[geeks] Hello?

[wa2egp at att.net]

> Am I the only one that is underwhelmed by digital movie theathers?
> 
> When I was young, I lived in Montreal and we'd go to see movies on
> 70mm. Near Philips Square was a pretty good theater there. The
> effective resolution of 70mm film would require almost 10K pixels wide
> in a digital format. Then starting in 1986 we would go and watch IMAX
> and 360 movies (in Vancouver and Montreal). The effective resolution
> of current IMAX film would require about 18K pixels wide. I still
> remember the feeling when, in a movie (cant remember what it was
> called), a skier jumping of a cliff with a parachute. On the curved
> IMAX screen, covering your whole FOV... wow. Almost fell off the seat.
> 
> Now, I can have the privilege to pay a much higher admission fee (and
> $5+ soda) and get no better than a home theater setup (2K wide in most
> digital movie theaters, 4K in certain areas). Progress...
> 
> Everytime we have switched from analog to digital happened to be when
> it was, not superior, but merely acceptable. This is not done for
> quality, but completely for commercial gains.
> 
> DVDs are probably the only area where we have gained something, for
> those of us who are multilingual: buy one movie and get english,
> french and spanish (for example) soundtracks for the same price.
> 
> Francois

I agree.  I have't been impressed with high definition TV, a lot of the
digital audio and digital cell phones.  Maybe I've got lousy vision and 
worse hearing but I don't see (and hear) that much better to justify the 
cost. Maybe it's from all those years of ham radio where I had to learn to
mentally cut (or ignore) the noise.  

I have not been to a "digital" theater as far as I know (and whatever 
that means) but I have been to some that use DVD instead of film in
the projector.  OK, so instead of having the film jump, it breaks up 
into squares. Wow.

Maybe I'll take Andy Rooney's job when he finially croaks.......


Bob