Digital Rocks: How Hollywood Killed Celluloid

[Geoff Jones]

In the end, the movie product someone can see on their TV screen at home bares very little difference from the product offered in commercial cinemas.

Not true. The movie product someone can see on their TV screen at home is significantly better than the product offered in most commercial cinemas.

There's no way any home system can compare to the size, spectacle and overal awesomeness of what you should get in a theater.

< -- (I fixed that typo for ya, Mike)

What you're actually getting in most theaters:

• Screens so small you can see the perforations if you sit close enough to fill your field of view
• Stray light washing out the image
• Marks on the screen
• Speakers playing audio from the wrong channel or the wrong fucking movie
• Noise from other auditoriums or loud HVAC systems
• Noise or phone light from disrespectful patrons
• Sound that clips out or stutters at high or low frequencies.
• Improperly masked or cropped images
• Resolution so low you feel like you're watching through a screen door
• Etc.

I have a >10 year old 1080p projector and a 125" diagonal 2.39:1 screen that puts on a better show than most movie theaters, not because it's all that great, but because most movie theaters are absolutely terrible.

People who wanna watch TV are gonna watch TV. It's just too bad they don't care enough about their entertainment to want to get it the best way they can. That's the biggest problem we face... both in the public and the industry.... people who don't care.

The people who really care about their entertainment have the latest Epson, JVC, and Sony home theater projectors, which easily provide better perceived size, spectacle and overall awesomeness than 95% of commercial cinemas.

The link to the article above does not work. Use this instead:

https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-42...digital-rocks/

Apologies for the typo and thanks for the correction.

[Bobby Henderson]

I guess you're right, if ALL YOU'RE CONSIDERING IS PICTURE QUALITY. There is a lot more to the proper movie experience than that. I stood in the back of our theatre today for a while. There's no way any home system can compare to the size, spectacle and overal awesomeness of what you get in a theater.

I can certainly appreciate watching movies in a really big auditorium with a really huge screen, such as the IMAX-branded house at our local AMC or Harkins' Cine Capri house in OKC's Bricktown district. But most other cinemas are pretty modest in their screen sizes. Adding to that is the flat shape of almost all of them, leaving them to letterbox the 'scope movies they show. That makes it feel like watching TV in public.

Home TV screens aren't remotely similar in scale as any cinema screen. But viewing distances are far different. My 65" TV viewed at about 8' feet away in my modest sized living room fills just as much of my peripheral vision as many cinema screens do when seen from the "sweet spot" in those auditoriums. It's a size to distance ratio thing.

Not true. The movie product someone can see on their TV screen at home is significantly better than the product offered in most commercial cinemas.

Many variables affect both home and cinema setups. 20+ years ago the home theater environment couldn't do anything to adequately approximate the image and sound quality available in the cinema no matter how much someone spent on a high end setup. Many people (myself included) were still using square-ish CRT television sets with everything no better than 480p. Back then waiting for the video definitely carried far more penalties than it does now.

[Leo Enticknap]

I guess that I'm somewhere between Bobby's position ("Is any work being done at all on the commercial level to move projection in cinemas above the 4K barrier?") and Mike's, that picture quality is a small component of the overall attraction of movie theater attendance.

I agree totally with Mike that the movie theater's "killer app" is to get out of the house and see a movie as a social experience. But that doesn't mean that picture quality doesn't matter. It's an important part of the offering. Where I differ from Bobby is over pixel count fetishism. Unless the screen is more than around 30ft (diagonal, in 1.85) and you're sitting within around 20ft of it, 4K will offer someone with average eyesight absolutely no more image information than 2K. In my experience, customers with untrained eyes will notice higher dynamic range, blacker blacks, and whiter whites, but not an increased pixel count. I see that Barco is now launching an SP2K-C series, which says to me that they believe a market exists for exhibitors who want laser illumination, but don't want to pay the 4K price premium, because 4K brings them no business benefit.

[Mike Blakesley]

But that doesn't mean that picture quality doesn't matter. It's an important part of the offering.

Oh I didn't mean to imply that picture quality isn't important.... it totally is. I've been a fanatic about that since I started in the business. It still drives me nuts that digital cinema suffers from such crappy contrast issues.

I have a hard time putting credence in Geoff's notion that

most movie theaters are absolutely terrible.

Really, "most?" I'd agree with "many." But I do wish the chains would put a little more effort into maintenance and showmanship and quit cutting corners when it comes to the thing that actually keeps them in business.

[Geoff Jones]

I have a hard time putting credence in Geoff's notion that most movie theaters are absolutely terrible.

Here's what it looks like near my home:

Most Cinemas.png

Going further NW, there's a Century in Boulder (14 miles) which is passable for "flat" films. (I saw Knives Out there and was pleased.) But I believe all of their screens are constant-width 1.85, so I wouldn't bother see anything in scope there.


Admittedly, I haven't been to every theater in the Front Range area (there are a bunch more to the south), but the problems I've experienced every time I've tried a new place have discouraged me from taking more chances.

I know of two other good theaters within driving distance:
- The RPX screen at the Continental. (27 miles + downtown traffic)
- The ARC screen in Cheyenne. (91 miles)

However, 99% of the time, those two screens are playing the exact same movie as the big screen at Harkins Northfield (19 miles), so there's no reason to go to them.

[Mike Blakesley]

Given the area you are in, I can see your plight. Joe Redifer used to post about the horrible theaters in that region too. Too bad.

[Bobby Henderson]

I agree totally with Mike that the movie theater's "killer app" is to get out of the house and see a movie as a social experience. But that doesn't mean that picture quality doesn't matter. It's an important part of the offering. Where I differ from Bobby is over pixel count fetishism. Unless the screen is more than around 30ft (diagonal, in 1.85) and you're sitting within around 20ft of it, 4K will offer someone with average eyesight absolutely no more image information than 2K.

It's not that simple at all. And, by the way, I don't have some meaningless "fetish" for more pixels. I've been doing graphics work for over 30 years and am keenly aware of how image resolution of various kinds of objects works in different mediums and especially at varying viewing distances. Working in the sign industry I am ALWAYS thinking about the distance from where a design will be seen. If the final product isn't legible from the required viewing distance it's crap.

Film had a very unique, strong advantage over video: it wasn't defined by a grid of pixels. That grid is a big problem. The more coarse the grid gets the worse the problems are going to be depending on what is being photographed. I've heard all kinds of comments that 4K isn't necessary. Hell, 30 years ago some people were saying HDTV wasn't necessary, 480i was good enough. Someone with less than perfect eyesight can still see issues like moiré in details with patterns or frequency sweeps. Pixel stair-stepping can still stand out on fine line details from hair to power lines in the background. Film was immune to those problems.

Aside from those hazards, increased native resolution can improve overall sharpness and contrast. The image is able to "pop" a lot more. That's one of the things I appreciate most about being able to see a true 70mm movie.

In print, things like logos and lettering are output as vector-based objects. They are resolution independent and print at the maximum resolution of the output device. In published books and magazines that's often at levels over 2000dpi. The human eye isn't perfect, but it notices flaws in technical looking imagery very easily. That's why graphical items are output at such high, over-kill levels.

Most movie theaters I visit have the focus dialed just a bit off. So elements like the lettering in the end credit roll look noticeably blurry. If I watch the same movie on my TV screen at home the graphics are sharper. I didn't see that kind of crap with film prints. The movie titles and credits might not have been 100% rock-steady. But at least they were sharper in detail. I suppose if movie theaters ditched the projectors and installed giant LED screens the focus problems would all be gone. But "jumbotron" style screens open other cans of worms.

Admittedly, I haven't been to every theater in the Front Range area (there are a bunch more to the south), but the problems I've experienced every time I've tried a new place have discouraged me from taking more chances.

Have you visited any of the theaters in the Colorado Springs area? I watched a few 15/70 IMAX shows at the Cinemark theater there (I think the 15/70 gear is all gone now), but as far as I can tell Cinemark has done nothing to upgrade any of its former film-based IMAX houses to IMAX with Friggin Lasers. Standard dual 2K projection doesn't look so great blown up on a screen that big (and tall). The former Carmike location at Chapel Hills Mall, now run by AMC, has a Dolby Cinema screen (which was previously a "Big D" house). I've never visited a Showplace ICON theater, but that company built one on the North side of the 'Springs. It has an "ICON-X" premium house with Dolby Atmos audio. I might try to visit it on my next road trip up there. Aside from the premium priced houses, I often seen theaters in Colorado Springs turn down the sound stupidly low in all but the premium priced houses. I first noticed this back in the late 1990's when the previous Carmike theater in Chapel Hills Mall had multiple THX certified screens. I'd never been in THX houses where the sound had been turned down so low. I had to strain to hear dialog. Of course with the room being that quiet you could hear every popcorn bag rustle and even hear people fart.

[Geoff Jones]

Have you visited any of the theaters in the Colorado Springs area?

I have not. And I doubt I ever will. With all the focus on how "most" chains are terrible at designing, building, maintaining, and operating their cinemas, it's easy to forget that they are even worse at booking their cinemas.

Every single "good" auditorium everywhere is always showing the exact same title (or two). Last week, if you wanted to see a movie on a decent screen, your only choice was The Lost City. Now, it's Morbius. Next week, it's Sonic 2 and Ambulance.

I'd really like to see Everything Everywhere All at Once, but since it's only playing in the crappy side auditoriums, I'll wait and watch at home. I have my fingers crossed for The Northman, but I'm not too hopeful.

It's utterly idiotic that chains don't book different films on their premium screens at different locations within each market, to provide customers with a choice. (And as I've mentioned before, it's mind-boggling that they have consistently full showings of classics in small auditoriums while their large houses sit more or less empty. Especially at Alamo Westminster.)

I've looked into the Colorado Springs Icon theater (they advertise DTS-X, not Atmos, btw), but unless are ever showing something different from what's playing on the Cine 1 at Harkins Northfield, why would I go there?

I have a hard time putting credence in Geoff's notion that most movie theaters are absolutely terrible.

It isn't just my notion. As Bobby pointed out:

Standard dual 2K projection doesn't look so great blown up on a screen that big... I often seen theaters in Colorado Springs turn down the sound stupidly low...I had to strain to hear dialog.

[Brad Miller]

The article claims specifically that $10K is the annual maintenance cost, not the total cost of ownership (TCO). Agreed completely with Marcel that $10K a year may be a realistic TCO figure, including depreciation of the asset, the cost of maintenance, and the cost of the consumables needed to run it (chiefly bulbs and electricity). The author gets enough of the technical concepts right that it would surprise me if he confused the cost of maintenance with the TCO, but that certainly would explain how he came up with that figure.

Leo, I don't think the $10K is necessarily that far off because most people have projectors over 10 years old at this point and each year it gets more and more expensive. Remember when people speak about "projector" maintenance costs, that really has to include the playback server as well.

Let's say there are no failures in the first 2 years. Then in year 3 a board costing a few thousand goes out and new hard drives may be needed by this point (some drives every 3 years, other drives every 5 years). Year 4 might bring a couple of board or random projector/server failures. Year 5 might have some more random projector failures, etc. As we get closer to the 10 year mark, seeing a light engine fail that can cost over $20K isn't out of the question, and depending on the projector could be close to $30K. By that point I've seen lots of servers fail past the point of being repairable, so an entirely new server has to be purchased as well. Plus we are seeing all of the Barcos have to have their keypads changed out as well as their backplanes in most cases. Also I think you should factor in the cost of a service contract, emergency service call trips (which depending on the theater's location could be really expensive) and then there are other things to consider such as if using GDC servers, the basic requirement to pay for their never-ending "warranty" contract every year in order to get any sort of technical support or to extend a certificate.

So stating $10K as an annual maintenance cost...if you add it all up over the years and average it out, maybe it's a tad high, but it's certainly not out of the question. Remember too that many projection booths are poorly designed and the equipment runs hot, which will cause more frequent failures, and as such will be more costly to keep running.

[Bobby Henderson]

10 years is a long time for any piece of equipment that uses computing industry parts. Manufacturers will make certain types of components for only so many years. If a critical part breaks and there is no replacement for it that can be purchased new it forces you into difficult choices. People who knew what they were doing could kit-bash together a working film projector by scrounging parts off other existing projectors. That's not quite as easy to do with digital-oriented equipment. At some point you end up being forced to buy a whole new system.

I've looked into the Colorado Springs Icon theater (they advertise DTS-X, not Atmos, btw),

My mistake. I actually got different theater chains confused with each other. I thought the newer theater on Colorado Springs' north side was one built by Kerasotes, of their "Showplace ICON" theaters. They have the ICON•X-branded premium screen thing (with Atmos). Yeah, that particular theater in Colorado Springs was built by Icon Cinemas, a smaller but growing chain (they have two locations planned in the OKC metro). I don't know why they went with DTS-X for their "Iconic" premium screen concept. Atmos seems like the only next-gen format getting an adequate supply of titles.

[John T Hendrickson Jr]

I'm just thinking about Show West many years ago where the punchline was "Film is a four letter word." Perhaps the digital chickens have come home to roost as far as the exhibitors are concerned. The digital push by the distributors has come to be a great example of the law of unintended consequences when you think about the shelf life of equipment, hidden costs, and especially film/digital preservation.

[Mike Blakesley]

I have often wondered how many small chains and indies are going to be blindsided by the cost of new projector upgrades when the next non-VPF supported generation comes in. I'm constantly in savings mode and keeping a good relationship with our banker in anticipation of the day when we need to replace the expensive stuff.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Just like Cinerama and CinemaScope, digital was inevitable.

[Leo Enticknap]

In print, things like logos and lettering are output as vector-based objects. They are resolution independent and print at the maximum resolution of the output device. In published books and magazines that's often at levels over 2000dpi. The human eye isn't perfect, but it notices flaws in technical looking imagery very easily. That's why graphical items are output at such high, over-kill levels.

Yours eyes are typically around a foot from a book you are holding, but anything from 20 to 100 feet from a cinema screen. So you are going to be more critical of resolution. Agreed on TVs - I can see the difference between 2K and 4K, sitting about six feet from my 55" cheap Chinese Roku TV, very easily. But I can't on most movie theater screens - only unusually large ones that I'm sitting unusually close to. I don't think my eyesight is unusually bad. I do find it significant that Barco has just launched an SP2K-C line: this says to me that there is a still a significant customer base of theater operators who want RGB laser, but cannot see a business case for the price premium of 4K.

So stating $10K as an annual maintenance cost...if you add it all up over the years and average it out, maybe it's a tad high, but it's certainly not out of the question. Remember too that many projection booths are poorly designed and the equipment runs hot, which will cause more frequent failures, and as such will be more costly to keep running.

Points all taken, and to the TCO we should also add lost revenue and refunds from shows lost due to equipment failure. We do seem to be into a significant round of equipment replacement now - I'm spending a lot more of my time on new equipment installs than servicing existing stuff. Some of it is being driven by the cost increases in xenon bulbs, and fears over supply chain problems related to them.

[Bobby Henderson]

Yours eyes are typically around a foot from a book you are holding, but anything from 20 to 100 feet from a cinema screen. So you are going to be more critical of resolution. Agreed on TVs - I can see the difference between 2K and 4K, sitting about six feet from my 55" cheap Chinese Roku TV, very easily. But I can't on most movie theater screens - only unusually large ones that I'm sitting unusually close to. I don't think my eyesight is unusually bad. I do find it significant that Barco has just launched an SP2K-C line: this says to me that there is a still a significant customer base of theater operators who want RGB laser, but cannot see a business case for the price premium of 4K.

My own eyesight is biased to near-field things (like computer screens). Most people my age have to read magazines and newspapers with the aid of glasses, I don't. So my distance vision isn't quite as good. Nevertheless it's easy for me to see when a projected image on a large screen is soft compared to the details around it. Hard-edged graphical items, on-screen lettering in particular can expose a lot of faults in projection sharpness or the limits of the image being projected. I can't help but wonder if a bunch of theater technicians are being told to dial the focus a little off target on purpose.

I don't own a UHD TV (yet). I kind of wish I did because the pixel grid on my 1080p 65" TV is visible to me from several feet away. My parents have a very nice and big Sony OLED UHD TV. I watched a UHD Blu-ray version of The Revenant on that TV and was pretty impressed. That's not a feel good movie to watch, not at all. But the cinematography (via Arri Alexa65 cameras shooting 6K) caught a lot of tack-sharp details.