SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to a case for debating podcast. Today is a best coming back, Henry. Hello, it's so nice to be on here again. Yes, so this is Henry's second episode, and I'm sure you're excited to be back, Henry. Is that right? I really am. As all our listeners know, uh, we have the debate voting results from last week, which was titled The King of the Slopes, Skiing vs. Snowboarding, where me and my neighbor Benny debated about whether skiing or snowboarding is better. So we had three responses this week, about the same as last time with the self-driving cars. Henry, do you have a guess on who won?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Hmm. That was a hard one to decide, but um, I think he won.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yes, you are right. Team Skis won, two responses for Team Skies, and one response for Team Snowboard. We have introduced a new feature on our website and in every episode description. Would you like to talk about that a little bit, Henry?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

So we just unveiled fan mail. So you can go on our website and click the big link to send a voicemail to us, and you can tell us about what you think about the podcast, and don't be shy. We love hearing feedback from our listeners, and we like making this podcast better every day.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Yes, it's amazing. We love hearing from you. Note that all fan mail links will also be found in all episode descriptions if you don't want to visit the website. Our website in the near future will be getting a cool new update, thanks to Henry, but for now it's still what we have. Okay. Uh, would you like to introduce our debate topic for this week, Henry?

SPEAKER_00 2:32

We thought it would be fun to have a streaming at home versus movie theaters episode. Is streaming at home better or is movie theaters better? There's good topics to debate about on both of these sides, so let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

These are self-decided, so we do not have to flip a coin this time. Would you like to start us off, Henry?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Okay. Yeah, uh, so the first argument I have is that movie theaters just have great quality. The screens are just, first of all, massive, way bigger than what you can have at home. The resolution on them is just unreal, and there's very quality surround sound. Once when I was watching a movie, I thought that the movie was right next to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah. There's only one problem with that though. The quality and the amazing scale comes at the expense of literally no control. So if like the audio is deafening you, I went to see Toy Story 5 in a movie theater a little while ago, and it was so loud I could barely even hear myself think. It was just blowing out my eardrums. So you don't really have control over the sound if you want to go to the bathroom or get more popcorn or something. You can't pause the movie or anything. You just have to wait or miss part of the movie. So you don't really have control over anything. At-home streaming is actually getting a lot closer to theaters as time goes on. We have 4K HDR displays now. We're getting even better displays in the near future. TVs have gotten bigger, and you are able, it's pretty expensive, but you are able to install speakers all around your living room to make it feel like surround sound at a theater, and you have a lot more control.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

You are right about that. And home theaters and streaming at home has gotten a lot better, but going to movie theaters is still a nice thing to do. It feels more like an exciting experience than just watching a movie than the board of watching a movie at home. And you also view it with others. Maybe you're just at home and you're watching it by yourself. And that makes it into more of a repetitive habit. It's isolation. And also a lot of people just watch it on their phones, which is extremely shrunken down and it's not much of an emotional impact.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

You're talking about like you see other people, but maybe before the movie and like after the movie you can talk to other people. But a real theater trip pretty much consists of people that are strangers to each other sitting in the dark completely silent. So, yes, you're going with other people and you can like talk to other people, but during the actual movie, you're not actually it doesn't actually feel like you're with other people because you're just sitting in the dark and your eyes are just glued on the screen for most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah, although speaking of screens, in movie theaters, it's kind of a rule that you can't go on your phone, you can't text other people, you can't be allowed, you focus on the movie. And when you focus on the movie, movies are really great, and also seeing huge movies on um on the day that they release, not waiting for home streaming to get it, um, then you don't get spoilers from everyone else.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

That's great for some of the bigger shows. Like it's sometimes fun to go to a movie theater if there's like a big show that's not going to be on streaming for a couple of months. But well, streaming has gotten a lot closer to when it comes out in movie theaters. Just a little while ago, you would have to wait maybe a year even before the movie came on streaming. But now it's usually only a couple of months. But that only bigger movies are more popular franchises are in movie theaters. There's a lot of smaller movies that aren't popular enough to be in a movie theater, but they're still really good. So if you weren't able to watch them on streaming, no one would be able to watch them at all.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

But also at home, you probably streaming services don't have it all. So you probably have a bunch of streaming services, or maybe just one, so then you can watch the movies that you want to do, and then you just get ads on them. But in a movie theater, you're getting no interruption, and also um you get snacks and just the great quality that I was also talking about. And I feel like it also just brings you more aware to the movie itself, and honestly, for me, it's just made the experience of viewing a movie just much better.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

I can do that exact same thing at home. I have to buy the movie, which will be cheaper than a ticket to the movie theater, so I have no ads. I can buy some popcorn or like po make some popcorn, and I can get a really good TV, and then you're basically equal with a movie theater except for the giant screen.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, so you are right about that, but in but I also like supporting movie theaters, and I think that's just again, this is my main argument, and this is why I still love going to movie theaters. I just love going to a movie theater and seeing a movie and big screen with surround sound and popcorn, it's just not something for me that I can replicate at home.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, there there definitely are ways to do it, but I see how it could some people like to get the the iconic experience. Um, I found a uh survey online where fi 46% of American adults preferred streaming movies at home as their developed choice, and then 50% explicitly preferred going to the movie theaters, and then the other percent were kind of undecided. So 46% preferred streaming at home.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yes, and you know, you are worried about the fact that not as many people like going to movie theaters as uh much as streaming at home, but I moved I can't watch the movies I want to watch at home either without somehow owning all the streaming services on the internet because they just disappear from one streaming service and then just move to the other one for I mean for licensing and also streaming services have just gotten expensive. Netflix can be from $9 to $27 a month, which to me is just overpriced. And if you want to view lots of movies at home, you will also need other streaming services, which is not which is just more muddy, and I just prefer to see huge blockbusters that everyone's going to be talking about in theaters, like like um like really good movies.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Like what can be But is that but is that really more expensive because I don't know how many times you go to the movie theater, but to me it definitely seems like to stream at home is a more practical for like a day-to-day stuff that you would watch a movie every day. But like if you were just getting a movie that you wanted to watch, it would probably be easier, it would be easier and cheaper just to do it at home. Because if you're going to the movie theater, their concessions and snacks like the water and the other drinks and popcorn is so overpriced than what you could just get at home. And the movie ticket is a lot more than if you were to just buy the movie by itself. So you end up spending a lot more going out to a movie theater than you would if you just watched that same movie at home and did the same things to try to replicate it. But the question really is, is that extra money worth it for you? How many times do you go to a movie theater a year, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 13:07

I'd say one or two, but I feel like just such a great experience to go to the movie theater. It's so fun to go to it and wait, and if you bring friends, it really comes into a to a really memorable experience.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Yeah, it's fun to do like once in a while, so maybe it could be better, like that what those that once or twice you go a year. But if you're just trying to have some fun, like it's raining outside or it's cold, and you just wanna be cozy on like a Saturday or night or something, you don't wanna have to go to a movie theater. Like nine times out of ten, you're gonna watch a movie at your house and not go to a movie theater. And if like you're probably gonna be more comfortable at your house, also. Yes, it's fun to go to the movie theater like once or twice a year, but you're not going a lot, so I don't feel that it's actually the best option for watching movies if you want to watch more than two movies a year. If you don't, then I guess that going to a movie theater every time you watch a movie is better, but I think most people want to watch more than two movies a year, and I don't think many people go to the movie theaters every time they want to watch a movie.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, you are right about that. Actually, I think a mix of movie theaters and home streaming is just the best choice. You see the smaller movies that you just don't have the time and energy for to go to a movie theater at home. But if you want to see the newest blockbuster that everyone's talking about, then it I think that it would be worth it to go to the movie theater with a friend.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Like for day-to-day, you just stream the movie at home. But if you get together with a friend or a group of fans and go see a new movie that you're interested in, I definitely think that the movie theater would be a really fun option for that.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Okay, so now that we have concluded with the main part of the episode, I just want to say again about voting on our website in fan mail. You can cli you should click the link in the description of this podcast so then you can vote on our website. We love hearing from our viewers. And speaking of hearing from our viewers, we also just announced a new feature called Fan Mail. You can send us a voicemail by clicking the big link on our website or clicking the link in the show notes. Don't be shy. We love hearing from our listeners, and it makes our podcast so much better, and it also makes our gay. Thank you. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Henry is right. So we are going to roll into the post show right after this. If you don't want to listen to the post show, um, we highly recommend it. We're just gonna talk about a fun little topic related to today's debate. It's always like that. Uh, it's a good time to learn a little bit about us, so we hope you stick around for that. If not, we hope you enjoyed the episode. Okay, so our post-show topic today is what is your ultimate home theater setup? So, what would you have at your dream movie theater at your house? How big would the room be? How big would the screen be? What snacks would you have? What sound systems would you have? What lighting would you have? Oh, do you want to go first? Sure. So in my movie theater room, I would want maybe two, maybe three rows of like five seats. And then I was looking at projectors earlier, and there's this crazy one that projects and makes the screen look amazing, and it looks awesome. I forget what it's called, but I'd really want that. I'd make it look like a movie theater, so I'd have like black walls, and I'd want those stick lightings, you know what I'm talking about? They have like lights on the back and they push light in both directions. And then I bought curtains going over the uh screen. And I think I might even want a stage where the screen was so I could like stand up and maybe I could create slides and like do a performance as a a clip for our podcast and be fun. Like we could create like a little marketing advertisement with this thing, and snaxa have. So when we're not watching a movie, we could like have a party in there or something. It'd be cool if like the seats could go down if you had like a party or something. So I think that's what I wanted would want to do for my movie theater, and maybe even have like a couch that could fold up instead of the seats, so you could like lay down if you wanted to. Oh, that's pretty cool. Okay, so that's I think my movie. What would your home movie theater look like?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Let's see. Um, so I feel like the room that I already watch movies in is a good-sized room, so I'll start with that. I'll make a curtain to close off the room and have smart blind so then I can dim it. And I think the L-shaped couch that I have is good for my home theater. And then I'm personally like a TV person. I not really such a fan of projectors, but if I did get a projector, I would 3D print something to uh model I would model it so that I could print so that I could mount it on the roof. Yeah, so um so the size TV that we have is good, I think, for movie theaters, but if if this is my dream theater, then we're probably gonna I don't know how much they make TVs, but let's say like a huge TV, a huge 4K TV with all the streaming services on it, and then the seats have seat heaters in them, and then we have uh uh dull by Atmos sound all around us. And then to the right, then I would have a bar with cold soda, candy, a popcorn maker, a sloshy maker, snacks, and actually, you know what? Instead of cans of soda, I'm going to get a fountain soda machine.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

I have a small change to my movie theater. Instead of just putting a normal projector in, I'm just gonna make I'm just gonna have an IMAX theater instead so I can see all the movies in perfect quality.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Okay, I don't think that you guys I don't I don't think that like they they have some pretty strict licensing on those, I think, but that would be amazing actually to watch. Although they're like 10th story or they're like super tall though. So I d I don't know how you'd ever fit that in your house, but this is mainly theoretical. The size of a standard theater, that's not gonna fit in your house. Well No, like I like the movie, like the room that we watch in just has like a big wall that has cabinets on it, so we just mount the TV in the big space. But we could theoretically take all those down and then just put a giant screen across it. Yeah, and then you would need seats and you

SPEAKER_01 22:00

need to well the movie theater would honestly just have to take up like half the house if not the whole house.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

I mean yeah or you know what we could we could put it outside maybe like somehow we could again because this is theoretical we could just build a whole new building outside.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

For a while I was I was ten so this was last year. No nine I was nine so two years ago I had this whole building that had every single thing you could possibly want to do in it. And I called it my clubhouse. So it had six floors above ground so it had like a lobby area a kitchen area things like that like a big huge room that you could play in and then there were 30 floors below ground where the fun really started. So we had a go-kart racetrack a golf cart racetrack we had a giant I made a giant foam pit we had like a soccer field and tennis courts all on these 30 floors that I had designed and then upstairs then you have like a private jet that can take you from your other 10 mansions everywhere in the world just put a helicopter on top call it a day okay yeah yeah that's probably a better idea. Okay um if you stick around for the post show we really hope that you send us fan mail and as Henry said please do not be shy we love hearing from you and it's super easy just go to the show notes or on our website and do it and it makes us super happy you do have to put your name in to do it. If you don't want your name just put list your name as anonymous and then we will post the fan mail that you send in on our website and we will play it in the show for our fan mail. If you don't want to do it just let us know in the fan mail message and we won't but uh we're really excited to be able to play our first fan mail message in the episode. Okay so we hope you enjoyed the episode and the post show come back in two weeks for our next episode have anything to say before we go Henry thank you for listening with us today so much it really just makes our day to see that people have listened to our podcast and we hope that you have had a good time out here we're so close to 75 downloads let's get this episode up fast. I'm hoping to get 30 downloads on this episode alone. Share it to your friends and bye hope you enjoyed this thank you