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Author Topic: DTS "glide time" Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-24-2003 08:05 AM                     Quote: "The little guys got stuck with shelling out hundreds of bucks to replace them with the Teacs. Let's not forget all of these things when comparing the two systems. In the end because of these failures, the dts systems ended up costing more than a Dolby Digital system would have." _________________________________________________________________ Brad, Apparently you didn't read ALL of my statement above. I said this...... >The moral is that EVERY system out there has had its share of problems, but fortunately, the two >important remaining systems have for the most part cured their problems. Also, the price of doing an upgrade to a DTS is far less than the price difference between SRD and DTS, which is well over 2 grand. Perhaps some dealers charge more than 2 grand to do this....? Remember Dolby doesn't include the reader!! The upgrade kit with 30 min of labor runs our customers about 400.00 for a 3 drive upgrade. I get power supplies for 10 bucks at a resale shop, install a new fan in them and put em in service. This costs me about 15 bucks to do. If the fans in the DTS supplies never failed I wouldn't see any power supply failures. BTW: I've only had one TEAC drive failure since DTS switched over to them. It was replaced free of charge! ___________________________________________________________ Quote: "On the original 2 drive dts units (definitely the most reliable) it was the timecode reader." _________________________________________________________________ DTS replaced or exchanged all of these readers at no charge for me and all of the places I have subsequently worked at, and for everyone else that owns them so far as I know. There were a limited number of those readers in the field tobegin with...they were known as the "Jurassic Park Readers" by most techs. They also have provided me with firmware upgrade chips at no charge. I always check units when I'm in the field on normal service to be sure they have the latest upgrade version and after I check it I always write the version number on the back of the unit to make checking easier on future visits. Changing the firmware chip takes less than 10 min and is painless unless you happen to prick your finger with a pin from the I.C. _________________________________________________________ Quote: "Plus this doesn't include any refunded ticket or concession money when there was a failure." _________________________________________________________________ In this neck of the woods and in most necks of the woods there is analog backup always available so there are no refunds to happen. The only place this can happen is in an all digital processor that completely crashes...thats why I refuse to sell ONLY all digital processors to a theatre.....and then there is at least minimal analog backup in any processor when in bypass. So in this day and age any "refunds" are either because of a crash or because the manager made the decision to do so even though there was some sound available to accompany the film...and yes the latter does happen on occasion. This brings me to another point that Joe made that is partially true....not just for art houses, but for all theatres in general. And that is to pretty much forget about digital for art releases and stick to SR. The problem I run into is that many other dealers led their customers to believe that analog was no longer the main sound format out there when in fact they were just plain wrong. My theory is that analog is still the main source of audio information for all films in standard release format, and indeed it is still the world standard too. That means that one should have the best analog playback available on all his screens.... This also eliminates installing an all digital processor as they are not cpable of the outputting the very best analog playback...so far only an analog processor is capable of this...but that may some day change! I fortunately have heard digitally processed sound that is indistinguishable from its original analog source...but nothing exists in todays theatre equipment marlet that is capable of doing that...yet. There are several reasons for installing the best analog playback and one of them is the art house problem in which I see about a 50/50 mix of films with analog only, and 50% films with digital tracks. Many lower budget productions do not have the budget for digital, or perhaps they just felt it to be unnecessary. The other reason for the highest quality analog is that there is less difference in sound when your digital playback processor does have to revert to the main analog audio source. It will be less noticable to the audience when it does happen and you will continue on with excellent quality sound, and in some cases the analog track is superior to the digital track!. But taking into consideration that analog is still the main source goes beyond art houses. Take "Big Fat Greek Wedding" for example. This film didn't just play in art houses.... Many normal multiplex locations played that film for in excess of 20 weeks, quite a number played it for over 40 weeks and it was an SR analog only release. Unfortunately, many played it back in poor quality analog as they were still using old style exciter lamps and slit lenses, or perhaps sometimes in use with other "RED" light sources that some dealer sold them in which no real gains in quality were made to the "A" chain when they were installed. At any rate, having top notch analog capability is to me still the most important thing to consider in any theatre. Its unfortunate that I've run into alot of theatre owners over the years that had been brainwashed by their dealer into thinking that analog was no longer important....just backup......but in my experience its the digital playback system thats either in need of repair, missing its software, unable to read its software, or not reliable enough to use any longer than 2 weeks into a run of a film because the digital tracks are too worn to read back. Wanna talk about being ripped off and customers....now lets discuss how much trouble there has been with SDDS and how expensive it is to have those units repaired......... Mark  |  IP: Logged Josh Jones Redhat Posts: 1207 From: Plano, TX Registered: Apr 2000 posted 06-24-2003 08:26 AM                        uh-oh, I smell a red vs. white light debate again............... Josh  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-24-2003 09:22 AM                     Josh, Not really. Apparently you too didn't read all of my postings. Mark  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 06-24-2003 09:27 AM                    quote: There are issues with dts sometimes, but I have worked with dozens of dts processors, and I would say that in general, the dts system is almost bullet proof. Especially splices between reels, but also biger edits - dts has no problem at all here. In general, I agree. The reel change drop outs I was referring to come up from time to time on certain splices, but on those splices it happens consistantly every time. On other splices that are ok, they're ok every time. Others here have commented on the exact same problem. I'm glad you don't seem to have that problem, but we do see it here occasionally at several of our theaters.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-24-2003 09:33 AM                     The independent art theatres here in toronto use DTS as there sole digital format and have had very little problems getting disks In fact I just finished a new 6 plex art theatre and it is all dts. Also the capabilitie to use the dts subtitling system has many advantages for them  |  IP: Logged David Graham Rose Expert Film Handler Posts: 187 From: Cambridge, UK Registered: Sep 2002 posted 06-24-2003 02:13 PM                     Greetings to you all In a recent post Brad wrote; 'Since there are no basement dts readers built by other companies, I feel your argument is a bit unfair.' One has to point out that any research, or indeed attempts to build, basement dts readers would be of little use to the film community(ref. 1.) since there is 0 displacement between image and corresponding timecode for said image. This feature of dts would make it impossible to maintain any senblence of synchronisation betwixt image and sound. My research team and I, way back in the Summer of 1995, attempted to manufacture a method of scanning the dts track at the projector aperture and entering a 0 timecode offset in the dts 6 player. Whilst the system worked in principle, and we were able to reproduce audio in synchronisation with the image on screen, the impracticalities of the prism array to enable the timecode to arrive at a reader through the aperture plate, and not penetrate through to the screen were great. It was found that the modified timecode reader had to be mounted at a 47.5 degree angle to the projector gate, which in turn made lacing the machine extremely difficult. In a number of field tests here in the UK, it was found that the timecode prism array and the two aperture plate configurations for both 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 were incompatible, not in the least because the timecode reader impeded complete rotation of the turret and free movement of the aperture plate. *ref.1 Acta Cinematografia, Vol 88, 2, p.65-78, 'Current Digital Audio Formats for Motion Pictures', auths. Ryder, Weir and Quelch From Cambridge, goodnight David  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 06-24-2003 02:23 PM                     Ok Mark, I'll try to clarify but I'll bet you agree this is getting old. Like I said, the chains got free Teac upgrade kits when the Toshiba drives failed, the independents had to pay for it out of their own pocket. That was and is still my point, preferential treatment. I have never had a Teac drive fail on me so far. They seem to be rock solid. Maybe you get a better deal on dts and I get a better deal on SRD, I don't know. Regardless of the drive costs, a refunded showing with good attendance later and SRD becomes the cheaper system. I say that as fact knowing the failure rates locally as I compare the two formats. I am not saying that you are wrong, but down here that has been the case. Maybe SRD has issues at higher altitudes. (BTW, the whole "which is cheaper" thing started with you recommending to use a shaft encoder rig to drive the dts system. Wouldn't that have caused the price to jump up over SRD too?) While I agree with you that changing the chip on a dts is easy, it was a nuisance there for awhile when there were upgrades being made routinely. The issue Mark Marshall brought up a couple of posts above led me to trying out all of the different firmware that was available at the time. (Hey Mark M. what firmware are you running in your troubled dts unit out of curiosity? I believe the only two supported ones are v1.29 and v1.46 now.) Not all of the machines had that dropout, but for those units that did have the glitch, it was very aggravating because it did not actually drop to SR, it just did a quick mute. I even tried cutting off 10 id frames at a reel change splice and even that did not fix the blip in audio. I think it had something to do with the way the discs were being coded, because the problem went away on it's own in the very late 90's, but I never got an official reason to what the cause was. It's a moot point though, for like I said it has been fixed. I never saw any of the original Jurassic readers replaced at no cost. In fact the last time I was in the Galaxy they were still running one. (My paper towel modification permitted the reader to work. You had to have the lights off to even see a faint green glow from the led, but it worked.) I have a feeling the old readers may have had a similar replacement policy like the Toshiba drives did. Regarding analog, not all theaters put serious interest in their analog. Now I agree with you that having good analog should be a #1 priority, but in the real world this does not always happen. Even if a theater has good analog systems, it is possible the light source has dimmed enough since the last A-chain so that when the digital drops out, there is a noticeable change in volume. That is when the complaints come in and refunds must be given. With there being no good reference Dolby Tone loop anymore, level matching has become real interesting. I'm sure you know how aggravating the whole "tone" issue is. On your lengthy paragraph about only installing SR in art house theaters, I do not agree. The public is brainwashed on that stupid "digital" buzzword. They want to see it and they expect it. (Note I did not say they could tell a difference.) For this SRD is the only choice. The amount of dts or sdds titles available for an art house is damn near zero. I might also add that there are first run theaters with the mindset that analog is not important either. I know of a couple that have no functioning analog at all! One of them has been running that way for a couple of years because the SRD has been so reliable it hasn't been needed. It all depends on the person writing the check, but my argument about losing a show and refunding tickets was referencing a slight volume change over time when the digital cuts in and out. There is nothing more annoying than that. (Well, maybe total silence.) (BTW, I'm not so sure I'm too happy with the red reader switch.)  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-24-2003 03:53 PM                     I still have yet to hear of a house making any refund because the digital system failed...no matter which system it was. Any manager worth his pay would never allow such a thing. Most projectionists I know are trained to turn off the digital system if its not decoding properly...pretty much a no brainer. In that case level wouldn't matter at all. You'd simply turn up the volume. I don't recall saying that art houses should only install SR, If thats what I said then thats not what I meant.... but that they should install the best SR equipment available. Remember I said that I see about 50/50 analog and digital playing in art houses. All of the art houses in SLC are equipped with some DTS and some SRD equipment. Art houses occasionally play mainstream movies and mainstream houses sometimes play art films. Both need both formats of digital and occasionally art houses even need SDDS! The last Jurassic Park reader was exchanged when I was at GTS. GTS is in fact not even a DTS dealer..... only setup to buy parts from them. I didn't see any discrimination going on there although I certainly know it exists in the industry. I agree that DTS did discriminate on the drive thing, however Dolby follows the same practice as do many companies out there! You in fact bought a DP-70 from a guy that was very put down by Dolby. So badly that he refuses to buy ANY new Dolby equipement at all. Mark  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 06-24-2003 04:20 PM                     I must debate one more thing Mark, and that is with the refund issue. When I was managing theaters, if ANYTHING went wrong, everyone in the audience got a free pass and if it was a fairly serious problem, I would refund their concessions too. (If we could no longer show the rest of the movie due to some kind of major breakdown, it was not uncommon to hand out two passes, one so they could return to see the rest of the movie and a second one for their inconvenience.) I know lots of other managers who practice that as well. It's called "customer satisfaction". If you screw your customers on something that they paid for by not delivering the product without problems, they will not continue to patronize your business. I call that good management.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-24-2003 08:08 PM                     Cancelling a show that can run with good quality SR analog to me makes no sense. Certainly a "MAJOR" breakdonw easily justifies a refund and two passes is pretty much standard in the industry. I just don't consider a digital sound format problem that might last a few seconds to half a min. a major breakdown, nor worthy of a refund. Certainly any patron complaining about even a small problem such as may happen while the operator does what he has to to get permenently to SR mode should be made happy and compensated. However, a few blips during reverting back and forth, or outright failure to play back of an outboard(or inboard) processor should be caught immediately by the operator in charge and the patrons should hardly even know anything at all was wrong. Mark P.S. I also agree with Joe about the fact that some SR mixes are more preferable to listen to than their digital counterparts....."Chicago" was a great example of a knock your socks off analog track! so the patrons may possibly be getting the better of the two mixes if the digital processor crashes or dies.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 06-24-2003 08:57 PM                     quote: I just don't consider a digital sound format problem that might last a few seconds to half a min. a major breakdown, nor worthy of a refund. I do not believe that was my description of a "major breakdown". Regardless, most booths today are manager ran or operated by kids who just want beer money for the weekend. When something goes wrong, especially in those large multiplexes, it can easily take at least 5 minutes to get there and correct the problem. If 5 minutes of a movie is screwed up, that is worthy of a pass to me, but that is not what I would call a "major breakdown". How would you like it if you purchased a new car and every once in awhile it just shut off while you were driving down the highway? I'm betting you would demand another or abandon that brand. I know the analogy is ludicrous (can't think of a better one right now) and that $8 is nothing compared to a car, but nonetheless that is no excuse for not making good on a bad performance in some fashion.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-24-2003 09:54 PM                     Brad, I guess I'm used to someone being in the booth for the most part. Only our smaller customers are manager operated. Even the 5 screen theatre we service in Ketchum has a projectionist. Another customer has a rule of thumb that over six screens there is an operator....almost all of theor locationsa re now larger than six screens. Mark  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-25-2003 05:17 AM                        I will be eternally grateful to dts because, before I moved to San Diego, I lived in Berlin, and in Germany, all movies are dubbed ! My theater had one of the best sound systems in the city. We were allowed to watch movies privately at night or in the morning. But what use is that when the movies are dubbed ? I would borrow the discs from one of the few theaters which showed original versions, copy them and watch the OV at my own theater, thanks to dts. Yes, I confess - I copied dts discs to satisfy my thirst for original language screenings.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 06-25-2003 08:41 AM                    quote: (Hey Mark M. what firmware are you running in your troubled dts unit out of curiosity? I believe the only two supported ones are v1.29 and v1.46 now.) Not sure since I'm not there anymore. Although you might be onto something because the theater I'm at now doesn't seem to have that problem either. The next time I stop out there for a visit, I'll check it out.  |  IP: Logged Peter Kerchinsky Master Film Handler Posts: 326 From: Seattle, WA, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 07-07-2003 04:38 PM                     Hello all: We just installed a DTS unit at the Metro Cinemas in Seattle and we're having a problem with the reader tracking the timecode throughout the entire feature. I read Brad's posting on the "towel drag" on the main roller and decided to try it today. So you all won't think Brad is crazy, I did it and it works. My theatre says there were no dropout throughtout the entire film. Seems tension on that roller was the main problem and slowing that roller down a bit obviously helps. I owe Brad a drink or two. Thanks.  |  IP: Logged

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