Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Ready Theatre Systems

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-14-2002, 11:49 AM:

Anyone out there actually using the Ready Theatre Systems stuff?

Any comments both good and bad.

No manufacturer's comments please. Just interested in what the end-users have to say.

Steve

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 04-14-2002, 01:13 PM:

Steve,

We are very seriously looking in to replacing our current Box system with RTS. We haven't don't it yet, but we have our resident computer guru running the demo on his laptop. He used to work with Mars at UA so he knows a thing our two about POS systems. So far we haven't found anything we can't live with.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-14-2002, 05:58 PM:

RTS is very good better than Radiant or MARS

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-14-2002, 07:02 PM:

Thank you for your comments and keep em coming!

Steve

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 4594) on 04-16-2002, 02:07 AM:

At my old theater we used RTS, unfortunatly I don't use it now. I thought it was a very nice basic program, it has everything you need and is very reliable. If you do end up needing tech support, I never had a problem that they couldn't fix right over the first phone call.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 04-16-2002, 04:47 PM:

Radiant and MARS are sooo bad. Radiant crashes whenever you try to do ANYTHING print out a schedule, CRASH! Preoccess a deposit CRASH! it is just really buggy. And radiants tech support is at best a joke. (Loews has thier own hekp desk that is pretty good but sometimes thay have to call radiant and they never ever get back to us)

Posted by Paul Turner (Member # 832) on 04-18-2002, 01:24 AM:

I use RTS for a single-screen art house. We have a single set-up for both box and bar. Very happy with it. Support is great via email or phone – 24/7. They walk you through set-up and deal most patiently with silly newbie questions. Get a touch screen, a good one. It makes it sing. We run it with their thermal printer and it’s never failed. Quite intuitive so everyone learns to use it quickly. Reports are easy and very nice. Tracks everything with ease. It’s Windows based so it’s all very familiar. I’m making plans to build a twin in the near future and I’ll be installing this system when I open.

I am not familiar with other systems out there. I went from using rolls of tickets from an office supply to this system. I chose it because I emailed the guys who run RTS and they seemed to be pretty on the ball. I was right. I don’t use a lot of the fancy features like the gift certificates and I still use a separate Visa machine, so I can’t say how they work. But, over-all it works very well for me. The high-point being the customer service.

Posted by Kevin Baglow (Member # 721) on 04-18-2002, 05:03 AM:

Ive used it (RTS) in two of my theatres. Im very happy with it. The internet credit card ticket sales will be fun when we get it. I started with Rusty Gordons Sensible cinema programme. All by friends use that programme and are very happy with that too.
cya

Posted by Charles Lubner (Member # 157) on 04-18-2002, 03:03 PM:

I've never used RTS, but I will agree Radiant can be buggy. It's a nice program with a lot of features, but I think the backoffice menu is layed out poorly with too many buttons. It's a memory hog too!! I like the touchscreens and the user interface however. The one feature that is just terrible and should be melted down are their remote ticket kiosks, where customers can purchase their own tickets. I've never seen one work properly for more than a week without some piece of hardware failing. Radiant has a lot of potential, but it needs to work out the kinks.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 04-18-2002, 04:23 PM:

Is there a website for Ready?

Posted by Bob Cunningham (Member # 784) on 04-18-2002, 05:35 PM:

The website for RTS is rts-solutions.com

Posted by Jeff Knoll (Member # 1145) on 04-28-2002, 12:39 AM:

We had been using Sensible Cinema since 1998 and really enjoyed it, but we really wanted to integrate concession sales. We tested RTS back in 2000 and really liked it, after upgrading our computer and aquiring touch screen, we fully implemented an RTS system in December of 2001. It is fantastic. A complete solution - box office, concessions, employee scheduling and time clock, film scheduling and a built in loyalty/debit card system.

In the past, I have used most systems, and this has to be my favorite so far. It is obvious that it was designed by theatre folk! As for tech support... all I can say is I wonder if Rob & Greg actually sleep!! They are quick, friendly and resolve issues very fast. They have even been known to make changes in the software to meet specific needs (for Canadian tax reporting for example).

If you haven't already, try it out. E-mail me if you have any specific questions that I can answer from experience. jknoll@film.ca

Jeff Knoll
Film.Ca Inc. (Encore Cinemas)

Posted by Mike Miller (Member # 1129) on 05-02-2002, 06:22 PM:

Up here in Western Canada, we are mainly using Omniterm with new installs/renovations. I myself have never played with RTS. Omniterm is a very simple MCC/POS/CONC interface to use, but has its limitations, being based is DOS and all. I here the new Windows NT version isnt bad. Anybody else like/hate the Omniterm system. It does hhave its bugs, thats for sure.

Thanks,

Mike

Posted by Steve Anderson (Member # 364) on 05-02-2002, 08:39 PM:

We have just bought the RTS system. The managers office is stacked with boxes of touch screens and computers. The new owners are gutting the old concession area and rebuilding. Hope to have these up and running soon!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-04-2002, 02:23 PM:

Before you do you'd best check out the new Sensible Cinema Box Office Pro for Windows. It does management, Concession, and box office. The software lists for $599.00, one time charge, no recurring fees, and can be gotten discounted from some dealers and reliably performs the equivelent of other compeditiers bigger mega thousand dollar systems It is also touch screen ready and will interface to many types of printers. Data will also transfer directly to Excell, Word, and other Microsoft based products.
We have sold a huge number of the Standard DOS based systems and they have proven totally reliable, not one failure, no bugs, and customers love it. It networks easily and most of the systems we've installed are all networked back to a managers computer. We normally use the Epson thermal printers and Sensible sells paper stock(color coded) that is heaveier and costs less than a half cent per ticket. Not the usual 2 to 3 cents per ticket of the more expensive ticketing systems.
This system will be blowing right past everything out there so evaluate other systems VERY carefully before you purchase anything else.
Mark @ GTS www.sensiblecinema.com

Posted by John Scott (Member # 520) on 05-04-2002, 08:31 PM:

Sean,

What version of Radiant are you using?

I know when we were using 1.7 we had similar problems with crashes, but since a year ago when we moved to 1.9 the system became very stable. So much so that I haven't had the back office crash since then (other problems, yes but no crashes).

I've been told 5.1 is just as stable, and the upcomming (this summer) 5.2 is even better.

I frankly can't wait until we get upgraded to 5.2 and get the new P400's in the vending stand (P400's look like M100's but instead have the CPU and hard drive built into the screen housing and run on XP).

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 05-05-2002, 02:32 AM:

may be wrong but I believe 4.0

Posted by John Scott (Member # 520) on 05-05-2002, 10:54 AM:

4.0??? Are you guys running the Lighthouse version of Radiant? If so that might be the problem.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 05-05-2002, 10:23 PM:

What you mean by the "Lighthouse" version?

Posted by John Scott (Member # 520) on 05-05-2002, 10:32 PM:

Its a programming language Radiant was trying to use to standardize the Prysm language in the Entertainment market with their other businesses (convience stores, gas stations, etc.)

If you have kiosks its a good bet you have at least some form of Lighthouse integrated into your Radiant System.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 05-07-2002, 01:15 AM:

We have version 1.9 and it was written with Visual Fox Pro or something like that.

Posted by Steven Gorsky (Member # 603) on 05-07-2002, 03:15 AM:

I think this is getting off topic so I've created a new thread titled "Radiant Troubleshooting Help".

Steven Gorsky

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 09-02-2015, 12:38 PM:

It has been 4866 days since the last post.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 09-02-2015, 12:38 PM:

Bringing this backup to the top.

Who uses R.T.S. at their locations (Ready Theatre Systems)?

I have questions regarding:

(1) Online Ticketing
(2) Reserved Seating
(3) Timely tech support

I'm interested in #3 because it took quite a few tries to get a hold of a live person just to ask some general questions.

Apparently, I am going to get to know R.T.S. really well in the future and just wanted to know other's experiences.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-02-2015, 02:53 PM:

Number three is why several of my customers have switched to Sensible Cinema.

Mark

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-02-2015, 07:01 PM:

I've never had a problem with getting hold of a live person at RTS. Their support people can seem kind of "surly" sometimes (they expect you to at least know your way around your computer when you call) but I've never had to wait more than a minute or two on hold.

(Disclaimer: I haven't called them in at least a year, so who know what's changed since then.)

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 09-02-2015, 07:43 PM:

You think that in 12 years, that Radiant/Aloha could finally work together as one, but still have their issues.

I loved REG's Entech Systems, but now they've moved over to Vista, which I no nothing about.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 09-02-2015, 08:23 PM:

I agree with Mike's comment. I have never had a problem getting a hold of someone for tech support, but they are not always the most friendly. Probably related to the fact that most theatre support calls are going to come outside normal business hours so we are getting someone who is at home.

My personal feeling is that RTS is a functional system, but not very intuitive. The inventory system is overly complicated and requires a number of steps to properly set up new items, with plenty of opportunity for errors, and very little documentation.

I also feel like their reports leave much to be desired, and there is very little available for monitoring current business day's activity before closeout.

One of the program's strengths is they have a built in remote desktop function which makes it very easy for them to get logged into the system. The system is also pretty flexible in terms of hardware.

Posted by Lance C. McFetridge (Member # 95) on 09-03-2015, 02:28 PM:

I have been using RTS for many years. I rarely call for tech support but when I do, it only takes minutes for them to answer even in busy times. I have GDC TMS and populating show times from the POS is fairly easy but I have nothing to compare it to. Rob actually logged into my system to assist in setting that up. I have had good luck with them. Based on the amount of updates we receive, they are actively working to improve and update the program. That's my experience with them.
Lance

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-03-2015, 05:11 PM:

The one real negative I can say is, at least when I call in they have the absolute worst sounding phone system. The "hold" music sounds like it's piped in from an AM radio with a lousy signal, and when the tech comes on they're sometimes hard to understand.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 09-03-2015, 06:03 PM:

I totally agree with you about that Mike. We use RTS at our drive-in where the office is in the projection room. Whether I call from the office or the snack bar I can hardly hear them.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 09-03-2015, 11:10 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
You think that in 12 years, that Radiant/Aloha could finally work together as one, but still have their issues.

I loved REG's Entech Systems, but now they've moved over to Vista, which I no nothing about.

Vista is so unbelievably needlessly complicated, It's a little ridiculous. I can't say it's not a powerhouse with a lot of control and options... but I have plenty of complaints with it. I, too, preferred Entek.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 09-03-2015, 11:21 PM:

I've been using Retriever's Venue system for over 16 years. It is a pretty robust system and very intuitive. It has its issues, often related to trying to appease the different interests of corporate vs theatre users. But the system works well. And over the years I have seen many of my suggestions implemented into the system.

My only major complaint is they are still using DOS, so hardware compatibility is a major issue, and prevents you from being able to use many off the shelf products.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 09-04-2015, 02:45 AM:

dosemu runs under Linux, is very easy to set up, and will run most dos programs. You can even print to printers that aren't supported by dos and create pdf files since dosemu will intercept print commands within dos programs and feed them to cups or lpr. USB printers and keyboards are no problem; basically any hardware that's supported by the underlying Linux distribution will work with dosemu and the dos program will just work with it.

You can run dosemu in a window on a Linux desktop, or you can run it in a full-screen session that looks exactly like dos; the full screen session is so accurate that if you didn't see the machine boot up you won't know that it's not a native dos machine.

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 09-12-2015, 09:31 AM:

We used RTS for several years, but I got frustrated with the extremely slow pace of updates. Bugs would linger for years.

At one point, I even decided to write my own web-based system --- I'm a software engineer by day.

But then I ran across Veezi. It has a Windows client for the stations, and all administration is web-based and accessible from anywhere. No need for ssh tunnels and VLC.

Pricing is reasonable and they are VERY responsive to bug reports. Their customer service is great, and they provide frequent updates and feature additions.

Justin Silverman is the main guy and he actually came out to visit us a couple of months ago.

They have a thirty-day free trial.

Veezi Homepage

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 09-12-2015, 02:15 PM:

I agree with most of the RTS observations here. My relationship with them has been a love / hate one over the years. On one hand, the company responded very quickly to my request that they find a way to put a number of tickets on one piece of paper (drive-in mode). Above all else, that sold me on the system. Rob is knowledgeable and responsive, when you can get him. The other folks there are sort of a mixed bag. They all seem to have their software strengths, but with a few of them, customer interaction is a toss-up. Being a broadcast engineer, I understand the problem. Some of the best techs out there have no business talking to the end user!

Agreed on other points as well... updates frequently occur for unexplained reasons and don't always cooperate with the local installation. Promised fixes take forever to implement and often-used features sometimes disappear without a trace. Given this is a subscription-based system, I would have hoped for faster implementation of fixes, features and functional updated versions. Documentation..... guess I'd best not go there. Their ability to log into the system has come in handy on a few occasions though.

I stopped trying to figure out the inventory section. My daughter runs that part of our business, so I've dumped that on her. Not even sure she's completely adopted it.

On their last major update, they added a number of handy reporting functions, but made the process much less intuitive.

On balance however, RTS has been a good fit for our triplex drive-in. We can get the stats we want, after a bit of work... they finally integrated split-tendering into the system and the time to process a card is comparable to cash. That's a critical point here for us.

As mentioned elsewhere, we now depend so heavily on card transactions that I'm becoming increasingly paranoid over having only one connection to the internet. Regardless of reliability, they all fail now and then. Murphy says that will be when I have lines going down to the street.

We don't use the built-in rewards or seating functions, but do use their gift cards. That works well.

There are still some details I'd like to see in the system, but over the years, they've become less-critical ones, so I don't talk to them as often as in the past. On-balance, a different system would have to be fairly impressive to get us to switch.

RTS was an early adopter of IP-based phones. Their customer service calls are routed through their system to phones at their employees' homes. That might explain some of the fun there.

Personally, I'd grade the overall RTS experience a B-.

At this point, my opinion of Sensible Cinema might be unfair, but it is what it is. We went with it at our indoor before we tried RTS. The early system had a lot of bugs and Rusty was hard to reach and not very responsive. Granted, he was the only person we ever talked with, so he may have been a one-person-show back then. We dropped his system out of frustration and never looked back. If his operation has improved at all over the years, I wouldn't know it... though if he's still around, one would hope it has. However, if I was tempted to switch, my past experience was so negative that I wouldn't consider going back.

In fairness, the system is/was a full-buyout package with no income stream for maintenance, updates or user ignorance... sort of the opposite of RTS in that regard.

Posted by Rusty Gordon (Member # 2210) on 09-12-2015, 02:49 PM:

Jack, I can't remember a moment in time when I wasn't insanely easy to reach. Unless I happen to be on a plane (going to CinemaCon or UDITOA) or somewhere with no cell service (for example, my nearest Drive-In theatre), I usually answer my phone in three rings and return missed calls within an hour. As for our Windows based software, I don't think RTS can touch us on drive-in features and capability-- except where they have copied us.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 09-12-2015, 03:12 PM:

David
I'm curious how Veezi has matured in terms of item set-up and inventory management. When I tested the system about 2 years ago it was not really ready for prime-time. Item configuration was pretty limited. For example, you couldn't simply have a modifier that applied to multiple items. If you want to to record the flavors for each drink, you had to set up Large Coke, Large Diet, Large Sprite, etc. Rather than hitting Large, Medium, Small and then applying the appropriate modifier.

We never we never went beyond testing because of these issues, but every year we re-evaluate our use of RTS prior to opening our drive-in. If Veezi has improved, we would certainly consider them for next year.

One concern we did have was whether the terminals could operate in a stand alone mode if the internet connection went down. It's one thing to not be able to process credit cards, but it's something else entirely to lose your entire POS system.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 09-12-2015, 09:49 PM:

quote: Rusty Gordon
As for our Windows based software, I don't think RTS can touch us on drive-in features and capability-- except where they have copied us.

Good to see you're here, Rusty. As for your respective capabilities, none of you offered drive-in functionalities at the time. We had your software first and got nowhere with it. RTS came along at a very early UDITOA convention at my invitation. Just prior to that, they set up a mode where an entire car could be represented on one piece of paper. Again, that was at my request. It's a big deal when you're looking to verify everyone belongs in the car.

As mentioned before, I hope your system is doing well. Our experience wasn't a good one and we moved on.

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 09-12-2015, 10:28 PM:

quote: Justin
One concern we did have was whether the terminals could operate in a stand alone mode if the internet connection went down.

It does have an offline mode and it works well.

Posted by Paul Goulet (Member # 297) on 09-13-2015, 10:06 AM:

quote: Jack Ondracek
a mode where an entire car could be represented on one piece of paper.

Jack, could you explain how that feature works? I work at a drive in that uses RTS, I'm just not familiar with that part of it

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 09-13-2015, 10:59 AM:

quote: Paul Goulet
Jack, could you explain how that feature works? I work at a drive in that uses RTS, I'm just not familiar with that part of it

"Drive-in mode" is set up in the local computer settings. It does two things. First, it prints one ticket per transaction, rather than one ticket per patron. That comes in very handy if you have to walk up to a car to verify admission. In that case, you only need them to give you one piece of paper, rather than force every person to produce their individual ticket. We buy the heavy, green-striped RTS ticket paper and use it only in our boxoffice terminals. It's more sturdy than the Office Depot-type paper we use in the snack bar terminals, and the stripe makes it somewhat easier to locate.

The other feature that makes their drive-in mode work for us is the customer tally on the boxoffice terminals. Instead of showing the number of people admitted against seating count, like you'd see in an indoor theatre version, ours shows the number of transactions for each screen, which we translate into "number of cars". That gives us a lot better idea how many we can get into a given field. Our back lots don't have poles (yet), so size of cars and how they park and who's monitoring them can affect total numbers, but the screen gives us a good enough idea that we know when we need to keep an eye on how many more we can get in. We have no use for patron counts on the terminal screens, which is what you'd see on an indoor version, although it is still used for per-cap calculations and boxoffice reporting.

While it certainly is possible that other systems have adopted these features, none offered them at the time we were looking to switch from cash registers and impact credit card terminals to a computerized system. At the time we asked RTS to consider it, we were already using their system at our indoor house. As soon as they got that done, we put their system in at our drive-in and got them out to show it at the next drive-in owners' convention.

Posted by Rusty Gordon (Member # 2210) on 09-14-2015, 04:39 PM:

Sensible Cinema Software has had a number of drive-in specific features since 2008 but has added many more and spiffed up our drive-in specific ticket recently. We exhibited at UDITOA last year and have plans to do the same next February. We've been committed to working to meet the needs of drive-in owners---it's not just a sideline. In addition to the drive-in ticket, car counts, etc. are concession modifiers, kitchen tickets, remote printing support, box office reporting for second and third bills, etc and we have a merge mode that allows a box office not connected by Ethernet to the inside to sync sales with the concession stand at the end of the night for single reporting like our hardtop sites. Here is a ticket sample that can be printed on any thermal receipt printer:

Posted by Andrew Thomas (Member # 7000) on 09-14-2015, 05:00 PM:

I've only ever used Sensible and I can count on one hand the number of problems I've had with it, and Rusty responded immediately to most or within an hour on the rest.