HOME theatres that use large high-definition television sets coupled to surround-sound audio systems offer so immersive an experience, at so modest a cost, that they have begun to threaten the movie industry's ticket sales. More and more people are waiting for Hollywood's new releases to come out on DVD or Blu-ray Disc—so they can experience them in the comfort of their own homes, rather than pay extortionate prices at a local multiplex for the dubious privilege of viewing them on the silver screen.

There is nothing new, of course, about television's impact on the cinema. A steady erosion of ticket sales has ensued since the telly took over the living room in the middle of the last century. Until recently, though, the competition between the two media was for the viewer's time. Now it is more about disposable income and the quality of the viewing experience. A Blu-ray Disc played on a large 1080p plasma-panel display can more than match a cinema's sound and picture quality for a fraction of the cost—and provide a compelling reason to keep even avid movie fans at home.



The impact on ticket sales is telling. For the first nine months of this year, box-office receipts in America were down 2.3% (to $8.33 billion, from $8.52 billion for the same period last year), say analysts at SNL Kagan, a finance and media research company based in Virginia. Meanwhile, video rentals from Netflix alone increased 48% (to $2.33 billion, from $1.57 billion). And this comes after the film industry has tried every trick in the book to halt its downward spiral.



The biggest stunt of late has been 3D. Following James Cameron's blockbuster movie “Avatar”, Hollywood has rushed out reels of second-rate 3D films. In catching at straws, however, the industry made the mistake of crediting the success of “Avatar”, which grossed over $2.7 billion, to the film's stereoscopic effects rather than Mr Cameron's craftsmanship and artistic genius (see “The best seat in the house”, May 7th 2010).



But, once again, the 3D fad is fading fast. Audiences dislike having to wear dorky glasses just as much today as they did in the 1950s—the previous time 3D was hailed as cinema's saviour from the onslaught of television. And many people still complain that the stereoscopic effects induce nausea and headaches. Besides, 3D is also costly to capture, process and project. The only reason 3D has continued as long as it has this time around has been the enthusiasm of the cinema chains, which have used it to add $5 to $7.50 to ticket prices.



But now that television makers have put 3D circuitry in their HDTV sets, the gimmick's value has largely been eroded. While the stereoscopic circuitry adds little to a television's cost, makers had hoped to charge a hefty premium for 3D-enabled sets, and up to $150 extra for every pair of stereoscopic glasses. Consumers quickly disabused them of such thoughts. Over the past year, the premium for 3D television has all but evaporated, showing how little the effect is valued by viewers in general (see “Beyond HDTV”, July 28th 2011).



With box-office sales continuing their free-fall, the picture houses ought to be champing for a cinematic experience that viewers cannot get at home. Some are. The giant-screen IMAX system, for instance, can pack theatres even at premium prices—so rewarding and unique is the experience. But the movie business in general takes its cue from the film studios, which have rarely been in the vanguard of innovation.

Back in the 1920s, for instance, the studios even resisted the introduction of the “talkies”, arguing that silent pictures provided a perfect international language. Fortunately, for moviegoers everywhere, the studios were more independent and competitive in those days. Even so, Warner Brothers only released “The Jazz Singer”, the first feature-length movie to have synchronised sound, after one of the Warner brothers had been tricked into attending a demonstration of the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. Decades later, the studios sued Sony to suppress the videocassette, though it went onto become a huge source of revenue for them. For years, they poo-pooed the DVD—now their biggest bread-winner.



The only reason the studios replaced film with digital distribution and projection—arguably the biggest innovation the industry had made since the introduction of sound—was because it saved them a ton of money. But it did not provide a better cinematic experience. Digital projectors “produce an image that looks about the same as legacy 35mm,” noted Dean Goodhill earlier this year in a blog maintained by Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer prize-winning film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times. Mr Goodhill is the inventor of the MaxiVision48 film format.



MaxiVision48 uses 35mm film capable of running at either the standard rate of 24 frames per second or at 48fps. There is no doubt that raising the frame rate is the best way of improving the viewing experience. As a long-time believer of higher frame rates, Mr Ebert reckons MaxiVision48 produces images that are “four times as good as conventional film”.



Most digital films made today are shot in what is called 2K format—ie, a frame 2,048 pixels wide (with the number of vertical pixels depending on the film's aspect ratio, which can vary from 1.33 to 2.39 to one). A few recent ones, including “District 9” and “The Social Network”, have been shot in 4K format—ie, with frames 4,096 pixels wide. By contrast, a MaxiVision48 frame is 5,120 pixels wide.



But the real advantage of a format like MaxiVision48 is not so much its efficient use of the film's real estate, which allows it to cram in more pixels, but that it runs at twice the usual speed through the gate. Back in 1927, when talkies were being introduced, Hollywood moguls settled on 24fps because it was the lowest speed—and therefore the cheapest—they could get away with. No-one cared at the time that the slow frame rate caused images to blur, or that they juddered and strobed (eg, wagon wheels turning backwards) when objects moved rapidly within a scene, or the camera panned too quickly.



Today, though, people do care. With television screens refreshed at a minimum of 60 hertz in the United States (and increasingly at 120Hz and even 240Hz for LCD sets, and higher still for plasma panels), couch potatoes find the jerkiness of film an unacceptable annoyance. Indeed, great pains are taken to ensure that movies shown on LCD television sets in particular have any movement within scenes digitally smoothed by a process called motion interpolation. This is done by scanning first one frame of the film and then the next, and inserting between them a computer-synthesised average of the two, and then repeating the process for each successive frame.



It would help, of course, if movies were shot at much higher frame rates to start with. That is starting to happen. Peter Jackson, the director of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, intends shooting his next production, “The Hobbit”, at 48fps. And Mr Cameron likewise plans to shoot his forthcoming sequels to “Avatar” at 48fps or even higher. Whether they intend using the MaxiVision48 system has yet to be confirmed. But whatever Hollywood's two most iconic directors do, they are likely to point the industry in a whole new direction—and one that could give home viewers a reason to go out to the cinema again.



The irony is that film purists will no doubt hate it. Over the decades, moviegoers have come to accept the artifacts and blemishes of traditional film as normal—indeed, as part of the cinema's mystique. At 48fps or higher, most of those faults disappear and motion can appear almost too smooth. For some film fans, that will destroy the illusion—just as it did for audiophiles who grew up with the vinyl record's limited dynamic range along with all its pops and hisses, and hated the soullessness of the Compact Disc's pristine sound. Everyone else, though, is likely to find adopting higher frame rates the smartest thing Hollywood has done since giving Al Jolson a microphone.