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Topic: New THX TEX trailer!
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 06-14-2006 04:18 PM
quote: James Westbrook The closest THX location closest to Lubbock I could find on their website is a Carmike theatre in El Paso.
I don't know if El Paso is any closer to Lubbock than Lawton, OK or Cordele, OK. Both Lawton and Cordele are in western and southwestern parts of the state.
The Carmike 8 in Lawton was originally built with two screens THX-certified, but Carmike retained certification only on screen #4. Both screens #4 and #5 still have all their equipment -including the DTS-6 two-drive machines that have held up since installation in 1994. They'll get retired (or sold) whenever the theater gets converted over to digital projection.
I'm fairly certain Cordele, OK is the smallest town in the world with a THX-certified theater (the old Washita Theater was completely refurbished).
The Oklahoma City area currently has no THX-certified theaters. But that will probably change when Warren Theaters opens their new 20-plex in Moore, just south of OKC along I-35. All 20 screens are expected to be THX certified.
quote: Jesse Skeen I can confirm that THX no longer means anything.
To be even more punishing, having GOOD SOUND no longer means anything.
Most theaters I visit anymore have weak, wimpy sound regardless if they carry a THX certification or not. It is rare to find theaters that have good audio dynamics.
Sure, customers complain about loudness in movies and that gets the levels dialed back to nothing. But maintaining proper EQ and keeping things close to "reference level" also demands more attention and maintenance. You might blow speaker and sub drivers more often. In the end maintaining good sound costs more money.
It seems to me like it's more difficult to maintain good sound quality rather than good projection. If the theater was properly designed in the first place and its projector and lenses are decent then with proper film handling good projection can be achieved much of the time.
OTOH, auditorium sound systems must be periodically retuned and have broken or faulty parts replaced. I think that simply isn't happening in a lot of places.
The manner in the way digital sound was sold in the 1990s, "digital" alone was supposed to fix a lot of that. That makes me concerned about the whole "digital" buzzword in switching over to video projection. What kind of maintenance can we expect there? Lots of digital-based equipment breaks just as often as the "analog" stuff. Maintenance is always going to be an issue.
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