Also, many of the "kids" truly think that most times the print is thrown away after we have it. There are only two 2nd run theaters within 10 miles of us, (and they are both single-screens) so they don't think that's where our print might go.

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It is true that you need special equipment, but that equipment is getting cheaper almost every day, and with the internet, the info needed to set up digital systems is usually freely avaiable.

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And thats not enough reason to have digital? I agree that many films that are released in digital are a bit silly. For the majority of films Dolby SR is just fine. I personally feel that digital is only necessary for high action or effects movies that require the channel seperation that is gained from digital. For instance Star Trek movies benifit greatly from digital (as the originals did from 6-track mag), but films like, oh, Pay It Forward don't really need to be digital.

DTS is an updated Vitaphone record!

It's a great idea, but once optical sound goes, then any 35mm sound machine will no longer be able to play any 35mm sound print. I think that the cyan track is the beginning of the end of optical, anyway.

I've been to theatres with mono optical sound and a fantastic, clear, bright, sharp, and steady picture.

I've also been in theatres with a dull image, and sound so loud that it hurt my ears.

I'd rather have the sharp bright image!

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I ment to say that I saw films that were dull and dim that had sound that was so sharp and perfect that in one shot when a train went by, the intensity of the audio hurt my ears.
Sure, MONO can kill, too.

But, the point is, the audio "delivery system" at the theaters be of high quality and lower maintance (which I think digital does.) Even if the audio quality was the same, I'd still like to have digital because of less maintance.

Saying that; "... it's analog sound to begin with, so playing it back in digital doesn't matter.." would be like saying; "... why do a 35 to 70mm blowup since the orginal negative is only 35mm?"

I'm sure we've all heard the increase in quality on even old recordings when the master tapes were transfer to CD's.

As far as loosing the DTS disks, although true, that's not the fault of DTS. A system should be used as it was designed... ie: no one really complained about running Cinerama (threading 3 projectors and a sound reproducer.) It was required to get the quality desired. DTS has the lowest compression, can run multiple languges and operate other control functions. If these features are important, don't loose the disks!

Years ago it seend, engineers designed the highest quality motion picture systems they could; the work required to run them was secondary. Today, engineers design the "dumbest-downed" system they can, -then- try to squeeze in the quality afterward. Ho-hum.

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We're playing Urban Legends 2 starting tonight. For some strange reason, my print arrived on Wednesday this week, so I put it together that nite. The last 200' of reel 1, and the first 200' of reel 2 had been FOLDED IN HALF down the middle at some point in the past. So there's a big crease down the middle of the film. The print was obviously run after the "fold" was straightened out, but that caused perf damage, since due to the crease, the film was now slightly too narrow for the average projector. Each reel also had scratches, a splice or two, etc.

So I called TES to order new reels. To their credit, they were very nice on the phone and said they would call the next day with an "ETA" on when the reels would arrive.

The next day... no phone call. As it turned out, I was out of town last night. Got home, and on my answering machine was a message from the bartender at the bar next door to the theatre, saying "This girl is here and says she's supposed to meet you at 9:00, so where are you," etc. Needless to say, my wife was VERY curious about this phone call! So I called the bar, and found out the "girl" was the TES courier with my new reels! She had left the reels at the bar.

So I hightailed it to the bar and got the reels. A happy ending, but ONLY because the print got here on Wednesday night!

Much of the location recordings are done using the DAT format (Digital Audio Tape), and much of the ADR stuff would be done with any number of digital recorders.

Lets face it digital recordings are better all round. If you think you can get away without digital then you might find that your customers will start looking else where. With the recent upsurge of DVD units in homes these days, people are becoming more and more aware of the benifits of digital sound - whatever brand you choose! It is not surprising that Dolby have officially changed the name of SRD to Dolby Digital. Everyone recognises the phrase Dolby Digital.

I too have had frustrations with DTS discs not arriving, and on the other hand, I have heard some amazing sound in our DTS theatres. The same goes for Dolby Digital and SDDS. In the early days of digital we would often have a DTS print playing in our SRD house, and an SRD print playing in a DTS house. Now with films coming with multiple formats its not such a problem.