Why the obsession with big screens? Surely you get worse definition? (2 Viewers)

[John H Ross]

There are lots of elements that help to tell the story. Actors, production designers, special effects, music, costume designers, sound engineers...

From my point of view (and I'll try not to wander off the point too much here) music is a far more important element of telling the story than, say, special effects. Take an empty starfield with a huge spaceship moving through it. The special effects "only" tell you that there's a starfield and a spaceship. The music tells you whether you're watching something big and exciting (the opening of Star Wars) or something cold and creepy (the opening of Alien), or indeed something mildly ridiculous (Spaceballs!) I will always argue that sound is at least 50% of the experience, perhaps even 60% and yet "average" people put a lot more emphasis on picture than sound. A few of the people I know own massive TV sets but use the tiny speakers in those sets for their audio output. Ridiculous.

Why are cinema screens so big? Is it to tell the story, or to make special effects shots look more impressive? Or is it simply to enable several hundred seats to be placed in a theatre without making the image too small for the people sitting at the back? Cinemas used to have balconies too - presumably to get even more people in front of the screen. Will balconies be installed in the home soon too? I mean I'm sure Lawrence Of Arabia was shown to people on balconies...

I think larger screens are important for the home environment if your seating position is so far away that you cannot see a smaller image properly. That's just common sense. But all of this mathematical hoopla about peripheral vision etc, I'm still not quite sold on it. I guess this all get back to the simple logic that if you have a big room you need a big TV but if you have a small room you only need a small TV.

Okay, it's getting a bit off track now

 

[John Dirk]

Although not interesting to me personally, that is a valid point.

Thanks

John

 

[PaulDA]

Music is very important for movies (it's why, even when I had a 19" CRT SDTV, I had a lot of coin tied up in the audio portion of my gear). Even silent film benefited greatly from the accompanying music. And I can see, of course, the practical dimension of a big screen in the cinema to allow lots of people to watch simultaneously. However, as with many other things, artists take what is available and produce works that were not possible before certain inventions/tools were around. Filmmakers began deliberately composing their visuals in order to use the big screen to its fullest advantage (not always, of course, which brings us back to the fact that many films can be enjoyed on "small" TVs). But in the cases where the large "canvas" was being used to maximum effect, seeing it drastically reduced in size has a disproportionately greater negative effect on the experience. For a long time, we simply had to live with that. Those who could afford to equip their homes with a semblance of a cinema were exceedingly rare. Today, thanks to technological breakthroughs, far more people can do so if they wish. And those who can are able to more closely recreate the experience, for example, of seeing Lawrence of Arabia as it was intended (as it is clear from the way Lean directed the film that portraying the vastness of the desert is INTEGRAL to the story and not some incidental byproduct). Does this mean one cannot enjoy Lawrence of Arabia on a 27" TV? Of course not. But I think there are relatively few people who like that film who would not enjoy it more on a "big screen". When I watch a movie on my living room TV (27" CRT), I can enjoy the movie (and I have many, many times) but I'm "watching a movie on TV". I do NOT get the same experience as seeing it at the cinema. When I watch a movie on my 64 inch DIY screen with my front projector (screen size selected to match my preferred seating distance at the cinema using relative distance/viewing angles), I'm "at the movies". My audio system is superior to 90% of the local cinemas, the size of the movie from where I am sitting is a very close approximation of the cinema experience and I can take a bathroom break (if needed, though I don't like interrupting a movie) without missing anything (and my snacks are much better, and cheaper, than at the cinema ).

My long-winded point is two-fold. First, while I've spent years enjoying films on "ordinary TVs" (and that I think the audio portion is at least equally important--much more of my money is in audio than in my display), it is now possible for me to be "at the movies" at home. If that doesn't float one's boat, so be it. But just like no one should denigrate someone for choosing a smaller screen (for whatever reason), the reverse should also be true (not that I think you, personally, have been denigrating a "big screen"). Second, I think that there are some films that absolutely do require a "big screen" to be properly appreciated (and I don't think that is a "failure") and it is the existence of such films (Lawrence and 2001 are but two of them) that motivated me to get a "big screen".

 

[Walter Kittel]

Absolutely. Never having the opportunity to see films such as The Searchers, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bridge on the River Kwai, Hud, The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly, Ben Hur, Spartacus, A Clockwork Orange, The Ten Commandments, Once Upon A Time In the West, etc., etc. theatrically; I can not overstate how awe inspiring it was to see these films come alive on a large screen (even via LD) when I purchased my first Front Projector in 1998.

- Walter.

 

[GregK]

For me, Post #53 sums things up quite nicely. I was able to read her eyes on LD and DVD, "knowing" there's something I should be seeing, but when projected, the point is hard to miss. To further that point, when I was looking into front projectors, I remember someone over in the AVS forum doing a comparison with a 27" 720P HDTV set and a 480P front projection system. So not only (in this given comparison) were the pixels "not as dense" as described per your original post as the 27" HD version, but there were actually far less in this case, as the front projector was 480x854. He had the two images side by side, and while he would notice more intricate detail in the HD version, he was always drawn back to the larger image, which highlighted things that were often lost on the smaller (but more detailed) 27" HD image. My experiences have mirrored this as well when using various HD monitors, and feel it is vital for 35mm and 70mm features. So many times when it comes to the various aspects of film, we immediately think of resolution, aspect ratio, contrast, and the other "usual" technical specs. But it is also just as important to consider size. Was Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, or Forbidden Planet composed for a Scope image some 27" inches wide or less? Absolutely not! When a friend and videographer came over to preview my DLP projector, he wanted to watch Lord of the Rings, a Scope aspect feature he has seen many many times, including HD versions. When he watched the standard DVD version upconverted and displayed on my 120" screen, afterwards he said he noticed a number of nuances in the feature that he had never noticed on his various smaller screens viewings, and had really enjoyed the big screen video experience. Again, I'm not saying resolution and the other technical aspect are not key, as they certainly are. But the display size plays an important factor as well that is not to be underestimated.

 

[Doug_H]

I agree that sound is 50-60% of the film but there are few things that drive me as crazy as someone with a 27" TV and a great sound system playing at reference level.

The sound is much bigger than the picture, the drama, terror, awe is lost. I have an FP in my main room and the sound fits the image. I have a 42" in the livingroom and keep the volume at a much lower level. I couldn't stand to listen to the full refernce sound on that TV, it was out of place.

Distance to screen plays a large part of this but I feel it is not possible to get the immersion on a very small screen.