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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 It may seem silly to fret over the fate of 210 movie theaters whose business model is outdated, even compared with regular movie theaters, but Honda Motor Co. is offering help with a program called 'Project Drive-In.'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.'"
'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.
Perhaps the requirements for displaying a bright image 100 feet away outdoors is higher than your pocket alarm clock LED projector?
c++;
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.
That is because the pirates got there first. The Drive-in closes because there are too many pirates. It is the secret reason!
Also, when there is too much rain, the pirates tend to raid the drive-in with their ships. A significant burden on the operators.
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.
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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.
Dude from the UK here. How the hel would we watch a movie through all the rain?
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
Well, obviously you're paying for all those extra wheels.
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