I agreed with everything else you said but not with this. Any
top-of-the-line audio system will blow away what you get in the theatre.
The question is whether you want to pay $50K or not. You are absolutely
correct with respect to the box systems sold for use with home video. The
problem is not the 2" speakers, which can be quite good if set up
properly,
but with the sub-woofer, which is gong to be totally inadequate. You need
something that can get down to 25 Hz or so with real authority. If your
floor is shaking and everything in your room that is not nailed, glued or
screwed down is buzzing, then you are there.

Well, I somewhat agree with what you wrote. You definitely need a good
subwoofer, but you don't need to spend $50K to get it. (not even CLOSE) I
have two active woofers on my system. I paid less than a thousand bucks
total for both of them. One is a true subwoofer. The other is a mid-bass
driver. Both are active. At moderate volume, I've actually had pictures
fall off the wall. On the other side of the house. Best sound effect I
ever heard was in a Will Smith movie (Wild West, I think?) where in one
scene it sounded just like a train was rolling THROUGH my living room. I've
never had an experience like that in any movie theater. All movie theaters
sound hollow and tinny in comparison. It is EASY to beat the sound of a
movie theater in your own living room, and you don't have to spend a fortune
to do it!!! Most important, make sure your subwoofer is a true subwoofer
(like you said) and appropriately sized to the room you're using it in. But
good subwoofers start well below a thousand bucks. I can't imagine how I
would even spend $50K on a sound system for a home theater if I wanted to.
I'd like to upgrade my center channel speaker eventually, so I'll probably
blow a few hundred on that alone. But I've already got two active woofers
that literally shake the walls down and sound damned good doing it.
Surround effects are fantastic. (even scare the cats, at times) Nope, I
couldn't get anywhere near $50K unless I spent my money terribly foolishly.
Not on sound equipment, anyway. I might eventually upgrade my A/V receiver,
but even that will be less than a thousand bucks. $50K? No way. Right
now, I could replace everything in my living room for about $3K, and anyone
who isn't deaf would agree that my living room sounds significantly better
than ANY movie theater. Of course, I am one of the few consumers who can
actually adjust sound equipment properly. Biggest mistake most people make
is to turn up the bass way too high and add tons of distortion that (to
their ears) sounds like more bass, but actually just sounds like
rap. -Dave

Wordsmith wrote:
Color me romantic. I like the experience of going to a theater and
seeing a story unfold on a Big Screen. Celluloid and digital are
worlds apart.


W : )

You may have gone to the theater and watched a story unfold in digital
and been none the wiser. In the movies I have seen that were delivered
digital at least 99% of the audience was unaware.

Bob Miller

"Bob Miller" wrote in message
ink.net...
Two distinct issues. One the capture of the image digitally or on film,
two the delivery of the movie in the theater. This thread was about the
distribution. I would agree that film is still better in capturing the
image but digital video is close to, equal to or better than film in the
theater.

So capture with film distribute with digital IMO.

I'm thinking the trend is rather going to be the opposite for at least the
next decade: capture with video, distribute with film. Using digital cameras
has huge benefit for the filmmakers, because usually the first thing they're
doing is scanning all the film into the computer for effects, editing,
compositing, color balance, etc. anyway. Capturing digitally gives them
instant previews, and makes transferring to their digital production systems
easy.

But it's going to take a very long time before the majority of theatres have
digital projectors.

"Steve" wrote in message
...
Excerpts from Roger Ebert. A bit old (1999), but I don't think his
views have changed much...
http://slate.msn.com/id/2000134/entry/1004176

I published a long article that questions widespread beliefs about the
Texas Instruments digital projection system and extols a much cheaper
film projection system called MaxiVision48, which uses existing,
proven technology, and produces a picture its patent holders claim is
500 percent better (not a misprint) than existing film or digital
projection, take your choice.

Unfortunately, MaxiVision48 seems to have missed the boat. They were
promoting the wrong things: 48fps (which NOBODY in film
financing/distribution/exhibition has any interest in), followed by visual
quality (which is also clearly of secondary importance).

What they SHOULD have been promoting is a reduction in duplication and
distribution costs due to more efficient use of film. That it could provide
increased quality (due to larger frame area compared to academy flat, and
more stable film handling, much like the IMAX transport) should have been
presented as only an incidental advantage. That it could do 48fps (which
also opens up possibilities for inexpensive 24fps 3d exhibition, or even
48fps 3D with improved visual quality using 2 ordinary projectors - a
potential specialty IMAX competitor) wouldn't need to have been talked about
at all, but if it were, would have been but an added bonus, in the unlikely
event anyone actually wanted to take advantage of it.

They should have left film production to standard methods (until they had a
large installed base), and focused on reducing the price of distribution.

Bob Miller wrote:
Wordsmith wrote:
Color me romantic. I like the experience of going to a theater and
seeing a story unfold on a Big Screen. Celluloid and digital are
worlds apart.


W : )

You may have gone to the theater and watched a story unfold in digital
and been none the wiser. In the movies I have seen that were delivered
digital at least 99% of the audience was unaware.

Bob Miller

My eyes are too well trained. I saw the Mel Gibson film *Signs* in a
theater; I could tell it was digital. Digital flickers differently
than
celluloid. It's almost an intuitive perception.


W : )

"Dave Oldridge" wrote in message
Some taped shows from the 60's and 70's might not be up to HDTV standards
but the rest of them, including a lot of the stuff from the 50's in black
and white certainly is. Just a matter of re-kinescoping the films to a
higher resolution.

Kinescope was/is a process of filming a live television program by shooting
the television screen with a film camera. It was primarily used before
videotape machines were invented as a method of recording television. Old
television shows which were originated on film would NOT be kinescoped
because they are already on film.

"Dave C." wrote in message
eenews.net...
good subwoofers start well below a thousand bucks. I can't imagine how I
would even spend $50K on a sound system for a home theater if I wanted to.

Not home theater. All-around audio. The system I have is 14 years old and
the speakers cost $12K. They were the top of their line at the time. The
company is now out of business, but before they went they were up to $65K
for their best speakers, and that was several years ago. The associated
electronics, turntable, CD player etc probably cost another $12K, but it was
the last system I ever intended to buy. It does not do surround sound but
it would be over-kill for video.

My point was not so much how much you spend but what you have to have to get
good sound. The original claim to which I was responding was that you
cannot duplicate the theater experience at home. My claim is you can exceed
it.

The key for video seems to be a good sub woofer that can go very low, stay
clean and pump out a lot of sound. The other speakers are less important
unless you also want to use it for audio. The visual impact tends to
overcome weaknesses in the sound system but audio only will bring them out.
My guess is you can probably get a pretty good speaker set up for under
$1000, but you will still need the electroncs to drive them. In my
experience, you have to figure twice the cost of the speakers for a total
system, so say $2000. If the sub woofer is powered, as many are today, you
can spend less, maybe $1500. I can't claim this will blow the theater
systems away but I doubt anybody will be able to tell the difference in
day-to-day viewing.

The key for video seems to be a good sub woofer that can go very low, stay
clean and pump out a lot of sound. The other speakers are less important
unless you also want to use it for audio. The visual impact tends to
overcome weaknesses in the sound system but audio only will bring them
out.
My guess is you can probably get a pretty good speaker set up for under
$1000, but you will still need the electroncs to drive them. In my
experience, you have to figure twice the cost of the speakers for a total
system, so say $2000. If the sub woofer is powered, as many are today,
you
can spend less, maybe $1500. I can't claim this will blow the theater
systems away but I doubt anybody will be able to tell the difference in
day-to-day viewing.



Heck, you should try it. I think you'd be surprised what you can do with
about ~3 grand today. Pleasantly surprised. Oh, and I can claim it will
blow theater systems away. It does, period. -Dave

"Matthew Vaughan" wrote in message
...

I'm thinking the trend is rather going to be the opposite for at least the
next decade: capture with video, distribute with film. Using digital
cameras has huge benefit for the filmmakers, because usually the first
thing they're doing is scanning all the film into the computer for
effects, editing, compositing, color balance, etc. anyway. Capturing
digitally gives them instant previews, and makes transferring to their
digital production systems easy.

My understanding is that most capture is currently done in Super35. The
very next step is a digital internegative scanned at 2000 bpi for cheap
films or 4000 bpi for more expensive films. A 4000 bpi scan needs 50MB per
frame. 2000 needs 12Mb. All editing and special effects are done digitally.
The final edit is delivered to the production facility on lots of terabytes
of removable disks where different presentation positives are printed for
distribution. What is projected on the screen is a filmed version of a video
presentation. Presenting this using a digital projector directly from the
digital edit would look better that the film produced from the same digital
edit.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 07:41:11 -0400, "Robert B. Peirce"
wrote:


This sounds like the discussion that keeps going on in rec.audio.high-end
about whether LPs are better or worse than CDs. In other words, if your
sample is big enough can you duplicate the pure analog signal. I forget the
number, but the digital sample is huge to duplicate film. That doesn't mean
one cannot achieve a satisfactory digital picture, just that it probably
won't equal film, at leeast for a while.


The cd player is a lot cheaper than a gold standard turntable,
tonearm, and needle.

No matter how wonderful the record is, speed issues in playback
mechanisms and needle issues of all kinds will always make the CD an
affordable source of better all around less-distorted sound.

Speed variations are quite audible. Needles ? bwahahahahaha...
Nothing like your playback equipment destroying the source material.

Remember record warp ?

Anyone into checking and correcting the absolute positioning of the
center hole ?

Remember that one ?

Yeah anyone who loves records (and we all know how wonderful all sixty
of the good ones were) can keep them.