Patent ID: 7379850

Claim:
A method of determining equipment status based upon data representative of movie theatre equipment state changes, said method comprising the steps of: retrieving and storing data representative of theatre equipment status in a central computer storage unit that includes known status data representative of a plurality of state change patterns representing known status; receiving status data representative of a status of each of a plurality of items of theatre equipment at each of a plurality of remote theatre screen assemblies over a plurality of instances during a period of time; comparing a first state change pattern representative of equipment state changes in state of a theatre audio processing unit to said known status data in said central computer storage unit providing comparison data, said first state change pattern being a timing chart pattern of at least two units of equipment for a period of time during which at least one of the units of equipment completes a cycle of operation, at least one of said two units of equipment being the theatre audio processing unit; providing alert condition data responsive to said comparison data; and receiving said comparison data and storing said comparison data.