Blocking cell phone reception in a Movie theatre.

[TheVrolok]

Or how about the theatre just has a policy if you are caught using your cell phone and it's disruptive you get booted with no refund. It's free and maintenance proof technology.

I don't agree about the "if you go to a theatre then you shouldn't need a phone".

Ok. So what if I have a date night out with my wife and we leave our kid with a babysitter and the child has a major allergic reaction, accident, ect and they need to reach me ASAP? Should that be blocked too?

Common sense and common courtesy are all that are needed. Turn your ringer off and keep it closed unless something emergent happens and you need to leave the auditorum. If you can't follow those rules then you should be escorted to the door.

/thread

 

[lord_emperor]

As far some of the other ideas, anything that results in people being ask to leave, or escorted out of the theater is pointless. In those cases, the disruption has already happened and the movie experienced ruined.

You'd best make all patrons surrender their hats, shave their hair to an acceptable length and wire their mouths shut in that case. Oh also stop selling popcorn to stave off popcorn throwing.

Maybe ban children under 12 and people taller than 6 feet.

Cell phones are about the least disruptive thing in the theatre.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

I wouldn't go to a theater that does this. I turn my phone on vibrate and if it goes off in the theater, I leave and check my phone. I never pull it out, no one can hear it, and it bothers no one but I can still make sure my kids are ok at the babysitter.

 

[AlienCraft]

Or how about the theatre just has a policy if you are caught using your cell phone and it's disruptive you get booted with no refund. It's free and maintenance proof technology.

I don't agree about the "if you go to a theatre then you shouldn't need a phone".

Ok. So what if I have a date night out with my wife and we leave our kid with a babysitter and the child has a major allergic reaction, accident, ect and they need to reach me ASAP? Should that be blocked too?

Common sense and common courtesy are all that are needed. Turn your ringer off and keep it closed unless something emergent happens and you need to leave the auditorum. If you can't follow those rules then you should be escorted to the door.

Bah! Quit being reasonable. That'll never work because The Public is basically stupid.

 

[Perknose]

Or you could just start showing disrespectful people the door and the problem fixes itself. But no, we need to take the passive agressive, high tech approach to fix things that could be fixed with a simple "Hey, the movies starting, please turn that off".

I don't think you thought this idea through, vi!

Most theaters are mulitplexes and simply don't have the personnel to actively patrol each theater. You'd have to have someone on the scene in each separate theater. Movie houses couldn't afford this.

Also, it would be more disruptive to try and eject a patron, even if they eventually cooperated, spoiling the movie experience while an usher got their attention and then made them get up and leave.

Moreover, there's a very good chance that a significant percentage of these transgressors would make a fuss or outright refuse to leave! The minimum wage teenager trying to get them to comply would be up against it.

Finally how would it be determined beyond any shadow of a doubt that the call being received wasn't an emergency, especially if the person disputed this? How, exactly, would this be resolved?

Instead of calling the high tech approach passive aggressive as you do, I call it proactive and fool-proof and employee resource smart.

 

[mike2fix]

"Common sense and common courtesy are all that are needed."



Unfortunately a large portion of the population are lacking one or both of these items.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

This comes up from time to time at the school I work at. Some teachers want a call reception jammer installed so they can keep the attention of the kids, but parents don't so they can reach their kids in an emergency. One of our teachers brought in a short distance jammer, and got in trouble for it.

To me it's simple, what did people do before cell phones? Parents called the office, the office called the room that the kid was in. It's a no-brainer for schools.

Movie theaters are a little different because it's one of those places that you could go to and no one would know where you were to reach you. The same idea though, before cell phones what did people do?

I would be ok with it personally.

Kids and cell phones is just stupid. I had one during high school, but I turned it off after I slept and turned it on only after I got out of class. WTF is the point of having a phone AT school when you can't really call anyone.

ALL your friends are there. The only time I HAD to use a phone at school was to call the admissions board when I was applying to college because they left me a message one day, and they were on the east coast so I had to call before they closed.

This is why I find Facebook and Twitter almost dumb for high school kids too. Your friends are right there. Facebook was designed for college kids who don't link up every single day at recess. There are people you meet and forget, or meet and never see again for a month or two or a year. That's what it's for. And this is why high school kids LOVE AIM and texting. College kids fall back on Facebook and what not.

Anyway, moving to cell phones in movie theaters. Just boot the idiots who use them during the movie. I have my phone on vibrate 100% of the time. I don't text every 20 min, so the rare occasion I do get a text, I just peek at it and continue with my movie.

 

[simonizor]

Cell phone blockers aren't very expensive; I think this is a good idea. It's not enough just to have a no cell phone policy; people still violate it and you have to get up in the middle of the movie to go get tell on them. That interrupts my movie, and is not what I'm paying for.

This is actually why I haven't gone to the movies in a long time. Last time my GF and I went there was a group of girls talking to themselves and on their phones the whole time. I'd much rather sit in front of my TV in comfort and watch it interruption free, or if I have to get interrupted, I have a pause button .

 

[brblx]

i believe this is called 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'...

personally i always condone throwing babies away; but simply enforcing rules in a movie theater with the minimum wage personnel already there sounds like a lot better idea than jamming EVERYONE's cell phone signal, including the on-call heart surgeon with it on vibrate/silent...

 

[KeithP]

Cell phones are about the least disruptive thing in the theatre.

B.S. Maybe it is a regional thing, but in Southern California, my experience with movie disruptions would put cell phones on equal footing with people being loud for the most common problem.

-KeithP

 

[vi edit]

If people aren't talking or texting then they are going to be playing games or flipping through pictures or any other random thing you can do on a smart phone nowadays and you aren't going to jam that. And then you still have yapping teens, crying kids, people putting their feet up on your seat, a 7 foot tall person sitting in front of you, a stinky person sitting next to you or someone with an obnoxious laugh doing it at awkward moments.

You are in a place with the general public. A cell phone is just one thing of many that that can make your viewing unpleasant. If you can't deal with it stay home or go to a theatre that enforces it's policies and doesn't lay over for teenagers and street trash.

 

[deanx0r]

have a policy for disruptive patrons, and enforce it. thats it, problem solved, and its not limited to just people using phones.

stop trying to regulate every little individual stupid ass thing people can and will do. its a waste of time and money (which will get passed down to the consumer). there are many many legitimate reasons people might need to be contacted during a movie. if they show discretion and courtesy just let it be. heres another case of penalize everyone because a few people are morons.

This.
I had to quote this because this is the reply that made the most sense.
This forum seems to be loaded with angry internet men who rant about anything/

 

[rudeguy]

so wait...are there really self righteous freaks that believe a petty annoyance in a movie theater is worth risking someone's life?

What about emergency responders or doctors or anyone like that who are on call?

(Not to mention the FCC permits receiving radio waves, not interfering with them)

 

[shortylickens]

so wait...are there really self righteous freaks that believe a petty annoyance in a movie theater is worth risking someone's life?

What about emergency responders or doctors or anyone like that who are on call?

(Not to mention the FCC permits receiving radio waves, not interfering with them)

A doctor who hangs out in a crowded, cutoff place while he's on call deserves a spanking.

And most of the above listed devices are FCC legal.
Even if they are not, you can line the walls with lead or tinfoil stuff to block outside reception. That would also be legal.

 

[vi edit]

so wait...are there really self righteous freaks that believe a petty annoyance in a movie theater is worth risking someone's life?

What about emergency responders or doctors or anyone like that who are on call?

(Not to mention the FCC permits receiving radio waves, not interfering with them)

The rebuttal is that "if you are oncall then you shouldn't be in a theatre" which is a load of shit and worthy of it's own thread.

 

[Perknose]

i believe this is called 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'...

personally i always condone throwing babies away; but simply enforcing rules in a movie theater with the minimum wage personnel already there sounds like a lot better idea than jamming EVERYONE's cell phone signal, including the on-call heart surgeon with it on vibrate/silent...

There are several reasons why your solution would be too costly and ultimately unworkable.

You can find them here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31652829&postcount=55

 

[Perknose]

If people aren't talking or texting then they are going to be playing games or flipping through pictures or any other random thing you can do on a smart phone nowadays and you aren't going to jam that. And then you still have yapping teens, crying kids, people putting their feet up on your seat, a 7 foot tall person sitting in front of you, a stinky person sitting next to you or someone with an obnoxious laugh doing it at awkward moments.

You are in a place with the general public. A cell phone is just one thing of many that that can make your viewing unpleasant. If you can't deal with it stay home or go to a theatre that enforces it's policies and doesn't lay over for teenagers and street trash.

So, you are saying that because there are many annoyances we can't control, we shouldn't effectively address one that we can?

That's not a very good argument.

It's like saying that because there are lots of accidents from other causes and plenty of bad drivers anyway that we should just give up and shut down all our traffic lights. Like I said, not a good argument.

 

[HeXen]

So I decided to google "movie theatre cell phone faraday cage" and I came upon a hotly contested anandtech thread from 2006. Rather than resurrect that, I figured I would start a new one.

So you didn't conclude anything from the first thread, yet think miraculously that there will be a conclusion in this one?

 

[rudeguy]

A doctor who hangs out in a crowded, cutoff place while he's on call deserves a spanking.

And most of the above listed devices are FCC legal.
Even if they are not, you can line the walls with lead or tinfoil stuff to block outside reception. That would also be legal.

What?

OK...what about the network admin who is on call? Should a whole company go down for 2 hours because he wasn't allowed to glance at his screen?

Your excuse is weaker than usual. Have you been sleeping well?

 

[rudeguy]

So, you are saying that because there are many annoyances we can't control, we shouldn't effectively address one that we can?

That's not a very good argument.

It's like saying that because there are lots of accidents from other causes and plenty of bad drivers anyway that we should just give up and shut down all our traffic lights. Like I said, not a good argument.

what is it with ATOT tonight. Its like they pumped in stupid gas...


bumper cars are clearly the answer.

 

[vi edit]

So, you are saying that because there are many annoyances we can't control, we shouldn't effectively address one that we can?

That's not a very good argument.

It's like saying that because there are lots of accidents from other causes and plenty of bad drivers anyway that we should just give up and shut down all our traffic lights. Like I said, not a good argument.

Neither is a blanket ban saying no one should be able to operate a car out of the sake of safety.

 

[Perknose]

Neither is a blanket ban saying no one should be able to operate a car out of the sake of safety.

That is one higly inept and misleading analogy, which you should know.

The better analogy would be that you can't text or use your whiz phone while you drive, which you shouldn't.

You can go to the movies and you can get behind the wheel, you just shouldn't be yakking on your phone in either situation.

See? Much better analogy.

The concurrent analogy to the one you put forth would be a blanket ban on anyone going to the movies. Nobody is arguing that. I most certainly wasn't in the post you responded to.

 

[shortylickens]

What?

OK...what about the network admin who is on call? Should a whole company go down for 2 hours because he wasn't allowed to glance at his screen?

Your excuse is weaker than usual. Have you been sleeping well?

Even short on sleep I know enough to mind my manners.
Whats your excuse?

 

[rudeguy]

Even short on sleep I know enough to mind my manners.
Whats your excuse?

I gave up banging random chicks when I got sober

 

[simonizor]

so wait...are there really self righteous freaks that believe a petty annoyance in a movie theater is worth risking someone's life?

What about emergency responders or doctors or anyone like that who are on call?

(not to mention the fcc permits receiving radio waves, not interfering with them)

HOW DID ANYONE LIVE WITHOUT A CELL PHONE OH MY GOD WE SHOULDN'T EVEN EXIST!!!!!!!!!!!11one