Running content without projector bulb on - why bother?

[William Kucharski]

I went to see Sound of Freedom at a local multiplex Sunday night, and while waiting for the show to start (it was 10:15 PM) I noticed an adjacent house with a 9:15 PM showing of Elemental had the cleaning lights on in the theater.

I went in and sure enough, it was empty, but the sound of the feature was running even though the projector itself was dark.

Can anyone come up with a reason they'd do this? Does it count as a contractual "run" of the film if they run it without the projector bulb on but as zero seats were sold the theater saves bulb life?

[Frank Cox]

They probably have it on a scheduled (automatic) start and just turn the bulb off after the show starts if no tickets have been sold.

If they just hit "stop" on the cinema server they would have to either run the end-of-show cues manually or fast-forward through all of the content one piece at a time to get to the end so the server would run the end-of-show cues.

End of show cues could be close dowser, turn off lamp, set sound to non-sync, set sound volume to something, close the curtains, crank up the side lights...

[Steve Guttag]

I believe Frank is correct. It is far easier to just turn the lamp off. Some systems will not even turn the lamp on if there are no tickets sold. However, let's say no tickets are sold and the system didn't run the show but 10 minutes after the posted start time people show up...you'd like that show to be in progress so it ends at the regular time and all one has to do is turn the lamp on.

In the VPF days, one would have to explain a lost show. It is FAR easier to run an empty show without the lamp than to explain why it didn't run completely. The same can be true for ad audits.

[Leo Enticknap]

Some TMS systems that are tied in to POS systems handle this automatically, killing the lamp if no tickets are sold within a specified time after the SPL (or feature) begins.

[Carsten Kurz]

They could also mute the sound. But maybe staff want's some indication about the playback state. Or patrons entering the auditorium late.

[Barry Floyd]

I do that at the drive-in sometimes on really slow nights. If no one has shown up for the movie at the scheduled start time, I'll let the projector start and then turn off the lamp and let it run for about 30 minutes. If someone shows up late, I'll strike the lamp and the movie will start showing from whatever point its at. If they were 30 minutes late, they would have missed 30 minutes of the movie anyway. If no one shows up after those 30 minutes, I'll turn the whole thing off and cancel that show.

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's pretty standard procedure for many multiplex chains. They run the show to make sure the auditorium gets "reset" correctly after the show and to have the show turn up in their logs for reporting purposes, both upstream and for stuff like external audits from advertisers, etc. It's not too uncommon to turn the fader to zero though. Like Steve indicated: Failed shows also look bad on your reports and often raise questions. Any show that would be interrupted after it was started, usually turns up as a failed show in the logs, even if there was nobody to watch it...

[William Kucharski]

Interesting; I know AMC lets the show run with the projector on, regardless of ticket sales.

Then again they don't replace projector bulbs when they should or recalibrate grey levels when they do, so…

[Buck Wilson]

The bulb is the big power hog, plus the hours and replacement cost. It essentially costs nothing to let the server keep running the show and solves several problems as mentioned above. Shut off the 4,000 watt bulb to save $$$ and let the rest do its thing to avoid all that hassle.

Hell we even did that with film in certain circumstances. Start show with just the motor running if you were at zero sales at showtime, but if someone bought you could just flick on the bulb and be where you needed to be.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Used to do this in the film days to listen to both the SR and the SRD tracks. Many times the SR Analog track sounded better than it's digital counter part. One of the THX techs taught me this when he was out checking a system I had just installed. And he was 100% correct. SR did sound better on Hunt For Red October...

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Used to do this in the film days to listen to both the SR and the SRD tracks. Many times the SR Analog track sounded better than it's digital counter part. One of the THX techs taught me this when he was out checking a system I had just installed. And he was 100% correct. SR did sound better on Hunt For Red October...

Sooooo, was your Sr-D reader lamp tied to the lamphouse?

Since we are talking about running a show with the projector lamp off, just wondering.....

[William Kucharski]

Used to do this in the film days to listen to both the SR and the SRD tracks. Many times the SR Analog track sounded better than its candigital counter part. One of the THX techs taught me this when he was out checking a system I had just installed. And he was 100% correct. SR did sound better on Hunt For Red October...

I can very much believe that, especially with early digital tracks like that HFRO.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Sooooo, was your Sr-D reader lamp tied to the lamphouse?

Since we are talking about running a show with the projector lamp off, just wondering.....

Nope, tied into the Kelmar automation... can't remember if we were still using exciter lamps for analog, or if that was LED by then. But both could be turned on manually from the automations exciter toggle switch. If the show was not SRD you shut off the reader using it's own switch. For regular shows they were automatic.

[Jim Cassedy]

Sooooo, was your Sr-D reader lamp tied to the lamphouse?

Since we are talking about running a show with the projector lamp off, just wondering.....

Tony - I think the idea here is that with the lamphouse turned off, you can concentrate 100% on
what you're hearing and not be distracted in any way (even subconsciously) by the visual content.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I can very much believe that, especially with early digital tracks like that HFRO.

Either way real analog SR has a wider dynamic range and cleaner top end than digital. SRD bit rate is very low at 320 kbps. But it's amazing that Dolby was able to get so much back out of it.