Could small screens be for small minds? Please don't take the "image" from "imagination."

I am a commitee member of the Bonham Theatre Project in Fairbury Ne. I agree with the comment that the movie industry should be the ones paying for the upgrade. That being said it hasn't happened thus far so we have to try to do it on our own. I feel it is important to our community to have a theatre for many different reasons. We need to offer an entertainment option for our youth and adults. I was told by a motel manager that it was one of the questions asked when they receive calls about lodging is whether we have a movie theatre. Those people will spend money in whichever community they book lodging in.One resident said he sees it as a quality of life issue and I tend to agree. Our group is committed to seeing the project through and hopefully more people will get behind us so please contribute if you can.

Please Inform the public that digital is not something to be worried about. The company that Peter Jackson has been working with while making the Hobbit is also making projectors for viewing 4K immages.
Red Digital Cinema made a 4K camera "The Red One" back in 2006. Billed as a hoax by the other camera makers. Red has proven them wrong. The cameras use Solid state drives to record the data eliminating the need for film. It uses a system that records the raw data at 4K giving a resolution in my oppion that is better than film.
Many Fearures, Television Shows, and Magazine covers are now being shot on 4K Digital. Red sees that the projectors need to be upgraded to the 4K system and have been working on getting them to a price point that will allow small theaters to be able to project digital features.
This is going to change everything for small town theaters and home users. The Red Ray players that are coming out soon will project 4K.
Kirt please check out http://www.red.com for more information on the film revolution that is here now. I have a Red Epic-M and the immages that I get out of thie camera are astonishing. Forget blue ray, DVD,and HD. HD at 1080p is not going to be good enough to stop an immage that is 4 times better.

This seems like a no-brainer. The movie industry is going to save billions of dollars by converting to digital. They are the ones who should be paying the theaters to convert to digital. At the very least, they are the ones who should be loaning the money to theaters to make this costly conversion. It seems like it would be in their best interests as well, unless they really do want to run the small-town theaters out of business. Or is this where they start cleaning up the violence be fed our young people, by closing down the small-town theaters?

"you can just watch it on your phone" - did you know that some of us live where you can't get a cell phone signal? If I want one I have to drive a mile south or half a mile north.

The two things not mentioned in this piece is how film has much much more visual information vs digital and the longevity of the equipment.
First, one frame of film has thousands of times more information compared to digital, not to mention contrast color quality and gradations. And, the grains in film are random from frame to frame making the image seem more life like. Second, the life span of these digital projectors is about 10 years. The title photo on this web page that shows the non operating side of the projector with it's round intermittent flywheel that looks to be about 70 plus years old. Believe it or not, it will still show a perfectly good image. In my opinion, the day that carbon arc projection went away in favor of the xenon bulb light source, that's when presentation began to go downhill.

My dad grew up in Fairbury and I found out that the Bonham had closed just last week when visiting my grandma for Christmas. Fairbury is a town of just over 5,000 and while there are other things to do, we always loved the theater (and being shocked at how cheap it was compared to the AMC in our Phoenix suburb). We were bummed to not be able to go over the holiday!

It's great to know that there's a group trying to reopen the Bonham. I called my dad right away and am going to send the story out to the rest of the family. I hope that this gives their project a bump in fundraising, I will be sending what I can.

It is in the best interest of the studios that as many as possible theaters have a digital movie system.
How about the major film studios help the theaters get their digital systems?
The studios could do that as a subsidy, a donation, a business agreement, etc.
Just an (naïve) idea.

A few months ago a giant thunderstorm destroyed the sound system at my hometown cinema. The theater has been around since the 1920s. No small feat for a town of about 4,000 in Oklahoma, where statehood was only achieved about 20 years before.

Tickets, last I went, were still $3 and snacks were rarely priced above $1.50. And this was no 'dollar theater.' New releases were fairly quick to the screen (though rarely in the first week of distribution). But the theater hasn't seen an upgrade - save that very sound system in late 90s/early 00s - in ages, and definitely not one in my lifetime (1983). It's hardly a bustling community and the gate profits are likely very small. The theater has been shut since the thunderstorm, and, talking to the locals, it isn't likely to re-open any time soon.

Thank you for this story. It's made me want to investigate the possibility of forming a group like that one in Nebraska to see what we can do to save this local icon.

Some movies are just "big screen" films. Watching Harry Potter or James Bond on the small (tiny) screen just isn't the same.