3D Movies at Theaters Could be Culprit for Worse Quality Experience

TechoftheHub has a link to an interesting article that covers the picture quality at movie theaters today and how 3D is affecting them for lower. I can’t speak for this personally since I refuse to pay an extra absorbent fee just to see some depth.

The uniting factor is a fleet of 4K digital projectors made by Sony — or, rather, the 3-D lenses that many theater managers have made a practice of leaving on the projectors when playing a 2-D film. Though the issue is widespread, affecting screenings at AMC, National Amusements, and Regal cinemas, executives at all these major movie theater chains, and at the corporate offices of the projector’s manufacturer, have refused to directly acknowledge or comment on how and why it’s happening. Asked where his company stands on the matter, Dan Huerta, vice president of sight and sound for AMC, the second-biggest chain in the US, said only that “We don’t really have any official or unofficial policy to not change the lens.’’

Boston Globe

  • The article should read, “Bad

    The article should read, “Bad corporate policy/stupid projections Culprit for Worse Quality Experience”.  Back in the 90’s I worked as a projectionist.  Most of my co-workers were very bad at it.  While I could field strip a projector and put it back together, they could barely thread the film and push the start button.  Most films were built on Thursday nights.  I had enough seniority to have weekends off.  Often I’d come in on Monday and have to fix 3 out of 4 of the new films for the weekend.  The person who built the film would missplice them and they’d go out of frame during the viewings.  But rather then spend the 30 seconds to fix it, they’d sit by the projector and turn the framing nob at the error forcing the audience to deal with it every viewing.  And that was on top of operator error scratching prints, etc.

    I have a friend who still works as a projectionist in a theater that just went all digital.  He’s now looking for new work.  He’s pissed that his job can be done by a trained monkey and that all the new projectionists are completely worthless outside of being able to press a button.  They aren’t authorized to make even basic repairs at his theater; they have to call in the regional tech to do any adjustments.

    Quality projectionists are becoming scarce and the movie companies are looking to replace them with minimum wage button pushers, so it’s not too surprising that they won’t/can’t change the lens out.

  • Andrew Van Til

    Sounds like laziness is the

    Sounds like laziness is the real issue, not 3D…

  • I agree. This is a misleading

    I agree. This is a misleading title and interpretation of the issue at hand. Laying the blame on 3D is like laying blame on a car for a car accident.

    The failure of removing equipment only meant for 3D presentations causes poor 2D presentation quality. If you watch 2D presentations only, you would be affected if you watched the presentation at an offending cinema.

  • I came in to comment on the

    I came in to comment on the same thing as everyone else here………..this is quite the sensationalist title for this article.

    • SikSlayer wrote:I came in to

      [quote=SikSlayer]

      I came in to comment on the same thing as everyone else here………..this is quite the sensationalist title for this article.

      [/quote]

      lol, so mayyyyyybe it’s a bit….and mayyyybe i’m a bit anti-3D to begin with.

      Maybe 🙂

      • Honestly, that’s the thought

        Honestly, that’s the thought that came to mind, as soon as I read the title. 🙂 Biases for/against 3D aside, this is the same sort of thing you see for every new, initially unpopular, technology.

        • What do we need Blu-ray for?

          What do we need Blu-ray for? DVD is good enough upscaled Cry

          • swoon wrote:What do we need

            [quote=swoon]

            What do we need Blu-ray for? DVD is good enough upscaled Cry

            [/quote]

            See now that’s just insane!!! But you’ve never heard of a Blu-ray player being screwed up because you left it in “blu-ray” mode. so yeah…ha!? 😛 ok, i’m reaching now…i blame the black eye headache

          • That darned surround sound! I

            That darned surround sound! I plugged my left front speaker in the right rear jack and I’m just too lazy to move the jacks.

          • When stereo sound (and

            When stereo sound (and surround sound) first came out, there was an abundance of over panning and bad mixes similar to current 3D’s misuse.

          • Andrew Van Til

            DVD?  Nothing gives you that

            DVD?  Nothing gives you that raw, grainy experience the director intended like VHS.

  • George L. Schmauch Jr.

    I don’t know what the big

    I don’t know what the big deal is with this high definition craze.  It still looks like crap on my 19″ Zenith TV.  Better picture quality my arse!

    EDIT:  So, my friends told me I needed a new TV.  Well, guess what?  I bought a brand new 65″ Panasonic.  This thing is a piece of garbage.  It looks WORSE now.  I’ll never buy another Panasonic TV in my life.  I want my good old, AMERICAN made RCA TV back, dammit.  Now, that thing had a great picture!  Not this foreign POS!

    p.s.  Oh great, now my cable company wants me to buy some “HD package”.  Screw them!  If they can’t make the picture look good on a $3k TV, not even filling the entire screen, why should I give them even MORE money?!?!  Damn you Panasonic, Cablevision, and America!  You all ruined TV!  I’m finished!  I’m going to go read a book now.  What’s a kindle?