Someday, if the dreams of movie-technology designers come true, you'll flash your smartphone ticket, settle into your plush cinema seat and be greeted with a hyper-real picture, sounds from every direction and -- if you need them -- closed captions projected on special glasses.

Such were the possibilities raised last month at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas, where technology companies pitched theater operators on the merits of faster projection rates to improve clarity; new, immersive, surround-sound audio systems; laser 3-D projectors; paperless ticketing; and more.

Theater owners were listening, but wary. Box offices have started off strong this year, but the number of tickets sold in the U.S. and Canada slumped 19% to 1.3 billion last year from 2002, Motion Picture Association of America data show. This has left cinema operators open to experimenting with new technologies that might lure back more cash-conscious viewers -- especially younger ones -- from their home plasma-TV screens, DVD and videogame players and, increasingly, Internet streaming services.

Dolby Laboratories Inc., for example, is expected to test its Atmos audio system in screenings in 10 to 15 world-wide theaters of 'Brave,' a film from Walt Disney Co.'s Pixar Animation Studios scheduled to premier in June.

Atmos allows sound to be focused through specific speakers placed around a theater, even on the ceiling. Current systems usually just deliver sound from groups of speakers placed on walls.

'Imagine you're watching a suspenseful film and someone is trapped in a basement and there's a kidnapper walking across the ceiling,' says Matt Cuson, Dolby Laboratories senior marketing director, cinema. 'It doesn't do you any good to have a creak coming from a whole wall.'

Three more films using the technology are expected to be announced by Christmas, Mr. Cuson adds.

IMAX Corp. is showcasing an early prototype of a digital-projection system, developed with Barco Inc., that uses lasers instead of bulbs to project images onto screens, casting a brighter, more reliable light. The projectors won't be ready for the market until late 2013, at the earliest, the film and technology companies say, but some CinemaCon attendees got a sneak peek.

'With the laser projection, the movies look phenomenal,' says Tim League, co-founder and chief executive of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

Another new technology: Later this year, upgraded 4K digital projectors from Sony Corp. will start showing films at the higher, 48 frames-per-second rate, making images appear crisper and more lifelike than the current 24 fps -- in use since the late 1920s.

'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,' the first of two prequels to Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, will be the first feature film shown at 48 fps when it opens in December. (Regal Entertainment Group cinemas is upgrading its projectors to use the faster frame rate; other theater companies are considering it.)

'It's beautiful -- like night and day,' says John Knepp, president of Cleveland-based Cooperative Theatres Inc., a chain with around 300 screens, who saw 10 minutes of raw 'Hobbit' footage that was shown at the higher frame rate at CinemaCon.

Some theaters are skeptical, however.

With the hyper-realistic feel, 'the sense I have is that the older people will have a harder time with it, says Dan Tocchini, CEO of SR Entertainment Group, a chain with about 100 screens in Northern California. However, 'the younger people will embrace it because it looks like a videogame.'

While a broad uptake in 3-D technology over the past few years has tempted a sizable chunk of movie goers, especially adolescents and young adults, there isn't any guarantee the newest -- frequently pricey -- advances in viewing technology will pay off for cinemas.

'We have to continue raising the bar for our customers and providing them with an all-encompassing theatrical experience so they'll want to return over and over again,' says Ellis Jacob, the president and chief executive of Cineplex Inc., Canada's largest theater chain. 'But we also have to make sure our decisions are viable from a financial perspective, and we provide a fair ticket price to consumers.'

Other innovations rolled out recently -- like gourmet in-theater dining; or vibrating, motion-simulator seats -- have yet to catch on broadly. Film-industry observers say audiences have also resisted paying surcharges for badly converted 3-D titles and are proving intolerant of chatty and text-messaging teenagers who seem to treat movie theaters like their own living rooms.

'To invest in technology that's 'gee-whiz' but doesn't drive more people to the theater or increase revenue . . . doesn't make sense,' says Terrell Mayton, director of marketing for Carmike Cinemas Inc.

And while owners don't want to be left behind in the theatrical arms race, many say the dust has only just settled on another industrywide upgrade: digital cinema.

Over the last 10 years, major film studios urged theater owners to replace print-film projectors with digital ones. Studios partially subsidized the transition, which allowed them to do away with the task of producing and physically delivering reels of 35-millimeter film to the theaters. (Most digital movies are delivered on hard drives, though one consortium of theaters and studios said at CinemaCon that they plan to experiment with satellite delivery.)

As of March 31, 69% of the roughly 40,000 theaters in the U.S. and Canada had converted to digital projectors and screens, according to an estimate from IHS Screen Digest. By year's end, that number will be closer to 85%, the research firm estimates.

'The exhibitors just did this big conversion to digital, and now Hollywood is asking us to make another upgrade -- and we're not going to make more money off of it,' says Mr. Knepp of Cooperative Theatres, about the switch to a higher projection speed.

Some manufacturers are trying to smooth the transition for theater owners. Sony Digital Cinema will offer for sale to current users of its 4K digital cinema projectors a remote software update to make sure its projectors will be able to play movies like 'The Hobbit' at the higher, 48 fps frame rate.

Larry Allen, president of the 94-screen Allen Theatres Inc. chain in New Mexico, says he is optimistic the higher frame rate won't require a hardware update. But upgrading to other technologies, like laser projectors -- which haven't been priced yet -- might pose greater challenges, he says, adding he'd start with one or two screens, but wait to recoup his investment before expanding.

Mr. Allen says he still has a warehouse full of 35-millimeter film projectors 'sitting there, collecting dust' even after the conversion to digital: 'We weren't sure whether the conversion to digital would work out, so we held on to all of our stuff.'