Bad Cinemas (and bad technobabble)
Jul. 23rd, 2008 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrisvenusWell, this article is really just about one bad cinema. Or really just about one screen in one cinema. You see, I went to watch Prince Caspian the other day and due to the timings of showings the Vue (my usual first choice) wasn't an option so I found myself in town at the Odeon. Screen 3 in particular.
The first time alarm bells were ringing was during the opening credits when I realised that when they were flashing up the actos and other stuff on screen at the beginning the ones on the left of the screen were truncated. Yup. The screen was showing only part of their names and chopping off the left side. As some of the lighter bits of the film showed it became clear that the problem was that they were projecting onto the curtains at the sides of the screen.
Then for the end credits it became obvious that this wasn't there only problem and they were in fact projecting a trapezium onto the screen that made the end credits look a little bit like the scrolling text at the beginning of Star Wars.
I muttered and moaned and vowed never to go back but I thought on the way out as I saw somebody who looked like they might be able to do something (as opposed to somebody who was just there to clean up the old popcorn containers) that I would report the problems.
So I told this bloke about the issues and he told me what the problem was. The curtain moving stuff was apparently broken and due to be replaced on thursday. And apparently, and more importantly, the image was trapeziumed because they were "having to fight against gravity". Yes, you heard it hear first. Odeon cinema george street, screen 3 has gravitational anomalies which apparently distort the spacetime contiuum enough that their projectors can't compensate.
I think what he was trying to say (or at least I'm pretty sure the reason was) that the projector was much higher than the screen and so without making adjustments you are going to get that kind of effect. When I pointed out to him that the projector that probably cost a couple of hundred quid that we use at work can adjust for this his most excellent and informative reply was to let me know that the circuit board that controlled the curtains was broken and was being replaced on Thursday (that's tomorrow though why he thought I cared that much I don't know).
I was mildly bemused by this guys responses. I would have been quite happy with an answer along the lines of "Thank you for letting us know. The problem is one we are aware of and we are doing our best to resolve it." or "Oh, I'll let the manager know about that so he can deal with it". I just got the impression instead that this guy was trying to make himself sound like he knew what he was talking about to satisfy the customer with technobabble. Its a shame really that he opened with "the projetor is having to fight against gravity".
I'm not sure that even after Thursday when they will hopefully have replaced the circuitboard for the curtains, that I will willingly go back to the odeon without some very compelling reasons. Its just more hastle, not as good a cinema and apparently attended by lots of people who can't turn up for a film on time (though it was amusing to see some people who apparently weren't sure how an aisle worked and kept trying to walk through chairs - I really have no idea what was going on there).
Anyway, that was a bit of a rant but mainly just to share the bad technobabble. :)
Oh, and he did actually after a while agree that he would get somebody to look at calibrating their projector properly...
The first time alarm bells were ringing was during the opening credits when I realised that when they were flashing up the actos and other stuff on screen at the beginning the ones on the left of the screen were truncated. Yup. The screen was showing only part of their names and chopping off the left side. As some of the lighter bits of the film showed it became clear that the problem was that they were projecting onto the curtains at the sides of the screen.
Then for the end credits it became obvious that this wasn't there only problem and they were in fact projecting a trapezium onto the screen that made the end credits look a little bit like the scrolling text at the beginning of Star Wars.
I muttered and moaned and vowed never to go back but I thought on the way out as I saw somebody who looked like they might be able to do something (as opposed to somebody who was just there to clean up the old popcorn containers) that I would report the problems.
So I told this bloke about the issues and he told me what the problem was. The curtain moving stuff was apparently broken and due to be replaced on thursday. And apparently, and more importantly, the image was trapeziumed because they were "having to fight against gravity". Yes, you heard it hear first. Odeon cinema george street, screen 3 has gravitational anomalies which apparently distort the spacetime contiuum enough that their projectors can't compensate.
I think what he was trying to say (or at least I'm pretty sure the reason was) that the projector was much higher than the screen and so without making adjustments you are going to get that kind of effect. When I pointed out to him that the projector that probably cost a couple of hundred quid that we use at work can adjust for this his most excellent and informative reply was to let me know that the circuit board that controlled the curtains was broken and was being replaced on Thursday (that's tomorrow though why he thought I cared that much I don't know).
I was mildly bemused by this guys responses. I would have been quite happy with an answer along the lines of "Thank you for letting us know. The problem is one we are aware of and we are doing our best to resolve it." or "Oh, I'll let the manager know about that so he can deal with it". I just got the impression instead that this guy was trying to make himself sound like he knew what he was talking about to satisfy the customer with technobabble. Its a shame really that he opened with "the projetor is having to fight against gravity".
I'm not sure that even after Thursday when they will hopefully have replaced the circuitboard for the curtains, that I will willingly go back to the odeon without some very compelling reasons. Its just more hastle, not as good a cinema and apparently attended by lots of people who can't turn up for a film on time (though it was amusing to see some people who apparently weren't sure how an aisle worked and kept trying to walk through chairs - I really have no idea what was going on there).
Anyway, that was a bit of a rant but mainly just to share the bad technobabble. :)
Oh, and he did actually after a while agree that he would get somebody to look at calibrating their projector properly...