the big picture: digital cinema goes boutique
Oct 1, 1999 12:00 PM, Pete Putman
If you have been reading the newspapers this summer, you have no doubt heard about the electronic cinema screenings of An Ideal Husband and Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace. What you may not have heard about is the new concept of the boutique electronic cinema, a custom-designed small- to mid-sized theater with a high-quality surround audio system, comfortable seating and the ability to show everything from DVDs to satellite broadcasts.
As revolutionary as digital cinema is, it will take time to implement in large theaters simply because of the existing motion picture production, distribution and exhibition process. Not so with boutique theaters; their small size and make-it-up-as-you-go procedures for public screenings make them logical choices to rev up large-format electronic screenings of everything from sporting events to first-run movies.
Because boutique theaters are independently owned and operated - at least, the first couple I have heard about - they are free to use the facility for other events well-suited to their size, such as company meetings, parties and even videoconferences. In essence, it is a theater for hire; you supply the attendees, and the theater provides the ambience and refreshments.
One such boutique digital cinema is already up and running in downtown Seattle. The Big Picture, a 3,800 ft2 (353 m2) facility with antique bar, assorted living rooms and cozy nooks, and an 88-seat theater, has been booking private meetings and holding public screenings of second-run films just before those films are released to the public on videocassette or DVD.
The Big Picture is the brainchild of Mark and Katie Stern, long experienced in the ways of feature film booking and screenings. Mark booked films for the Wilmette Theater in Chicago for more than 20 years, but he decided to branch out into e-cinema after attending last year's INFOCOMM and the Projection Shoot-Out in Dallas where he saw more than a few high-brightness LCD and DLP projection systems suitable for the boutique theater concept.
The theater at Big Picture measures 359 infinity 509 (11 m infinity 15 m) and uses an Electro-home VistaGRAPHX 4000 DLP projector for everything from Powerpoint presentations to video. The VG 4000 uses three 1,024 infinity 768 DMDs and a xenon lamp source (important for cinema projection) and throws an image 50 feet (15m) to a 109 infinity 209 (3 m infinity 6 m) Stewart Flexible MicroPerf front screen. Program sources include a Toshiba 3109 dual-disc DVD player, Panasonic A310 single-disc DVD deck, and a JVC HR-S3500u S-VHS tuner/VCR/VHS player for feeds from cable and playing VHS tapes. Direct TV is also piped into the system, and there is even a Sega DreamCast gaming console.
A B&K Components Reference 20 A-V controller performs all of the A-V switching. The audio system consists of a surround sound processor feeding Rane parametric EQs for the left, center and right channels plus discrete rear channels. Tannoy TX-2 and TX-3 controller/crossover systems then drive a quad stack of QSC 2400 power amps. The loudspeaker complement consists of three Tannoy T300 loudspeakers with dual 12 inch (305 mm) concentric drivers, while surrounds are handled by Tannoy i-12 loudspeakers - two pairs on either side of the theater and another pair on the rear wall. Finally, another pair of Tannoy B-950 dual 18 inch (457 mm) subwoofers make up a dedicated ELF (effects low frequency) channel with a single 18 inch Tannoy B-475 subwoofer on the center channel for extended bass.
I toured the theater in late July of 1999, dropping in one day to grab a few photos and stopping by several nights later to attend a scheduled showing of Rushmore. This screening from DVD (licensed for public exhibition) used the VistaGRAPHX's internal video scaling circuitry, but the aspect ratio was not set up correctly - the image I viewed was too long and narrow. This turned out to be a case of the wrong image set-up memory button being selected on the Electrohome projector.
In any case, image quality was quite good - brightness and contrast were up to the usual standards from a three-DMD engine with a xenon lamp. I did notice scaling and line multiplying artifacts in the presentation, both of which can be easily eliminated by an outboard video scalar along the lines of Folsom's VFC-series, RGB Spectrum's VLI200 or Faroudja's DVP-3000. Big Picture's technical director Spain McMillen was checking out these models after my visit.
The surround audio system is quite powerful, but during the course of the film, we became aware of an exaggerated amount of bass boost. Rushmore is not a summer blockbuster SFX movie, just a pleasant, quirky comedy about a boy's private school with lots of dialogue and music, but little special effects. This led to a rather spirited discussion between Stern and my friend Ted Bardusch, a Seattle-based Windows NT software developer who has many years of experience in audio design for broadcast and studios.
According to Stern, audiences want lots of low-end response and thump in their movies for a more exhilarating cinema experience. Bardusch disagreed, and he felt quite strongly that excessive low-end response actually degrades the listening experience. The point here was not to declare a winner of this technical debate. What is more important is that paying customers could even have such a conversation with a theater owner in the first place, and that the owner would even be willing to listen and possibly implement changes to the system. Try that at your local multiplex theater.
Although Big Picture is probably the first such company to launch a boutique digital cinema, they will not be the last. This concept has been floating around some of the major trade shows for some time, and I have discussed it with more than one projector manufacturer at INFOCOMM and CEDIA. Indeed, Stern has plans to franchise Big Pictures in major cities and to market aggressively to business, educational and institutional users.
The size of this theater is probably representative of many mid-sized screening rooms and classrooms. Until the past couple of years, the only option for projecting high-brightness, high-resolution images was to bring in a big (more than 150 pounds or 67.5 kg) projection chassis with xenon or metal-halide lamps. The introduction of products like the VistaGRAPHX 4000 (since upgraded to 5,000 lumens) and NEC's new MultiSync XT5000 installation DLP projector, however, have made the boutique cinema concept more attractive.
Size and weight are two big considerations when designing and building such a room, and both of these projectors have footprints comparable to small three-gun CRT projectors. That means a comparatively easy install and simpler maintenance for the customer, but plenty of screen illumination and a simple, single-lens solution.
On the LCD side, three new products are available for boutique digital cinemas, and they all have SXGA 1,280 infinity 1,024 resolution to boot. Sanyo's 37 pound (17 kg) PLC-EF10N (also sold by Proxima) can crank out more than 2,500 lumens and supports composite, Y/C, component YUV and even Y/Pb/Pr or RGsB HDTV. Barco's BarcoReality 6300 DLC tips the scales around 60 pounds (27 kg) and produces slightly more illumination with comparable input compatibility, while Sony's quad-lamped VPL-FE100 produces more than 3,000 lumens and is just as versatile in supporting all video and HDTV signals.
Like the VistaGRAPHX 4000 showed, however, an external video scalar is probably a good idea with any flat-matrix projector to get a cinema-like image, particularly if you want to tweak up and save more than one preset aspect ratio for screenings. The LCD projectors currently have one advantage over the Electrohome and NEC offerings - the ability to show 1,280 infinity 720p broadcasts at full resolution with no letterboxing.
Currently, Stern has plans to include over-the-air HD broadcasts as well as special satellite broadcasts of boxing and football in the programming mix. With 88 plush seats (no more than four in any row for easy access) plus cup holders and ottomans for the front row, Big Picture has hosted some unique meetings for Boeing, MTV, Microsoft and the Screen Actor's Guild. (The theater expands to 100 attendees for a meeting.) If you would like to find out more, check out www.thebigpicture.net for a more detailed description of the theater's amenities, including a leopard-print upholstered couch in the living room.
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