Chris Nolan Saving Movie Theaters

[John Brawley]

And, since I did occasionally venture out to the movie theaters then, I can tell that, not only the high end home theater was better, most customers were shocked at how much better it was.

As I said, I saw what high end home cinema could be in 1990 and it's still my vehement opinion that there's no way that a high end home cinema system based on STANDARD DEFINITION NTSC COLOR playing back from a LASER DISC could compete with a well set up cinema. (Not to mention there was no way to get new released films because there was at least a 3 year release window on films to home entertainment back then)

If you think otherwise I think it's best to leave it at that because your opinion doesn't tally at all with my experience.

Re the samsung, it's a *trial*. They aren't selling them yet, it's just what the title says. I found it to be quite good just on visuals. Aside from Dolby vision, most digital projection doesn't do very good black.


JB

[DLD]

I don't think we're disagreeing on the technical aspects. The resolution is higher on home screens while the dynamic range is greater on film. We disagree on the public perception of home vs. movie theater, where just judging from posts on this forum, home theater gets the edge.

PS. The idea exploded around 1986 where one could get a Dolby Surround receiver and a decent TV for a reasonable price. Even on VHS, people were stoked about having the antidote vial being kicked across the screen in the "Temple of Doom" or feeling F-14's fly "above" them in "Top Gun". The rear projection TV's took off in 1989 when Mitsubishi came out with 4502 at $2,700 and 5002 at $3,000, with a claimed 700 lines of resolution. They could not produce enough units to satisfy the demand and my employer, a well known big screen retailer in the greater LA area, had to scramble to find available units across the US. Working on the Westside of LA, our location had a substantial numbers of the entertainment industry customers and there was a huge interest on both the big screens and the HTS.

And, yes, I could drop some names ... but I won't.

Cheers.

PS. I thought the "Watchers" had a lot of nice shots. The Olympus video quality is generally ignored but, in the right hands, it's more than workable.

[David Jimerson]

(Not to mention there was no way to get new released films because there was at least a 3 year release window on films to home entertainment back then)

Not sure that's so. I had Ghostbusters on VHS in 1985 and Back to the Future in 1986. I didn't really pay close attention to everything, but I do remember Fatal Attraction being available in 1988.

[Batutta]

Not sure that's so. I had Ghostbusters on VHS in 1985 and Back to the Future in 1986. I didn't really pay close attention to everything, but I do remember Fatal Attraction being available in 1988.

Yeah, it varied depending on the movie. E.T. didn't hit VHS for six years. The Star Wars films took several years. Back then, I think they waited until all theatrical and TV revenue had dried up before releasing to VHS. If a film was really popular it stayed in theatres for years back then.

[Run&Gun]

Not sure that's so. I had Ghostbusters on VHS in 1985 and Back to the Future in 1986. I didn't really pay close attention to everything, but I do remember Fatal Attraction being available in 1988.

Yeah, it varied depending on the movie. E.T. didn't hit VHS for six years. The Star Wars films took several years. Back then, I think they waited until all theatrical and TV revenue had dried up before releasing to VHS. If a film was really popular it stayed in theatres for years back then.

If I remember correctly, as I was still a kid, movies were very expensive to purchase on VHS in the early days, by today’s standards. I remember when I first started noticing them for sale in stores and it was nothing to see $50, $75, $100+ for a title.

[James0b57]

If I remember correctly, as I was still a kid, movies were very expensive to purchase on VHS in the early days, by today’s standards. I remember when I first started noticing them for sale in stores and it was nothing to see $50, $75, $100+ for a title.

Eyeballs are what is valuable now. Used to be content. Now, just trying to get an audience with all the options out there is pretty crazy.

[DLD]

If I remember correctly, as I was still a kid, movies were very expensive to purchase on VHS in the early days, by today’s standards. I remember when I first started noticing them for sale in stores and it was nothing to see $50, $75, $100+ for a title.

This began to change around 1986/1987 when two things happened - almost everyone had a VCR at home and many began to give away/make pirated copies (even if "FBI protected") off two VCR's connected to one another. Early, in that era, the premier movies came out at $80-$90 retail (wholesale was around $55-$60) as specifically "rental" prices, i.e., sold to the video stores. What happened afterwards was that the demand for these top titles waned after 2-3 months, so if a store had twenty copies of a top film, within three months, it had close to a dozen pieces lodged permanently on shelves. That, obviously, tied up very valuable shelf space and so stores began to sell used copies for $25-$30. At that point, if a film was rented out for 60+ days at $2/day, it more than paid for its $60 wholesale, and with a tidy profit on top of that. Selling a popular title when it was still popular was a cherry on top. But it killed the new market for the studio releases because paying $90 for a new VHS tape was extremely rare. So, studios matched the program, offering a "for sale" pricing after 90-120 days or so. The cost of a VHS tape was around $1.50, including the carton cover box.

And then studios realized how huge the market was. If one looks back at the box office receipts of that era, a film like the "Terminator" grossed $38M in North America, with a mega hit being anything over $100M domestic. Well, Disney's "Cinderella" - an evergreen classic, as it's called - came out on VHS in 1989, sold 17 million copies and grossed over $108M (IIRC, it was priced at $14, the wholesale was $8 and Walmart and Target could easily sell it for $6). Well, after studios resisting this idea for years, the floodgates opened up. The number of tapes became so immense, almost everything became available, if not immediately, then by special order and it's been like this until the streamers took over the old inventory.

[David Jimerson]

Yeah, it varied depending on the movie. E.T. didn't hit VHS for six years. The Star Wars films took several years. Back then, I think they waited until all theatrical and TV revenue had dried up before releasing to VHS. If a film was really popular it stayed in theatres for years back then.

I remember the more popular it was, the longer it would be before they showed it on TV. It was a really big deal when Star Wars made its network debut. They had a pre-show with the stars.

EDIT: OK, it was just Hamill.

It does seem to me, though, that I was always able to rent the last year's biggest movies the next summer.

[David Jimerson]

If I remember correctly, as I was still a kid, movies were very expensive to purchase on VHS in the early days, by today’s standards. I remember when I first started noticing them for sale in stores and it was nothing to see $50, $75, $100+ for a title.

Yeah, early on it was pretty expensive.

[DLD]

.... At that point, if a film was rented out for 60+ days at $2/day, it more than paid for its $60 wholesale, and with a tidy profit on top of that. Selling a popular title when it was still popular was a cherry on top. But it killed the new market for the studio releases because paying $90 for a new VHS tape was extremely rare. So, studios matched the program, offering a "for sale" pricing after 90-120 days or so...

Minor correction on terminology, as it dawned on me again. $25-$30 was known as "sell-through" pricing and most consumers waited out these 3-4 months in order to purchase a brand new, unopened tape. That, to some extent, made the video store chains buy fewer copies as "rentals" because it became harder for them to resell used ones. The video chains also demanded either a longer delay for the price drop or, more frequently, lower upfront prices. And, within a year or so, the retail price went down from $80-$90 to $60-$70 and the used tapes to $10-$15, or about half of fresh ones. In terms of types, parents preferred to purchase new copies for their kids to watch in perpetuity. The $10-$15 oldies fell into into the "I like it but it's not like it's my favorite film of all time or anything" category.