Is this what you mean by laser speckle

[Martin McCaffery]

Was on vacation in the DC area and saw A Complete Unknown at the Regal Springfield Town Center. Opening day, 69 seat theatre, last minute decision, so ended up sitting in the second row (I never sit that close).
There was a stupendous hot spot in the lower audience right section of the screen. Whenever the hot spot included a bright white or high contrast Image, that area looked like the picture was breaking up. Rest of the screen looked ok.
From what I could see, the screen must have had micro-prefs, on none at all.
Don't know what the picture looked like from the back of the house.
Do not know if they use laser projection, but I have never seen this effect anywhere else, and I've not seen laser projection anywhere, either.

Whatever it was, it should not be on the screen. And if it is an inescapable by product of lasers, looks like laser presentations should be skipped.

[Steve Guttag]

Speckle is going to show itself as either green or red and possibly both...it is up to you. Within the solid color, it will appear "noisy." I will not be located to a part of the screen unless the screen is damaged in some manner to enhance the conditions that results in observed speckle (like it might be glossy/directional). Generally, higher gain screens have observed speckle more than matte screens. If you Google "speckle (interference), you'll get a picture of what it can look like in an extreme sense.

[Carsten Kurz]

Speckle looks like sparkle or glitter, not like what you described. You will notice it over the full screen, usually in bright primary colors or white.

[Martin McCaffery]

OK, did not see it all over the screen and not in a single color. The best I can describe it, a week later, is that it looked like that section of screen was made of etched glass.
I've seen similar effects while having a migraine headache, but was not having one at the time.
Anyone else seen anything like this?

[Ryan Gallagher]

Just curious, were you center row or off to one side?

[Martin McCaffery]

2nd row, third seat from the right.

[Ryan Gallagher]

2nd row, third seat from the right.

Haha, maybe it was a silly question... in a 69 seat theatre the rows had to be what, 7 to 10 seats each? 3rd from the right is almost center. LOL

I would have been curious if your observed defects moved with your viewing position or not... basically part of a high-gain source hotspotting or something more mysterious.

[Martin McCaffery]

Alas, I didn't get to move around the theatre. And I didn't watch the movie in the fully reclined position that the rest of the row seemed to enjoy.

[Ryan Gallagher]

The youtube algorithm gods plopped this in my feed today, nice. Perhaps best primer I've seen on laser speckle (the physics of it). A lot of his other content looks technically just as interesting.