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Film is a thing of the past at Neosho Cinema 6.
Last week the theater converted its operation to an all digital format and the spools of 35 mm film that looped their way across the back room are gone. Top quality pictures have taken their place.
“We’ve already noticed a difference in the picture and gotten tons of compliments already,” said general manager James Warner.
While he’s all about the nostalgia quality of movies film, Warner said, has needed an upgrade for a long time.
“You can compare it to a high-definition TV,” he said. “It is that crystal clear.”
The new digital picture is brighter and cleaner with no dust or scratches to lower the quality of the film.
“The presentation quality would degrade after that first week,” Warner said.
Now that will no longer be a problem.
The sound quality has also changed. All six screens now have Dolby sound equipment and a subwoofer, where only two had the subwoofer system before. Prior to the conversion screen six, their smallest house, had a blurry picture no matter what they did and the sound was dull. The upgrade fixed the picture.
“Now if you’re in the lobby you can hear theater six,” Warner said.
The building had only one digital theatre. The others used equipment from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
“Most of these projectors were initially meant for drive-ins,” Warner said, noting that they were made to point up, not down.
Keeping those old projectors maintained had been a priority. Manufacturers no longer made parts and their maintenance company either had to find a working part on another old machine or build it from scratch.
The conversion took one week. On Aug. 15 contractors shut down three of the six screens, installing and networking new projectors and Dolby sound systems. On Aug. 17 they reopened those and shut down the remaining three rooms, finishing the project last Friday in time to open their first all-digital day with “Conan the Barbarian.” The last “film” shown at Neosho Cinema 6 was “The Smurfs.”
In a way, Warner jokes, the cinema has returned to the era of the “silver” screen through 3D movies. Three of their screens are set up for 3D. Not only does 3D require the equipment “behind the curtain,” but the screen is made of a different material, a silver-gray coating with a metallic sheen. Neosho now has three 3D capable screens and is showing two 3D movies this week.
Film is a thing of the past at Neosho Cinema 6.
Last week the theater converted its operation to an all digital format and the spools of 35 mm film that looped their way across the back room are gone. Top quality pictures have taken their place.
“We’ve already noticed a difference in the picture and gotten tons of compliments already,” said general manager James Warner.
While he’s all about the nostalgia quality of movies film, Warner said, has needed an upgrade for a long time.
“You can compare it to a high-definition TV,” he said. “It is that crystal clear.”
The new digital picture is brighter and cleaner with no dust or scratches to lower the quality of the film.
“The presentation quality would degrade after that first week,” Warner said.
Now that will no longer be a problem.
The sound quality has also changed. All six screens now have Dolby sound equipment and a subwoofer, where only two had the subwoofer system before. Prior to the conversion screen six, their smallest house, had a blurry picture no matter what they did and the sound was dull. The upgrade fixed the picture.
“Now if you’re in the lobby you can hear theater six,” Warner said.
The building had only one digital theatre. The others used equipment from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
“Most of these projectors were initially meant for drive-ins,” Warner said, noting that they were made to point up, not down.
Keeping those old projectors maintained had been a priority. Manufacturers no longer made parts and their maintenance company either had to find a working part on another old machine or build it from scratch.
The conversion took one week. On Aug. 15 contractors shut down three of the six screens, installing and networking new projectors and Dolby sound systems. On Aug. 17 they reopened those and shut down the remaining three rooms, finishing the project last Friday in time to open their first all-digital day with “Conan the Barbarian.” The last “film” shown at Neosho Cinema 6 was “The Smurfs.”
In a way, Warner jokes, the cinema has returned to the era of the “silver” screen through 3D movies. Three of their screens are set up for 3D. Not only does 3D require the equipment “behind the curtain,” but the screen is made of a different material, a silver-gray coating with a metallic sheen. Neosho now has three 3D capable screens and is showing two 3D movies this week.
Also this week a server was installed in the central office area. Where employees used to run upstairs to start a film, now everything is pre-programmed in the library management system. It turns on and off all films and cues up the advertisements beforehand.
“It’s the brains of the outfit basically,” Warner said.
Movies now arrive on hard drives. Warner plugs in the drive and downloads the movie to the server and sets up the run times once a week.
“We used to get big giant boxes of film,” Warner said
Before the digital upgrade, 35 mm film sat on a platter system and had to be threaded to run over the projector through several gates and back onto the reel, almost like the insides of a giant VHS tape, except the film spooled back onto the reel so it did not need to be rewound for the next performance.
Two years ago the movie theater received its first digital projector for “Avatar.” Movies were fed directly to the projector and reviewed on a small digital output instead of their networked setup. Now a pair of large projectors and four “small” two-feet square and one-foot tall projectors run behind the scenes.
Warner is excited about the changes. Neosho’s Cinema 6, owned by B&B Theatres, is part of a growing company and saw significant investment through this upgrade, he said. Customers complement staffers on the friendly attitudes, clean theater and the higher quality pictures, he said, and that is alright with him because he likes to make customers happy.
“I like to see smiles on everybody’s face,” Warner said.
And with the new conversion he expects to see a lot more.
