Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: TOWER HEIST incorrect digital projection

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 11-06-2011, 06:53 PM:

TOWER HEIST is now playing in two theatres at Regal's Pearl Highlands 12 Theatre in Sony 4K digital projection and I went there to see it yesterday. It is playing in their largest house (#12) and a smaller auditorium (#1). I wanted to see it in the large house but the first show of the day was in the smaller house but because I went at the wrong time, I settled for that showing. It took me only five minutes after the feature started that I decided to walk out of that auditorium and wait about twenty minutes for the show in the larger house and sit through about twenty minutes of trailers again in the larger auditorium to see the movie properly projected.

House #1 has a very small screen that is not very wide and all it is only good for is movies with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and not 'scope'. Imagine my dismay to see a 'scope' movie like TOWER HEIST projected on that small screen with no masking on the bottom and top and and a extremely small picture in a two hundred seat auditorium. Watching the movie like this was like watching it at home on a standard television screen. The projection in house #12 was awesome with a properly projected image on a very large wide screen in the correct aspect ratio with good sound and perfect 4K digital projection.

BTW The movie was fantastic and I give it three out of four stars
-Claude

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-06-2011, 07:19 PM:

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
good sound and perfect 4K digital projection.

..bet it was a 2K file that was scaled up to fill the Sony's 4K chip if the unit was a single lens projector. There's not that much 4k content out yet.

If the content was shot through a twin lens unit, then the imager chip was split to contain both images-one on top of another - with both 2k information being played together for each lens.

Agree with the movie...definitely good!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-06-2011, 08:52 PM:

I will bet the projection system was set for "flat." On a digital system only the picture size changes, not the aspect ratio.

A press of a button would have probably solved the problem in ten seconds.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 11-06-2011, 09:24 PM:

Or a few taps on a screen... a tiny screen...

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 11-06-2011, 09:26 PM:

Maybe it had common width masking?

Posted by Keegan O'Brien (Member # 6539) on 11-06-2011, 09:26 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
If the content was shot through a twin lens unit, then the imager chip was split to contain both images-one on top of another - with both 2k information being played together for each lens.

Hm?

Tower Heist isn't in 3D...

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 11-06-2011, 09:57 PM:

quote: Keegan O'Brien
Hm?

Tower Heist isn't in 3D...

Ummm... He was describing what happens when you run 2D content through the 3D split-lens especially since a lot of locations don't even have the training to do a swap between the 2D and 3D lens...

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-06-2011, 10:13 PM:

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
House #1 has a very small screen that is not very wide and all it is only good for is movies with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and not 'scope'.

Luckily, Brett Ratner frames everything for viewing on non-widescreen TV's [Wink]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-06-2011, 11:27 PM:

quote: Chris Slycord
don't even have the training to do a swap between the 2D and 3D lens...

..true, take close to a half hour and some on-screen alignment to go between lenses. Gonna train the typical booth monkey this complicated procedure?

They'll stay twin lens .. just swing up the polarizers (heard that SONY now issued attachment stops for the polarizers to be swung up out of the way for 2-D presentations...) and you're good to go.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-07-2011, 01:08 AM:

I had this happen to me once. We were stacking a flat movie with a scope one, and for some reason the scope macro didn't fire on one show. The scope movie started in the "flat" format. So it was the same height as a scope movie would be, but that reduced the width to where it looked just like Claude described...too small for the screen. I pressed the correct format button and all was well.

I never did figure out what happened, but to be sure, I deleted that macro from the playlist and re-inserted it. Everything was fine after that.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-07-2011, 12:53 PM:

Thus, what could have happened then with Claude's experience in that one house was that, when the playlist was built, the wrong lens template was used - they used a "Flat 2D" template instead of the "Scope 2D" template.

That'll make it with the makings full closed and you get a "pillarboxed" image on the screen..