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The Death of the American Drive-in
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Claire Suddath writes in Businessweek that the number of drive-ins in America has dwindled from over 4,000 in the 1960s to about 360 today. Since Hollywood distributors are expected to stop producing movies in traditional 35 millimeter film by the end of this year and switch entirely to digital, America's last remaining drive-ins — the majority of which are still family-owned and seasonally operated — could soon be gone. 'We have challenges that other movie theaters don't,' says John Vincent, president of United Drive-In Theater Owners Association and the owner of Wellfleet Drive-In in Cape Cod, Mass. 'We have fewer screens and can only show one or two movies a night. Now we have to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to stay in business.' According to Vincent, only 150 drive-ins have converted to digital so far — the other 210 have until the end of the year either to get with the program or go out of business. It may seem silly to fret over the fate of 210 movie theaters whose business model is outdated, even compared with regular movie theaters, but Honda Motor Co. is offering help with a program called 'Project Drive-In.' The car company is planning to give away five digital projectors by the end of the year. Winners will be determined by voting from the public, which can be done online through Sept. 9 at ProjectDriveIn.com. 'Cars and drive-in theaters go hand in hand,' says Alicia Jones, manager of Honda & Acura social marketing, 'and it's our mission to save this slice of Americana that holds such nostalgia for many of us.'"
http://projectdrivein.com/
502 Bad Gateway
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
'Cars and drive-in theaters go hand in hand,'
Someone give her a coconut.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
were a blast, much more of a social event or rather gathering and just plain fun.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Perhaps the requirements for displaying a bright image 100 feet away outdoors is higher than your pocket alarm clock LED projector?
c++;
In what world do you live where your cheapo home projector is the equivalent to that required in a drive-in?
You might as well ask why a Lamborghini cost is six figures since you bought a CitroÃn C1 last week for less than ten thousand.
A good consumer level digital projector has to be able to project an image covering an area of twenty square feet or so before it becomes so dim that it's unpleasant and will be designed to work with a screen only ten or fifteen feet away. That requires only one or two thousand lumens of output. What you bought for 30 quid probably produces a few hundred lumens.
The digital projector for a theater has to project an image that will cover over a hundred square feet without being so dim that it's unpleasant and the screen is most likely fifty to a hundred feet away depending on the size of the theater. The output needed to do that is on the order of 20,000 lumens and up.
Therefore the headline "The Death of the American Drive-In" comes about 50 years too late. It's not "news" anymore, and it hasn't been for as long as I've been alive.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"You might as well ask why a Lamborghini cost is six figures since you bought a CitroÃfn C1 last week for less than ten thousand."
Well, for a better car analogy is more like asking why a 16-wheeler is more expensive than my C1.
A new drive-in (a mom-n-pop type operation) opened this year in West Michigan, and seems to be doing quite well, and there's a long-standing 4-screen drive-in complex (owned by the local cinema chain) – already converted to digital – about an hour away. Meanwhile there's a popular weekly free-movies-in-the-park program in East Grand Rapids. Watching movies outdoors is still pretty popular, so if they're run properly, offering a social experience that people can't get in the living room or crowded into theater rows, there's no reason drive-ins can't stay in business.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
At least here in North Texas, there has been a bit of a drive-in revival. Some guy built several of them, and they are really quite nice. So nice, in fact, that any time I want to see a movie, I go to the drive in rather than a regular theater. Their tickets are cheaper, at $6 per person, you always get a double feature (even sometimes one of the movies is garbage), and the snack bar has really good food for the same price you would pay at any other restaurant. Of course, you can bring your own food and drink as well.
Any drive ins that are struggling are likely mismanaged. They need to look at what the successful ones are doing and mimic them. So long as there aren't competing theaters in smaller towns, they should do just fine.
The drive in here is insanly popular and has been for years. It's mainly high school students and has been for years. The age group attending never changed.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
My kids are grown up now, but when they were very young is was a great way for us to see a movie without having to get a baby sitter. Next time you hear a child act up in a theater, think to yourself, gee I wish those parents could take their kid to a drive in.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Heavy Metal back in 1981 or 1982 when it first came out, back then the war on drugs was not intensified by Ronald Reagan and sneaking a 6 pack of beer and smoking a little weed at the drive-in was no big deal about half the people at the drive-in was doing it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Metal_(film)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Well, obviously you're paying for all those extra wheels.
The local theatre in our town shows first run movies for about $3 a ticket. (Or about $8/person if you add popcorn and a drink.). Earlier this year we (and everyone else who has a family) chipped in a hundred bucks or so to a $70k kick starter campaign to switch two projectors over to digital. Mission accomplishes -
My wife and I are 34 and we typically go with friends around the same age. We have a modern drive in that was opened just a few years ago and it is packed every weekend. The demographic mix tends to be pretty young, mostly young families but also plenty of teens. The thing to do is take a nice comfortable chair and sit outside under the Summer sky. Last weekend we went and watched the thunderstorms roll in as we watched the movie. The quality of the picture isn't quite as nice but its good enough. The food is yummy too. I can't see ours going out of business but I know some in smaller towns may be impacted by the change. I hope most of them make the leap and keep this format alive.
Around here the demographics are everyone that wants to see a movie without driving an hour
I do believe I picked up a brand new digital projector not too many years ago, and the charge from the online retailer was about 30 quid.
So why do they say tens of thousands?
First of all, there's the significant issue of the massive amount of power and performance that's required from a theatre-class professional projector, rather than the comparatively tiny distance-throw, dimness, and short lifespan of a home or office HD projector. Quality, as a few have pointed out here, is a big factor. Also, to be that bright, these don't use LEDs of course: they use very hot bulbs that need to be cooled down with very loud and large fans and cooling systems.
Secondly, we're not just talking about the projectors themselves. Most of the major film distributors will not longer be providing films on actual 35mm film, which is what the drive-ins have been using. The major distributors have been reducing the number of "films" that are actually released on film; for some, the move to digital cinema is arguably more about the distribution methods than the viewer's experience. DCP (Digital Cinema Package) [wikipedia] —boiled down to MPEG-4 on an encrypted harddrive — is how the films are being sent to theatres. What do you need in order in the industry to run the required DCP drives? You need a server that will decrypt, store, queue, and run everything: trailers, all the films for the week, your preshow, etc.
The end result is having to buy a very expensive, closet-sized projector and computer server that your projectionists need to be trained on how to use and you can't fix yourself.
As someone who works for a non-profit film cinématheque, this is a very big deal and worry for independent cinema, who, without access to DCP projectors, are increasingly relying on having to present theatre-class events from a Blu-ray burned in the distributor's office.
See here for more info about the market changes from 35mm to DCP in this reposted press release [isuppli.com].
Your not thinking correctly. You take a minivan or SUV and park it backwards. Lower all the seats flat and spread out.
you can have people on the ground, etc. you can talk to each other etc.
the big trick is someplaces limit how high up your tailgate can go so your not blocking other peoples view.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I do believe I picked up a brand new digital projector not too many years ago, and the charge from the online retailer was about 30 quid.
So why do they say tens of thousands?
Your 30 quid projector can display 300GB JPEG2000 files at 4096 x 1260 video at 24 frames per second with 12 bits each of red, green, and blue per pixel, and 16 channels of uncompressed audio at 24 bits and 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling? Please let me know where you got it. I'd like to order one myself.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Hollywood's ditching of 35mm film distribution in favour of digital projection is going to put a lot of movie theatres out of business, not just Drive-ins. Of course, the real killer is the "home theatre". Today's high def TVs and the easy availability of content (Netflix, torrents, etc), topped with super high prices for snacks and candy is what is really taking chunks out of the cinema business.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The reason no one goes to them today is because cars have long been unsuitable for, ahem, romance. Not to mention either a bunch of friends, or a couple of kids along. Nobody can move in a modern car. In a pre 1970's car, you could put the seat back - a long bench - and have plenty of room. Now you have two "bucket" seats, and a plastic console and stick-shift in between. The back seat's no better, with it's two indentations, and seat-belt buckles sticking up. Let's face it, cars aren't comfortable enough to sit and watch a movie in, let alone anything else.
Light output is just one part. The other part is the fact that to play DCP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Package) delivered content the projector needs to establish secure (encrypted) communications between itself and the server actually playing back the media. I mean, what good is a secure playback system if you can just grab the decrypted content on it's way to the projector? This shit gets really expensive. And scary when it goes awry. Keys get generated so X film can play on Y server connected to Z projector between these hours. After sitting in the projection booth during the (attempted) premiere of a major motion picture, watching the director and a couple of producers trying, and failing, to get ahold of the distribution company to have new keys generated because the keys for the premiere had expired, it makes you laugh
Most drive ins are now flee markets
Well, if people are actively trying to get away from them, that'd explain why they're in trouble.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
TFA was likely penned by a nostalgic baby boomer. the kind that force nat king cole over the PA systems of every major retailer in november
Nat King Cole was mainly popular with adult audiences during his heyday of the late-1940s and the 1950s, i.e. mainly the *parents* of the baby-boom generation, and they'll be long-retired (and very elderly if they're still around).
Unless you were thinking of the second-hand nostalgia that seems to see a lot of 40s and 50s American tracks still associated with Christmas (and which I find cliched and boring- give me Slade any day!)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
for setting up a drive through movie just need a big printer and a loong stretch of road...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The digital projector for a theater has to project an image that will cover over a hundred square feet without being so dim that it's unpleasant and the screen is most likely fifty to a hundred feet away depending on the size of the theater.
Back in the '60ss when I worked at one, the projector had no bulb, it had an arc lamp.
Free Martian Whores!
All that is true and they require even more light because drive-ins don't have the benefit of an enclosed room without ambient light competing with the screen image.
It's interesting to see this. the closest drive in to where I live just completed raising the money to go digital through donation drives. (Harvest Moon Drive In, Gibson City, IL).
There's a lot of the nostalgia factor driving the place, but it's definitely a good time to get a bunch of friends together to go. Set up lawn chairs around the car and kick back. There's usually a good crowd. The weather's the big problem if it rains.
> Guess that's what you get with a Monarchy
Notice that the Guardian article presents a list of bills, but doesn't make it particularly easy to see their content, nor does it make much of an attempt to show WHY the Queen vetoed them. Dig a little deeper, and the usual theme can be summarized as, "Parliament was attempting to ramrod something that had strong support from the governing Party, but was unpopular with voters".
The crazy thing about Britain's monarchy is the fact that as a practical matter, the Queen ends up being the most powerful day to day advocate and supporter those who most ardently profess to despise her (or at least the institution she represents) actually *have* -- a fact that causes no small amount of hand-wringing and periodic soul-searching among the monarchy's opponents.
The British public is still coming to terms with the reality that powers granted to the government you support *today* won't magically go away the next time the government you *don't* support gets swept (even temporarily) into power. Actually, Americans aren't very good at it either(*), which drives home the point even more, because you'd think we'd have learned our lesson and know better by now.
(*) The Republicans complaining the most loudly about Obama's "dictatorial" powers don't seem to grasp that he's mostly just exercising powers that were minted BY Republicans FOR a Republican president. And the Democrats who are ready to sell the farm and give Obama sweeping powers are no less naive/insane.
I dont believe a drive-in needs more than 150dpi on the screen
Well, good news then. A SMALL drive-in screen is only 60 feet by 30 feet, so your 150 dots-per-inch requirement would only necessitate a projector with a resolution of 108,000 by 54,000. How much is that unit?
Of course, dpi is a printer-resolution measurement, so unless you're looking to print out a film at a drive-in, I suppose it's possible that you're just pulling stuff out of your bunghole at this point.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Movie theaters closing because they can't afford to upgrade? Same thing happened when talkies started coming out. In the silent era all you needed was a dark room and a projector -- maybe a piano player. You could practically set up a movie theater in a big living room (assuming you could afford the projector.) But suddenly you needed an expensive sound system wired into the building. Many local theaters went out of business. There were also a lot of stars that could no longer get work. A big all American looking guy might work out great in the silent era. But when everyone figured out that he had a high squeaky voice and a foreign accent suddenly he just wasn't so popular.
That's likely true, and most movie theaters make next to nothing on the actual ticket sales, if you want to support your theater, buy the concesssions or play the games in the arcade, because that's where they make their money.
"You might as well ask why a Lamborghini cost is six figures since you bought a CitroÃfn C1 last week for less than ten thousand."
Well, for a better car analogy is more like asking why a 16-wheeler is more expensive than my C1.
Isn't it obvious,
Pirates, pirates are making 16-wheelers so expensive.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The reason no one goes to them today is because cars have long been unsuitable for, ahem, romance. Not to mention either a bunch of friends, or a couple of kids along. Nobody can move in a modern car. In a pre 1970's car, you could put the seat back - a long bench - and have plenty of room. Now you have two "bucket" seats, and a plastic console and stick-shift in between.
You had me up until here.
Few people are capable of driving manuals any more... In fact, forget the manual part, few people are capable of driving.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I went to a drive-in a couple years ago. Most of the cars were SUVs or trucks, and half of them parked backwards. They lowered the tailgate (or lifted it depending on the vehicle) and basically had a family tailgate party. A couple of them even had an air mattress in the back, though most of them opted for just blankets and had a picnic while watching the movie.