Drive In Theater Surround Sound

[Sonik Wiz]

So with regular movie theaters still closed the last two drive in theaters local have opened up to amazing demand. The news said it was sold out at the four screens. Un-social distancing of course at the concession stand, no cash credit or debit only and reserve your car park space on line. What caught my attention also was the advertised 7.1 surround:

https://www.bbtheatres.com/twin-drive-in/showtimes/
Now I haven't been to a drive in since you'd hang the lo-fi speaker on the window but I am aware that present day you tune to an FM frequency & listen to it in stereo. Is there some kind of audio magic that gives you Dolby 7.1 surround from that? I don't think so more likely it's just the movie in 7.1 & someone wasn't sharp enough to remove it from the ad copy.

But coudn't this be another ,market for Involve? Sell encoders to the drive in theaters. And the Surround Master alredy voltage friendly for automotive purposes. It shouldn't take much to make a dedicated case with automotive connections etc. Might be able to keep it very simple & use the SMv1 demo boards . My little Mazda 3 is stereo only but like most cars it has speakers front & rear. If I had a simple add on for surround sound in the car I would certainly buy one. And maybe even go to a drive in theater.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

So with regular movie theaters still closed the last two drive in theaters local have opened up to amazing demand. The news said it was sold out at the four screens. Un-social distancing of course at the concession stand, no cash credit or debit only and reserve your car park space on line. What caught my attention also was the advertised 7.1 surround:

https://www.bbtheatres.com/twin-drive-in/showtimes/
Now I haven't been to a drive since you'd hang the lo-fi speaker on the window but I am aware that present day you tune to an FM frequency & listen to it in stereo. Is there some kind of audio magic that gives you Dolby 7.1 surround from that? I don't think so more likely it's just the movie in 7.1 & someone wasn't sharp enough to remove it from the ad copy.

But coudn't this be another ,market for Involve? Sell encoders to the drive in theaters. And the Surround Master alredy voltage friendly for automotive purposes. It shouldn't take much to make a dedicated case with automotive connections etc. Might be able to keep it very simple & use the SMv1 demo boards . My little Mazda 3 is stereo only but like most cars it has speakers front & rear. If I had a simple add on for surround sound in the car I would certainly buy one. And maybe even go to a drive in theater.

Unfortunately getting true 7.1 to become standard gear in cars, is still as hard a sell as the lyrics to one of my fav. surround tunes:
But yea, a Surround Master in the dash... bring it on!

I was born yesterday
When they brought my Kamakiri
When they handed me the keys
It's a steam-power 10
The frame is out of Glasgow
The tech is Balinese
It's not a freeway bullet
Or a bug with monster wheels
It's a total biosphere
The farm in the back
Is hydroponic
Good, fresh things
Every day of the year
Good, fresh things
Every day of the year

 

[par4ken]

Funny how whats old is new again. I was saddened when our local drive in closed in the early eighties but it was happening all over. When the theatre shut down most of the outdoor speakers were no longer working but they were broadcasting the audio over AM at first and then FM. with FM your audio experience would be limited by the quality of your audio system only. What I liked most about drive ins were that you could get real food not just popcorn and could even sneak in a few beers, to make the experience that much more enjoyable.

 

[Q-Eight]

If it's Dolby Digital, that signal can be broadcast over FM stereo. The only thing is you need a receiver capable of doing something with that signal. My Sony MEX DV-2000 has a built-in Dolby processor and does great at Drive Ins. (truth be told, it's only been to ONE drive-in).

 

[JonUrban]

We still have a functioning Drive-In theater close to me, the three screen (!!) Mansfield Drive-In, and they do the audio through the FM Radio. When I had my older Acura's with the Dolby decoders in them, I used to use that when we went there on occasion and it seemed to work but you never really know. How much was actual direct information and how much was just phase shifting that normally comes from running stereo through a matrix sort of deal?

I tried it with the new Acura last year, this one has DTS Neural, which I think is horrible. It wasn't the same. Another issue was that new cars do all kinds of weird things with the lights (inside and out) when you sit for a while in accessory mode, so all over the drive-in peoples lights were coming on in the middle of the movie! Which of course results in horns beeping (remember?)

Anyway, I had to look at my owners manual to figure out how to stop the lights from coming on after so many minutes of accessory use. Ah for the old days when you needed a key to start the thing, and a crank to roll down the windows. (And what about that foot stomper for the bright lights?)

 

[GOS]

(And what about that foot stomper for the bright lights?)

LOL! Yes, I hated those. Mine always seemed to get a catch in it and you literally had to stomp the shit out of it to get it to work. haha

 

[par4ken]

Ah for the old days when you needed a key to start the thing, and a crank to roll down the windows. (And what about that foot stomper for the bright lights?)

Ah, I miss the old days, I miss that things were simpler. I used to love new technology now often I wish it would go away. As for the stomper for the lights, I loved that feature except for when it would ice up in the winter. Now with each new vehicle you have to search for everything, lights wippers, cruse all differ by make and model! New cars are much more difficult, impossible to install aftermarket audio equipment in.

 

[Q-Eight]

Ah for the old days when you needed a key to start the thing, and a crank to roll down the windows. (And what about that foot stomper for the bright lights?)

Why do you think I still rock these old ladies?
I mean, I do still really enjoy my Tiburon and Mustang, but yeah, it's just not the same.

 

[marpow]

No Drive In's by me in the West Side of the Bay Area. I looked on line to see if any close, some in the East Bay, they advertise more like flea markets.
Back in the Day the one I went to always was the Geneva Drive In just above the Cow Palace in Daly City. Snack shack and one speaker to hang on your window, good times, beer with the guys or kissing with the girls.
Now long gone with condos.
Intersting fact sheet on Drive In's and The Solano Drive In, way north of me. Solano

 

[soundsation]

I Remember my parents taking me and my little brother to see first Star Wars movie at the drive in. Dad had a '69 Dodge Charger, and my little brother did not want the doors to open for him to get out, because he wanted to climb out like the Dukes of Hazard Dodge Charger. The Charger happened to be the hand me down car for me to start driving. My father thought he would save on gas buying the 2 barrel 383 instead of the 4 barrel. He found that not to be true with mostly normal driving.
Speaking of surround experience our Focus Zx5 with Blaupunkt and the factory 4 speakers yields a great "expansion" and moving about 2.4 minutes into YES's owner of a lonely heart - hard left or right, and then a great center, and then hard left or right again or something. The re-mastered and regular cd yielded same result.

 

[Philip Spinner]

Last time I went to a drive in was to see Bond's The Spy Who Loved Me. About half an hour in to the movie a thick fog rolled in from long island sound. So many horns blowing that they stopped the movie and gave everyone a refund.

 

[Sal1950]

Tiburon

What's that?

 

[cbmmm3]

last drive in movie.......Cheech and Chong Up In Smoke....it had just been released. Wow - that was a long time ago.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

last drive in movie.......Cheech and Chong Up In Smoke....it had just been released. Wow - that was a long time ago.

Ummmmm was that the one they cooked pancakes on the naked stove grills?

 

[Sal1950]

last drive in movie.......Cheech and Chong Up In Smoke....it had just been released. Wow - that was a long time ago.

I saw that one, then I went to a party afterward, it lasted for the next 40+ years.

 

[jeffko]

Can you imagine at the same movie about 300 Acura's with their windows down? Ahh the dichotomy!

 

[JonUrban]

Ummmmm was that the one they cooked pancakes on the naked stove grills?

That's the one where the van was rockin' outside the concert theater and when they came out they got a round of applause. Even though the rocking was due to something other than what the crowd thought!

Audio is NSFW but the video is fine, after all he just had a leg cramp........

 

[Q-Eight]

What's that?

Groovy little Hyundai Sports Coupe. I refuse to get rid of it. Little V6 that doesn't know the definition of "redline", 6-speed and a 4.44:1 final drive. It's like a Go-Kart on steroids, really. It's not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but it SOUNDS fast and with that steep of a final drive just launches like a bastard!

I still think had Hyundai decided to make this a rear-wheel-drive instead of the Genesis, they'd have won the sport-compact market hands down. My only beef with the car is that it's front-wheel-drive. But it's adorably cute, it's comfy, it's surprisingly practical and mine is equipped for Quad. So that makes it even better.

 

[V96GLF]

Surround Sound in a drive-in? We had a way of doing it in the early 70s in Johannesburg; a method we called “Bush Bioscope”.

A bunch of us teenagers would walk to the drive-in. The charges were per-car, so pedestrians could sneak in free. Just in front of the screen there was a grass bank, and that’s where we would put our blankets so that we could lie down and look up at the screen. A weird angle to watch from, but we liked it.

The cars always avoided the front row because the view was terrible from there. So we would take all of the speakers from the front row of poles, stretch them as far as the cables would allow, and arrange them around us on the grass slope, and turn them up as loud as possible without excessive distortion.

Bush bioscope with surround sound

 

[MidiMagic]

Tiburon - Spanish for "shark"

I drove one of those as a loner while my car was being repaired.