Live events shown in the cinema

[rlw]

For example, yesterday we went to see a ballet live from the ROH at our local cinema in York.

The performance was brilliant, the filming was well done and the music was excellent. But....I thought the picture quality was shockingly poor.

It was like watching a cathode tube TV with no depth, no contrast, no sparkle, so a far cry from even a slightly modern TV.

I've noticed watching actual films there that the picture quality isn't much and I ask myself is it the technology or is it the cinema?

[Paul Dishman]

We've watched a few RSC productions in the Picturehouse in Exeter , the picture quality has always been excellent.

[coppice]

. We've seen a lot of National Theatre Live and other live streamed productions - Shakespeare , ballet , opera etc - and image and sound are usually superb. But we pick the venue carefully - we have the Rural Arts Centre five minutes away but after a catastrophically awful showing of Yerma (inaudible, bum numbing seats and traffic noise ) we pick locations very carefully. Such as Jodi Comer's Prima Facie, whcih we saw at a proper cinema and it was breathtakingly brilliant

[rlw]

We've booked another one at the other local cinema to see if it's any better.

I do think that the cinema is to blame as I find it hard to believe that the broadcast isn't made to the highest standards.

[hondajack85]

A live stream in real time has to be encoded and sent over the network and decoded. I image the have some sort of issue with that and can only get it to be stable and not freeze at lower resolution.
Then again maybe some blind projectionist just set it to 480p instead of 4k as its complex computers stuff.
I wont be going to one of these anyway now I know it can be variable.