[KLUG Members] Movies? Weird!!!

[Adam Tauno Williams]

>Anyway, Saturday I went to the 1:00 PM Star Trek Nemesis at Crossroads
>theaters (behind Crossroads mall in Portage).  About half way into the
>movie (give or take an hour :)  the sound started cutting out.  Then 
>the movie started slowing down and the sound started dragging (like a
>cassette player with the batteries going dead).   Then total blackness.
 
>Then . . .  no kidding! . . .  a screen shot of Windows XP Professional
>REBOOTING appeared on the BIG screen!!!  The little progress bar moved
>from left to right.  Then the movie was back!  I would have found this

It picked up right where it left off?

>hard to believe if I'd heard it, but it's the honest truth!  I have two
>other witnesses with me to back it up!  :-)

It isn't that hard to believe,  I've seen what is clearly digital artifacting in
a couple of recent movies.  And I don't think it was in the movie itself but the
result of the projection.

>I was amused by the comments by other movie viewers when this was
>happening.  (oh that explains it, and so on :)  

I'd love to have been there.

>But what's up with that?  

XP sucks?

>Do movie theaters project from computers now?

Yes, some do, for some movies.

>(running XP?)

Apparently!

>Is it digital (DVD or something)?

The one I saw (in a projector room) had a DVD player.

>If movies are going to
>be interrupted with a random Windows reboot, bring back the old film
>format!

You got free tickets afterward, right?  I'll take a blurp in projection in order
to get my $~8.00 back,  especially with most of the movies I've seen recently.

I really miss the oil gels / ameaba simulation before the previews.  Now they
have those horrible larger-than-life commercials.

>(or upgrade the projector to Linux! :)

It is illegal to play most DVDs on Linux.  At least without a hardware decoder,
 and those aren't very common. And it seems obvious that they probably aren't
using one.