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Theatre queues film from Amazon Prime on Screen for audience to see
We had two private screenings through Amazon prime, one just recently. Yes, I was nervous. In the first case, the Bluray that was brought to us was defective, and a replacement was not available in time. In the second case, the audience was the family of an actress that had a role in the movie, and they wanted their personal big screen premiere on the first day it launched on Amazon Prime, no other media was available. In these cases, I made sure the streaming box was the only device talking to the internet router, I took down all other devices/options, and I was able to prioritise the streaming box traffic in the router. I do have an HDMI switching matrix, Preview monitor, etc., and even for very private showings (e.g. a couple watching a movie that brought them together), I never let them see device menus or even an empty screen (I usually download a movie still or poster from the internet, or I request a personal photo/slide from the other party to have something to put on screen).
The backside of this is, I can not rely on other staff to do these screenings, I need to do them all myself.
I would never show a consumer IP stream in front of a general paying audience. That said, professional alternative content satellite live transmissions are unreliable as well and I have heard many stories about shows that have been canceled half way through because of a storm or other technical issues. Of course, they are somewhat special, usually being announced as 'live', and most people thus understand that things could go wrong during a live transmission.
We showed live broadcasts from the Met Opera at Mercyhurst.
We had a dual receiver setup with two dishes, two recievers and two recorders hooked to the projector via seamless switch.
We had 1 meter dishes even though the tech people at the Met specified smaller dishes. I also had it set up so that I could connect either dish to either receiver. Even with all the redundancy we built in, we still had glitches.
Every year, there was sun fade and it always happened right at the curtain was going up. People always got antsy when it happened, even though I told them that sun fade is a phenomenon of nature.
It got so bad, one year, people were running around like they were about to get a atomic bomb dropped on them and they were all looking at me, asking what to do.
I got so fed up, I picked up my cell phone and said, "Hello? God? It's me...Randy...From Mercyhurst. Could you, please, move the sun just a couple of degrees so we can continue our show?"
I put down the phone, looked at my boss and said, "Yeah...God said okay but it'll take about five minutes."
But, even with two dishes and two receivers we STILL had occasional freezes. I would have preferred to receive the program in advance and record it for playback, later, but my boss said that it's called a "live" show so we have to play it when they send it.
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