AMC Lincoln Square 13

I agree here with alpinedownhiller. You call what we do “bitching and whining” but I call what we do making sure we have the highest quality available while we are also paying $27 up the ho-ha just to get a seat that “MAY” have a good viewing angle.

Also, we HAVE contacted management and yet nothing has been done yet. So we go to facebook, then what? Nothings changed so far and with Kong in 3D I fear the same issues may appear.

I understand the history of the theater is important, but what’s so wrong about talking about its current state? Are ongoing issues with an operating theater not worthy of discussion here? I want this theater to succeed, it’s the largest IMAX in the region and it should have the proper set up and glasses. Twitter and Facebook won’t make a difference but sites like Cinematreasures that include like-minded people who love the movies and want theaters to be successful, can. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a theater to be the best it can be.

There is no row I. The row after H is J, not i. It goes like ABCDEFGHJKLM.

I went to this IMAX several times after the renovation, and those ceiling lights were always on. I guess those lights serve the same “purpose” as he EXIT signs – as long as the EXIT red lights are on, those ceiling lights will be on.

They lost a row of seating during the renovation’s inclusion of larger seats. I don’t know why they didn’t just rename the rows and redo the seating chart on Fandango, but I’ve been to the theater now 4 times since laser/sound/seating renovation and it’s not like a row is sealed off or always full.

Not sure why they have those on. I didn’t think the ceiling lights had been on at all when I went to this theater, although I could be wrong. They were definitely off at Reading.

Ah, OK so you wear glasses. I think that explains it. (that person with me wore glasses and saw doubling but no reflections, but with glasses that makes a lot more chances for things to go badly and reflections to crop up, I never wear glasses to movies, glasses also make things look smaller than contacts so screen size seems less impressive too)

Maybe they got rid of the bad glasses, but for SW there were definitely a lot of bad ones at this theater unless we were so insanely unlucky to have like the only 2 bad ones out of hundreds (I also note a few other people have mentioned some weird doubling on parts of the screen here too so I think it’s got to be, or at least used to be, could still be, some to many bum glasses here even if all of them are not).

The glasses at Reading were different, even smaller lenses, but perfect (at least for contact or no glasses wearers). I wish they had kept the old ones for non-glasses wearers and just experimented with special ones for glasses wearers since it seems they messed them up totally for non-glasses wearers (although maybe it was simply poor QC on many of the pairs and nothing directly to do with that). (I also wonder if wearing glasses maybe somehow let you see more just through the center of the lens and avoid doubling even with bad glasses if your prescription is of a certain sort?).

alpinedownhiller – the glasses to me appear to be the same technology as the previous Dolby 3D glasses (and even included a Dolby 3D branding on the inside of the glasses, along with the IMAX branding), but if there had been “under the hood” innovations made, I’d have no way of knowing.

I don’t think my eyes are wide set or anything like that. I’ve seen three 3D presentations there, and I promise you, I didn’t get any ghosting or image doubling during any of them – that wasn’t my issue. (I’m a huge 3D fan and I’ve got a 3D projector at home, and I’ve seen films presented theatrically in all of the different 3D formats. I’m not saying this to brag or anything, but just to point out that if there was ghosting being caused by my glasses, I would have noticed.) It was just the stupid reflections. I know I keep repeating this, but I’ve spoken to the IMAX CQO about this, and he has confirmed that a certain percentage of their audience has reported that problem with their glasses at their laser installs – I got the sense that this was not limited to the Lincoln Square theater but something they were aware of. He specifically stated that other patrons had reported this too. He said that they were working on developing better glasses, but there wasn’t an ETA for when they might be complete. I’m not offended by your suggestions to try to figure out why this is, but I feel that it’s important for me to point out that the IMAX company has confirmed that this is a known issue – it’s not a random fluke thing that has happened only to me. It may be due to the fact that I wear prescription glasses, and keep the on under my 3D glasses. However, I wear my glasses 100% of the time when I watch movies (I really can’t see without them but have perfect vision with) and I’ve never experienced this problem with any other theater or any other 3D projection technology. No issues like this with dual-strip 35mm/70mm projected with linear polarized lenses. No issues like this with digital 3D projected with circular polarized lenses. No issues like this at theaters and theme park attractions using standard Dolby 3D equipment. No issues like this at home using active 3D glasses. No issues like this at the 4K/3D/120 fps RealD laser showing of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. This issue has only happened to me at this one specific theater using the glasses they provide.

I really wonder if the amount of light leakage in the room is negatively contributing to this. You’ve got blue light spilling onto the screen from the left and right sides, and a row of lights turned on low above the screen throughout the entire movie. The projector isn’t the only thing throwing light at the screen and the glasses seem very sensitive to that.

For me it was the opposite. Right eye coated badly on both pairs of glasses lead to ghosting on left side of the screen (verified by person I was with). Neither of us saw our face in the glasses or had any reflection problems.

Polarized IMAX actually does have tiny levels of doubling (and if you see it on a screen that was not meant for it, as I have seen happen with a Real 3D screen at one theater, you can even get extreme doubling at times across the entire screen). The Laser system where they block frequencies can provide a 100% perfect experience. They are not using the old Dolby 3D system but something way better and more advanced since with lasers than can tun the primaries perfectly and use sharp cut filters that really cut things perfectly and also have a wide gamut and very rich colors.

I guess something about the angles on your face vs our faces changes the angles of reflection so we saw nothing while you had issues (or maybe that we sat way near the very back helps something about the angles of reflection and incident light, etc). Not sure why you saw no doubling, maybe only a certain percentage of the glasses are bad, maybe you didn’t realize it, maybe your eyes are wide set (which would have switched the problem from left side to instead far left and far right and maybe out there you didn’t pay it as much mind? espcieally perhaps not having even seen a fully working laser 3D imax and not knowing how much mind blowingly better it can be than the polarized type? or maybe you did just luck out with properly made glasses.

Yeah it’s gotta be way bigger than the one at Empire. The Empire IMAX isn’t even all that large as regular digital IMAX screen goes and the Dolby is not allowed to be bigger and yet the Loews screen here is already noticeably larger than the IMAX at Empire if my info is correct (65' screen?). I was there at a premiere once and it seemed pretty large, although the auditorium was so different than most I’ve been in recently it was a little trickier to judge exact dimensions, but it felt at least upper 50' wide and could have been 65'.

Ziegfeld was cool, really a shame that was lost. That said, it’s screen wasn’t really all that huge. It was smaller than most regular digital IMAX screens wasn’t it? I think the actual screen size was only 50'. That was large by old 70s multiplex standards but nothing special by any old modern, suburban multiplex standard and not like the 60'-65' screens some of the single screen palaces in the region used to have.

CHH32, it should be bigger than the Empire one as the Loews screen is already bigger, and the Empire Dolby Cinema can’t be too big as the IMAX contractually needs to be the biggest screen in its theater.

Anyway, a bit of a shame that all traditional larger screens are either closing (like the Ziegfeld) or being transformed to the higher ticket price of premium large format, but with that screen size and Atmos sound already in place, probably was an easy choice for AMC.

What a shame. There is nothing wrong with the Loews as it is,

Amen.

alpinedownhiller – re: your question “hmm that’s weird, you mean as sort of a general reflected blur or sharp details”

It’s hard to describe – it’s more of a reflected blur, it’s one of those things where if the movie has a very bright scene, like a daytime exterior, it’s not really noticeable, but in any darkly lit scenes, I can start seeing a little bit of my eye and the area around it reflecting back, as if there was a halfway transparent mirror between me in the screen. It’s a hard effect to describe, but I gather that IMAX is aware of it because the CQO instantly understood what I was talking about when I brought it up.

The glasses were the special versions of the Dolby 3D-type glasses with IMAX branding on them, that have larger lenses than the standard Dolby 3D glasses. There wasn’t a designation on them of “type 1” or “type 2” so I’m afraid I can’t offer more detail on that.

I think this problem is due to IMAX choosing to use the Dolby 3D system with their laser install, rather than continuing to use the polarized system that the previous IMAX projectors (both 15/70 film and xenon-lit DLP) had attached. These Dolby lenses are far more reflective than the polarized lenses ever were, and I think the more inherently reflective nature of these lenses, combined with all of the stray light spilling into the auditorium, can make for some problematic presentations.

Because this theater now charges $26.29 for a ticket, I’m having to consider whether its worth having a compromised experience for such a high price. Yes, it is the biggest screen in the area, but if the image doesn’t look good, is it worth that price?

@CHH32 “besides the blue lights on the floor, I don’t know if anyone has noticed, they also left a row of the ceiling lights on after the movie started(Not sure if they are lights or holes). They are straightly above the EXIT signs near the two entrances. You could see them when you look up or look at the walls above the EXIT signs, especially during the dark scenes”

I didn’t quite notice that or at least not note it to remember, but maybe it explains while the blacks, while pretty excellent compared to what you see anywhere today, still didn’t strike as quite the perfection they were in Reading with their Laser system run in a virtually pitch black theater.