Avoid Devi Bala AT ALL COSTS

madbullram

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Everyone was talking good about Devil Cinecomplex again and thought why not see Sherlock Holmes there. We entered Devi and were pleasantly surprised. The ambiance wasnt Sathyam but way better than what I had seem Devi before. Women security was nice to see bcos this theatre had become unruly in past. The security were polite and even welcomed.

The snacks were moderately prized and variety was nice and for a change it was tasting good also. So I thought thank god.

The que was big but no chaos to enter, when we entered the theatre I just stood for 1 min all frozen. The screen size from the third row ( from back) was so small my wife started saying our Plasma is much bigger. It was hardly anything, I mean even when I was in school and use to go to local theatre the screen size was 3 times bigger than this. I remembered my time at Salem where tent cinema was in its glory.

They used a Dhothi sometime for screen, and this screen was that size. They aired a film division movie and the movie took 60% of the size. My wife was like RAM whats this...i was like relax babes, this is just Film Division and they dont shoot in 16:9 ratio. She gave me that "My husband knows all smile" :yahoo:

The certificate of Sherlock Homes comes and size is same, one drop of sweat in a totally chill theatre was dripping down from my forehead and then it happened, the movie was played in its full glory and it was only in 60% of already dhoti size screen.

She just looked at me and I knew all words and statements she wanted to hurl but the silence from her was even more killing, I didnt have anywhere else to look. I just sat, totally disappointed and shocked. Thanks to Robert Downey and Guy Ritchie, the movie was nice and racy I was able to not get into a mental depression.

SO PLS AVOID DEVI BALA. Devi and Paradise seem to be better.
 

srinisundar

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Yes u r right and same similar/but different on comparision with Inox comments i heard, but in Devi Bala, from the old era size of the screen is similar, only ambience has changed... If not visited the old days, u will be disappointed..
 

svenkateshsmart

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Yes u r right and same similar/but different on comparision with Inox comments i heard, but in Devi Bala, from the old era size of the screen is similar, only ambience has changed... If not visited the old days, u will be disappointed..

Hi,

Thanks for the review and much appreciated! Maybe it is time to create a thread to review the theaters in all cities:eek:hyeah:

Though I dont prefer going to theatres, I do visit the local Rakki and once in a blue moon Sathyam to just see how the effects and other things are.

Ram, I dont know if I am going to see and enjoy Sherlock Holmes, but I really loved the way you narrated the whole scene. I think we have lot of script writers in Hifivision!:clapping::clapping: Sorry, but I was laughing so loudly when reading your post, my dad opened the partially closed door and peeped to see what was going, as nothing was on in my room except my laptop:lol:

Nice start-up in the morning!

Cheers!
 

hemantwaghe

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Hey why not thread of theatres on nation wide basis - regarding sound quality, screen size, cost effictiveness,good n bad expereincs?
 

srinisundar

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opening separte thread for each city is better, so it will be easy to search the reviews...

Someone take credit of starting the thread seperately please in each city..thanks.. shall be in Chit chat section...
 

BLASTO

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opening separte thread for each city is better, so it will be easy to search the reviews...

Someone take credit of starting the thread seperately please in each city..thanks.. shall be in Chit chat section...

Will there be a seperate section for "Theatres" then? :D
 

arunlouie

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Not just Devi, many multiplexes are in the same sad state.

Ambattur Raki multiplex was the hide out during my college time... now after 3 years I went this weekend... wow the ticket counter is just like sathyam... LCDs here and there.

With more expectations entered in to the hall for 3 Idiots,

Same dhothi is there. Even just above the seats there are so many LCD minis for advertising but the main screen is pathetic...


From now on I am going to book ticket near to the front row.
 

longshanks

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devi bala is just the size of a big living room and one should never watch a movie there, Its kinda interesting since a complex such as Devi which has Devi and Devi paradise which are gigantic in both screen and theater size has this shoe box of a theater as well.
 

BLASTO

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devi bala is just the size of a big living room and one should never watch a movie there, Its kinda interesting since a complex such as Devi which has Devi and Devi paradise which are gigantic in both screen and theater size has this shoe box of a theater as well.

:D :eek:hyeah:
 

gannyboy

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guys guys....yesterday i went for vettaikaran!!! ( why i went is another sad story)...but ..the theater was 'seasons' at satyam complex...seating was plush and very comfy and the eats yumm...but ...BUT...the sound?? ..was tooo loud..the loudness was killing the whatever little sound effects the movie was having...and with 'n' number of villains shouting around...omg was an horrible xperience.. if this s only for vettaikaran or every movie in seasons will be like this..!! and i had similar loud xperience with pasanga movie...wonder if the regional movies are run with loud settings!!!
 

teky

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They used a Dhothi sometime for screen, and this screen was that size. They aired a film division movie and the movie took 60% of the size. My wife was like RAM whats this...i was like relax babes, this is just Film Division and they dont shoot in 16:9 ratio. She gave me that "My husband knows all smile" :yahoo:


She just looked at me and I knew all words and statements she wanted to hurl but the silence from her was even more killing, I didnt have anywhere else to look. r.

ROFTL - I just imagined the scene and your reaction.

guys guys....yesterday i went for vettaikaran!!! ( why i went is another sad story)...but ..the theater was 'seasons' at satyam complex...seating was plush and very comfy and the eats yumm...but ...BUT...the sound?? ..was tooo loud..the loudness was killing the whatever little sound effects the movie was having...and with 'n' number of villains shouting around...omg was an horrible xperience.. if this s only for vettaikaran or every movie in seasons will be like this..!! and i had similar loud xperience with pasanga movie...wonder if the regional movies are run with loud settings!!!

I think it's up to the movie than the theater, You've real guts to watch such a movie in theater. God saved you :D . I had the same experience of watching Ghajini (Tamil), the way the re-recording was done made it feel very loud and was annoying and took a nice feel of movie.

Apologies for slightly getting OT & Non-tamil crowd please excuse.

Have a read through - Prabhu n Ferrari Vettaikaaran
 

cmsajith

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guys guys....yesterday i went for vettaikaran!!! ( why i went is another sad story)...but ..the theater was 'seasons' at satyam complex...seating was plush and very comfy and the eats yumm...but ...BUT...the sound?? ..was tooo loud..the loudness was killing the whatever little sound effects the movie was having...and with 'n' number of villains shouting around...omg was an horrible xperience.. if this s only for vettaikaran or every movie in seasons will be like this..!! and i had similar loud xperience with pasanga movie...wonder if the regional movies are run with loud settings!!!

Its because of the theater operators who spoil the entire soul of the sound mixing. I have seen some theaters increasing the volume and feeds the side channels with the center channel content during the songs. To them that is having better effect than the original mixing.

Hope you all know Rasool Pookkutty (Oscar winner) who did the sound mixing and the effects in one recent malayalam filim "PAZHASSIRAJA" with live sound mixing. They recreated the same scenes at the same locations to get the live sound effects. On seeing his efforts for that movie was getting wasted because of the bad reproduction and other mistakes during the normal playback he went personally to the operator's room in some of the theaters in kerala and had to educate them how to use the full potential of their systems. As per him, almost all the theaters especially in kerala are having very highly sophisticated equipments (I had experienced this in one of the theater in my native, it was like a full fledged server room similar to some lab setups with two three racks of servers and routers) and its not being used to its full potential because the operator doesnt know how to do that, he is still in the old stereo world and trying to simulate the surrounds "manually", however manual process is being defined by each operator!!
 
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madbullram

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Vekat: Trust me you dont want to be in my shoes why that silence happens . Though we both had a big laugh and decided we will watch in our home which is 1000 times better than Devi Bala
 

shailenderb

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More than 15 years ago when I bought my first home theatre system - a Philips Dolby Prologic receiver with 6-analogue input (DTS Ready) and a Pioneer DVD player with 6-analogue output (at around Rs. 25 K for the player alone) an expert in theatre systems who also used to install home theatres for friends warned me that I will never be able to enjoy a movie in a theatre after getting used to my home theatre.

How true he proved to be. I must have watched around 4 movies in different theatres in the last 15 years and I found all of them to be too loud, too much of bass that was drowning all the treble, etc etc.

I find people who enjoy movies (and the audio quality) in theatres are the ones who don't have full fledged HTs. They keep praising Inox and Satyam theatres for their "fantastic sound". I now envy them.

Warm Regds / Shailender
 
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