Theatre Set Up

sriee

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Dear Experts,

I recently set-up my home theatre and enjoying it...

I started to think about what kinda components ( speaker wattage, power Amp Requirement, projector, speaker brands, Amp brands) would a movie theatre would have.....

what kinda mode they would play on...I mean like a multi channel stereo mode etc...

Any one knows about it ??
 
The components used in a theatre would vary depending on the size of of theatre, sound format used and budget. But all digital theatres basically have 5 main components -

Speakers

The front speakers for large theatres are rated at around 500-3000+ watts per speaker and are mostly of 3-way or 4-way speakers. Smaller theatres use speakers which are smaller and are rated at around 200-450 watts. The Sub woofers are usually are of 600-2000+ watts, most theatres use at least two or more units. For surrounds most theatres use models rated between 150-350 watts, the power rating might not look like much but these speakers are very efficient and most of them have a sensitivity rating of over 90 dB.

Right now JBL is the market leader and is the most popular brand for cinema speakers, followed by QSC and Meyer sound is popular in the active speaker market.

Amps

A typical small screen theatre would have an average of 4000-7000 watts of sound. For a large screen theatres most of them have anywhere between 7000-15,000 watts of sound. This is just the output of an average theatre, but with powerful amps and speakers a small theatre can have a total output of 10,000+ watts and for larger theatres it can be around 20,000+ watts. For Dolby Atmos and Auro 3D with the extra speaker the total power output almost doubles.

To drive the large number of speakers in a theatre you need multiple number of amps. For example a theatre with 24 surround speakers might use six 4-channel amplifiers of a particular model and more amps would be used for the front channels and the sub woofers. Most of the front speakers used in theatres are bi-amped / tri-amped or quad-amped speakers, so you have a lot of theatres with a rack or two filled with amps.

QSC and Crown are currently the two most popular brands in the cinema amp market.

Sound processor

The Sound processor handles all the sound duties like decoding, processing of audio. Modern processors support lossless audio and have built in calibration and EQ. Dolby's sound processors are the most widely used in the the world, followed by DATASAT / DTS.

Projectors

A lot of theatres have now upgraded to digital projection which have support for 720p or full HD resolution. There are also theatres with 2K and a 4K and few theatres in India have already upgraded to 4K Projection. Digital cinema projectors are almost like home DLP projectors except for a few changes like some cinema projectors have a built in server for playback of content and they require more cooling with the help of air cooling and liquid cooling.

Christie and Barco are the market leaders in digital cinema projectors, Sony and NEC are also popular.

Server

A digital cinema sever can be compared to a media player in a home setup, it handles the playback of digital material and has built in storage (Hard disks). Most of the digital cinema content is distributed in encrypted hard disks and these can be plugged in into these servers for playback. The server extracts the audio track and sends it to the processor for decoding/processing, the video is decrypted and decoded and sent to the projector. Most servers also have a DVD drive to load contents like trailers and ads into the server and playlists can be created for playback of content.

what kinda mode they would play on...I mean like a multi channel stereo mode etc...

Most theatres have have 5.1 Dolby / DTS installations, followed by Dolby 6.1 / 7.1 . A lot of theatres with digital projection systems support lossless audio and they can they can playback lossless audio through their 5.1 or 7.1 setup.

Some theatres have now installed systems which go beyond 7.1, like 11.1 Auro 3D and Dolby Atmos which can support up to 61.3 channels :eek:
 
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Nishanth!!! Thanks soo much. Those were quite informative.

The day I finished my home theatre setup, and whenever I visit our Express Avenue ( a mall in chennai ) , I start looking at the projectors for the theatres in it and my imagination starts regarding the Amps, processors etc. :)

Thanks Nishanth.
 
A movie is launched in metros and mid size cities and later shown in small towns and rural areas. This is driven by lowering of the cost of a film due to degradation with use. While film is still the primary medium for theaters, digital format is also gaining speed. Digital format is more scalable as there is no restriction on the number of theaters where a movie could be shown. This allows a movie to be shown in rural areas right after its launch. There are two digital formats, D-Cinema and E-Cinema1. D-Cinema format (2K), which is as rich in quality as a film, is not installed in India as of now. E-Cinema (1.3K) is of a lower quality compared to a new film. However it's found acceptance in rural areas due to its lower cost and rural viewer's acceptance for old hence lower quality films.
Reference In-focus: Film Exhibition Segment
 
askii2, Your right about E-Cinema's domination in rural areas, the cost factor as you pointed out is the main reason for this. But in urban areas and in cities we already have many theatres with 2K projection (D-Cinema), right now we have more than 1200+ 2K D-Cinema screens in India. We have had 2K D-Cinema in India for a few years now, the first 2K projection system was installed way back in 2005 at Sathyam cinemas, Chennai. Today Hollywood studios distribute their 3D films only in 2K/4K digital format, so to screen these movies a lot of theatres in urban areas have installed 2K or 4K D-Cinema projection systems.

Nishanth!!! Thanks soo much. Those were quite informative.

The day I finished my home theatre setup, and whenever I visit our Express Avenue ( a mall in chennai ) , I start looking at the projectors for the theatres in it and my imagination starts regarding the Amps, processors etc. :)

Thanks Nishanth.

Sriee, even I become curious when I go to a new theatre about the projection and the sound system installed but sadly very few theatre display information about the projection and sound system installed in their theatre. As for Escape cinemas they started off with 2K Projectors from Christie and now I think they have upgraded them to 4K or might have got new 4K Barco projectors connected to QUBE 4K servers. For sound processing they use QSC DCP 300 processors, it has some advanced featured which is not found in older Dolby and DTS models. For one of their screen they recently installed a Dolby CP850 sound processor for Dolby Atmos sound system. They use 4-way front speakers from QSC for all their screens, surrounds are also QSC speakers and they are powered by QSC amplifiers.

The unique feature of this theatre is that they do not have projection rooms for their projectors and I think you would have noticed this if you spotted the projectors suspended from the ceiling outside the halls. Projectors are controlled from a central location with an automated system which handles playback of content based on the playlist and show times set by the theatre. The advantage of this design is that it saves space and it makes it easy to control and monitor all the systems from a central location.

Here is a picture of the theatre's projectors for people who have not been to this theatre -


Escape Cinemas by ashwin kumar, on Flickr
 
For excellent sound that won't break the bank, the 5 Star Award Winning Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 Bookshelf Speakers is the one to consider!
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