Bluray/High def-what next?

[Alienblue]

*Sigh*...I'm depressed. Could be all those downers I took, but I think it's reading these posts about Blu ray, HDTV and HIGH DEF and how a giant screen setup pretty much equals or surpasses the movie theatre experiance...

Just like arcades. Now that games equal or surpass anything in an arcade, why go there? And arcades are dying. Will movie theatres be next?

I'm am an outdoors type person, I get sick if I can't get out for a walk/bike ride/jog/swim everyday. It seems to me all these gadgets are just turning Americans into more and more stay at home and vegetate, cushy couch potaters....Who needs to go out to play games/watch movies/shop/talk/DO ANYTHING!? On the other hand, the optimist in me says perhaps with all this at home people will go out and STAY OUT, walking in the park or going to the beach, hiking or cycling, as opposed to "going OUT" of the house just to "GO IN" somewhere else.

Good or bad? What do others think?

[Leo Ames]

I could care less personally, there seems like there's more important things to worry about for an individual than how other people will enjoy their movies. VHS and DVD didn't kill off the industry so this seems unlikely it will now.

[Paul Campbell]

[QUOTE=Leo Ames]

I could care less personally, there seems like there's more important things to worry about for an individual than how other people will enjoy their movies. VHS and DVD didn't kill off the industry so this seems unlikely it will now.

[/QUOTE]

But that was different.  Now the ENTIRE experience is at home, and in many cases, with much better sound than a real movie theater, because a movie theater sound system tries to pander to a large number of people, unlike a home theater, which can be focused on a small area of the room.  Now that the WHOLE experience has been brought home, I can totally see movie theaters losing it one day.  But only as homes with integrated systems become more common.

I also DO care a bit how others spend their time, because it effects the culture.  For example, I would like my daughter to go and play outside when she gets older, but if all the other kids are inside in front of the TV or the computer, I doubt she would be as excited to leave the house.

[Sudz1]

If movie theaters are having trouble staying afloat I put the blame squarely on their own shoulders.  Even if I do have a home setup that is technically better than anything a theater can do for me I still like to go out and see movies from time to time in a theater.  You simply can't replicate that shared experience of seeing something great for the first time with a large group of people in a public setting like that.  However, movie theaters have consistently gotten greedier and greedier, raising their prices up higher and faster than simple inflation alone would dictate; and don't even get me started on the $.50 worth of popcorn they sell for $4.50, $.75 worth of soda jacked up to $4.00, etc.  Sure they have a captive audience and I expect them to inflate their prices a bit, but it's gotten absolutely in-your-face ridiculous.  It's not much different than the recording industry whining and complaining about how file sharing is destroying their industry, when the fact of the matter is they've all colluded to artificially raise prices and keep them high even as their own costs fell - the end result is that they're driven away their customer base by their greed.  If they would charge an honest price for their product, they would keep more customers.  No different with the movie industry.

[Atarifever1]

Theaters aren't going anywhere. Now, I'm a movieholic. When I lived in the city, me and my fiancee often couldn't pick a movie to go to, because we'd seen all 15 or so that were playing. I didn't see them because I had to see them there. We went there precisely because it wasn't at home. The oven doesn't hurt restaurant business. Movies are something you go to with your girlfriend, or with your 10 sci-fi buddies. All the high def in the world won't change the fact that you're in your boring old house.
Arcades were a little different. Very few guys took their girlfriend to the arcade. Besides, arcades went from having a monopoly on games to where they are. Movies have been out of the theater for years.

[Steerforth]

Isn't it all kind of irrelevant? Movie quality is way down form the 60's and 70's anyway. Most of whats made is big action movie sequels, gross out comedies and hack and slash gore fests. We live in a frat boy culture and it is reflected to the hilt in movies, videogames and T.V.

Are good movies still made? Sure, but less and less.

This may tick a few people off, but if you are buying movies like "Ricky Bobby" on HD-DVD or Blue-ray or UMD you have too much money to spend and very litle taste. Fine, I am a snob, but that doesn't mean I am wrong.

We maybe go to the movies once a year, if they die out the main reason will be because of the quality of the films they are putting out.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=Steerforth] Fine, I am a snob, but that doesn't mean I am wrong.


[/QUOTE]

Oh indeed it does.  Snobs are wrong.  Always.

[bluemonkey1]

[QUOTE=Paul Campbell]

But that was different.  Now the ENTIRE experience is at home, and in many cases, with much better sound than a real movie theater, because a movie theater sound system tries to pander to a large number of people, unlike a home theater, which can be focused on a small area of the room.  Now that the WHOLE experience has been brought home, I can totally see movie theaters losing it one day.  But only as homes with integrated systems become more common.

[/QUOTE]

That's utter rubbish.  The entire movie experience at home?  The cinema experience is way better than anything that can be produced on a home setup.  In real life the human eye is only able to perceive a limited range of it's total possible luminance range.  This window moves around as we focus. That's why in a completely dark environment you can make out far more detail than you can if you open the curtains slightly, because your eyes have shifted their detectable range and you can perceive far more at the lower luminance range.  That is why when you go from low to high light levels rapidly you feel pain in the brain.

The cinema is able to replicate the full range of luminance values.  Television sets cannot do this.  They only output a range equal to that detectable.  As a result you get a much richer visual experience at the cinema.  This is taken to extremes in films such as Sin City where the home experience pales in comparison to seeing it at a theatre.

I also don't know of many building complexes where they will tolerate cranking the volume up so loud the walls shake, like you get at the cinema.

Home cinema setups still lack the massive grandour of seeing a film blasted onto a 60metre wide wall.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]

I also don't know of many building complexes where they will tolerate cranking the volume up so loud the walls shake, like you get at the cinema.

Home cinema setups still lack the massive grandour of seeing a film blasted onto a 60metre wide wall.
[/QUOTE]

Here here.  Theatre > home theatre.  until a HDTV takes up an entire side of my house, and the sound system has a pile of speakers set to surround sound that rattles my teeth during explosions, and I can comforatably sit 5 or 10 of my friends in front of it, with air conditioning, and no light pollution, I'll take the theatre as the first choice.

[JustLikeHeaven1]

[QUOTE=Sudz]If movie theaters are having trouble staying afloat I put the blame squarely on their own shoulders.  Even if I do have a home setup that is technically better than anything a theater can do for me I still like to go out and see movies from time to time in a theater.  You simply can't replicate that shared experience of seeing something great for the first time with a large group of people in a public setting like that.  However, movie theaters have consistently gotten greedier and greedier, raising their prices up higher and faster than simple inflation alone would dictate; and don't even get me started on the $.50 worth of popcorn they sell for $4.50, $.75 worth of soda jacked up to $4.00, etc.  Sure they have a captive audience and I expect them to inflate their prices a bit, but it's gotten absolutely in-your-face ridiculous.  It's not much different than the recording industry whining and complaining about how file sharing is destroying their industry, when the fact of the matter is they've all colluded to artificially raise prices and keep them high even as their own costs fell - the end result is that they're driven away their customer base by their greed.  If they would charge an honest price for their product, they would keep more customers.  No different with the movie industry.
[/QUOTE]

You do realize that the only reason it costs so much to go to the movies is because Film Studios have caused the price to go up. 

Theatres have to "rent" each movie from the studios and the since movie production prices have gone up , so have these "rental fees".  You might pay $10-$15 for a single ticket, and you feel like you are getting ripped off...the theatre is only making like a dollar of ticket admission. 

That is why the have to charge an arm and a leg for food and drinks.  Nearly 90% of a movie theatre's profits come from concession.  Thats why they make a big stink about people bringing in their own food.  The movies theatres haven't gotten greedier, rather they are trying to stay alive.

Sadly you are starting to see the same think happen in the videogame industry.  As production costs are going up, so are console and game prices.  Also its starting to become mandatory for companies to force game developers to make downloadable content for games...they have to milk a product as much as possible.  Pretty soon you are going to see less and less orginal ideas and more and more copy cat projects...right now we are in Grand Theft World War II...