Why do movies in theaters not look this good?

Bad print processing, misadjusted optics, overstretched bulbs...

A quality pristine 35mm print can be quite stunning to watch. Unfortunately unless you live in LA or New York it can be quite difficult to find a theater that actually has the capability and maintainence level to achieve a good image. Most theaters get lousy prints and are run on misadjusted and/or bad equipment by people who also work the popcorn machine, or worse.

Consider the size of the screen you're viewing on. A 35mm film print has to be projected on a screen much, much larger than anything you'll have at home. Projecting HD video onto the same size screen will be a lot less impressive than what you see on your smaller screen at home.

I sit just over one screen width back at home so this translates to the front 1/4 of the seating in a commercial theater (not IMAX), No theaters I go to except IMAX look as good as HDDVD in my home. I'm guessing it's just poor focus, inconsistant prints, poor care of prints ,poor projection overall. Even the digital presentations don't look as good as my home.

Art

If that is true, I would say the theaters need to move to 4Kx2K digital cinema FAST. Otherwise, they are doomed.

Gary

1) I belive the prints we see in theaters are 3 generations of copies away from the original camera negative. Presumably the HD masters are scanned from earlier generations.

2) The movement of the film through the projector at 24fps usually results in less than perfect alignment of each frame to the next. This reduces effective resolution.

3) in my opinion, the theoretical resolution of film is just that -- theory! Perhaps it's true for the camera negative when shooting a static scene. But that's not representative of typical movies.

I'm not too surprized to hear that DVD shown with a theater's digital projector looked fairly close to 35mm. We're now in a very strange environment where our home equipment, even inexpensive gear, can provide an equivalent or superior quality image compared to almost all movie theaters.

Do any of you go to Ultrastar? They are 100% DLP, digital goodness. My wife and I don't go anywhere else anymore. The PQ is jaw dropping.

Also, I used to be a projectionist (15 years ago). Those prints take a beating. You would be surprised at the condition in which we received the reels prior to splicing and building. Through the course of the showing of the films they might take a beating too. Misfeeds, stress from tension arms, heat from the bulbs all have an effect. I have seen a whole reel of film dumped on the floor in a waist high pile of spaghetti because the receiving platter wasn't spinning. I had to untangle and have the film back on the next platter before the next showing started. It was a mess.

Personally, if I don't wait for the movie to come out on DVD, HD DVD, or BD I will only watch it at a theater with a digital projector. Bad PQ is too distracting to me now.

Good post, good question. I was watching Mel Gibsons latest film in a theater and all the time I was saying in the back of my mind, "This looks dull, dim and out of focus," and "I'll bet this will look good on HD DVD." I still try to see certain films in a theater but man they sure are dissapointing when it comes to PQ.

Another question that should be asked is when was the last time you saw good PQ in a movie theater! Me, I can't remember.

Keep in mind that Apocalypto was shot on video, not on film.

I live in New Hampshire and the theaters in my town are so particularly bad.

If you want to enjoy a film you go at least 20 miles to the next town over.

I saw HappyFeet with my kids and it was about the worst ever movie going experience (not just because of all the singing and dancing.)

There is talk of tearing down the local multi-plex and rebuilding it somewhere else and I suppose that may help.

I miss the Sony Metreon in San Francisco,.. Movies there looked great.

Meaning that they had to transfer to film. So like SW Episode II and III, if you don't watch them in a digital theater, they look worse than a good movie shot on film.

Correct?

i just watched "children of men" and while there was a nice image on screen it was definitely not tack sharp like hd dvd. not even close.

it made me wonder if hd dvd was "too sharp".

even the opening logo which is always razor sharp on new releases was fuzzy in comparison.

another thing i noticed is that the masking around the screen had picture info in it if you look hard enough. i covered about 5% of the image (lost).

akin to about 5% overscan for a tv which many complain about. it made me think if theaters were doing this all along maybe directors take that into account and frame with the expectation of a bit of cut off.

Depends on the digital projector they use I guess.

I recently saw Casino Royale at the theatre where the world premiere of Return of the King was held (Embassy Theater in Wellington, NZ). As Peter Jackson is one of the owners or trust members, you can imagine the gear and presentation in this theater is first rate. And it was. Not commenting on the movie itself, I found the picture and sound presentation to be superb - something I doubt you could ever get in a HT setup. But of course this could be an exception rather than a norm. And there was an idiot who both answered and started talking on her cell during the movie before being hushed out of the auditorium!

Larry

I didnt know there were bad, digital, movie theater projectors.

Seeing Episode II and III at Century in San Jose was simply incredible! Massive screen and just an incredibly clear, beautiful picture.

Heck, the mess that's projected on screens at the theaters around here look worse than my SD DVDs at home...

I saw Happy Feet on a Christie CP2000 2k DLP projector, best picture I have ever seen in a theater, simply stunning.

LOL Have you seen the morons working in theaters nowadays?? The absolute worst and lowest level of service in every sense of the word. Blows me away, actually.

How absolutely sad of you to say. Do you know anything about being a certified projectionist. A projectionist has about as much to do with equipment selection as you have. When I was a projectionist, no matter how much maintnance and upkeep I did on equipment, it was what it was. Low quality prints and out of date equipment has nothing to do the intelligence level of the employees.

Most of these theaters still have the same equipment from the day they openned. The difference is there are many more of us now a days with equipment that surpasses that old equipment. There is a reason Imax and digital projectors look better than older film systems and it has nothing to do with projectionists.

You are at a audio video science site that caters to HT enthusiasts and you think there are no projectionists reading these forums?

My #1 complaint, and I haven't seen it yet in this thread, is judder where the film jumps around frame to frame. Very annoying.

Scratches, hair, bad focus, etc are also problems. It's rare to find a non-IMAX theater that focuses evenly across the screen.

Digital projection is definitely the way to go if you live near one.

Theaters are doomed and the quality of the image is near the bottom of a very long list of problems.

Well, ok I was a bit harsh and generalized too much - but I stand by my comment for most of my experiences. Theaters around here are all horrible. Bad audio. Bad focus. Filthy all over. Bad customer service. Slow people. A general "high schooler" attitude towards customers. Lame. Even ones that have decent PQ/AQ you have to endure the lame customer service anyway.

If I was a certified projectionist I would be ashamed on myself to work at most theaters I have been in. If that is due to aged and junky equipment then thats not their fault of course. I imagine it would be hard to ba a projectionist wanting to deliver tue great PQ and AQ but have to endure working in such a high turnover environment.

On the subject of theatres-can anyone tell me how the audio stacks up in theatre vs HD DVD or Blu Ray? is the audio we hear in a theatre lossless too?

When I was a projectionist it was analog and broken into tracks. It runs through a main processor and through sep amps that handled the front, surrounds and rears. The actual set up is different for different theaters...even within the same movie house. The Audio track ran along one side of the film and was picked up by audio rollers along the way. I haven't been a projectionist for over 15 years, but I wouldn't doubt it hasn't changed much unless they went fully digital. I don't know if the new digital set ups are lossless.

I have no idea about digital theater but for film, none of the digital audio formats are lossless.

There are three main audio formats on film these days. Dolby Digital, DTS and SDDS. Dolby Digital and SDDS store the audio tracks on the film itself, DTS stores a time code on the film that is sync'ed to a CD player with the soundtrack.

Despite their not being lossless, I am always impressed with a good audio presentation in a theatre - something I could not possibly get at home. I guess it's because of the number of speakers, amp power, floor shaking bass etc. I would imagine there are folks in this forum who would have home gear that do that - I don't.

Also from memory the films also have a backup analogue track recorded in Dolby SR or something like that. It is usually noticeable when a film drops out of digital to analogue as the highs drop off suddenly. This is not good

Larry