05/18/2026
Hard to believe, but we’ve had our digital projector now for 10 years! And on this 10 year anniversary, I thought I’d share some pics of a recent “projector bulb” change that I completed. First off, changing a bulb in our old 35mm projector took literally 10 minutes, and is MUCH easier. Changing a bulb for a digital projector takes close to 1 1/2 hours total (!). In the first pic, you can see the bulb itself (about 15 inches long)…also, you can see that I have removed the lamp house casing, and taken it into the concession stand (where I have more room and counter space to complete the bulb change), and then back into the projector after the new bulb is in, and so on.
These bulbs cost about $1,000, and I have recently started to change them out every year, EVEN though they can last about 3 years total. But the problem with leaving a bulb in for that long is that it LOSES up to about 50% of its brightness after about 2 to 3 years. But, you guys deserve the BEST image possible, so we are now changing it out every year, even though that is way more costly.
Way back 10 years ago, when everyone was worried that we wouldn’t survive the big jump to digital from 35mm, I splurged and bought the best brand new digital projector in the business, which in my personal opinion, is a BARCO digital cinema projector (for instance, IMAX uses Barco projectors for their digital auditoriums). From our first digital movie ever, which was BATMAN v. SUPERMAN in 2016, all the way up to this weekend with the new Star Wars movie MANDALORIAN & GROGU, here we are still, 10 years later! You guys come to the movies to enjoy yourselves, and we want you to have a great time. We also want the movie that you’ve paid your hard-earned dollars for to look and sound as good as possible! Thanks for reading this, and we hope to see you out at Centerbrook for another great Summer movie season! :) —Tyler, owner/operator
