the Tyson’s screen was flat even in it’s prior ETX form – however when Dolby added more lighting, that’s when the problem with the light bouncing back onto the screen occurred.
the Tyson’s screen is significantly taller and wider, so yes, the DC screen here is smaller; on the plus side the audio is much better calibrated and not as inconsistent as it is at Tysons.
I haven’t been here in awhile, but what’s going on at this theater complex? I thought there were two prior ‘Xtreme’ screens, are they both XD now or has one gone back to just being a standard large screen. Also it seems odd that as of this posting they appear to be only six screens in use – are there upgrades/renovations going on? Cinemark could in my opinion upgrade the seats, make all sound systems to be 7.1. Shame Cinemark sealed the deal with Barco and Auro, the latter being crushed by more movies being mixed and released in Dolby Atmos.
guess with one off showings for it’s Sci-Fi Sundays – the Smithsonian relaxed it’s “no R-rated movies” policy – they’ve shown “Alien” “Aliens” “Blade Runner” “The Matrix”
and oh, check out the new Greg MacGillivray movie: ‘Dream Big’ – who knew that ‘engineering’ was a topic ripe for the ultra big screen & 3D.
^ maybe that’s why there were so few 3D screenings of ‘Fantastic Beasts’ at Udvar Hazy … [shrugs] … I’ve never noticed the reflective glasses issue and any other flaws over at either of the Smithsonian IMAX-laser setups.
I noticed this while down at Charlottesville, at the Regal Stonefield Stadium 14, that the new screens are what the industry refers to as ‘floating screens’ and sadly are fixed at 1.85, thus any scope movie is nestled in the middle of the screen and essentially letterboxed – one word: yuck!
As of last Friday (the 13th) the brand new auditorium with 222 seats and a full blown 5 stage channels, and 43 surround Dolby Atmos sound system opened up here.
who knows maybe the new building will have Regal coming back if the managing director for Carr is correct in that Regal have dibs for space within the new complex.
I like how the screens float off the wall with blue light illuminating the wall behind the screen – for the feature it’s turned off. Saw ‘Inferno’ the overly bombastic 5.1 soundmix sounded amazing if not a bit overdone at points.
went over today to check it out, it’s a fixed ‘floating’ scope framed screen, therefore any flat (1.85) movie will be centered and have black borders on the side of the image. It’s a medium sized auditorium and unlike Tyson’s the walls separating the rows are not set too high, thus allowing you to hear the rear center channels of sound. While ‘The Accountant’ is neither a Dolby Vision movie nor mixed in Atmos, it really didn’t provide what ‘Vision’ promotes, the dark levels look grey and not inky black. The sound though has considerable punch, notably with the guttural ‘gun’ shoots – sound in my mind is set too high for the size of the auditorium, voices sounded pushed way too forward and the action scenes can be slightly punishing, but unlike Tyson’s which has serious audio calibration issues, volume level here at Georgetown seems to be the only problem.
well that took forever, but the Dolby Cinema screen has opened as of this week with ‘The Accountant’ – shame that it’s not an official Dolby color graded movie.
yup that’s me… Dubstar. So where’d did you eventually see “ID: Resurgence” ? sorry for the late answer but Fairfax’s two Xtreme screens are fixed 1.78 screens – but on the positive side they are massive tall screens (too bad they are Auro 11.1 [so few movies are mixed and released as such])
back on topic though, just saw ‘Secret Life of Pets’ here at Arclight’s widescreen screen and I have to say the 3D (and brightness) was much better than ‘Finding Dory’s presentation.
nextinline – in regards to your comment about the new metro line – the plans are for the entire complex/building to be raised and:
“Austen Holderness, managing director of development for Carr, said the Regal Cinemas currently in the Apex Building would be given the opportunity to return to the new building once it’s finished. Carr is planning to provide space for new movie theaters on the same underground level as the Purple Line station but further south on the property.”
I have to say and conclude with my impression of seeing ‘Finding Dory’ here on the Dolby Cinema screen – I’m kind of through of seeing movies here. That red light for starters, yeah ‘that’ … [insert annoyed face] I won’t go there.
Having seen the movie prior (the week before) at Arclight’s Bethesda’s ‘widescreen’ screen – the Atmos sound here at Tysons was quite frankly appalling, and well, terrible. All those flaws I heard during ‘Captain America: Civil War’ were apparent here as well, and quite frankly it was simply no where as immersive as what I heard at Bethesda – very little overhead & rear surround audio cues. I don’t know why these flaws are apparent, but Dolby mucked it up, and needs to recalibrate it or something – very very disappointing.
on the plus side, the laser projection and Dolby’s color grading of ‘Finding Dory’ was eye-candy and shows off why and when Dolby does it right, the results are spectacular —– but with the sound flaws it’s a valiant attempt but sort of falls on it’s face.
side note, it’s amazing when a family of five, the parents can drop $100 for a night out to the movies, guess in this day and age, and Northern Virginia family income, no one bats an eye to how much tix prices have gone up – good for AMC in the long run.
hey there FAShaffi – are you a member over at bluray.com ? I know I answered a similar question just recently – and I’ll answer it like it did there. For scope films on the widescreen screen – it’s vertically masking where the screen actually lowers to 2.39 from the top downwards, thus eliminating the black bars that fixed ‘flat’ 1.79 screens present when presenting ‘scope’ movies.
Hope that answers your question. It’s a great screen and features a properly calibrated Atmos sound system, which in my opinion trounces the sound over on Tyson’s Dolby Cinema setup. (Unfortunately this morning’s presentation of ‘Finding Dory’ really showed off to lackluster effect how 3D glasses and non-laser projection can diminish color) Dolby Cinema and IMAX-laser (at Udvar Hazy and at the Lockheed Martin screens) show off how laser boosts brightness and colors to beautiful eye-popping superior effect. Wish Arclight would invest the time and money to switch over to a Christie 4K laser system for this screen.
at one point Cinemark made the announcement back in 2014 that Barco Laser3D systems were to be installed on it’s XD (and I’d assume Xtreme [Fairfax 14]) screens – is this the case?
the Tyson’s screen was flat even in it’s prior ETX form – however when Dolby added more lighting, that’s when the problem with the light bouncing back onto the screen occurred.
the Tyson’s screen is significantly taller and wider, so yes, the DC screen here is smaller; on the plus side the audio is much better calibrated and not as inconsistent as it is at Tysons.
I haven’t been here in awhile, but what’s going on at this theater complex? I thought there were two prior ‘Xtreme’ screens, are they both XD now or has one gone back to just being a standard large screen. Also it seems odd that as of this posting they appear to be only six screens in use – are there upgrades/renovations going on? Cinemark could in my opinion upgrade the seats, make all sound systems to be 7.1. Shame Cinemark sealed the deal with Barco and Auro, the latter being crushed by more movies being mixed and released in Dolby Atmos.
I remember going here since my friend used to work here.
well on the positive side – the DCP of ‘The Dark Crystal’ is the best it’s looked and sounded since, well … it’s 70mm engagement
guess with one off showings for it’s Sci-Fi Sundays – the Smithsonian relaxed it’s “no R-rated movies” policy – they’ve shown “Alien” “Aliens” “Blade Runner” “The Matrix”
and oh, check out the new Greg MacGillivray movie: ‘Dream Big’ – who knew that ‘engineering’ was a topic ripe for the ultra big screen & 3D.
^ maybe that’s why there were so few 3D screenings of ‘Fantastic Beasts’ at Udvar Hazy … [shrugs] … I’ve never noticed the reflective glasses issue and any other flaws over at either of the Smithsonian IMAX-laser setups.
I noticed this while down at Charlottesville, at the Regal Stonefield Stadium 14, that the new screens are what the industry refers to as ‘floating screens’ and sadly are fixed at 1.85, thus any scope movie is nestled in the middle of the screen and essentially letterboxed – one word: yuck!
As of last Friday (the 13th) the brand new auditorium with 222 seats and a full blown 5 stage channels, and 43 surround Dolby Atmos sound system opened up here.
Hoffman’s Dolby Cinema auditorium opened with the premier of ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ last month
it also sounds that ALL the auditoriums are outfitted to playback in Dolby Atmos as well
who knows maybe the new building will have Regal coming back if the managing director for Carr is correct in that Regal have dibs for space within the new complex.
I like how the screens float off the wall with blue light illuminating the wall behind the screen – for the feature it’s turned off. Saw ‘Inferno’ the overly bombastic 5.1 soundmix sounded amazing if not a bit overdone at points.
went over today to check it out, it’s a fixed ‘floating’ scope framed screen, therefore any flat (1.85) movie will be centered and have black borders on the side of the image. It’s a medium sized auditorium and unlike Tyson’s the walls separating the rows are not set too high, thus allowing you to hear the rear center channels of sound. While ‘The Accountant’ is neither a Dolby Vision movie nor mixed in Atmos, it really didn’t provide what ‘Vision’ promotes, the dark levels look grey and not inky black. The sound though has considerable punch, notably with the guttural ‘gun’ shoots – sound in my mind is set too high for the size of the auditorium, voices sounded pushed way too forward and the action scenes can be slightly punishing, but unlike Tyson’s which has serious audio calibration issues, volume level here at Georgetown seems to be the only problem.
well that took forever, but the Dolby Cinema screen has opened as of this week with ‘The Accountant’ – shame that it’s not an official Dolby color graded movie.
so was this the location / theater that had 70mm capabilities? according to in70mm.com ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ played here:
and according to the story, in it’s one screen configuration was as such:
825 seats. 60 foot wide 150 degree curved screen 2 Bauer U2 projectors
has anyone been here recently – are they renovating more than one auditorium currently? what are they improving?
only auditorium / screen #2 offers 7.1
Auditorium #1 can and should be easily upgraded to 7.1, since it’s still 6.1 as to why AMC won’t do the simple conversion is beyond me.
I agree tmundell, acoustically Arclight and the Angelika Mosaic are the best in the area and all their auditoriums are outfitted for 7.1 playback.
screen #11 even in it’s prior non Dolby Cinema: ‘ETX’ configurement had no masking for scope films.
yup that’s me… Dubstar. So where’d did you eventually see “ID: Resurgence” ? sorry for the late answer but Fairfax’s two Xtreme screens are fixed 1.78 screens – but on the positive side they are massive tall screens (too bad they are Auro 11.1 [so few movies are mixed and released as such])
back on topic though, just saw ‘Secret Life of Pets’ here at Arclight’s widescreen screen and I have to say the 3D (and brightness) was much better than ‘Finding Dory’s presentation.
nextinline – in regards to your comment about the new metro line – the plans are for the entire complex/building to be raised and:
“Austen Holderness, managing director of development for Carr, said the Regal Cinemas currently in the Apex Building would be given the opportunity to return to the new building once it’s finished. Carr is planning to provide space for new movie theaters on the same underground level as the Purple Line station but further south on the property.”
http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/Web-2016/Bethesdas-Apex-Building-Must-be-Demolished-by-Spring-2017/
I have to say and conclude with my impression of seeing ‘Finding Dory’ here on the Dolby Cinema screen – I’m kind of through of seeing movies here. That red light for starters, yeah ‘that’ … [insert annoyed face] I won’t go there.
Having seen the movie prior (the week before) at Arclight’s Bethesda’s ‘widescreen’ screen – the Atmos sound here at Tysons was quite frankly appalling, and well, terrible. All those flaws I heard during ‘Captain America: Civil War’ were apparent here as well, and quite frankly it was simply no where as immersive as what I heard at Bethesda – very little overhead & rear surround audio cues. I don’t know why these flaws are apparent, but Dolby mucked it up, and needs to recalibrate it or something – very very disappointing.
on the plus side, the laser projection and Dolby’s color grading of ‘Finding Dory’ was eye-candy and shows off why and when Dolby does it right, the results are spectacular —– but with the sound flaws it’s a valiant attempt but sort of falls on it’s face.
side note, it’s amazing when a family of five, the parents can drop $100 for a night out to the movies, guess in this day and age, and Northern Virginia family income, no one bats an eye to how much tix prices have gone up – good for AMC in the long run.
hey there FAShaffi – are you a member over at bluray.com ? I know I answered a similar question just recently – and I’ll answer it like it did there. For scope films on the widescreen screen – it’s vertically masking where the screen actually lowers to 2.39 from the top downwards, thus eliminating the black bars that fixed ‘flat’ 1.79 screens present when presenting ‘scope’ movies.
Hope that answers your question. It’s a great screen and features a properly calibrated Atmos sound system, which in my opinion trounces the sound over on Tyson’s Dolby Cinema setup. (Unfortunately this morning’s presentation of ‘Finding Dory’ really showed off to lackluster effect how 3D glasses and non-laser projection can diminish color) Dolby Cinema and IMAX-laser (at Udvar Hazy and at the Lockheed Martin screens) show off how laser boosts brightness and colors to beautiful eye-popping superior effect. Wish Arclight would invest the time and money to switch over to a Christie 4K laser system for this screen.
Auditorium 8 is currently in the process of being converted to a Dolby Cinema screen with plans on opening at the end of August.
at one point Cinemark made the announcement back in 2014 that Barco Laser3D systems were to be installed on it’s XD (and I’d assume Xtreme [Fairfax 14]) screens – is this the case?