Godzilla AKA Gojira returns!

Hi there,

I was fortunate enough to be able to catch Godzilla relatively early on in its Malaysian release. 

I chose to experience Godzilla at (GSC) Golden Screen Cinema's (and Malaysia's) one and only Dolby Atmos theatre which is actually Hall 3 in Golden Screen Cinema 1 Utama. 

I paid for the ticket online and simply printed out the selfprint ticket which would allow me through the turnstile. 

QR code at the ready

Below is how the turnstile scans the QR code and subsequently opens up the gates to your chosen (and paid for) cinema experience.

Make sure the QR code is within that scanning window (obscured by the paper) and you're good to go!

 My chosen seat this time around was seat H14. I was fortunate that I arrived just in time before any commercial/trailer had begun (how early is that?!) and there weren't many people. It being the first show on a Thursday probably had something to do with it. :P

I managed to take a photo of the viewpoint from my seat. Here it is:

Methinks this view is pretty decent. What do you think?

The minutes ticked by. It was only then that I realised that I hadn't been early, the show itself was delayed. Oh dear. A fellow audience member (seated a row above me) chatted with his friend. He said there were delays previously, up to half an hour, but I wasn't sure whether he meant this particular Atmos theatre (Hall 3) or just a delay in general in GSC's cinema services. Why wasn't I sure? Because he spoke in a language that I have yet to understand; Cantonese with some English thrown in. Seeing as the movie was not going to start soon, I took out my phone, and started to take some notes regarding my 2nd Atmos experience, just in case I forgot anything later. 

Moments after that, I heard our fellow from a row above change his topic to smartphones. He talked about phones with pretty good specs, like a 5" screen, 13MP camera, but don't expect the build quality of a smartphone that costs thousands of Ringgit. I assumed he was talking about some new, cheaper smartphone emerging in the Malaysian market; perhaps any one of these: 

• Xiaomi's Mi 3 which would be available for purchase from May 20th 2014 at RM889
• Oneplus' One of which I have no details on its Malaysian availability or pricing, sorry!

 It's nice to know that the phone in my hand could generate a conversation elsewhere! Anyway, their conversation, in turn, led me to try benchmarking the data connection in Hall 3 of GSC. Why not? I noticed that the data connection seemed speedy enough. So i ran a Speedtest and the result is below:

It's OK-ish..nothing to shout about I guess

It's decent..in terms of download performance. The ping and upload needs work though. I recall, at least, that a ping > 500ms is synonymous with an unplayable online gaming experience. Am I right? :D

Back to the movie experience! I timed 1208hrs as the time when the first trailer popped up on screen. So we were 8 minutes late already. Which trailer was it? Why, none other than ...

Yup, guess I've got to book my calendar for this too. After 20 minutes of advertisements and a "The Purge" trailer, the famous THX demonstration played. So, this is a THX cinema? Cool. It was followed by 2 (count 'em!) Dolby Atmos demos. I wondered why there were 2. Perhaps they came up with a new one. I liked the newer one better, that's for sure. It seemed to really leverage the 64 speakers in the Hall.

I remember the movie proper started to 'roll' (perhaps once upon a time it rolled, because movies were a series of pictures in a 'can' displayed at a certain speed) at 1228hrs. 

I liked the movie and its presentation. I would say 2D is definitely the way to watch this movie. I've no idea whether 3D has any momentum left in it nowadays. I want to ask GSC/TGV in Malaysia; how are 3D ticket sales going? Are they still selling well? If it's not selling well, what happens to the 3D theatres? Will they be selling off the 3D specs? Are people even buying 3D television sets?

You see, I watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 3D and throughout the movie, I wished I could just watch it in 2D, and that's never a nice feeling to have hang over you whilst watching a movie! As I said in a previous post, I praised Gravity for being an excellent 3D movie. A 3D showcase, if you will. Other than that, I've not been impressed with any 3D movie lately..

Let me share with you one highlight from watching Godzilla. As the character played by Ken Watanabe was introducing Godzilla to the audience, he said on-screen "We call him.." and someone from the audience sportingly and spontaneously cried out "Gojira!" That moment certainly made me laugh! Thanks for livening up the theatre man!

Honda Service Centre provides certain level of comfort while you wait

 Fancy some hot coffee and biscuits while you wait? Honda's got you covered.

What's that? You brought your kids with you? No problem, Kids' Corner to the rescue!

Your device is 'tired out' from all that surfing you're doing? There's a handy mobile charger station but I think it's slightly defunct now. Which one of you has a powerbank handy? :)

If you've brought your laptop or Ehem! Microsoft Surface with you, then you could probably sit at this 'Free Wifi' corner complete with your own deskspace! (Yeah wall power outlets included)

Dear Readers,

If you've ever sent your car for service and chose to stay on until the service was completed, you would probably be wondering what you could possibly do while waiting. Hey, we're now in the Age of the Internet, so first of all, you've got the world in the palm of your hand or hands (depending on the size of your chosen device).

I took the above photos at a Honda service centre (though it might not seem all that apparent).

What the photos missed though, was that the customer pantry had stocks of instant noodles as well as a drinks machine which could churn out coffee and tea related drinks for you in a jiffy. Thumbs up!

Overall, I waited just under 2 hours, so it's not too long a wait. I spent the time looking at the new car models, talked with a Salesperson, surfed the web and read and answered instant messages on my phone and suddenly the Service Attendant (not sure what you call them) came to me and said that the car is ready.

How do all of you service your cars? Sound off in the comments!

Side by side comparison between maxis 4G and celcom 4G

Dear Readers,

I was fortunate to have bumped into a friend who indulged in my curiosity. I wanted to see how Maxis 4G and Celcom 4G performed in the same place, at the same time. But not on identical devices I'm afraid.

The time: 26th Feb 2014
The place: The Curve

First, here's Celcom 4G results on a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (SM-N9005):

 

Next, we compare that with the Maxis 4G results on a 2013 spec HTC One:

Now, it's by no means representative of the overall performance of each carrier, but at least we have a marker to start with.

 Let me know what all of you think in the comments section :-)

Internet Access at 47300

Hello again,

On a roll here. I didn't recently upgrade to UniFi VIP 10 but I just decided to share the speed test result (obtained from www.speedtest.net ) with all of you:

I would say that the speedtest result is pretty decent, wouldn't you? Kudos to UniFi

That's the reason why I have a hard time giving up UniFi in favour of Maxis' offering. Unless some Maxis users can share their speedtest results and their overall experience with me? Thanks in advance.

Multimedia kiosk internet access at KLIA for free?

Dear readers,

I was waiting around for some guests to arrive at KLIA some time last year, when I decided to experiment with one of the Multimedia kiosks located just near one of the entrances. Here's what I found.

 This is a photo of the main interface that greets the user if the user wants to try and get Internet Access.

 I clicked on Google, to try and see if Internet Access is indeed free. A pop-up window promptly appeared, informing me that I need to insert some cash or swipe a credit card in order for me to experience Internet Access at this Multimedia Kiosk.

 That's fine, perhaps I shall surf for some information regarding KLIA instead. How many of us know much about our favourite Malaysian airport anyway?  I clicked on the Leisure tab shown in the photo above, to discover what opportunities for Leisure are available in KLIA.

I saw that KLIA offers the above depicted services. OK, let's try Business Centre. A predictable service offered for the many business travellers out there.

 Lo and behold, I saw a link to a website down at the bottom of the Business Centre description page. A thought crossed my mind, "What if I clicked on the available link here? Would it take me to the internet? Would my access still be restricted only to information regarding KLIA?" I clicked on it.

 A Google page came up! That's nice. So Google is telling me that the link I clicked on just now is no longer available. Go ahead and try the link I showed in the photo on your desktop browser or mobile device. I just did, it showed the exact same 404 error today as it did that day. 

But wait! A Google page came up...to get to Google would mean that I got through to the Internet somehow and the Internet (Google that is) responded in kind with the 404 message. Could it be that I'm already experiencing Internet Access, but without paying by cash or credit card?

 What should one do to test whether one has a reasonably good internet access? There's nothing like streaming videos off the Internet, I guess. I went to youtube and it's just as depicted in the screenshot above.

 Perhaps one of the more interesting videos or music videos at that time was 'What does the fox say?' So I tried that.

 Yup, no problems whatsoever playing back that video.

 

And as depicted in the slightly zoomed out screenshot above, all video surfing activities were conducted on RM00.00 credit. Well, it was just 1 video, but hey :)

What do you think? Are multimedia kiosks still needed in this day and age of mobile/on the go, computing? Or are they mere relics of a bygone era? Should people even be charged for Internet Access nowadays when there are entire countries that provide Internet Access for free to its citizens? Some for free since as far back as 2003.



Does KLIA have Free WiFi you ask? Apparently they do offer free WiFi. Enjoy!

3D HFR Screening of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug! + Dolby Atmos!

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!

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

1. 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
2. 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.

As with the 'standard/normal' ticket purchasing, the ticket is sent to an email address of your choosing and you would have to print it out for proof of purchase. I do not think there's an option for you to just show/flash a 2D barcode, ala GSC.

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!