Movie megaplexes getting all screened up

January 9, 2009 by Dave Haynes

Digital Signage Universe has a piece on its portal about the flashy new moviehouses starting to pop up around the Toronto area, loaded with DS screens.

The piece includes a number of good site photos, like the proffered one above.

I don’t get out to a lot of movies because most of what Hollywood cranks out isn’t even vaguely intended for aging boomers, but I did go see a flick the other night at one of the new ones.

I was impressed with the concept, in general, of all the screens all over the place. But I was also stumped by some of the execution. The Kodak system is a slug playing back at least some videos (evidently using Intel’s Gerbil processor), the projection system wasn’t working, and very curiously, at least some of the panels were clearly just consumer grade TVs (since the panel maker doesn’t even have commercial panels that big).

The sites are done by Toronto-based Light and Sound International, and I doubt the budget screens were their idea. The playback system is part of Kodak’s overall cinema management system.

Why someone would spend a LOT of money and then trying to save a few bucks on screens that aren’t suited to the environment escapes me.

On the plus side, as noted, it looked pretty good and the positioning of upcoming feature screens in the ticket line-up area made good sense.

Oh and the other thing about the fancy movie-house. We ended up in a show that only had premium seating,which meant we paid $5 extra for big leather chairs and access to a bar. But you had to guzzle your drink BEFORE going in. WTF???