Maybe Amir should review movie theaters

[techsamurai]

So I was overseas for a while and couldn't watch Mission Impossible 7 at the IMAX theater I normally watch all blockbuster movies at. It's not the most modern system but it's the best I've heard and others have confirmed that. I figured I would rely on a smaller auditorium at the same Regal Theater.

Guess what? From the moment the trailers started, I couldn't tell DiCaprio's voice apart from DeNiro's so I knew we were in trouble. Dune's trailer sounded horrible as did Bob Marley's biopic and I'd never watch either based on the trailer. The worst part was the opening sequence of the movie which is supposed to be tense but could barely be heard as folks were screaming but sounded like puppets on the screen. The Mission Impossible main theme sounded nothing like it should.

This is a movie that scored 8 on imdb and given our love for the series and especially my daughter's, it would have been a 9 or 10 for us like Maverick was. However, none of us, were engaged during the movie due to the poor quality of sound. Needless to say, I provided feedback and tore Regal a new one in it. It felt like a 5 or 6 and the last MI movie I watched at theaters was MI2 which had incredible sound at the time with the rock climbing intro scene bursting into the iconic MI theme and the flamenco music. I can actually recall my experience at the theater and that movie is 23 years old. If you ask me about yesterday's movie, I'd say there were chunks of sound missing from everything.

So it got me thinking, Amir should be hired to review theaters and configure them as that theater's sound constitutes fraud.

I'll watch the movie at home and I'm sure it'll be a 8.9 (my sound system makes the music sound jaw dropping by complete and utter chance). When I pay $100 for a movie, is it wrong to expect sound that exceeds a $200 soundbar?

 

[abdo123]

IMAX leaves everything else in the dirt in my city.

 

[holdingpants01]

to me all the cinemas I've been are too loud anyway, I need to wear earplugs or cover my ears, I've been on Oppenheimer yesterday and it was just too much, horrible experience with all the loud jump scares. Calibration should start with a volume knob at -20dB, I much prefer to watch movies at home because of that

 

[abdo123]

I've been on Oppenheimer yesterday and it was just too much

Christopher Nolan is notoriously known for making his movies really really loud. I'm not surprised.

In general going to the cinema should be a few times a year thing like going to a concert. if you go often you should definitely get a musician's ear plug made or something.

 

[techsamurai]

to me all the cinemas I've been are too loud anyway, I need to wear earplugs or cover my ears, I've been on Oppenheimer yesterday and it was just too much, horrible experience with all the loud jump scares. Calibration should start with a volume knob at -20dB, I much prefer to watch movies at home because of that

Yes, that can be a huge issue and I do wonder if the seat makes a difference. I sit in the center towards the back (about 75% from the screen) to avoid walls.

The IMAX theater I usually go to played Pirates of the Carribean at those sort of levels - the tiniest sound played at the level of tank explosions in Fury. A teenage kid left and was crying when I went to talk to the theater's manager to lower the volume but it also showed me how good the sound can be at that theater. It was impossible to watch the movie at those levels and I was shocked that they would not be aware of that and I had to leave the theater to save everyone.

It's been better lately - could use 1-2 db for perfect center channel dialogue - I'd prefer 4 or 5 but my family prefes 1-2 (they always ask me to dial volume down by 3db).

 

[holdingpants01]

Christopher Nolan is notoriously known for making his movies really really loud. I'm not surprised.

In general going to the cinema should be a few times a year thing like going to a concert. if you go often you should definitely get a musician's ear plug made or something.

I'm going maybe every two months, but this time I've done a combo of Barbie and Oppenheimer in one week and the latter movie was much longer so I was more tired than usual, even for Nolans per dB

 

[moonlight rainbow dream]

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a force like George Lucas / THX in the industry now, going around wrangling everybody into a standardized sound experience and pushing the quality and tech forward.

Instead, you've just got these guys like Tarantino and Nolan who are obsessed with clunky and expensive film formats. It's an interesting mirror of the resurgence of vinyl.

James Cameron is an outlier, but he's focused more on the visual aspect than sound.

 

[techsamurai]

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a force like George Lucas / THX in the industry now, going around wrangling everybody into a standardized sound experience and pushing the quality and tech forward.

Instead, you've just got these guys like Tarantino and Nolan who are obsessed with clunky and expensive film formats. It's an interesting mirror of the resurgence of vinyl.

James Cameron is an outlier, but he's focused more on the visual aspect than sound.

You bring up a great point that also confirms the recent bias that the film industry has on visuals. With the exception of Avatar which must be seen in 3d, I think that a movie will look similar in one theater compared to another. Sure, IMAX will look better due to its larger screen but other screens are certainly bigger than what most of us have at home so the visual aspect is going to be roughly the same.

On the other hand, sound is a make or break feature. When sound is bad, the movie is a flop. The best example I've personally experienced was Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker which we watched at a Movie Tavern where the volume was way too low (you could hear people eating popcorn during action sequences). It was so bad that we did NOT want to watch it at home in 3d but one day we decided to check it out to see how horrible it was. My son and I were shocked at how different the movie was. It was an 8 in 3d with a colorful screen and with stellar sound as opposed to a 4 at the theater.

 

[GXAlan]

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a force like George Lucas / THX in the industry now, going around wrangling everybody into a standardized sound experience and pushing the quality and tech forward.

+1. My understanding was the THX program included fees that involved random testing and I remember reading that if any consumer wrote a letter to THX to complain about a theater, they would send someone there.

I don’t think it was my ears — but I always felt that the THX experience was loud but not unbearably loud. Many of today’s theaters mix way too hot

Instead, you've just got these guys like Tarantino and Nolan who are obsessed with clunky and expensive film formats. It's an interesting mirror of the resurgence of vinyl.

There is a role for vintage optics as well. With analog negative film, you do get unique compression/exposure characteristics, some of which can be done in post but potentially time consuming and costly when done.

This Test Reveals the Exposure Limits of Kodak Portra 400 Film

Kodak's Portra 400 film is praised for its versatility, but exactly how well does it handle underexposure and overexposure? How far can you push things

petapixel.com

Film is remarkably resilient to overexposure.

James Cameron is an outlier, but he's focused more on the visual aspect than sound.

Agreed. Though many of his movies have great sound!

 

[JSmith]

... I do wonder if the seat makes a difference.

This is the way...

JSmith

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

In general at my local theater--relatively small rooms--the sound is inferior to what I get in my living room with a mid-fi setup. I have a system that cost well under $1000. At the theater the volume seems to exceed the capability of the equipment. Everything sounds distorted.

 

[techsamurai]

This is the way...

JSmith

Awesome! I love Sheldon

 

[MaxwellsEq]

to me all the cinemas I've been are too loud anyway, I need to wear earplugs or cover my ears, I've been on Oppenheimer yesterday and it was just too much, horrible experience with all the loud jump scares. Calibration should start with a volume knob at -20dB, I much prefer to watch movies at home because of that

This is identical to my experience. I wondered if the theatre calibration was wrong, because the dialogue was mostly inaudible. The music sounded awesome, but I went for the whole movie, not the soundtrack.

 

[techsamurai]

This is identical to my experience. I wondered if the theatre calibration was wrong, because the dialogue was mostly inaudible. The music sounded awesome, but I went for the whole movie, not the soundtrack.

Yeah, dialogue is almost always hit-and-miss. How do theaters implement their center channel? Is it just behind the screen or also split overhead across speakers? It has to be the latter otherwise people in the rear would be -20db (if not more) compared to people at the front as distance affects volume massively.

 

[GXAlan]

Yeah, dialogue is almost always hit-and-miss. How do theaters implement their center channel? Is it just behind the screen or also split overhead across speakers? It has to be the latter otherwise people in the rear would be -20db (if not more) compared to people at the front as distance affects volume massively.

My understanding is that you can use arrays to adjust the sound

MAPP XT

System Design Tool

meyersound.com

https://jblpro.com/en/site_elements/jbl-c200-installation-guide

 

[holdingpants01]

This is identical to my experience. I wondered if the theatre calibration was wrong, because the dialogue was mostly inaudible. The music sounded awesome, but I went for the whole movie, not the soundtrack.

interesting thing is I live in non English language country so the movies are played in English but with subtitles and I never notice problems with dialogues even if they're really bad or quiet. The cinemas should do one screening a day for neurodivergent people or those with hearing problems, with subtitles and much lowered overall volume

 

[dweekie]

This is identical to my experience. I wondered if the theatre calibration was wrong, because the dialogue was mostly inaudible. The music sounded awesome, but I went for the whole movie, not the soundtrack.

Funny, I just saw this video recently about how hard dialogue is to understand nowadays.

 

[JSmith]

how hard dialogue is to understand

Here's Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult To Understand (And Three Ways To Fix It) - SlashFilm

/Film spoke with several Oscar-winning sound designers, editors, and mixers to learn why it has become tougher to understand what characters are saying.

www.slashfilm.com

When it comes to dialogue unintelligibility, one name looms above all others: Christopher Nolan. The director of "Tenet," "Interstellar," and "The Dark Knight Rises" is one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation, and he uses his power to make sure his films push the boundaries of sound design, often resulting in scenes in which audiences literally cannot understand what his characters say. And it's not just audiences who have trouble with some Nolan films: the director has even revealed that other filmmakers have reached out to him to complain about this issue in his movies.

JSmith

 

[Mart68]

Don't rate Nolan's films, not being able to hear the dialogue is the least of their problems IMO.

His 'Dunkirk' was vastly inferior to the 1958 version in every respect. I assumed it was some sort of low budget BBC co-production until I looked it up and found it cost £100 million.

I don't find the sound in cinemas too loud but I'm in the UK, maybe it's different here? Or I'm already half-deaf.

 

[OdysseusG]

Supposedly IMAX theaters have a mic rig set up permanently and run a diagnostic sweep daily to make sure they're still in spec, with the results being sent to HQ to be analyzed there, outside of local control. In regards to levels/volume, that's part of the spec and can't be changed locally. I went to the first IMAX live event broadcast and the volume was mixed way too low, leading to a steady stream of people leaving to complain. Eventually the exasperated manager said he couldn't increase the volume, but didn't really explain.
In regards to image quality size is only part of it, and one of the bigger variables nowadays is contrast/black levels. Other people are sticklers for the brightness side of that equation. That said, I'd argue that sound contributes much more to the cinema experience than video and most theaters are fairly mediocre to bad.