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Author Topic: Could digital sound be one of the worst things to happen to theatres? Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-20-2003 09:53 AM                     I feel that digital has its pluses and minuses. We have to live with it and through proper equipment maintainance we should try to make the best of it. As for analog I am pretty much a purest in that area and would normally rather listen to a really good analog track rather than the digital version. The areas that digital affords better quality is in harmonic distortion, seperation, and signal to noise ratio, but a good SR track is not far behind in the S/N department either and installation of a good reverse scan reader(BACP) with a proper processor that has real SR decoding can lower the analog outputs distortion level about 10% plus increase seperation and improve decoding by at least that much. There are two problems with analog these days, one is that no one is making decent pink noise any longer and unless you have some of the good old stuff its impossible to properly adjust slit loss, and two, there are fewer and fewer really good analog tracks being made with probably less time spent shooting the analog negative because the film will have digital tracks anyway. So unfortnately in this day and age we pretty much have to live with all varations of cinema sound and the problems that go along with them but there is one problem that should not exist out there....read on.... There are several things I would wish for.... One. For DTS to redesign and include a better verrsion of the time code reader that offers longer LED life through using multiple LEDs if necessary and to also build in an auto-level adjuctment and eliminate the internal(4 volt) adjustment. This would eliminate ALOT of DTS's problems in the field. The new XD-10 player is an absolute knock out performer but will suffer from the same problems that the rest of their players suffer.....an inadaquate TC reader that requires at least yearly adjustments to maintain the 4 volt level. If this adjustment gets much below 2 volts level the system will constantly ping pong between digital and analog. On my last service run there were several locations that were my first visit and most of the 8 DTS systems were doing this very thing and several of the TC readers adjustment levels had fallen below 2 volts with a couple of them at 1.7 volts! Needless to say they had not been running any of these DTS systems for months due to them needing a very stupid, simple adjustment that takes less than 2 min to do. In fact I did the adjustment to all of the readers, while shows were running, and put in the disks and had all of them back on DTS in less than an hour. In fact it should not have to be done at all! The DTS time code reader is simply a stupid, cheapo design that needs to be adressed and pretty darn soon. This stupid design will eventually ruin any plausability in the field that DTS presently has. And IMHO DTS has ALOT going for it with the new XD-10 player. Perhaps its time for BACP to design a proper DTS time code reader. I have no doubt it would sell very well. As for all three digital systems.... the labs really need to slow down a bit, and or hire at least several more quality control people to ensure that the tracks can play back. I am still seeing locations that receive defective SRD reels and on occasion the entire print will not play back. Last Samauri was the lastest one and at one location had three bad reels. Its pretty obvious the labs are VERY lacking in the QC departments. Hello Labs.....Wheatfield Wyoming has SRD playback, so does Wheatfield Idaho! You can no longer send your reject prints to them or very many locations without getting them thrown back at you as I see they do! Too many locations now have digital of some sort. I've concluded that which system sounds better or not is no longer a valid point. You can make your own conclusions about that yourself. What it boils down to is which system works best at a particuluar location. Many locations still do not get DTS disks and many locations still receive defective SRD reels or entire prints. Today there is only one thing for sure, and that is that Sony is the looser in the digital war. Its a great sounding system though. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-20-2003 10:12 AM                        As others have mentioned, the real tragedy is that digital sound largely killed 5/70 for mainstream theatrical releases, despite the fact that 70mm (even just blowups) looks so much better than 35mm, especially on large screens. As a result, I've never run 70mm and probably never will. I've never heard of a theatre neglecting the optical A-chain when equipped for digital. At most, some places (stupidly, IMHO) will install digital sound without also upgrading to SR decoding on the optical side, but even they make sure that their optical system stays properly aligned. Many trailers and snipes (as well as older films and a nontrivial number of new films) don't have digital sound and wouldn't benefit from it anyway, so a properly aligned optical system is still critical and will continue to be as long as we're still using film (which will be a while). In general, though, digital sound is good to the extent that it has made high-quality sound available to many theatres that would never have installed mag or 70mm. Thus, the general public has had more exposure to high quality sound reproduction and, in general, popular expectations for sound quality in theatres and at home have increased since the early '90s. This benefits everyone. Obviously some films benefit more from high-quality reproduction than others. Big-budget action films gain quite a bit from digital (or mag 70), while dialogue-centric films gain little or nothing when compared with a good SR track, properly mixed and played back. Related question: has anything changed in the process of printing soundtracks on film or in the process of recording the sound negative in the last year or two? At one theatre, we sometimes run older prints from a private collection (not for public screenings, of course); when these prints have SRD tracks (usually made from the mid-90s until 2001 or so, some on acetate and some on polyester), they almost invariably play fine, even when the print itself is somewhat beat-up. In this same auditorium (single projector/platter with Simplex 5-star and CE basement SRD reader), we often get higher error counts (5-F vs. 3-6) with lab-new prints. This makes no sense to me. Is there an issue with with reading the track on new ("green") film?  |  IP: Logged Jeff Klump Film Handler Posts: 22 From: Austin, Texas, USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-20-2003 10:27 AM                    quote: since Branaghs Hamlet in 1996. But man did that movie look awesome in 70mm!!!! I'll second that!  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-20-2003 12:06 PM                        This is probably a stupid question but it's one I've always wondered about: Why do the labs have such trouble printing the digital sound tracks -- even the non-intricate DTS time code -- but they can print the picture area with no problems whatsoever?  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 12-20-2003 12:42 PM                     We are looking at an "Analog" visual image and outside of the negative dirt, image jump and weave our eyes are very forgiving  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-20-2003 01:22 PM                        Bottom line, if you can't make your SR sound damn close to the digital in terms of fidelity and precise level, then your system is out of alignment; it is wrong headed to think that switching to the all Holy Digital tracks will save your ass. It's like my contention that if a booth is making prints scratchy and dirty, then putting a digital projector into that dirty booth run by that incompetent operator will not produce the "pristine" images that the digital evangelists claim. Popcorn oil on a DLP projection lens does the same thing to the images as popcorn oil on a 35mm lens. As for SR, in fact the surround reproduction might even sound subjectively BETTER in analog because the matix allows the naturally out-of-phase sound that is always present in live recording to slide into the surrounds, especially the music. Discrete doesn't do that -- only what is recorded in each channel comes out of that channel. This is what caused theatre owners who, in the early days of Dolby Optical Stereo, complained to techs that the surround sound in their 70mm installions wasn't nearly as good (read: quantity not quality) as their 35mm Dolby Stereo houses and the constantly recurring demand to the techs was to turn up the surround level in the 70mm house. They heard more surround in the 35mm houses and that was a bit off-putting, given their investment in the 70mm theatre. Of course the 70mm was the more accurately reproducing the original mix while the 35mm matrix, especially 150B and C, was, well let's just say if it weren't for the time delay, it would sound like everything was coming from everywhere. Funny thing is, if they try to place sounds in all channels at once, just the opposite happens -- the matrix gives up and the entire soundfield collapes into the center and nearly mono. And Mark, I can't resist, but surely you didn't mean that SR gets 10% distortion? You meant .01%, right? Like many of the guys here who pride themselves on how good their well-tweaked analog SR sounds,I too know that if we had SRD (which, unfortunately we don't) and I got a print that started to flip-flop in and out of analog, it wouldn't take me a second to force that sucker into SR and leave it there and not feel bad about it at all. I even split my analog surround with a stereo generator so that I get simulated stereo out of the mono surround in SR. Rule of thumb, if you are aligning the A & B chain the way they both should be, you never will have to apologize for your analog sound.  |  IP: Logged Joe Schmidt Expert Film Handler Posts: 172 From: Billings, Montana, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-20-2003 01:53 PM                     All Sins Forgiven, All Problems Solved Due to the Fatal Disease knowns as "Carmikeitis," I'm pleased to announce that here in Billings where I live, we've got all these problems Solved. I and everyone I know waits for the DVD. Nothing is ever completely hopeless.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-20-2003 02:01 PM                     Frank, I've always advocated tha thigh the highest quality analog playback should be the first thing on the list in designing new sound systems. There are many reasons for this that have already been mentioned in this thread so I won't repeat them. Please go back and read again. What I said was that by using one of the high quality LED reverse scanners, the BACP in particuluar, that you can lower your analog playback distortion by about 10% over using an exciter, slit lens, and solor cell. There REALLY is a huge difference and this is probably the best example of why a JAX light really gains you absolutely nothing except the color of the light. You will find that even though you can lower harmonic distortion by 10% the Inter Modulation distortion will still be quite high although a tad better. I find that most of the pre digital cinema processors are still equipped ONLY with type A noise reduction as well adnb this IMHO is another big snafu. There are a few exceptions to that though in upgrades that were done right. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 12-20-2003 02:45 PM                        quote: Im old fashioned but I run Dolby tone once a month to make sure my analog is working fine and the volume levels are close I don't see anything old fashioned about that at all. While a led-based scanner is more stable than one based on an exciter lamp, there's nothing that says that a problem might crop up 2 weeks after the tech leaves. Your maintenance habits might make the difference between 2 weeks (or less) of trouble... or maybe 6 months or more. I keep a decent set of loops here, as well as an RTA & C/E tone generator card, dual trace scope & DTS test disk. While not etched in cement, I tend to do A chains about every month or so, & B chains a couple times a year... maybe more if something sounds out of balance. That seems about right for systems that revolve around a CP65. Maybe someday I'll get some fancy new processors that give you guys an excuse to pack around those nice new laptops  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-20-2003 03:05 PM                     Scott, could you be seeing a lateral shift due to shrinkage? Maybe you should measure the shrinkage? Jack, you ran a full A-chain monthly? Or you run Dolby tone monthly? The former seems like way overkill, and the latter probably about right. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-20-2003 03:59 PM                     The bottom line is digital surround sound for movie theaters has been a very good thing. The matter of systems dropping out has more to do with bad theater maintenance and not enough investment in the technical service end. Those are big problems in and of themselves, not something to hang blame on digital sound. I may be a "luddite" about things like bringing back the great ANALOG quality of 70mm. However, the movie going environment is much better with 5.1 digital sound on 35mm. For one thing, even if 5/70 was a healthy and alive format (like it should be) there is no way in hell we would ever see an entire print inventory made up of 70mm prints. In the very best case scenario if 70mm were really popular I would not expect to see any more than 10% of an entire print inventory consisting of 70mm prints. What is every body else out there in the market supposed to live with? 35mm with Optical SR (if even that)? Baloney. That's one of the reasons why DTS gave Dolby Labs such a giant kick in the ass back in 1993 when it debuted on 800+ screens. Dolby had the attitude SR*D would only replace 70mm equipment in flagship theaters. DTS had the correct attitude that digital surround sound should be available to all. As I said before, I really disagree with any comments one might make to blame companies selling digital sound processors for the technical problems happening in theaters. It is the theater management that is 100% to blame for that. Not Dolby. Not DTS. Not Sony. With any kind of digital equipment anywhere (not just theater stuff either) you have to maintain it. As is the problem with American culture, we have this stupid, cheap-ass attitude these days of just doing barely enough to get by. Finally, I would not go back in time and "uninvent" these digital sound processes. If we did, there would be no 5.1 surround sound on DVD or on your computer or anywhere else except in the most expensively big theaters in the biggest cities. F**k that.  |  IP: Logged Bruce Hansen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 847 From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-20-2003 05:29 PM                     The problem is greed. It costs money to make things work correctly. Quality control at the labs is just "send it out, and see what comes back". They don't want to spend the money to check their prints properly. Theater techs are not seen as a profit center, they are seen as a loss. The tech manager needs to show that by hiring more techs, there will be fewer lost shows, fewer refunds, and in the long run money will be saved by hiring more techs. Techs need to be shown as making a profit for the company.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 12-20-2003 05:36 PM                        quote: Jack, you ran a full A-chain monthly? Or you run Dolby tone monthly? Yep... my bad. Tone... just to check on things. I put a lot of time into this place, but not quite that much! ________________________________ On the DTS problem (maybe should have started another thread): It appears, if this is possible, that the RATING STRIP at the end was spliced pre-print. You can see where the splice was made, though the print is physically intact. The DTS forces itself to SR just after this point. The box shows timecode but no valid file. Can it be possible that someone could splice in "extra" rating strip after the DTS encoding is done on the negative? It appears that the last half of the strip is serialized for some other audio. Wierd!  |  IP: Logged Rich Ferrando Film Handler Posts: 64 From: Royal Oak, MI Registered: Nov 2003 posted 12-20-2003 06:07 PM                       When I went to see "Brother Bear" I heard that lack of analog upkeep firsthand. The film reached a point near the end of the third reel where they obviously had a massive problem at a prior screening - platter scratches galore, and then that switch to analog sound. And the difference was frightening. At our theater we still use analog a lot anyway. Since our matinee clientele are 99% over age 65, we tend to run films in our one digital house in SR for the first show on weekdays only (even though the two are approximately the same level, more seniors complain about the volume in digital than they do in analog). Of course, this depends on the film. With "The Station Agent," even the most critical ear is hard-pressed to find differences between the digital and analog soundtracks. But, with "Bubba Ho-Tep," I refused to use the analog track because the mix is too damn cool, and any old person who can't take it shouldn't be seeing that movie anyway. Personally, I prefer digital over analog sound, but that's probably because I'm stupidly young, naive, and overly influenced by technology and metal boxes with blinking lights on them. It'll be interesting to see if we get an increase in complaints once our other two houses get digital (the new DA-20's arrived on Thursday. Needless to say, when I arrived at work, I kissed them gently.)  |  IP: Logged Aaron Garman Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1470 From: Toledo, OH USA Registered: Mar 2003 posted 12-20-2003 06:55 PM                     That's really odd about ROTK popping back to SR because the two prints I built are doing the same thing! I'll have to check to see if the MPAA is spliced on because I don't remember it being that way. I just found it odd when I was in the theater after the film and heard the tail go through. As for what you said way earlier Darryl, we do have Jax lights. I was saddened again today when I walked into that theater and all I heard was "hummmmmmmm". It's been like this for over a year, and amazingly, one complaint. Even so, this complaint still hasn't gotten it fixed. I'm just so tired of it all!! AJG  |  IP: Logged

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