Thanks very much for the compliments on the sound of the CopyCat cards.

Actually, you heard correctly that there was a patent infringement case between SMART and Dolby, but it was NOT the CopyCat card that was involved. It was the CM333 SR card in the Panastereo processor. In a previous post in this thread, Ray Derrick, the Panastereo designer said this:

"We came up with a process that decodes SR very precisely without infringing Dolby's patents (which are almost extinct anyway). Our process now carries a US patent of it's own because it uses some original concepts. Mind you Dolby did try to sue our USA based sister company over our first attempt at SR which admittedly came awful close to infringement (not deliberately I might add), but fortunately for all concerned that was sorted out before it got to court."

As a result, the Panastereo SR card was re-designed and is now the CM353 which, as Ray says, is now patented in its own right, does not in any way infringe Dolby's patents, and it absolutely decodes SR soundtracks properly. And as Gordon says,"Your new card is far cleaner sounding."

Perhaps the confusion may have come about because of the two different company names. SMART owns Panastereo, and even though the law suit in question was over the Panastereo card, SMART was the corporate entity that Dolby sued.

Some of the emulators are horrible all the time, some mistrack when certain signals are present. The only SR cards that sound right to me, thus far, are Dolby Cat. 280, 300 and 350.

Now in this age of digital correctness...the analog track is often thought of as the backup...and if money is tight, why blow a hefty hunk on genuine SR back up...they are $900US per channel (list).

As far as someone's being "better" than Dolby's, don't be silly, the films are encoded using Dolby's...it is a complimentary process...unless you decode it exactly as it is encoded, you are just approximating it. When the films are mixed, they are not monitored for quality on other SR decoders...just Dolby's.

This should NOT be construed to say that Dolby has the only or even the best way of achieving a high-quality of noise reduction. If say the Pana CM-353 was used on the encode, I'd suspect it would perform the best on the decode...it might, in the overall scheme of things, perform better as well. To the best of my knowledge, I have not heard a film that was encoded with the CM-353.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

I have edited some of the original contents of this post as I think I may have misinterpreted Steve's comments. I would like to add that it is possible to reproduce to absolute precision the algorithm of any analog circuit with a quite different analog circuit, or for that matter in the digital domain. I have not had the opportunity to test the digital SR decoding in the CP650 but it is technically possible that they have reproduced the algorithm used in the Cat280 family with great precision. It would take a lot of processing power as the algorithm is complex but it could be done.

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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

Nope, I haven't e-mail you regarding my SR evaluations...been a bit busy and I haven't done enough listening to the CM353 to carry on that sort of conversation....as you know, when I get going it can get quite lengthy.

Now as to having made up my mind...what a load of crap! If anything, I would have come into listening to the CP-650 (or any digitally based emulator) predisposed to dislike it. In fact, I have found the CP-650 to be surprisingly faithful though not perfect.

But true to my statement in a previous message, the only SR decoding that I have not found fault with has been genuine Dolby 280, 300, and 350s. Some emulators I have spent more time with than others. I've been pretty vocal about one (made by Dolby even) that I simply can't stand.

As to the CM-353 I haven't done as rigerous a test as with other units. It has been more casual. On one title, nothing jumped out at me as being wrong. On a couple of others...something seemed off in the HF department. I tend to key off on the HF much more so than a LF mistrack. This is even true of speaker systems and even digital systems. There is one combination of digital types and speaker brands (and in particular a HF compression driver) I simply can't sit through the movie I find them so horrible and yet others will consider them the most natural sounding.

Believe me, when I have something more concrete you will get it.

As to other people's opinions of how well your product (or others) perform, they are entitled to them as am I to mine. In fact, everyone IS entitled to MY opinion

I have supported your product, and will continue to do so. In many respects, it is the best out there. Do I think it is perfect for me? Nope. I didn't design it and you and I do things differently.

You can believe I am predisposed to prefer Dolby or any other brand of any other product and you'd be wrong. I judge things as I see/hear them. Do I have some "brand loyalty?" You bet! If one gets good service and support out of a company, it goes a long way to satisfaction. But that NEVER clouds how I evaluate a product and I don't like it being even inferred. If I like something, I like it...it is that simple.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

As far as someone's being "better" than Dolby's, don't be silly, the films are encoded using Dolby's...it is a complimentary process...unless you decode it exactly as it is encoded, you are just approximating it. When the films are mixed, they are not monitored for quality on other SR decoders...just Dolby's.

I have no qualms with saying that the Panastereo CSP-1200 is the best analog processor on the market. Furthermore, anyone that liked the CP-65 will think it is the best processor yet. It is VERY flexible and sounds good. It is the closest thing to cinema "high-end".

As for the dreaded Cat 222SR/A....I agree that it legitimized the other psudo-SR cards out there. The only "reason" I can imagine for it was cost. That is, to lower the cost of the Dolby processor to make it more competitive.

Steve

The unit with the front panel off is Panastereo's outboard SR offering. On the left are two CM-353 SR cards. On the right is the controller card complete with trims to calibrate it's input and output to your processor.

Also pictured are the other fine 1-U gizmos by Pana. The SP-23 surround SX decoder (aka EX) which can have up to three 1/3-octave EQs in it and the new mag preamp unit which can accept Pana's 6-channel mag preamp cards (4 cards for 2-projector 35/70 and dubber)

The rear of the SR unit is pictured below...kinda reminds one of the SRA-5 of yesteryear but it costs a whole lot less and is more flexible.

That is about all of the ShowEast pictures I have.

Steve

Studio installations are a little bit different in Europe.
Over here it is common practice to use a cinema processors in the monitor chain.
Up to now it is a CP 65 S with the Cat 448 dubbing card to provide the routing.
With the introduction of the new Dolby Digital encoder unit with digital in- and outputs the CP 650 with the Cat 778 digital input interface board is certified by Dolby. This allows the studios to stay in the digital domain.

The new DMU encoder also includes a software implementation of the 4-2-4 matrix encoder and SR to encode the print master. I guess they use for SR the same implementation as used in the CP 650.
So Dolby seems to be pretty sure that the digital SR is legitimate.