Ah... this is how the movie was supposed to look and sound. Glad I showed up! The terrible presentation at the AMC a while back was still in my mind, but seeing the film again at a proper cinema restored my faith in the T-franchise.
The picture and sound quality in this cinema were up to their usual high standards - bright picture with sharp edges, no scratches or other artifacting, and flawless sound with deep bass and plenty of punch all around. More than enough to give anyone a hearty recommendation to try the Galaxy Highland 10.
There was an interesting development I will have to report on in a future post - a big sign on the outside wall of the cinema stated the Galaxy Highland 10 was offering "D-BOX" bass management in this auditorium (and I think, the only place in Austin to do so).
What is DBOX/How does it work? It's basically a financially-efficient way to add more bass to your sonic experience. The conventional way would be to add larger subwoofers to the array behind the screen. In order to feel the bass at your seating position, the speakers back there need to be really loud, of course, and this requires more powerful amplifiers and a bigger electric bill. Unfortunately this is usually heard in the next auditorium, so you also need thicker walls. Cinema owners don't like to pay for that stuff. DBOX is a new solution that puts a small, but deep subwoofer into each seat! This actually saves on sonic energy since the speaker only needs to vibrate your chair... so it's not felt in the next auditorium, or shaking the place to bits. This is a much more efficient use of energy. There is an installation cost to bear, since regular $50 cinema chairs can't be used.
I asked the ticket counter person about the DBOX process and they responded "its $15 a ticket and assigned seating." That made me wince and I didn't go for it... just got a regular ticket. (In retrospect, I regret this... I'm Mr. Austin CinemaCritic!!!) A kiosk w/ small projection TV was sitting in the foyer next to the Terminator: Salvation doorway, and a few patrons were standing around watching the punters in the demonstration seats. Honestly it sounded pretty darn muddy to me, but I didn't actually sit in the demo seats. Inside the auditorium, the DBOX subwoofers were not in all seats of the theater, just a band of rows in the middle. The cinema was about 1/3rd full, and the DBOX seats were almost all occupied, so the new system was definitely finding a connection with patrons.
I think I noticed my first pixelisation on this 2K digital projector - it was the trailer for Bruno, whose titles were not anti-aliased. The pixels were nice and sharp, indicating, at least, that the projector was correctly focused. All the other titles in this show were anti-aliased so it was impossible to see pixels.
The DBOX seats still had an effect on the screening, IMO. I felt like there was generally a lot more bass and rumble in the auditorium than usual.
I am sure I will try the DBOX experience next time... stay tuned. Kudos to the Galaxy theater chain for trying out this new system. (along with digital projection and great sound!)
2009-06-27
2009-06-18
"The Taking Of Pelham 123"... Alamo Drafthouse Village... Auditorium 1... Wednesday June 17th 2009
The movie was up to the usual standards of 4K Digital at the Alamo Village. No visual artifacting except for the three abberations I pointed out a few weeks ago during Star Trek (all three are still there), or sound issues, beyond the overall acoustic performance. I am sure this Tony Scott-directed movie has lower bass extension than is evident at the Alamo Village, but nevertheless it's still a screen to be proud of.
I had the Alamo's Asian Chicken Salad, a Guinness, and their Molten Chocolate Cake A La Mode (total bill $20.50) All were quite yummy, and though the freezing, almost fizzy Guiness isn't as authentic as a smooth, mild-temperatured Irish pouring, it's still a pleasure to guide down the gullet.
I used my voucher from a previous visit. I had to sign my name and provide them with a phone number, I suppose this is to catch those creating their own supply of counterfeit vouchers!
"The Hangover"... Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek... Auditorium 5... Sunday June 14th 2009
This was an otherwise normal event at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, with reasonable picture and sound quality, but there was one stand-out issue... after a lot of Alamo Drafthouse company trailers, and then a couple of actual film trailers, the Hangover movie started up proper and about half a second into the Warner Brothers studio logo, the sound cut out completely! Like someone flipped the power switch accidentally. The film proceeded into its opening titles, and more and more patrons at this sold-out screening started to realise there was a problem (no sound whatsoever). Alamo wait staff did not appear to be behaving much differently, though it is hard to believe they were ignorant of the issue. Anyway, the sound came back on with a click about 30 seconds later, and seemed to become stronger about 10 seconds after that. A few minutes later, everyone had forgotten and were enjoying the movie.
I didn't notice anything particularly untoward about the picture or sound after that, no digital artifacting, scratches to speak of or other classic issues, even though the picture was on film.
Matinee ticket cost = $7.25.
2009-06-08
"Terminator: Salvation"... AMC Barton Creek 14... Auditorium 11... Sunday June 7th 2009
OMG, we have a new "Worst Cinema In Austin" record-holder. Or rather, the first recordholder... the standard-setter, I suppose. AMC's only theater in Austin, the Barton Creek 14.
We arrived at the cinema inside Barton Creek Mall, which was still open around 5:40pm on a Sunday, and joined the pretty long ticket line, where there were multiple windows, but only one staffer selling tickets. Spotting a credit card machine, my wife smartly stepped past the entire line and bought our tickets. However the cost was $9.69 per ticket! Pretty expensive considering they weren't purchased in advance from some remote location.
Not only does Auditorium 11 have a pretty crummy design specification, during my visit it was not meeting that specification. As far as word-of-mouth goes, it does not help Terminator: Salvation to be presented in this way.
FYI we entered the auditorium too late to see any trailers, unfortunately, and the music over the opening titles was playing. But I knew there was trouble even as we walked in towards the front row to begin our ascent to the seat. The title music sounded terrible - very little bass to speak of, and in fact generally sounding like old technology, old cinema construction. It was muddy and not enthralling whatsoever. I actually still recall how good the opening titles music for Terminator 2: Judgement Day sounded at the Lincoln 6, back in 1991 - and it had a better effect on me than this! (mind you, improving over the opening titles of 1984's mono The Terminator didn't take much)
As I sat down, in pretty much the ideal spot, I realized how small the screen is... it might only be 30' across! This is one of the smallest screens in Austin, about as big as a millionaire's private cinema, or a screening room in the actual movie-making business. The seats were moderately comfortable though, with a good stadium raking to the rows. Sometimes a small screen gets you a more concentrated, less grainy sort of movie, but that didn't outweigh the other problems here. The AMC Barton Creek 14 ran almost the entire gamut of problems.
Taking picture first, the screen is small, sure, but if engineering is carried out correctly you could still enjoy the picture. Unfortunately, the print had several scratches running along what seemed to be its entire length; the picture was not actually shining at the center of the screen, there was at least a foot of Terminator: Salvation being projected onto the dark auditorium wall at the left of it; focusing and edges were relatively sharp actually, not too much complaint there. The picture was not particularly bright, which could be the cinematography but I have a feeling it isn't.
Moving on to sound, as I said this hit me as soon as I walked into the room. It never got any better. At first I thought there was no subwoofer in there or it was simply switched off, but it was clear during the early scene depicting the resistance's mission to infiltrate the cyborg facility that there was plenty of bass in the soundtrack; it manifested itself as a constant boom, unfortunately, without a lot of clarity. Sorta like what you hear outside a car when the owner has the bass turned up too much. It left me longing to hear the movie again, somewhere else. Bass never got any clearer in the movie. It was presented in digital sound, but you'd never know it from the openness and frequency response of the sound. The clue was that digital artifacting grew in seriousness throughout the length of the movie, starting now and again around 1/3rd through, ruining long brass notes in the music track by 2/3rds through, but by the time of the end credits, ending up simply broken-sounding, with the music sounding downright awful. This sound system really chewed up Danny Elfman's music and made it sound terrible. There is very little high-end response here (or it wasn't present in the soundtrack... unlikely), not very open, airy or informative. I felt like I was a person who'd been losing my hearing for many years. Surround sound was evident now and again, but was impulsive and dynamic (to the point of being absent usually), and directionally not very clear.
My wife (who is not an engineer) commented that, even to her, this cinema was so bad she was certain I'd be giving it a bad review herself.
I cannot understate the crappiness of this auditorium, and recommend you avoid it if you are interested in good audio-visual presentation. If you don't really care how good a movie looks and sounds, you won't be that offended.
Ticket cost - $9.69 (bah).
2009-06-04
Response From Regal Cinemas, re: Star Trek @ Metropolitan
If you recall, I wrote to Regal Cinemas in regard to what I thought was a busted center loudspeaker in their otherwise splendid Auditorium 7. The response couldn't have turned out better. First I got an email of thanks from Teresa Welsh at Regal's corporate HQ, then I got an email of thanks from Pat Edwards, the manager of the theater! Pat wrote:
"Hello, My name is Pat Edwards and I am the general manager of the Metropolitan 14 Theatres. First of all, I want to apologize for the horrible sound problems that you experienced for Star Trek. We diagnosed the problem as a bad tweeter in the center speaker and replaced the part. I really want to thank you regarding your comment about the quality of the presentations in auditoriums #7 and #8. We are constantly focusing on great presentations so when this happened we too were devastated."
It goes to show, our comments and feedback can make a difference. Both ladies sent me two complimentary tickets, too, so now I have four. :) I don't think it can get any better than that. Great customer service, Regal!
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