Terrible picture quality in theatres?

[JBStephens]

I went this morning with a friend to see a film. Something about the devil knows you're dead, or something, a truly awful, forgettable film. But the quality of the film didn't bother me so much as the quality of the PICTURE. No contrast, no brightness, no focus, muted colors, halos around everything, a greenish cast over the entire screen, and the picture was jumping around like an epileptic rabbit. It was like watching a 20-inch LCD monitor blown up to 25 feet. Is this what movies look like now? If it is, I'm not going to see any more films, because that picture quality was inexcusable. If my friend hadn't wanted to see the film, I'd have walked out and demanded my money back! :realmad:

[dkmonroe]

Some movies are being shown in digital format in theaters these days. Is it possible this was one of them?

I have noticed this in theater ads and was wondering if it was a good or bad trend.

[LeeS]

Many theaters cut corners and use plastic optics or simply don't maintain the projector units properly. We have slowly learned where the best theaters are in Atlanta but it was very frustrating. They should do better at $10 a movie.

[XMIAudioTech]

Many theaters cut corners and use plastic optics or simply don't maintain the projector units properly.

No plastic optics are used in any commercial theatre. Plastic cannot handle the heat from a cinema xenon lamp. Piss-poor quality (usually very old) glass lenses are used unfortunately in some cases, however.

Halos around bright spots in the image is a sure indicator of dirty lenses or dirty portglass, neither of which is acceptable. As far as the jumpiness, it can be either a print problem (quality control at the labs has gone rapidly downhill over the last 20 years), or it can be worn or dirty projector components.

As for the green cast to everything, it is either supposed to be that way, or you have yet another problem with a bad print. If this is a DLP house, you have a crashed DLP projector causing the color issue.

And yes, some DLP presentations can be VERY pixelly when magnified to theatre screen size. I have that problem with some DLP movies here.

As for the lack of contrast, it can be print related, or the poor lenses, or an under-lit image.


-Aaron

[LeeS]

No plastic optics are used in any commercial theatre.

A projectionist told me this once.

[XMIAudioTech]

A projectionist told me this once.

He's lying.

There are no cinema lenses with plastic optical components. He may be thinking of an old cemented-element lens which will exhibit very 'plastic-like' defects when the cement becomes burned from being run with pure light (no film) for a short period of time.

-Aaron

[zobalob]

This is annoying, a couple of films I've seen in the last year or so, (in a big cinema), have been ever so slightly out of focus, should have complained to someone I suppose, but didn't. With other movies, the ads etc shown before the film are almost always slightly out of focus, but the movie has been fine.

[andyinstal]

I can only watch movies in our local Cinemark with the DLP cinema now. It spoiled me and even though film is supposedly superior, I think the skills of the people working the stuff at the theaters don't care enough to make it look as good as it could.

[Dan C]

Lucky for us our locally-owned theaters are very well run, and the owners are true blue movie geeks. Most presentations are sharp and well projected.

However, I have started to notice what seems to be poor quality control at the lab on some prints. Color matching from reel to reel is sometimes wildly off, and on white or monochrome scenes I seem to notice more processing marks. Those marks (sort of like blotches really) were obnoxious in some scenes from the print of 'Stranger Than Fiction' that we had here.

dan c

[LeeS]

Based on what BluRay looks like, I would imagine that digital may have the possibility of bringing some consistency. I have seen one digital print in the theater and it was fantastic. I suppose the devil is in the details however and implementation might vary.

[JBStephens]

I could have blamed it on a lousy print, but all the coming attractions and things looked the same way, with red and blue fuzz around white text. It looked exactly like a 25-foot-wide LCD monitor. And this is a recently-built theatre that is supposedly state of the art. At least the sound wasn't blowing me out of the room, I took earplugs just in case!

[Jack Theakston]

For those of you who have the luxury, I recommend going to any THX certified theater for a guarantee of quality:

http://www.thx.com/cinema/search.html

It doesn't guarantee that the print received will be the best, but it is a certification that the exhibitor is doing their part to keep things up on their end.

[RDK]

I could have blamed it on a lousy print, but all the coming attractions and things looked the same way, with red and blue fuzz around white text. It looked exactly like a 25-foot-wide LCD monitor. And this is a recently-built theatre that is supposedly state of the art. At least the sound wasn't blowing me out of the room, I took earplugs just in case!

You'd have better results complaining to the theater manager than to us here. It's clearly a projection - and not a specific film - problem.

[ATR]

You'd have better results complaining to the theater manager than to us here. It's clearly a projection - and not a specific film - problem.

Yes, but this is where people come to complain when they don't complain effectively. I've asked for my money back at least once and gotten it with minimal fuss. I'm pretty sure you can get it back by just complaining that the film is no good, but it helps if there are technical problems. Many theatres ask you to report problems if you see them.
Incidentally, I thought Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was a fine film. Yes, there was a continuity error. Yes, the scrambling of the the chronology seemed tacked on. Yes, it had a crackling story of crime and family dysfunction that could have come straight out of the morning papers. Yes, it had superlative performances from Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Marissa Tomei, and Ethan Hawke supported by Albert Finney and a distinguished group of 'character actors'. Yes, it was more believable and hair raising than anything I saw in No Country for Old Men.

[LeeS]

For those of you who have the luxury, I recommend going to any THX certified theater for a guarantee of quality:

http://www.thx.com/cinema/search.html

It doesn't guarantee that the print received will be the best, but it is a certification that the exhibitor is doing their part to keep things up on their end.

Good call. I think Kodak had a certification program as well...

[andyinstal]

Unless the THX police are there for every showing, it will not do any good. I have been to many THX approved theaters only to see about a foot of blank screen on one side and overshoot on the other, not to mention surrounds not being on until complaining about it.

[Blair G.]

Poor picture quality is one of the main reasons I stopped going to movies.

We had a brand new Cineplax, supposedly state of the art, open around the time Titanic hit the theatres.
Picture quality was BRUTAL.
I actually wrote a letter to the theatre manager and was given free tickets which I used to go to an Austin Powers movie.
Picture was fine but the sound sucked, no surround that I could tell and the front was very muffled.
Haven't been back since.

[Jack Theakston]

Unless the THX police are there for every showing, it will not do any good. I have been to many THX approved theaters only to see about a foot of blank screen on one side and overshoot on the other,

That should be reported to THX. That's just sloppy. There's always going to be a bit of overspill onto the matting, but for the projector to be that out of alignment is unprofessional.

not to mention surrounds not being on until complaining about it.

That might not be their fault. If it's a Dolby track, the information might be scratched, as the soundtrack is in the part of the film that gets the most wear.

I find this to be the exception to the rule. There are few enough THX sites that they can monitor shows, and generally the certified theaters do pretty well.

Of course, common sense would tell you that if you've gone to a couple of bad shows and no improvement, stop going.

[RDK]

Yeah, it should be pretty easy to figure out the good theaters from the poor ones. Fortunately, in L.A., most of the theaters (whether commercial or private) are top notch. There are only a small handful that I dislike.

[wayneklein]

Saw "Atonement" yesterday at the Cinearts in Pleasant Hill and the image was noticably out of focus early on. I reported it but it took them until the last quarter of the film to get around to fixing it. Granted, the film was "soft" looking to begin with but that's just a bad theater going experience.

[luckyman]

I have free movie passes on my refrigerator door for about 2 years now.
The last time I used them was to see Star Wars. The picture was horrible, and there was no surround sound. What a waste of time. When the dvd came out,
I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed the movie on my home theater setup.
No comparison.

[Captain Groovy]

It's probably a combination of a bad print, bad processing, and bad cinematography.

Not all films are like this - I'm a big fan of digital filmmaking AND digital projection... nighttime can look amazing if shot correctly in digital (I love the look of Michael Mann's "Collateral" for example).

It really depends - but I'd start with blaming the theater. You saw a Sidney Lumet picture - he's quite a classic filmmaker. I'm sure he wouldn't have hired that D.P. if he didn't have confidence in him...

Jeff

[JBStephens]

I couldn't complain at the time because the friend I was with always makes fun of me for complaining. He doesn't understand what it's like to be a nit-picking perfectionist. Then an hour later HE complains about the food at lunch. :)

Since the theatre is so far away, a couple of free tickets would be of no value. But I'm going to call and hopefully get some sort of manager and find out why the film was so bad. Perhaps if they fix the problem, they'd make future nit-pickers happy.

Wait, I know how to describe it! Some of you might recall, years and years ago, a so-called television "projection" system that was nothing more than a Fresnel lens that you put in front of an ordinary TV to cast a picture onto a screen. It was exactly like watching one of those, and if you've ever seen one, you'll know the kind of picture quality I'm talking about. It was THAT BAD.

[nosticker]

Back in the 90's, when pretty much every theater became a mega-plex, I used to walk out of about half the movies I attended. I couldn't stand the darkness of what I'm guessing were conservatibe lamp settings, poor focus, and abysmal sound. I walked out of a showing of Sleepy Hollow WITH friends of mine.....one channel was missing entirely! Most of the time, the managers were helpful and offered refunds, but the inconvenience......you either miss the picture, or the 10 minutes it takes to get someone and explain the problem. Blech! I don't go to movies much anymore; too many reasons not to.

I try to stick with theaters that are reasonably consistent. They're out there; one just needs to look.


Dan

[LeeS]

Last night when my wife and I saw the Great Debaters I was amazed how soft the picture was. We have been watching BluRay discs at home and I think we got used to a higher standard of picture quality than is often in theaters.