Speaking of subtleties, does anybody recall that different version of the Dolby Digital "Train" trailer (when it was still Dolby Stereo Digital)? This one had some kind of mystical flute intro with a deep bass whirr down as the clicks in the four corners of the auditorium hit. I wish this one was on my DD Demo DVD instead of the regular clip. I don't think that version (at least the audio portion of it anyway) is available anymore. I thought it sounded more interesting than the more straight forward sounding version that sometimes gets played in Dolby Digital movie theaters. The train wheels jarring forward is still great on either version.

The first version of the Dolby Train (at least the first version that I saw) was fairly long and said "Dolby Stereo Digital". It had 5 "clanks" in the beginning that cycled through left, center, right, right surround, and left surround, in that order. The newer, shorter version just says "Dolby Digital" and the mix is, to be blunt, extremely wimpy in comparison. It only has 3 or 4 "clanks" in the beginning (only one surround clank). The longer "Dolby Stereo Digital" version also had a much better bass mix and the whole thing was kind of surreal.

You can't have long logos these days with all of the other crap that plays before the feature, so I can understand why they shortened it. But still, it's as if some one took the original train, cut it up and then wiped their ass with it and rereleased it. They should have just retired the train in my opinion (which doesn't count)

Click here to download a stereo MP3 of the original train. Unfortunately I didn't include the surrounds in this mix when I recorded it from a DA10. It was recorded a very long time ago.

While we're discussing new tracks for logo trailers, perhaps Mr.Costas can tell us when the original mix for the THX Cimarron will be re-released? Again, the original mix was fantastic, but the new one (found on the SRD versions and "most" 35mm SR prints) is lacking. (Somewhere I have a recording of the original version of this.) They are completely different and I got the same reasoning behind the change...too many people built sound systems that couldn't handle the track.

People (in my experience) are only conscious of digital movie sound on 3 occasions:
1. It's playing too loud
2. It's not playing at all
3. There's a snipe before the movie
-Sometimes, too, when there's something wrong with the sound, but only when it's major distortion or continual digital data dropouts.

Even when we put up DTS and Dolby posters near the auditorium doors, very few people noticed. It's only when we make note of the sound during the film by identifying Dolby, DTS, etc. with snipes that they notice & (maybe) appreciate what they're hearing.

My favorite is still Tex. Yes, it's kind of obnoxious & childish, but whenever I see it, it makes me wish that guy could fix more of the problems that infest the projection business.

Personally, I prefer the mix that is out right now over the one that you posted above. There are more dynamics in the current mix, but it is definitey too short and nowhere near as good as "the" original mix.

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I heard the one with the whistle and extra intro music for the first time at the Casa Linda 4 theater in Dallas back in 1995. I had previously "Dolby Stereo Digital" trailers where the metallic clicks were done over near silence. The one I saw on the front of "The Lion King" in 1994 is one example. Another is when I saw "The Program" back in 1993 at Cinemark's Hollywood USA theater in Garland. This was on a then-THX certified screen with Dolby Digital. Pretty forgettable movie though, outside of the controversial scene where the jocks lay down in the middle of the highway to let cars buzz right by them (some stupid frat boys got killed in real life copying the scene and Buena Vista cut it out of home video versions).

This program certainly doesn't mean a computer system is going to sound as good as a commercial movie theater or even a good home theater system for that matter. THX and Dell made a deal and in their "THX PC" program, a computer has to have a minimum level of hardware standards (certain size monitor/video card, CPU, memory level, etc.), but one of the central things to that is the computer one of the computer speaker systems THX has certified for PCs. In Dell's case, the Altec Lansing ADA-885 system is what they sell. Its nice for a little Dolby Digital speaker setup. But as far as "THX certified" computer speakers go, Klipsch makes a better setup (although theirs has no Dolby Digital decoder built in).

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