Projection As A Presentation Medium

[Maggot]

What is up with projection as a medium of displaying films? Every movie theater from every movie chain I have been to for 20+ years or more, I have come away with the conclusion that backlit technologies like tube TV, LED and Plasma are far better at producing inky black levels. It's one of the main reasons I just don't go to the movie theater anymore. The black levels are more toward grey and are not even close to being inky black. That tends to make every presentation I've been to in adult memory to lack punch/contrast. Every time I get out of a movie theater, for me it's always..."great movie, but poor presentation". I don't know if it's a limitation of the projected image, but I always tried to give theaters a chance and every time I walk out disappointed by the technical visual presentation side of the experience. It's like watching films with no life in them. Dull and drab has been my experience with projection.

[Al_The_Strange]

I felt that way before; why not set up one huge screen, or a wall of screens, to show movies at theaters? Projection is like 100 years old now, you'd think we could come up with a better, clearer, more impressive setup.

Personally, I don't find myself being distracted by the quality of the image as much as before. Since moving to the States, I've found that most cinemas I go to are part of a chain, and movies pretty much always look clear, colorful, and crisp to me (only exception being when Cinemark plays classic movies; they're projecting 2K transfers on a big screen, and it shows). Not sure what theater you frequent, but maybe it'll help to find a different one somewhere.

As far as changing the way things work, the issue will undoubtedly come down to cost; it would be super-expensive for theaters to overhaul their entire presentation system this way. Maybe there could be more innovative theaters built that can implement this from the ground-up, but how would they recover their cost, especially when movie sales reportedly don't give them much profit (concessions do).

[Nick The Slick]

An LCD that large? I think you'd have far worse concerns about picture quality than black level at that point... And let's just forget that a single movie theater sized LCD screen would probably cost more than all the projectors in the entire theater combined. Sizes that large just plain can't be done with plasma or OLED (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong). I'm just not sure what you want here.

Projection can be amazing when done to strict standards (like some dedicated home theaters, where it's easier to control the conditions), but when you're dealing with screen sizes and rooms that large, the ambient light that some theaters have (lights get dimmed instead of shut off, walkway lights, etc.), and probably a hundred other factors, you just can't expect it to be perfect. Projector technology is evolving though, so it can only get better.

[jautor]

Originally Posted by Maggot

What is up with projection as a medium of displaying films?

It's the only technology available to get a high quality image on a screen that size, regardless of cost.

A very, very large flat panel (or, more likely, an array of panels) will have numerous issues that would have to be overcome. Just the act of transporting something of that size (and weight) would be prohibitively expensive and a very high risk operation... Then there's failure conditions (how do you repair it - think about a broken pixel on a screen that size).

The best example of an active screen would be in the Cowboys stadium in Dallas - and that thing cost >$100M. And you wouldn't want to watch a movie on it.

Until we can unroll a display surface and mount it like wallpaper, large screen venues will remain in the projection realm.

[bigshot]

Black levels with projection depend on ambient lighting. If you can eliminate the safety lights and fire exit lights (as you do in the home with a projection system) the black levels are fine. Projection offers a lot of benefits to the image too. It is a lot easier to watch for long periods, and can display color and contrast in a very balanced way. It also allows you to put speakers behind the screen to focus the center channel dialogue directly on the screen instead of below it.

Movie theaters aren't the best way to judge projection. A good screening room can blow a commercial movie theater away.

[Mr.Poindexter]

buy an old CRT projector and you will see projection with black levels that are amazing.