I do accept that some amount of print waste is attributable to the redevelopment process. Since I personally don't feel the environmental impact of the redevelopment process is significant, the only positive thing I can see in cyan is the saving of wasted prints...certainly keeping cameras away from some directors/producers would save more prints but I digress. We would probably save the most prints by imposing stiff penalties for damaging prints. Imagine if exhibitors got billed for damage they caused to the prints while in their "care."

Cyan soundtracks are at best 2nd rate and I haven't seen any convincing arguement for adopting them though I have seen (and spouted) many arguements against them.

Steve

I guess my final word on this is that at least the threat of cyan has forced a lot of cinemas to upgrade the quality of their analog sound by installing modern reverse scan systems, albeit with red LEDs. This is something they otherwise would probably not have done and therefore it must be considered a very good thing. Lets just hope, for the good of high quality audio, that the threat always remains just that, environmental considerations notwithstanding.

As far as conspiracies go I don't think anyone is suggesting a conspiracy, but there are clearly vested interests involved with the introduction of cyan, and whilst there is nothing wrong with vested interests, in a democracy they should always be honestly and fully disclosed and not disguised behind some altruistic claptrap. (Politicians take note).

End of editorial.

Analog silver soundtrack redevelopment was invented in the early 1950's when print orders numbered in the low hundreds. Its' deficiencies are painfully obvious in today's world of print orders in the high thousands.

The implied "conspiracy" or "vested interests" are unfair. The meetings of the Dye Track Committee are open to all, and are regularly held at readily accessible industry gatherings like ShoWest, ShowEast and ITEA, as well as overseas. Data has been shared and published, even when deficiencies are found. If anything, the Committee has been criticized for moving too slowly in not "forcing" the installation of red LED readers.

Looking at the "big picture", I feel the advantages of cyan dye soundtracks far outweigh the disadvantages.

Here is the Dye Track Committee website:

http://www.dyetracks.org

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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The problem isn't with the application, the problem is too many screens demanding too many prints. Get rid of them and you will have more viable businesses and less waste. Once upon a time, you got one print per theatre, now you get 5 and the guy across the street gets 5 as well.

Steve

This industry will NEVER change to cyan...it has never adopted any format that isn't backwards compatible conform to the 24-frame, 4-perf (perside) 35mm film format. Sure you can site many examples of other, better, systems but they come, they go. Even my favorite 5/70 Todd-AO while a long lasting format...lies dormant whilst old-reliable 4/35 chugs along.

This industry couldn't even adopt something as trivial as 6000 foot shipping reels (something I was dead against owing to the many screening rooms I deal with).

So, looking at the industry as your guide, cyan track is already dead. Of the 50+% of red reader theatres out there, the bulk of them were the result of NEW installations from manufacturers that offer the red reader as standard. They didn't come from exhibitors that just wanted to feel warm and squishy about their part in the envirostruggle.

With building in a lull, the infection of the red reader has also gone down. Your only hope is for another building boom AND closure of existing theatres.

Short of that, get the EPA on your side...if it became law, the decision on the conversion would be an easy one.

As to the openess of of cyan tracks...the information is actually laced with the "more-stable improved" baloney. There is plenty of mis-information in there. While I do believe John's statements on this matter are genuine, I don't believe that is the case with everyone. I do think it is wonderful that we all have the ability to express our different points of view. I must admit, I'd rather see another enjoyable ballgame with John than bicker over cyan track!

Steve

I'll support your idea to encourage theatres to install reverse scan readers with Infrared LEDs. But buy Red LED modules as well, and be ready to install them in the readers next year. That way, the theatres win regardless of what happens.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Actually the Kelmar installation made what I would consider a significant improvement in overall audio response and much better channel separation. I am very happy with the change, and no problem with older prints.....so far. But I am still worried about those purple variable density soundtrack prints. They are not nearly as uncommon as you might think. We ran three in one year, THE ROBE, CARMEN JONES and one other, I can't recall at the moment. We ran those BEFORE I installed the Kelmar, i.e., with standard, incandescent exciters; I am not sure what they would have sounded like with the red reader, if they played at all.

This discussion is VERY enlightening, guys. I am now very tempted to see if I can get IR units; I really would rather have the solution to a potential problem (not being able to play one of these purple VD tracks) in hand, rather than run around in panic mode the day before an opening when a print like this comes in. I had heard somewhere, probably in a post here a long while ago, that someone had gotten a purple VD track and it wouldn't play at all on with his red reader. It was said in passing, and not discussed further, but knowing that I've come across those prints fairly often, the one line of that post stuck in my mind. I even emailed Ioan Allen of Dolby labs about cyan tracks and then threw in the question about variable density tracks. He answered the question about the cyan tracks, but never answered the question about whether or not they had ever come a cross any problems playing back VD tracks with red readers.

The problems with red/LEDs & cyan soundtracks are twofold.

1. Red LEDs result in more film noise. To quote Goldberg from his treatise on the subject, "It is believed that this is due to the fact that when the track is illuminated by broad spectrum white light, the incoherent noise sources from each of the film's color layers add on a random basis and thus the noise 'averages out'. If a narrow spectral band illumination system is employed, this averaging cannot take place and thus the signal to noise ratio is impaired. This is true whether a standard silver track, high-magenta applicated track, or cyan track is being presented". Goldberg does not state the effects of using an infrared light source, but given that the dye layers of film are vitually transparent to infrared (and hence the need for silver) it would not be unreasonable to predict that infrared may result in lower noise than either white or red light. John, do you know of any tests in this regard? If not, I may ask my techical staff to do some tests of our own.

2. Red LED's (at least when run at high current levels) suffer from reducing light output over time. This is reportedly a rapid initial rate of loss, followed by a plateau of reduced rate of loss, followed by a rapid rate of loss towards the end of it's useful life. Infrared LEDs do not seem to suffer from this loss to anywhere near the same degree. It also appears that running a red LED at a much lower current significantly reduces this rate of loss.

Now recent developments in LED manufacturing have resulted in the appearance of very bright white LED's. One can envisage that it may now (or very soon) be possible to produce a super-bright white TO46 bar-LED of the type used in reverse scan readers. Would it be a sensible proposition to investigate the use of a super-bright white light source with black dye only tracks, before introducing cyan? At first glance, this would appear to solve all backwards compatibility issues and result in lower film noise than with cyan. Silver would not be required because a white LED would (I expect) produce very little infrared energy.

John, do you know of any work that has been done in this area? Can you foresee any drawbacks to this approach?

BTW John, my remarks on this topic are in no way directed at you. It is not my intention to shoot the messenger. If you feel my comments regarding vested interests are unfair, then I withdraw them. I do not want to be unfair to anyone.

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Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

I should add in passing that despite any of the views that I have expressed in this thread, my company accepts the inevitability of the introduction of cyan prints. In fact we have recently completed the design and development of upgraded electronics for a new range of reverse scan readers for another Australian company, ICS. These readers utilise improvements in lens design, cell design and a departure from the standard Dolby preamp circuit used by everybody else. The result is that LEDs can be run at substantially reduced current for longer more stable operation without any increase in noise attributable to the reader itself. Also the higher resolution lens, a narrower slit and improved electronics have allowed frequency response to be extended so the reader is flat to 16kHz, not 3dB down.

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