Welcome to BigScreenBiz.com

Hi John/ I knnow that lcd can't compare but I've seen some in small situations that were quite passable. Are you saying that DLP will leap right over LCD? You also say "for a few 1000.00's and a good quality monitor..." Do you mean TV monitor or screen to project onto? In any event: I agree with you about complacency. My fear is that the big boys of exhib and distrib will make a side deal to go full digital with the distribs picking up the cost and the smaller outfits can go pound sand. That's one reason I've welcomed the melt down of the exhibs as it seems to insure a more eglatarian roll-out should the day come.

There is a long history of emerging new technology that was supposed to be the kiss of death to movie theaters. From videos to home theaters to the Internet to DVD, all these things were going to make movie theaters obsolete. The fact is as long as it drags you out of your house, it’s not going to shut down most cinemas. Home entertainment centers are just that: for the home. I’d go nuts if I had to spend the weekend in my living-room, no matter how good the technology. There is nothing that replaces sharing a movie with a hundred other people who loved it or hated it as much as you. We are social beings, and no matter how much the technophiles tell us that what we have in our home can be better than what’s in the common theater, there is a huge part of Who We Are that wants to commune with other movie-goers. Besides, technology has never made a bad movie a good movie.
The real threat is in the technology within the theaters. As the technology emerges to make presentation easier and more profitable for the movies companies, they will stop at nothing to make sure it is implemented. The millisecond the movie companies believe they have a new format to replace cumbersome film, we will be forced to change over to it or be left behind. Those of us who have operated for decades in the shadow of the “Big Boys” of exhibition have no trouble seeing them making a deal that disregards the viability of smaller cinemas. Our exclusion from the technology may not be a matter of intent, but it will be the way things go if we don’t see it coming. It is my hope that as people become more aware of how corporations are seizing control over every aspect of their lives, the people will be the ones to speak out against small theaters being steamrollered under so film companies can make another several billion for their shareholders. And the voice they will use will be how they spend their dollars. It is not inconceivable that companies that push exclusive technology could find themselves on the business end of a boycott.
Damn, I gotta start drinking coffee again. Way too cranky . . . .