[PearlRiver]

This was inevitable. Technology was bound to catch up. Hollywood actually panicked in the 1960s. But those screens were tiny. Nobody wants to see the Godfather on a cheap 1974 Panasonic.

But TV today is at least 55 inch and in crisp 4k resolution. A modern TV is good enough for most content.

It is not Netflix that killed the movieplex. They were just the first to utilise the new tools. The movie theater became the steam locomotive.

[Retric]

55” TV’s have been out for decades they really aren’t a replacement especially when put in a normal living space.

The issue IMO is so few movies are worth any extra effort to see. Steam a new marvel movie and you can pause half way through when you’re a little bored and do something else.

[dpark]

55” TVs have been available for decades but not affordable. I purchased a 60” plasma TV about 2 decades ago but it cost about $2500 dollars. Now I can pick up a 55” 4K TV from Best Buy for $220.

The widespread affordability of large screen TVs has absolutely eroded the value of a movie theater.

[Retric]

A 55” Rear-projection television was way less than a 60” plasma TV back then. Like you I went a little upmarket but from what I recall budget 1080i options were well under a grand.

What matters is the premium over a normal TV and how long it lasts. Spending an extra few hundred for something that lasts 5+ years wasn’t going to break most families budgets. As demonstrated by just how many of those TV’s where sold.

[dpark]

Rear projection TVs always looked like garbage. They were just the best option at the time. There’s a reason no one sells them anymore.

> What matters is the premium over a normal TV and how long it lasts.

I think what matters for this conversation is how close the experience is to a theater. Rear projection 1080i is pretty far.

> Spending an extra few hundred for something that lasts 5+ years wasn’t going to break most families budgets. As demonstrated by just how many of those TV’s where sold.

Do you have some stats for how many were sold? Because I have hunch that sales of large screen TVs had absolutely skyrocketed over the past 20 years.

[Retric]

I had an awesome 1080p rear projection DLP TV in a dark room. A brighter screen works better in a bright room, but you really want a dark room for an optimal experience anyway.

The technology got quite good but inherently took up more space and eventually couldn’t compete on price. Though that also means you’re sitting closer to the screen which made replacement flatscreens in the same space look smaller.

[nasmorn]

Also 220 is in the same ballpark as going to two movies as a family with snacks. Three would already be a stretch.

[user34283]

Probably many underestimate the importance of the sound.

A home theater arguably is as much about the subwoofer and surround speakers as it is about the screen.

Especially the subwoofer has a big impact. When you feel the sound it's literally impactful. At other times, it really helps immerse yourself in the scene, even if it's not a typical bass sound, but like background noise in a busy city street.

The properly configured subwoofer makes you feel like you're there, while it just falls flat on a regular speaker.

That said, the fewest people have a home theater setup, so it's probably irrelevant to why people stopped going to the cinema.

[sbarre]

I got a 4k 55" TV for $299 earlier this year. It weighs maybe 10lbs, and is super thin and fits on the wall.

Large 4k TVs being this accessible/affordable for most households has not been an option for "decades"..

[Retric]

Screen size makes little difference for an individual they can just sit closer, viewing angels are the problem for a family where 55” doesn’t cut it.

4k also makes little difference here, most people really don’t care as seen by how many people use simple HD vs 4k streaming.

[dpark]

> Screen size makes little difference for an individual they can just sit closer

This is silly. Most people don’t want to sit in a chair 3 feet from their TV to make it fill more of their visual area. A large number of people are also not watching movies individually. I watch TV with my family far more than I watch alone.

[Retric]

> This is silly.

Tell that to every streaming on their tablets sitting on their stomachs. People even watch movies on their phones but they aren’t holding them 15’ away.

Also you don’t need to sit 3’ from a 37” TV.

[dpark]

No one says the experience of watching on their tablet matches the experience of watching a movie in the theater.

But this isn’t the point. TVs are furniture. People generally have a spot where the TV naturally fits in the room regardless of its size. No one buys a TV and then arranges the rest of their furniture to sit close enough to fill their visual space. If the couch is 8 feet from the TV, it’s 8 feet from the TV.

[vharish]

Living rooms are not that big to start with. I don't think you actually asked anyone's opinion on this! :D

Small TVs are not comfortable to watch. No one I know is okay with getting a smaller TV and moving their sofa closer. That sounds ridiculous. If there's any comfort to this capatilistic economy, it is the availability of technology at throw away prices. Most people would rather spend on a TV than save the money.

As for the theatre being obsolete, I do agree with you, atleast to some extent. I think everyone is right here. All factors combined is what makes going to the theatre not worth the effort for most of the movies. It's just another nice thing, not what it used to be.

Also, the generational difference too. I think teen and adolescents have a lot of ways to entertain themselves. The craze for movies isn't the same as it used to be. And we grew old(er). With age, I've grown to be very picky with movies.

[Retric]

37+” isn’t a small TVs. Resolution was an issue in the 90’s but midsized TV’s have been around for a long time.

Also, I see plenty of people use tablets to watch stuff laying on the couch in front of a big screen TV. So viewing distance is plenty relevant.

[bunderbunder]

Movie theaters still win on a couple fronts, but not by enough to overcome the downsides like the “person behind you chewing popcorn with their mouth open” factor. Also, movies are getting long enough to really need an intermission or two. Legs need stretching, bladders need emptying. If Hollywood and the theaters won’t provide that, at least at home I can use the pause button. I’m looking for a pleasant evening, not a simulation of what it’s like to be on a three hour flight.

[Kwpolska]

It’s saying something that your post lists all the negative aspects of movie theaters and positive aspects of watching at home without actually specifying why “Movie theaters still win on a couple fronts”.

[PearlRiver]

I went to see Avatar on a Imax screen. It was already about a month after the release so it was pretty quiet.

But those kinds of movies are rare- and it is expensive. You have to drive and park for half an hour, pay 30 euro for two tickets and ofcourse the drinks. Not something I want to do every week.

[mitthrowaway2]

One way theaters win is that you can meet your friends / S.O. there without bringing them home; some people don't have living accommodations that are suited to hosting guests.

[philistine]

Yeah, these things take a long time to shake out. We still have cable subscriptions because older people watch TV that way, but no one would tell you that linear television is thriving. We're only now seeing sports start to somewhat move to streaming services, when the writing's on the wall for a while.

And would you entertain the idea that few movies are worth seeing because going to the movie theatre is a hard sell for audiences, and studios produce movies that try and adapt to that reality?

[nunez]

That part. But it even worse than that.

My wife and I used to be avid theater goers. We used to watch at least five movies a year in the theaters; more if you count the times we went individually. Almost all of the theaters we visited were high-end lounge-style movie houses. Think "Alamo Drafthouse," which is a poster child for the downfall of theaters I'm about to describe.

We're the perfect demo for the movie theaters: free time and disposable income. Yet, we've only seen two movies in the theaters this year, and not for lack of trying.

Theaters are in a kind-of death spiral. they're losing revenue to streaming, so they can't invest in making an experience that attracts people to the theater, which leads to them losing more revenue to streaming, etc. Companies circling the drain are perfect targets for M&A and enshittification in the name of growth.

This is exactly what's happening to high-end theaters: Moviehouse and Eatery (a small chain of high-end theaters) selling to Cinépolis, Alamo Drafthouse selling to Private Equity, IPIC starting to raise red flags, and probably more.

The end result is always the same: endless ads appear where mostly-ad-free prerolls used to be, food and drink prices go up while quality goes down, service gets worse as staff are asked to do more for effectively-less pay, and previously-super comfortable lie-flat lounge seating gets more and more decrepit, all while increasing ticket prices!

All of this is even more insulting when the movies you pay to see are distributed by Netflix or Apple and are all but guaranteed to end up on their platforms in mere weeks, sometimes with better post-production.

We used to happily pay $100+ for a night out at the movies seven years ago. Our experiences have gotten costlier and more disappointing, however. Families deciding to drop $1500 on a 100" TV with an Atmos soundbar and relegating the theaters to the past makes total sense to me. It's sad --- theaters are a social experience and have given me so many great memories --- but it was all but an eventuality the minute streaming on Netflix went live.

[krustyburger]

I don’t think Alamo Drafthouse sold to private equity, but rather to Sony.

[nunez]

They (well, Tim League and friends) sold to Altamont first [^0]. Altamont sold them to Sony last year. [^1]

And the enshittification is already happening. That one of the Drafthouse theaters IN THEIR HOME TURF (Slaughter, outside of Austin) unionized with the UAW and names Sony in their formation letter speaks volumes. [^2]

[^0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/03/dine-in-movie-chain-alamo-dr...

[^1]: https://altamontcapital.com/altamont-capital-partners-sells-...

[^2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/AlamoDrafthouse/comments/1jjtssc/al...

[cogman10]

Well, I'd say that the standard movie format just isn't what people want anymore.

The problem movies have is they have a relatively short amount of time to deliver a complete story. 90 to 120 minutes just isn't a lot of time to be compelling. That's why some of the best movies are split into parts.

Consider Andor as an example. It's some of the best media ever made (IMO) and it simply would not work in the movie format. What makes Andor work is the excellent character development and the time spent building and shaping the universe under a fascist government.

Andor had no length constraints per episode. That allowed it to tell complete satisfying stories with the promise that you'll get more in the next episode.

[Retric]

Telling a detailed story is different than telling a compelling story.

Andor isn’t as compelling as the original movie or significantly longer than the Harry Potter series of movies. Babylon 5 is probably the poster child for a long running space opera series with a planned story arch, but they added plenty of filler because you don’t actually need that much time.

If anything movies tend to be better than TV shows because of the time constraints rather than the budget.

[NoGravitas]

Eh, the current 10-hour seasons are the worst of both worlds.

Telling a story in a "tight 90" means making very deliberate choices about what to include, what not to, and how to make scenes do double duty. Having 23 episodes a season lets you slow down, spend time with the characters that's not all focused on the season plot, it lets you have B-stories in every episode. A 10-hour season doesn't get to do that, but it doesn't enforce the same discipline as 90-120 minutes.

Compare Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to Star Trek: Discovery or Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I greatly enjoy SNW, but the characters and their relationships with each other are in no way as substantial as in DS9 (or even TNG, which was much less character-focused than DS9).

[pimeys]

I mean... there's a ton of movies worth the effort. Just take a look into the big festivals every year: Cannes, Venice, Berlin... Many amazing movies.

[angiolillo]

For many of the families I know it's less about the quality of movies than the cost and effort of going to the movies.

Going to the movies costs an extra hour for the round-trip to the theater, ~$40 for adult tickets, ~$60 for the kids (2h babysitter or movie tickets), ~$20 for concessions. Whereas watching at home on our 75" TV with homemade popcorn costs a tiny fraction of that, even including electricity and popcorn kernels and the amortized cost of the TV.

As nice as it can be to see a good movie in a theater, it's typically not so much better than watching at home that it's worth an extra hour and more than a hundred dollars.

[pimeys]

Depends where you are. In Berlin we have around 20 movie theaters nearby. It costs 14 euros per ticket and the nearest theater is in a walking distance.

Yes we watch a lot of movies home, but there are multiple festivals every year curating interesting content.

[airstrike]

You're replying to ChatGPT

[ajsnigrutin]

Disagree, I'd gladly go and watch movies in a cinema, the experience cannot be replicated at home, at least not unless you're very rich.. a 55" tv and a soundbar just doesn't do it.

For me, the price is killing it (80% of the reason) and bad movies (20%)... two tickets, drinks, popcorn/nachos/candy/something, and we're in the 50eur+ range. Then add the messy audiences, ads, trailer#1, more ads, trailer #2, another ad for some reason, and it's been 20 mintues of technially all ads for something that i paid money for. Then the movie is a total disappoint. I'm not into superheroes nor into pedro pascal, so most of the movies are out before i even buy the ticket and the rest are somehow... just 'bad'. Watching a bad movie at home is ok... you fall asleep, press stop, it doesn't matter... whatching a bad movie at an artsy film festival is also ok.. it was low budget, the ticket was 4 euros, no popcorn, had beer before you enter, so you can fall asleep in the cinema and hope not to snore. But 50 euros and all the ads for a bad movie is just too much.

[andrewaylett]

I don't know about very rich — our spare room is set up as an office for WFH, along with a sofa bed, and I put a 100" projector screen on the wall opposite the sofa. A second hand projector, new (but not all that expensive) Denon surround sound system with speakers from an otherwise-junk 5.1 PC speaker set, and the experience is better than regular cinema. The best bit? I can turn the volume down as much as I want to.

[Frost1x]

I would argue not good enough but better. A home cinema depending on viewing distance can have superb visual qualify. Comfort is going to be impossible to beat to being at home. A lot of theater projectors top out at 4k just like home TVs and they’re not as bright. Also information density is lower (it’s 4k spread over a huge wall).

The only shortcoming now really is if you want to view with several people and socialize after, it may be difficult for someone to accommodate a large party with good viewing in their home without a theater setup. And of course audio, audio is where theaters can still stand out. It’s a pain in the ass for most homes to setup a good sound system, you really often do want a dedicated theater area which most aren’t going to have. A soundbar helps. You can Jerry rig some surround speakers into any space but it’s often a pain. So that’s really the last barrier: cheap low latency sound that can beat a theater.

For me comfort trumps the slightly degraded sound. Plus some baby crying or random person chatting during the movie can break that as well.

[ojosilva]

Not only the movie theater, Netflix killed social life. Well, streaming, feeds and their algorithms in general, but Netflix is very much the ones that really owned the narrative of what to do on a weekend night.

This is very anecdatal, certainly, but I've spoken/overheard a few neighborhood hospitality business owners that had to forclose or cut down due to the constant decline of people leaving the house to just meet in a bar or coffee shop. Only sport nights keeps them going, because sports online remain expensive in most places.

Maybe just my observation or my neck of the woods, but seems to fit the general sentiment of a reduced social environment on the streets in certain parts of the world.

[MikeNotThePope]

I remember being amazed when the Michael Keaton’s Batman movie was released on VHS in the same year as the theatrical release. I had never seen a movie come out for home use that fast.

[jakubmazanec]

I don't know, that metaphors doesn't hold. I still like going to a local theaters (not multiplexes!) few times a year, the screen is much better than any TV, and the whole experience is overall nicer (beer on tap, etc.). TV can be good enough, but it can't replace larger screen. Few weeks ago I saw Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid for the first time and I'm glad I could see it in a cinema.

[underlipton]

I was flabbergasted to find that there are 100" TVs available for sub-$1500. Only a few years ago, they were five figures, minimum. Combined with a decent audio set-up, you really can have 90% of the theater experience at home.

[mapontosevenths]

As you say, Walmart now sells 100" 4k TV's with HDR for less than the average persons tax return. They often have them in-stock in the store.

Meanwhile most theaters are 2k, lack dolby vision or other HDR, have worse audio (many can't do Dolby Atmos with proper height channels), and are filled with people using their cell phones through the entire film.

Cinema is either dead, or on life support.

[dreamcompiler]

...as long as you don't connect that TV to the internet so it can spy on you and show you ads. That's why it's so cheap.

[UltraSane]

Movie theaters can compete by installing LED screens. My company has a movie screen sized LED screen and it looks so much better than modern digital projectors.

[butlike]

It's the sound that's missing from a home viewing setup

[dreamcompiler]

Great home theater sound systems with subwoofers are cheap and readily available now. They make the home movie-watching experience dramatically better than it used to be.

[mapontosevenths]

Home theater sound is often/usually better than the theater, if you actually put any effort in. Many theaters can't do proper Dolby Atmos with height channels. You can install a setup at home for ~$1500.

[Clamchop]

Adds complexity, cost, and clutter. Meanwhile, the living situations of many (most?) people forbid it; no big-kicking subwoofers in apartments and condos, and you're probably keeping the volume at polite levels.

And for all that, it's likely still not up to par with a theater, unless you geeked out on a dedicated theater room.

[airstrike]

Begone, bot

[dreamcompiler]

Other issues also took their toll on movie theaters:

--Ticket prices of $20 or more per person.

--Jaw-dropping prices on snacks and drinks.

--People talking and using phones during the movie.

--30 minutes of ads before the movie. Not coming attractions but straight-up commercials when you've already paid $20 to be there.

--The general slop quality of most movies being made if you're not a comic book or video game fan (and frankly even if you are).

The above bullshit was enough that I stopped going to movie theaters more than about once per year. And then COVID happened.