Best Cinema Halls ever visited....

santhukp

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Lets discuss about the Best cinema Halls in the Country..... Criteria for Good Cinema Hall is ...Good Sound System, Good Comfort seats,Good Ambiance ,Parking area and of course reasonable charge.

For Me the Best theater is Ragam theater in Kerala,Thrissur. I never seen a theater like this any part of India.

With its 70 MM Screen .I high quality Dolby Digital Sound(True Dolby Sound boxes are there)Introduced in midle of 1990's.Watched lots of films from there
( Jurrasic Park -First Movie after the Dolby Digital Installed in Ragam,Deep Blue Sea,Mummy,Titanic).I never experienced that kind of sound effect in any of the other theater.
I visited Lots of theaters in Mumbai(Chitra,Inox,Adlabs,Metro,Eros),Bangalore and chennai etc.But same kind of ambiance is missing in this theaters that what i felt.And the best part is the Ticket charge only Rs 45 for Personnel Box :p.
 
Lets discuss about the Best cinema Halls in the Country..... Criteria for Good Cinema Hall is ...Good Sound System, Good Comfort seats,Good Ambiance ,Parking area and of course reasonable charge.For Me the Best theater is Ragam theater in Kerala,Thrissur. I never seen a theater like this any part of India.

With its 70 MM Screen .I high quality Dolby Digital Sound(True Dolby Sound boxes are there)Introduced in midle of 1990's.Watched lots of films from there
( Jurrasic Park -First Movie after the Dolby Digital Installed in Ragam,Deep Blue Sea,Mummy,Titanic).I never experienced that kind of sound effect in any of the other theater.
I visited Lots of theaters in Mumbai(Chitra,Inox,Adlabs,Metro,Eros),Bangalore and chennai etc.But same kind of ambiance is missing in this theaters that what i felt.And the best part is the Ticket charge only Rs 45 for Personnel Box :p.

Dear friends,
Talking of theaters reminds me of good old days in Chennai then Madras.Though I am now settled in Chennai then as a school boy my uncle used to take me to those theaters.There was Safire Theater (a complex with 3 cinema halls) probably the first multiplex in India in the sixties.In this complex there was a theater (Blue Diamond) which shows continuous shows from 9 am to 9pm!There was Anand theater the first 70 mm theater in South India.It is indeed sad to note that these theaters have been razed now.It was a relic in those days.
Sincerely,
pksnathan
 
In Chennai eventhough the most popular ones today are Sathyam, Inox, Mayajaal, etc. it is Devi theatre which has the best sound and picture quality. It has a mammoth screen which is in the shape of an arc. Sadly it is a "B" rated theatre today because of the poor ticketing practice ( jus too many black ticketeers) and poor parking facilities.

I still remember watching the maniratnam movie " kannathil Muthamittal" in Devi. The movie starts with a lot of war kinda action and the rough seas. Then the screen goes white, PURE WHITE..and you hear the song "vellai pookal" start just like white flower blossoming..it was magical..saw the movie 2 more times in Devi theatre and each time i was mesmerised..

The drive-in theatre on ECR " Prarthana" is another place to enjoy a relaxed night with firends and a bottle of beer.
The sound is pathetic but who cares..its the fun of watching the movie with friends, beer and lotsa snacks for which you go there.

Other theatres which was equally good, were the Galaxy and Urvashi in bangalore. Galaxy was comparatively small but had amazing sound quality, bad sadly the theatre was closed down a few years back.

I always enjoyed watching or rather listening, while seated in the middle rows in theatres, which don't have a balcony. Guess the balcony spoils the equal distribution of sound all over. If Any acoustic engineers here, you can give an explanation for this phenomenon
 
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nice thread.

I grew up in a small town called KOttayam. It had 5 cinema halls, Abhilash, Anand, Asha, Anupama and Anaswara. As of now, except for Anupama, the others are all owned by the same person. Abhilash, Anand and Asha were in the same complex, so i suppose we could call it a multiplex. Abhilash was the best of the lot, and the first of the lot to get Dolby Digital sound. It was huge, and i've seen many a memorable film at Abhilash.

Now I think all of 5 halls have Dolby/DTS.

Occasionally I'd make a trip to Cochin and Shenoys, Sarita, Kavita and Padma were the best of the lot there. Sridar was the one that always played English movies, and was also the first in Kerala to be air-conditioned, and much later the first in Kerala to have Dolby. But it wasn't a particularly great hall.

I did college in Bangalore and Rex and Symphony were everyone's favourites. I was never terribly fond of Galaxy. Plaza had a quirky charm to it.

Then while working in Bombay I used to live very close to Regal, so it's my sentimental favourite from Bombay. Regal, Eros, Metro and Sterling were of a similar level of quality, nothing great, but not too bad. I liked Liberty because it had a really grand foyer, and a very old-world feel. I used to detest the idea of going to INOX, because i could watch the same movies in these other halls for much less, but I did catch a couple of shows (including a couple of Malayalam films) there. Decent, pretty standard multiplex, but definitely nothing special.

Then it was Gurgaon, the land of multiplexes. PVR had their standard cookie-cutter multiplexes, but they also had two halls which were called "cinema europa" a tie-up with Europa, and they were very nice and comfortable. DT Cinemas was the other major player in Gurgaon, and they were again pretty standard.

Of course, after this long journey I come to my favourite cinema halls, Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai. I know they're a "rip-off" and all that, but their projection and sound are top-notch, not to mention the seating and the quality of the snacks available. No other multiplex in India comes even close to the quality that Sathyam offers (except perhaps the PVR GOld class, which I haven't tried). Sorry for boring you people with so much detail.
 
Though i stay in bangalore, i used to visit my relatives in vijaywada,Andhra for summer.
It was a small town (it is a major business center and the telugu film epicenter, but still had a small temple town feel to it). The summer was and is always unsparing. harly any green cover and the bare hills surrounding this town made it like an oven. Average summer temperatures were in excess of 44 degrees. Since there was hardly any other indoor entertainment to escape the heat, the airconditioned (or call it aircooled) theatres were an all time favorite. We had close to 100 theatres during peak time.
Very moderately priced, we had two exceptionally good theatres called Raj (part of a twin theatre raj/yuvraj) and alankar.
Raj was a 70mm and had a six track stereophonic system in those days (late 80's)
We had this chiranjeevi movie in 1989 called Kondaveetidonga (dont bother proouncing this telugu tongue twister :)) which had a six track sound.
In one of the scenes, the hero and his brother are fighting in a scenic place with a waterfall in the backdrop. Just the sound of water gushing down from all around you was enough to make the audience go crazy.
We have seen better made movies.. and we have seen worse.. but this movie stands out as it was my very first experience of an " immersive" sound experience.
 
I did college in Bangalore and Rex and Symphony were everyone's favourites. I was never terribly fond of Galaxy. Plaza had a quirky charm to it.

yeah Plaza had a definite old world charm to it. It had a balcony or rather first floor, made of wood entirely. Can you believe a theatre where so many people caome and go everyday surviving for so long on wooden planks.

still remember watching JURASSIC PARK there wondering whether the balcony would just fall off when TRex walks in with a loud thud..hehe.
wonder whether the theatre is still there or has it got demolished to pave way for a swanky mall
 
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still remember watching JURASSIC PARK there wondering whether the balcony would just fall off when TRex walks in with a loud thud..hehe.
wonder whether the theatre is still there or has it got demolished to pave way for a swanky mall
Plaza has made way for the M G Road station of the Bangalore Metro.:sad:
 
Sangeet in Secundrabad & Mayeshwari & parmeshwari in hyderabad...my friends from hyderabad would agree with me...right friends.:clapping:
 
I did college in Bangalore and Rex and Symphony were everyone's favourites. I was never terribly fond of Galaxy. Plaza had a quirky charm to it.

You've taken me to my childhood. Saw lots and lots of movies at Rex and Symphony. Symphony especially was great. Saw so many good movies there, most notably Return Of The Jedi, it was so cool with its special FX and sound FX.
 
Sangeet in Secundrabad & Mayeshwari & parmeshwari in hyderabad...my friends from hyderabad would agree with me...right friends.:clapping:

Right on. Especially Maheshwari and Parmeshwari did not even look like theaters, more like the lobby of a star hotel and their seating was just so comfortable. Sangeeth rocked for being the only place to air English movies and that too at Rs. 8 per ticket. Anand too played English movies for a while and its sound system too was very good, Twister was just awesome at Anand, even I was holding on to my seat for fear of being sucked in.
 
You've taken me to my childhood. Saw lots and lots of movies at Rex and Symphony. Symphony especially was great. Saw so many good movies there, most notably Return Of The Jedi, it was so cool with its special FX and sound FX.

+1 for symphony, rex and galaxy in and around the MG Road area. Sunday rituals would be breakfast at home, few rounds of beer on MG road, movie, snack + paan, back home for dinner.

Right now Vybhav in Sanjaynagar has pretty good layout and sound. Also supports DD and THX tracks.
 
nice thread.

Of course, after this long journey I come to my favourite cinema halls, Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai. I know they're a "rip-off" and all that, but their projection and sound are top-notch, not to mention the seating and the quality of the snacks available. No other multiplex in India comes even close to the quality that Sathyam offers (except perhaps the PVR GOld class, which I haven't tried). Sorry for boring you people with so much detail.

I am from Erode (near Coimbatore) and I would like to mention a Theater here called VSP .

I did not know that I am NOT going to visit a Theater having better sound system than this, when I used to watch movies there. Though I am poor in judging which sound system is good or best, I can claim in this theater the Sound effect is best I ever seen so for , even the Inox and Sathyam in Chennai do not match( in terms of Sound only). The reason may be this Cinema is very small and due to the good acoustics by chance. I watched Titanic ,Gladiator there. I feel the Sound system successfully re-created the sound effects even the subtle details,as the directors and sound engineers of those movies intended.
 
...Of course, after this long journey I come to my favourite cinema halls, Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai. I know they're a "rip-off" and all that...

This is exactly what I thought of Sathyam till I went to Devi to watch 'Sherlock Holmes' in their 'Quartz' class. :mad: The less said, the better! :mad: I went there inspite of the warnings I read here on the forum as that was the only theater that was playing the movie at the time we wanted. Ofcourse, my friends HAD to watch the movie right that day! :mad:
 
Rajmandir in jaipur rajasthan is also among one of them. It is still maintaining its heritage look thru carpets and old time fancy lights. The good thing is it is a visiting place for tourists too.
 
Nice Thread santhukp

+1 for symphony, rex and galaxy in and around the MG Road area. Sunday rituals would be breakfast at home, few rounds of beer on MG road, movie, snack + paan, back home for dinner.

Right now Vybhav in Sanjaynagar has pretty good layout and sound. Also supports DD and THX tracks.

THX Tracks ?:rolleyes:


Most of the C Halls that i have visited was in Hyd and Bglr.
I "guess" hyd could have the highest no of Cinema Hall in india and among them I found Skyline Pretty good in all these aspects -but for Sound staging
this and Sangeet was the best when compared to Anand,devi,saikishore and others.(reference is almost 10 years when i had last seen a movie here)

Here in bangalore , i had good vibes with Galaxy.

Last 4 years - My bedroom (pc based 24" screen):).
 
Friends here i'm going to write only abt theatres in chennai. First let me tell abt the theatres interms of sound effects. My favourite used to be Devi theatre in the Devicomplex with spectacular screen projection. The clarity of sound effects produced was superb. But sad to say that after the renovation, they have made it a mess it seems. At present considering the large seating capacity sathyam & Santham in sathyam multiplex is really good. PVR, Inox, mayajaal do offer gud DD and abhiraami multiplex to some extent. But if u cant afford for more bucks go to Kasi ( Film viewing from Balcony will be surely different compared to other theatres as it is very high), Ega, melody,udhayam they do offer gud sound system. In terms of ambience sathyam was the pioneer to set the bench mark in chennai to be frank. Mayajaal, Inox, PVR followed and in some screens it is better also. Hope chennaittees agree with me. Happy movie viewing. :)
 
Have fond memories of watching "Where Eagles Dare" and "Mackenna's Gold ", among many other movies,at Lido in Bangalore. Particularly remember the opening scene in Mackenna's Gold with Jose Feliciano's "Old Turkey Buzzard ".
 
Have fond memories of these cinemas for the time spent there:-
In DDun: Prabhat, Natraj (Seen quite a number of movies during childhood at these two)
In B'lore: Rex, Symphony (Loved watching movies First Day First Show at just 50 bucks, half price for the student and bachelor crowd!) and Naga
In Indore: Chandragupt, Regal and Sapna-Sangeeta (Remember time spent with friends and family. I watched my first movie alone at the first one - Dil Se!)
In Delhi: Chanakya (Loved going there from College and watching a movie followed by going around Sarojini Market!) and Vishal

All these I remember not because of the systems but because of the times I had there!
 
My best of best experiance was citi pride, swar gate, pune, screen 1, Lagaan, 2001...as I recall.

At that time it was the biggest screen in Pune! And watching lagaan over there.... :thumbup:
 
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