Hello all!
I managed to catch a screening of the 3D HFR ATMOS version of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug last night at GSC One Utama. GSC OU (specifically Hall #3) is the only cinema hall in Malaysia that currently offers the Dolby Atmos experience.
What is this Dolby Atmos anyway? Feel free to click here to learn more about it. A probably easy to spot difference between the current conventional speaker system with this Atmos system is that there are now speakers located above the audience in the theatre! In a nutshell, Dolby Atmos endeavours to give the audience an ever more immersive movie-going experience.
Interested? So now you know what it is, and where you can catch a movie using this particular sound system, but what's the cost? I do not believe that GSC offers the Dolby Atmos experience at a premium over the conventional 2D experience, currently. I paid RM19 to watch the 3D HFR ATMOS version last night, and you would have to pay RM14 (which is essentially minus the RM5 cost of renting the 3D specs) for the 2D ATMOS version. These prices are only from GSC, mind you. If you want to compare prices between GSC and other cinemas, by all means, go ahead, but as I highlighted earlier, the HFR (feel free to read up on my experience of an HFR screening here) and ATMOS experience is currently only available at GSC. Kudos GSC :)
With the logistics out of the way, what was the Dolby Atmos experience like? It was an "ear opening" experience, by all means. Of course just before the feature presentation, Dolby had to show off its Dolby Atmos demo showcase so that the audience is made aware of the impending new experience. This demo will pan the sound not just around the audience (considered so 'yesterday' now) but above them and across them as well. The demo essentially thrusts the audience in the middle of a maple (?) tree in the autumn season, so as you are moving in the tree, you hear the rustling of the leaves as the fall off the tree. I thought it was a good showcase but I was left thinking perhaps they could have done better; what better super surround sound experience would you like to hear? Sound off in the comments, please. Personally, I thought maybe being in a water element might be more realistic. Perhaps standing in the rain in a city with the various cityscape sounds going off around you?
Anyway, on to the feature presentation; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and its Dolby Atmos experience. I recall very clearly a scene where the camera was looking down on one of the movie's protagonists and this camera was actually offering a viewpoint of an assailant (think Orc). So in this scene, the protagonist (perhaps it was Legolas?) would we looking up ready to fight the Orc which was going to jump right onto him. Since we were the audience, and we were looking at the protagonist, the sound of the Orc's battle cry would rightfully, in conventional cinemas, come from behind the audience, but instead, the film makers are now able to project the sound from the speakers located above the audience, which more accurately places the sound versus a conventional sound system. It makes sense, right?
Other than the above standout scene, I had trouble pinning down any more benefits from the Dolby Atmos system. Could it be that the movie simply did not take full advantange of the hugely improved soundscape potential? Or perhaps I was too engrossed in the story of the movie to actually notice what was going on sound-wise?
Feel free to watch a Dolby Atmos screening of a movie; Hobbit or otherwise and leave your comments on how it sounded to you!
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Gravity in IMAX 3D at TGV One Utama
Hello,
I would just like to rave that I liked the IMAX 3D presentation of Gravity at TGV One Utama (OU). It was an experience unlike any I had before. I would credit this site that I visited just before deciding on IMAX 3D or "plain 'ol 2D" (my default standard now) and I am indeed eternally grateful. And you will find that there are other sites that recommend watching Gravity in IMAX 3D; e.g. See ‘Gravity’ in IMAX 3D or forever hate yourself. You can count on my blog promoting Gravity in IMAX 3D as well!
For whatever reason, the 2310hrs slot that I chose on a week night did not have many takers (duh!), so I was able to comfortably choose a dead centre seat (at least it seemed like dead centre to me) in the ~7 month old TGV IMAX 3D theatre. Side note: apparently there were a couple of bloggers who were invited to attend the launch and I could count at least 3 local bloggers who blogged about the launch, interesting..
I was a reasonably frequently visitor of the TGV Sunway Pyramid IMAX theatre but after experiencing the OU IMAX experience, I will definitely put OU as my default option for IMAX presentations now. I will tell you why.
First of all, the TGV ticket purchasing experience was pleasant enough. It is good for the consumer (that's us) that GSC and TGV took different approaches to the ticket purchasing experience. They differ in the sense that
I do like the option to just flash a 2D barcode at the scanner though..but that's just me.
Secondly, the cinema itself, though perhaps on the darker side, does offer up pretty decent popcorn combos. I actually wanted to try the Royale Popcorn Double Crunch but that was already sold out at 2300hrs. Since it was already quite late in terms of the cinema's business hours, I am not sure whether they ran out of that popcorn just in time with the cinema's last movie(s) or whether the Royale Popcorn was indeed a bestseller. For what it's worth, the waiter did say it was popular.
Nevertheless, I managed to snag the next best popcorn (I think it was the standard popcorn available) and mineral water combo (let's all live slightly healthier lives, shall we?). The popcorn did have good texture and taste and kept me coming back for more. I was impressed. I do not have the figures on how much it set me back though.
Tickets got us inside the theatre, popcorn and water in tow, so the following comments would be regarding the theatre hall itself. Spacious. Seemingly more available seats when compared to its TGV Sunway Pyramid IMAX equivalent. No complaints here.
Next, the sound quality. I could probably sum it up as 'great'. The surround worked well, with the sound of whizzing objects (think space station in trouble and you get the idea) being articulated well enough through the hall's speakers to make the Gravity experience more believable. Dialogue was crystal clear. I think the dialogue being conveyed clearly is important, because I do not recall reading subtitles in this IMAX presentation, or others before it for that matter.
The video quality. My, my, this is indeed the standard for IMAX 3D presentations specifically, as well as for 3D presentations in general from now on. Period. It captures as close as possible the feeling of being in space, and an astronaut confirmed this right here too: Real-Life Astronaut Weighs In on ‘Gravity’. I even felt queasy during some scenes, but again, every person has different biological characteristics so you may not feel the same as I did, but to feel as if you are rotating in space along with the characters is definitely an experience not to be missed.
With my video quality comment above, consider this posting done and dusted. In summary, if you've ever wanted to feel like you were in space, an IMAX 3D presentation would probably be your cheapest entry to the experience. No kidding.
That said, I believe the movie and movie Cineplex industry should probably 'gravitate' towards these 'Gravity' kind of movie-going experiences in order to continue being relevant in today's home theatre in a box, home theatre on your PC, etc generation. The movie-going experience MUST continue to be an experience that enthrals its moviegoers, otherwise, we could just sit at home and wait for the movie to be available via our favourite movie subscription channel and watch it on our big screen TVs with 5.1 or even 7.1 surround sound in a sound padded room...
Thanks for reading!
I would just like to rave that I liked the IMAX 3D presentation of Gravity at TGV One Utama (OU). It was an experience unlike any I had before. I would credit this site that I visited just before deciding on IMAX 3D or "plain 'ol 2D" (my default standard now) and I am indeed eternally grateful. And you will find that there are other sites that recommend watching Gravity in IMAX 3D; e.g. See ‘Gravity’ in IMAX 3D or forever hate yourself. You can count on my blog promoting Gravity in IMAX 3D as well!
For whatever reason, the 2310hrs slot that I chose on a week night did not have many takers (duh!), so I was able to comfortably choose a dead centre seat (at least it seemed like dead centre to me) in the ~7 month old TGV IMAX 3D theatre. Side note: apparently there were a couple of bloggers who were invited to attend the launch and I could count at least 3 local bloggers who blogged about the launch, interesting..
I was a reasonably frequently visitor of the TGV Sunway Pyramid IMAX theatre but after experiencing the OU IMAX experience, I will definitely put OU as my default option for IMAX presentations now. I will tell you why.
First of all, the TGV ticket purchasing experience was pleasant enough. It is good for the consumer (that's us) that GSC and TGV took different approaches to the ticket purchasing experience. They differ in the sense that
- GSC would like the consumer to be a registered member in order to be able to purchase a ticket; try going to this GSC E-Payment link and you would be greeted with a members only notification, whereas
- TGV is flexible enough to allow ticket purchase without ever logging in.Of course, the consumer would still have to provide some personal details like Name, Email and Phone, not to mention your post code in TGV's case.
I do like the option to just flash a 2D barcode at the scanner though..but that's just me.
Secondly, the cinema itself, though perhaps on the darker side, does offer up pretty decent popcorn combos. I actually wanted to try the Royale Popcorn Double Crunch but that was already sold out at 2300hrs. Since it was already quite late in terms of the cinema's business hours, I am not sure whether they ran out of that popcorn just in time with the cinema's last movie(s) or whether the Royale Popcorn was indeed a bestseller. For what it's worth, the waiter did say it was popular.
Nevertheless, I managed to snag the next best popcorn (I think it was the standard popcorn available) and mineral water combo (let's all live slightly healthier lives, shall we?). The popcorn did have good texture and taste and kept me coming back for more. I was impressed. I do not have the figures on how much it set me back though.
Tickets got us inside the theatre, popcorn and water in tow, so the following comments would be regarding the theatre hall itself. Spacious. Seemingly more available seats when compared to its TGV Sunway Pyramid IMAX equivalent. No complaints here.
Next, the sound quality. I could probably sum it up as 'great'. The surround worked well, with the sound of whizzing objects (think space station in trouble and you get the idea) being articulated well enough through the hall's speakers to make the Gravity experience more believable. Dialogue was crystal clear. I think the dialogue being conveyed clearly is important, because I do not recall reading subtitles in this IMAX presentation, or others before it for that matter.
The video quality. My, my, this is indeed the standard for IMAX 3D presentations specifically, as well as for 3D presentations in general from now on. Period. It captures as close as possible the feeling of being in space, and an astronaut confirmed this right here too: Real-Life Astronaut Weighs In on ‘Gravity’. I even felt queasy during some scenes, but again, every person has different biological characteristics so you may not feel the same as I did, but to feel as if you are rotating in space along with the characters is definitely an experience not to be missed.
With my video quality comment above, consider this posting done and dusted. In summary, if you've ever wanted to feel like you were in space, an IMAX 3D presentation would probably be your cheapest entry to the experience. No kidding.
That said, I believe the movie and movie Cineplex industry should probably 'gravitate' towards these 'Gravity' kind of movie-going experiences in order to continue being relevant in today's home theatre in a box, home theatre on your PC, etc generation. The movie-going experience MUST continue to be an experience that enthrals its moviegoers, otherwise, we could just sit at home and wait for the movie to be available via our favourite movie subscription channel and watch it on our big screen TVs with 5.1 or even 7.1 surround sound in a sound padded room...
Thanks for reading!
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