digital experience

Well, i did it.
I drug my friends to a ghetto theater (Hickory 8 in this case) so we could see Spiderman 3 with a digital projector instead of flickering, scratchy, fuzzy, hairy film.

It was wonderful.

Don't get me wrong, the kids constantly running in and out of the crowded, smallish theater was annoying, and the sound was a little loud and treble-heavy. They also didn't have anything but candy and popcorn at the concession stand - no hot dogs!. (Normally i never partake of concessions, but we were running late and needed to grab something to tide us over for dinner). But the seats were very nice, large comfortable (soft) seats. Overall i give the theater itself a 6 out of 10 at best.

However, overall it was the best movie experience i've had in a long while. The picture was steady, in focus, and sharp. No hair. No scratches. No jitter. I also couldn't see any pixelation or color gradients the way i can on most digital TV's (including our basic DLP projector at home, alas). I really want to know what kind of codec and bitrate they use, and what resolution the movie and projector are. It was amazing. I don't plan on going to a non-digital theater again. Ever.

By the way, the movie itself was pretty good. Not great, but not as bad as the Fantastic Four. Definitely didn't take itself too seriously, which helped given the overall heavy emotional content of the movie. They did a good job of taking established Spiderman story lines and integrating them in interesting ways. I also very much appreciated the producers who made the trailers not giving away much of the end of the movie. There were one (or two) important characters not in the trailers that made for great effects eye-candy that weren't shown in the trailer. I don't want to say too much for those that haven't seen it, but i applaud the producers for not giving in to the urge to put every cool effects shot in the trailer. Final judgment: not a waste of money, but you're safe waiting for DVD if you have a decent home theater.

Now i have to preach to everyone else that if it is in digital, it is worth going to the movies again.

(For those that missed my rant about bad theater experiences a while back: check here)