Customers really pay NO attention, do they?

[Jesse Skeen]

I posted about this a few years ago but got zero responses- Sillymark's Century Laguna 16 in Elk Grove CA has the distinction of having a dead front left channel for at least TWO YEARS. I saw one movie there and I couldn't be sure if the speaker was dead, but figured someone would catch it. Two years to the day later, I ended up seeing another movie in that same auditorium and the left channel was definitely dead as a doornail. I walked up to and behind the screen to verify. I would have left but I was with my parents who wanted to stay. I sent a nasty note to corporate telling them that this had been going on for two years and everyone associated with that theater should be fired. I got a reply apologizing and an assurance that the problem had been fixed.

More than a year AFTER that, I again ended up in that auditorium and the left speaker was dead yet again! I was so floored by this I just walked out the back exit, speechless. I would have punched someone there if I had tried to talk to anyone. I sent a printed letter to corporate this time cc'ing a bunch of other important people. I got a very poorly written reply from the theater manager later. They offered me passes but I told them I was done with their lousy theaters for good this time- they'd also implemented a "policy" by then of keeping the screen masking open during flat movies which is entirely inexcusable.

The funny thing is even if someone was too dense to know how a movie should sound, the pre-show garbage should have been a dead giveaway- as that has no center channel, it played completely out of the right channel. Considering corporate cares more about that crap than the actual movie, you'd think SOMEONE would have been more attentive. But it just shows how utterly hopeless the business in general is at this point.

I would've felt awful letting a screen run with a dead channel for more than a day, much less TWO fucking YEARS.

[Carsten Kurz]

Corporate/chains just suck at this. They are not willing to hire/pay tech competence for the site. It would probably be more effective to bring this up on their Facebook, Instagram, or Google rating.

[Marco Giustini]

Customers go to the cinema to enjoy the movie. They know nothing about speakers, sound, 5.1, 7.1.
All they will perceive is the experience. If the sound system is malfunctioning, they won't know what's wrong with it, they just won't be impressed and next time they'll watch something on streaming.

If the cinema is top notch, they'll walk out with a "wow" in their head. And on the following occasion, they'll WANT to go to the cinema to watch the latest blockbuster.

[Harold Hallikainen]

An LSS-200 would have caught the dead speaker!

[Mike Blakesley]

If the cinema is top notch, they'll walk out with a "wow" in their head. And on the following occasion, they'll WANT to go to the cinema to watch the latest blockbuster.

I always feel like we're doing OK when people ask about future movies as they're exiting.

[Marco Giustini]

Harold,

Jesse reported the dead speaker more than two years ago so I doubt an LSS would have made any difference!

[Harold Hallikainen]

Thanks for the comment! There will, of course, always be a delay between a piece of equipment failing, the failure being discovered, and the failure being fixed. It appears here that the time between discovery (by Jesse) and the time for it to be fixed is exceeding two years, which is a bit long. When we were designing the LSS, I imagined a test show would be run in each auditorium just after the equipment is turned on for the day. Issues with SPL, gross frequency response (SPL checked over three or four bands), luminance, and chromaticity would be caught before any shows that day. One chain installed a lot of them because of the poor luminance stability of the Sony projectors. I don't know how many others are using it. It was a fun project!

Harold
https://w6iwi.org

[Colm Nolan]

The funny thing is, there is a lot more you can monitor with modern, digital equipment than you could ever do with older, analog equipment.

You can monitor alert and error conditions from the projector, server and audio-processor. Many modern amps are also IP connected and also allow quite a lot of parameters to be monitored.

Sure, there may still be a lot of conditions that will not be caught using this kind of monitoring, but something rather obvious, like a failed lamp or major error condition can be easily caught.

The problem here is tough, technology is complex and a lot of people don't know shit about the stuff they end up being responsible for. If there is some actual monitoring system in place and it coughs up a lot of false positives, for example, you'll see that, instead of fixing the actual problem and/or the monitoring system, warnings and failures tend to get ignored by default.

Hi All,

Is there a way to prompt an e-mail from any errors from a Barco projector, ie an alert mail that would get sent if a lamp is over its run time etc
Thanks

[Randy Stankey]

...there is a lot more you can monitor with modern, digital equipment than you could ever do with older, analog equipment. ...

There is a lot more needed to satisfy the human's need to feel like the Master.

One reasonably intelligent, competent operator can easily run a ten screen film booth, twelve hours per day, six days per week.
During that time, he is walking, listening, making adjustments to keep the shows on screen. That sounds like a lot but, to a competent person it becomes second nature. In doing that, the person gains mastery and becomes the man in charge.

In a digital booth, there is no auditory or tactile feedback to tell a person what's going on. He can not interpret his senses and make decisions. He can only look at a digital readout or a computer screen. In order to have that sense of mastery the operator needs to have those digital readouts. Without them, he is just a drone.

It is quite possible to automate a film projection system and channel data through a networked system to monitor and control things. Except for special venue systems and a few other niche applications, there isn't any reason for it.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Hi All,

Is there a way to prompt an e-mail from any errors from a Barco projector, ie an alert mail that would get sent if a lamp is over its run time etc
Thanks

You need some third party software to get this running smoothly. If you already have a (network) monitoring tool, then you can use that to deliver your traps. Your tool should be able to fire off an e-mail for any case you specify. If you do not have a (network) monitoring tool yet, there are literally dozens out there, both paid for and free.

[David Ferguson]

I’m just went to a cinema where the right channel didn’t work. I noticed during the first advert, and I thought about saying something, but I knew that the staff at this multiplex probably wouldn’t even know what I was talking about, so I endured. I’ll send an email and hopefully it’ll be fixed.

[Frank B. McLaughlin]

Theater owners decided removing the union professional from the booth would be a cost savings. You get what you pay for (or in this case "don't pay for").

[Marcel Birgelen]

I’m just went to a cinema where the right channel didn’t work. I noticed during the first advert, and I thought about saying something, but I knew that the staff at this multiplex probably wouldn’t even know what I was talking about, so I endured. I’ll send an email and hopefully it’ll be fixed.

When on vacation, I tend to visit some local theaters. So about a month ago, we ended up in some small local cinema in the south of Germany playing English language films. It was immediately clear that both left and right channel didn't work. The chap on duty was very kind, but essentially didn't know what to do. He never heard about "amplifiers" and didn't want to push any buttons, other than what they learned him to do so. He ended up giving us our money back and a bunch of vouchers, which was already more than I expected.

Still, those two channels probably had been out for quite a while already... And with those two channels down, you're missing most of the soundtrack... it should be obvious to anybody something is wrong. I simply don't understand how you can operate a theater in such a state. I wouldn't allow people to have such a bad experience, I'd simply cancel the show if I couldn't fix it beforehand....

[Randy Stankey]

Theater owners decided removing the union professional from the booth would be a cost savings. You get what you pay for (or in this case "don't pay for").

It's not just the union. Union or not, take it or leave it... Your choice.

The main problem is that management does not respect labor. It's not just people respecting people. It's people respecting the value of the work that other people do for their benefit.

We can talk all day about whether we should have unions but it's not going to do a speck of good until people start respecting the labor of others.

[Jack Ondracek]

Posh. I had nearly 8 years of experience in the booth before I got even close to a union house. Some 50+ years later, I am still confident that I could run just as good a show at 18 as when I finally had some union influence in my career.

When it came time to "join up" in order to work in a union town, I was assigned to shadow chief projectionists in their booths for 3 months and no pay. Then, I was given the local's "entrance exam", which consisted of re-assembling and timing an E7 that had previously had all its gears pulled out. Following that, I was given a board (really... a plank) with 2 dowsers, 2 push buttons, a cord with a wall plug and some jumper cables. The test? Correctly wire an operating changeover without blowing a fuse. Passing those tasks got me in, even though I learned ALL of it in non-union houses.

In our real-world union environment, we were, basically, very good operators. Nearly all the sound work was done by Altec or RCA techs on service contracts. We could change a tube or exciter lamp, if it meant a show or no-show, but otherwise, the sound was owned by another local and most serious projector maintenance was done by the chains' local shops. We basically turned the keys and drove some very nice cars, so to speak.

What did make us useful as a local had less to do with our skills as projectionists and more to do with us positioning ourselves as full-service individuals. Give us your theatre's schedule and write the payroll checks. We took care of making sure there was a qualified operator in the booth who knew where all the switches were. In some cases, we maintained seats, marquees, pipe organ lifts, chandelier lights and boilers.

That was Seattle, back when you could make a decent living, running film through one or two projectors in ONE booth. The work was varied, the money was adequate and the trade was satisfying and fun.

Oh... and back then, there was very little union snobbery... at least, not here in my area.