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Author Topic: What's a Dolby Cat 280 Card? Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-24-2003 05:40 PM                    Forget comparing the CC with the real thing. How about a CC vs. a 222-pretend-SR/A card or the various digital implementations of SR decoding. Or a CC vs. A playback. Remember at one point Dolby was suggesting that A playback was actually a good thing for lesser theatres as the low level sounds would not be dropped back as low as the original recording which might be beneficial when there is high ambient noise.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-24-2003 10:11 PM                     Perhaps a fair analog comnparison would be the USL SR card against the CC card. The digital processors would all need to be listened to against the 280T card for at least some basis for the comparison. Mark  |  IP: Logged Peter Hall Master Film Handler Posts: 314 From: London, UK Registered: Dec 2000 posted 12-25-2003 04:54 AM                        Christmas day .. but... Mark - we are the sort of dealer who responds to our customers needs. A 100 seat provincial second run house asks us to make the sound better, with a budget of X. What would you do ?? Tell them that they need to spend 5x and go for brand names and Digital, or offer solutions within their budget with a clear upgrade path for the future ?? There is no doubt from the customers standpoint that CC280s and sub bass are a good start, and we'd suggest it is more effective to install CC cards, sub and amps up to Digital standard to generally improve and upgrade the system to produce a definite improvement in sound. Or would you tell them that it's all or nothing and leave their clients listening to A type, PA type surrounds and no sub ? Again, we'd love to install SRD THX JBL and Martin Audio on every site (as we do when we can - we remain the UK's THX dealer and have installed more top end screening rooms and premiere West End venues than enyone else) but also can work with a client with a limited budget to provide a cost effective, audible or visible improvement for their customers. Merry Xmas ! Now, where was I, didn't I have my hand up some bird's arse...? Far more important that arguing over some dam SR cards...  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-25-2003 12:23 PM                     Mark you had to see that one coming... You have Gordon and Peter here that have sold their customers on a "solution" for SR...the CC 280 and other sub products....there is NO WAY they can ever claim they are anything but acceptable. Imagine if you sold something to a loyal customer that trusts you and then you turn around and claim it is junk or even just less than you had claimed. You'd loose your customer(s) and reputation. Yours was a very poor argument since it could only end in conflict. Oscar has very nicely stated his position that what he maufacturers is not the real thing, that it is indeed inferior but that he has customers that find it to be acceptable...as cases in point...you have Gordon and Peter...Oscar only needed one person to be satisfied to make his claim. I gurantee that he could produce more than just Oscar and Peter too...there are many exhibitors and installers that find no problem with SMART equipment. As to customers that have been sold SMART equipment that later feel that they were "undersold"...I have received calls from even Gordon's customers about their later disappointment when they realized what they ended up buying (without me explaining it to them). It may have been accurately represented but it wasn't the real-deal. Actually with stupid statements like 90% compatible...I question the accurate representation but I've already covered that. Customers don't often go to the dealer they are disappointed with when it comes to equipment choices. I can actually appreciate the line of thinking that if one installs a reliable digital system (2 out of 3 can make this claim) that saving money on the analog back-up system to apply it somewhere else has a certain amount of sense. I, however, do NOT accept the notion that a customer does not have enough money to afford a decent sound processor or NR cards. I have NEVER sold a Copy Cat and all of my customers have SR...this includes 1st run, screening rooms, mom-n-pops, sub-runs...you name it. The only knock-off, non-Dolby version of SR I've sold are the Panastereo CM-353s in CSP-1200s. I've upgraded a couple Ultra-Stereos (not sold by me) with their SR emulator (it doesn't track great either). If your theatre is so marginal that the cost of a quality projection and sound system is too much...please...go out of business (my opinion)...you are not that far from it to begin with...in the cost of operations...projection is not that big and it has the longest service life. That is cost/year for projection sound is almost free. A substandard theatre actually brings down the reputation of the entire industry. If you ever have a theatre where a CC card outperforms the genuine SR...then that is really indicative of how poor the quality of the theatre's sound system really is...with SR, only the proper decode will restore what is actually recorded...you can't "improve" upon that...you can only degrade. Again, this is cut and dried...not an opinion situation. As to the curtain thing that was raised...I don't agree with the money to be spent elsewhere arguement. I've yet to find a theatre that went belly up on the curtain expendature. In fact, the curtained theatres seem to have the longest life. Their screens stay in better shape. Also, as William Hooper pointed out in another thread, what you are selling is not just the movie, it is the theatre. If all you've got to offer is a rectangular box with a white wall at the end...why bother going to YOUR theatre? If you are the only show in town then why not wait until the DVD? If it is only a 100-seater...you are not going to get the big community experience anyway. If, on the other hand, you put on a show then why bother with the DVD? Anything at home will pale in comparision to the theatre experience. The theatres I service with curtains routinely out perform their curtainless theatres. Is the curtain the reason? Maybe not...those theatres normally have more than just a curtain...they have a nice lobby, Marquee, styled interiors carpets...and put on a show...including having top-shelf picture and sound...which one of these items can you get away with not doing and then notice when the attendence drops? Also you have to factor what product is out there so it is a tough one. Your accountant can certainly show that if you buy SMART processors and omit the curtain that you've spent less than you might have...what you accountant can not show is the gain/loss of tangible items like curtains, improve sound, acoustics, picture quality...heck even balconies. On the spreadsheet, they can only go in the negative column...their affects on attendance are not direct. Yet how come, in my part of the world, does an Uptown routinely dwarf other screens in all categories? Is it the screen? Maybe. Is it the balcony? Maybe. Is it the sound? Maybe. Is it the location? Possibly but there is not parking yet we sell out 830 seats routinely (and over 1000 seats before the last renovation). Is it the curtain? Maybe...we get comments when it isn't working about the disappointment...it certainly is more dramatic a performance when this curtain starts to reveal a screen that is big and deeply curved that seem to go on forever. If we were to pull out the Cat. 280s and put in CC280s would we loose customers? Maybe, maybe not but it would definately chip away at the perceived quality of the theatre since the overall sound quality would be degraded...how much to the end user is an impossible question to answer. So, my beef is not with SMART...they are supplying what some exhibitors are wanting...my beef would be with exhibitors that would present a show in such a 2nd or 3rd class manner (if they'll cut on things like SR...they are cutting all over the place) and with any dealer/technican that would claim that it is just as good or even the "percentage of compatible" lies. Those are either deception or incompetentcy for they are measurably inferior and audibly easy to tell. The exhibitors that are looking to "cheap-out" are predisposed to believe they got good value. They have the Ghostbusters line of "we are ready to believe you" already. They sleep quite well charging their customers the full admission price for a performance that warrents a discount. Note we are not even talking about high-end systems here...no THX or DSP based crossovers or fancy speaker systems or other esoterics...this is just nuts and bolts playing the analog track properly...nothing fancy there. This is just the basics and we haven't even gotten to the b-chain! Happy Holidays! Steve  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-25-2003 06:27 PM                     Steve, Gord and Peter can go right ahead and sell them either at their suggstion to their customers, or at their customers request if they want to. But I refuse to. In Peters case I felt there was a statement that was there if you sort of read between the lines. And as for this being a clash I hardly think so:). Nothing here has been at all heated...its just a simple case of selling the customer the right or wrong device and in my past experience customers that are not in the know and are new to the buisness so to say have always appreciated being honestly guided on this sort of stuff as in the long haul ot does dave them money. I certainly don't take any comments personally, nor would I ever hold a grudge against anything anyone ever said or expressed on this site. It is here for the good of discussions like this and I also know that Gord knows me well enough to know the same. Today its pretty easy to sell a system with proper SR. I can't think of a system in the past 10 years I've sold that was not...excepting the recent 4 Smart mod 7's. That particuluar location was reopened only temporarily so of course the customer wasn't going to spend for the best. Under that sort of circumstance I might make an exception and did in this case to prevent other far worse equipment from being installed. In this case it might have been either home type decoding equipment or another el cheapo untried digitally based processor. The customer wanted new equipment and the location was way too far away to deal with software issues and digital glitches and in this case I very definately sold them the more reliable option. I can only reccomend some unproven item after it is at least first was proven locally. Fortunately we do have theatres that allow us to go in and do exactly that. I simply believe that either making the customer hold off a while or by juggling other items around a bit on the ticket to help the customer end up with the better option at the start is the correct thing to do. Our customers have always appreciated that and returned to us again and again and that tells me that we are certainly doing right by them. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Darren Briggs Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: York, UK Registered: Dec 2001 posted 12-27-2003 05:57 PM                        Steve, the copycat vs 280 was carried out in a THX theater on a 35mm print of Minority Report if I remember correctly, and a 70mm print of Lawrence of Arabia, not a run down flea pit, or badly aligned system at all. (For the record we run genuine Cat 280's) As Gordon mentionied, a copycat for SR is better then no SR. And for the cost, which is a big issue for many of the smaller cinemas around, the copycat is a suitable SR card, just like a Cat222SR/A!? niether maybe the real artical. Many cinemas install Smart proccessors, dont here a major uproar against this? Anyway I think we've all decided a genuine SRA5 and 280 cards are the way to go. SRA5's are around in the U.K. on the second hand market, just need to know the right firms to buy from. Future projections are the best start. (www.fproj.com) 02073580606 Peace! Darren  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-27-2003 06:10 PM                     Mark I doubt that your employer would refuse to sell one if a customer came in asking for one. I too have used the CC in cp200's for mag 70 screenings with no complaints and in fact some comment to the contrary on LOA screening  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 12-27-2003 06:13 PM                  I like mono optical.... >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-27-2003 06:17 PM                     Phil is that mono optical academy style or full range and which variable area or variable density and push pull or unilateral track we really need to know  |  IP: Logged Richard Fowler Film God Posts: 2392 From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA Registered: Jun 2001 posted 12-27-2003 07:01 PM                     The mono optical works great with his mono ocular vision har har  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-27-2003 07:02 PM                     Gord why would I ever sell a CC280 when I've always been able to sell a high-quality version...Cat. 280, Cat. 300, Cat. 350 or CM-353? There is no excuse for the CC280 to be sold...I've nothing against SMART for making it though...just those that would use it (kinda a wierd philosophy). Again, this isn't a SMART thing...all of the low-line cheap SRs are in the same category...this should NOT be taken as a SMART bashing thread. Steve Steve  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 12-27-2003 07:04 PM                  Gordie... I like it all! AND! I want it ALL NOW!!!!! Actually, I think the Westrex system is far superior to the RCA varible density. >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged

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