OTHER TECH

SOUND ADVICE

Although the crew responsible for planning Criterion's screening room is made up primarily of videophiles, audio doesn't get short shrift in this installation. Along with providing a clean, reliable switch to send video signals to the projector, the Denon AVR-3808CI receiver has an amplifier that pumps 130 watts into each of 7 channels - sufficient juice to fill the 22 x 17-foot room with sound. And it doesn't hurt that the Denon is hooked up to Axiom's Epic 80/500 speaker system - a Sound & Vision Certified & Recommended rig that Criterion seemed particularly bent on acquiring for the theater.

A good number of the company's DVD releases have mono soundtracks. (Yes, it's true: Films with multichannel digital sound are a relatively recent phenomenon.) So, even this budget high-end audio setup might seem like overkill for the Criterion Collection. But when Chris cues up a DVD of Pixar's Cars and skips ahead to a race scene, it's immediately apparent that the system's audio components can deliver their share of clarity, dynamics, and surround-sound zip on the latest Hollywood blockbusters. It's also clear that the Criterion folks like what they're hearing.

It's tough to unseat yourself from a cushy theater-style chair once you've settled in, so Chris continues the demo with a few clips from Bottle Rocket, an upcoming Criterion Blu-ray release that just happens to be my favorite film by director Wes Anderson (Rushmore). The picture looks wonderfully bright and crisp, and the manner in which the Samsung projector renders afternoon sunlight in one of the scenes strikes me as completely realistic. When Lee says that skin tones here look a bit yellow to him - a comment that Chris seems to take some exception with - I'm reminded that I'm dealing with people who critically analyze film-to-video transfers for a living. I thought I was bad; watching movies with these guys must be a blast!

To show off the system's handling of regular DVDs, we screen a few scenes from Criterion's three-disc boxed set of The Complete Monterey Pop Festival (also coming to Blu-ray, as is Gimme Shelter). For a film that was shot with 16mm cameras, Monterey Pop has an impressively clean picture here, with the film grain looking natural as opposed to noisy or enhanced. When we next move on to some laserdiscs, things don't hold up as well; even the Anchor Bay VP50's impressive noise-reduction processing has its limits. But watching a laserdisc once again after all these years really underscores how radically home-video quality has improved in one short decade.

As with any successful remodeling project, watching Criterion's screening room get transformed from a humdrum workspace into a maxed-out, high-end home theater was a thrill - and an inspiration. It was also cool to have a company that we've held in the highest esteem since the old laserdics days tap Sound & Vision directly for advice on what equipment to buy. Criterion invested lots of brainpower into its new screening room, and it managed to get great results on a budget. And although the pleasure is all theirs, the company's efforts should pay off in even better looking and sounding discs the next time you take home a title or two from the Criterion Collection.