FM station for a startup company that was building a tv station, the FM being just an add-on to maximize employees and the prime antenna location. Within a year, it became obvious that the tv was going down the tubes, but the radio station was raking in huge amounts of advertisng dollars with minimal costs. Eventually the tv station died and the radio station changed hands.

The combination of satellite, cable, Tivo, and the net will kill local broadcast. For example, I get fast news via the net, skip EVERY commercial on tv by using Tivo, and watch maybe an hour of local tv a week, max. I'm not the average viewer, but the quality of local tv is worse than the sleaziest theatre around, and only the poor and uneducated are continuing to put up with it. They make terrible customers for anyone but Miss Cleo.

BTW, those logos are called bugs, IIRC. Bravo had it's bug right over the subtitles on a recent showing of "Wild Strawberries." Now THAT is brilliant management.

It is indeed unfortunate to see local radio go away - the familiar voice that rode with you to work and back again, talked TO YOU and played the tunes of the day on your kitchen radio, commented on music, the local sports teams, etc. This kind of thing can only be found nowadays on the big 50 KW "full service" satations such as WGN in Chicago. I'm 140 miles away from their transmitter, but put up with power line noise, thunderstorm static, and you name it just to hear real live people with something interesting to say.
 

When I was taking a Radio/TV/Film course years ago, our radio setup was an old one ripped from a real station who'd upgraded. We learned to cue LP's on the double-turntable, commercials on the carts, big ol' mixing boards, just like WKRP! There was work to do. Talking to a buddy the other day, was saying that alot of radio is SO automated now, everything is on computer, and it's actually the computer that CUES THE ANNOUNCER what's coming up so he can chirp in then wait for the next one. Now that sounds pretty dull, doesn't it?
 

On the HDTV front at the moment nobody in Europe is really pushing it, 16:9 (1.78) standard definition PAL transmissions are considered good enough.

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Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut