No LFE channel audible but system passed sound test?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Ladies! Ladies! Take your cat fights behind the screen and replace those dead woofer(s)
We do not bicker on Film-Tech!
Well, I do get to bicker with Guttag...

[Randy Stankey]

Yeah, I get it. It sounds like I am acting like a crotchety, old man.

You, me and the other people who visit Film-Tech have worked hard to make movie theaters run right and it pisses us off when others don't take their jobs seriously.

I understand that nobody is perfect and things don't work perfectly, all the time. Sometimes, problems fall through the cracks. Sometimes, people say something like, "I'll fix it tomorrow," but, when tomorrow comes, it gets forgotten. Other times, we think that a certain problem isn't such a big deal and we can fix it the next time we do PM checks. Maybe somebody is up to his neck in problems to fix and this problem might be so small that it has to go to the bottom of the list.

No, I am not saying, nor am I suggesting that every theater should work perfectly or that anybody who works in a theater that isn't perfect is lazy. Unfortunately, there ARE a lot of lazy people working in shoddy theaters where nobody cares. Still, I can accept that nobody is perfect.

The thing that got my undies in a bunch is the fact that some so-called "Customer Service Representative" (AKA: Intern tasked with responding to e-mails that nobody else wants to deal with) fired off a boilerplate response to a problem without even giving the courtesy to read and understand the whole message.

This isn't about being perfect. This is about politely bringing a problem to somebody's attention then getting blown off by them.

[Leo Enticknap]

Our technical team regularly test sound levels and set them within an acceptable range to comply with Health and Safety regulations. We will also adjust the volume for specific shows if we receive feedback from audience or crew.

So, basically, bugger SMPTE 202: Plymouth City Council now gets to set the technical standards for audio reproduction in movie theaters!

As someone who once lived in Plymouth (1992 to '95), my memory of its local government was of (a) it issuing wheelie bins (trash cans), from which the wheels had a tendency to fall off and damage parked cars in the vicinity of the truck emptying them, and (b) my local ward councilor being arrested, and subsequently convicted, of bestiality (with both horses and pigs). So unless it's improved a lot in the last 26 years, this is not an organization I would trust to regulate the sound quality in the city's cinemas.

I do miss a Sunday lunchtime pint in the Admiral McBride, though.

On a more serious note, I wonder if the applicable health and safety regulations are actually incompatible with SMPTE 202. Here in California, the law, AFAIK, has nothing to say about noise levels in movie theaters specifically. It does say that an employee cannot be exposed to 92dB or above for more than seven minutes in any eight hour period, without the requirement for PPE kicking in. There might be one or two action movies that would come close to that played at reference, but not many, I'd have thought.

[Jonathan Smiles]

So, basically, bugger SMPTE 202: Plymouth City Council now gets to set the technical standards for audio reproduction in movie theaters!

I doubt it has anything to do Plymouth City Council (PCC), the VUE when it was Warner Village maintained standards. It then became VUE and went gradually downhill when they laid off all the projectionists, then it improved for quite a while until now. The same screen also has a damaged center channel tweeter and the dual 4K Sony projectors has one soft/misaligned projector.

As someone who once lived in Plymouth (1992 to '95)

I don't think PCC has improved! I think the City has and you can't beat the location in current times.

I hope you never experienced the last years of Drake (Odeon) Screen 1, where they created two additional screens in the rear of the stalls and reduced the width of the Screen 1 significantly.
Back in 1995 I attended the Sound Mix for GoldenEye and later watched the completed movie at the Drake (Odeon) cinema and noticed how dim the projection was in Screen 1 (Originally Todd-AO built by 20th Century Fox). Reported issue to Odeon, who got back to me mentioned that the long throw at the Drake was a challenge and they would look into it. Next visit it's fixed.
The Odeon tech team are still really good as are Everyman.
Technical details when it first opened in 1958 https://in70mm.com/news/2011/drake/perfection/index.htm https://in70mm.com/news/2011/drake/projection/index.htm


At least the local IMAX (Dual 2K Xenon/12 channel audio) is consistent and IMAX CQO get things like blown tweeters quickly fixed by the operator Cineworld. There is also a new Everyman in the Royal William Yard opening soon, but might be delayed to next year.

I do dial down my expectations for public theaters and don't expect Studio reference screening room let alone Re-Recording Stage or DI theater quality.