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Topic: Dolby Clones

Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 01-17-2008 01:03 AM

quote: Gordon McLeod
...and a sansui qs matrix...

Could this Sansui device be used in lieu of installing a Dolby CP-50 (or 100) to reproduce optical Stereo Variable Area soundtracks?

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 01-17-2008 06:05 AM

The Sansui QS decoder was only ever used for the surround channel in cinemas. So no, you could not skip the CP50/CP100 for a full 4-channel system as cinemas would use them.

Steve

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-17-2008 10:35 AM

Interesting side note is that christie went with the motorola 3 chip SQ matrix decoder chip set to do all 4 channels in their processor I believe that was the same chipset that Tate made that Dolby later used on the early 150 boards

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 01-17-2008 12:29 PM

quote: Bill Gabel
The Fox Wilshire Theatre engagement had a Dolby CP-100, Dolby MPU-1 and the unit Gordon mentioned above, for playback of ["Tommy"].

Was it possible for a theater to play "Tommy" in Quintaphonic without having a Dolby CP-100? I ask because I know of at least four theaters that ran "Tommy" in Quintaphonic, yet ca. early-to-mid '77 (two years after "Tommy"), none of the theaters in question appear on Dolby's installation lists. What the hell? Were the units rented or loaned just for "Tommy" then returned following the engagement? Or was something other than the CP-100 used instead?

(The four venues I'm referring to are the Fox Wilshire in Los Angeles, Ziegfeld in New York, Parkway in Las Vegas, and Cinedome in Orange.)

Where I'm going with all of these questions is that I'm trying to account for all possible manners in which a theater could have played a stereo optical film in stereo ca. 1976-77-78 if such a theater did not have: (1) a Dolby CP-50 or 100, (2) "Dolby clones" such as Eprad Starscope were either not yet on the market or were not installed, and (3) no magnetic prints were available. What am I overlooking?

quote: Steve Guttag
The Sansui QS decoder was only ever used for the surround channel in cinemas. So no, you could not skip the CP50/CP100 for a full 4-channel system as cinemas would use them.

Thanks. I was testing a theory (not mine) that perhaps these Sansui whatevers could have been used to decode a stereo optical print.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 01-17-2008 05:36 PM

The QS system was developed for quadraphonic records/tapes. That is by using two channels and having phase differentials cause channel stearing.

Cinema, with SVA...only fooled with phase for the mono rear channel. The front channels were always a function of level relationships. The early SVA process only shifted the channels about 3dB up or down to crudely stear the sound stage. It wasn't until the Cat 150 for Dolby (around 1979/80) that a true 4-channel stearing was done. The EPRAD system copied the original Dolby one and it was a long time before they tried to emulate the form that most of us know today.

To drive the point home, the surround channel resided on a separate board before the Cat 150 and there was no interraction between it and the card that derived the three stage channels.

Unlike quadraphonic, Cinema had a established history with 4-channel sound and an even longer one with the center channel. As such, any long-lasting format was going to include a center channel. The use of the three stage channels had also been established for quite some time...any optical sound recreation would be of the form to try and replicate that (4-track magnetic). In fact, CP50s were really designed to go into existing 4-track systems. As such, the upper button (Non-Sync/Mag) would bypass the CP50 entirely so that the existing 4-track system could take over without change. The CP50 merely replaced the optical sound portions of the system.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-17-2008 05:59 PM

quote "Was it possible for a theater to play "Tommy" in Quintaphonic without having a Dolby CP-100"

yes
since the quint box was inserted after the cinema mag system a processor other than the quintaphonic box was redundant

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 01-17-2008 07:46 PM

The Quintofonic box had nothing to do with Dolby or SVA; just an enhancement of L-C-R of magnetic 4 track systems.

For SVA: Dolby did it all in the early days.The CP-50 was delivered before Eprad delivered. The CP-100 was first.

BTW: The Cine Capri (Phoenix) had a Quintophonic box installed when I did the Warner studio tests there pitting Dolby against 4 track and mono optical. The picture was "A Star is Born." About 2 weeks before release date. The Dolby tech was Phil Boole. Louis

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 01-17-2008 09:28 PM

April of 1975, the Century 2001 in SLC played "Tommy" in Quint sound for I saw it there at this theatre and heard that it was this mag config to create that 5th channel.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 01-20-2008 10:17 PM

quote: Louis Bornwasser
The Cine Capri (Phoenix) had a Quintophonic box installed when I did the Warner studio tests there pitting Dolby against 4 track and mono optical. The picture was "A Star is Born."

What was the purpose of the test? To prove the viability of optical stereo? (In the end, Warner Bros. released "A Star Is Born" in all of the formats you cited.)

Louis, were you invoved in the tests for Fox's "Mr. Billion" in Tucson around the same timeframe as "A Star Is Born" (late 1976/early 1977)? They used Dolby in that situation as well, and, apparently, it worked so poorly that it blew out the sound system! I believe the venue was the El Dorado.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 01-20-2008 10:19 PM

No, this was just ahead of SVA. Only Dolby mag was tested.

Not out in AZ for any other work or theatre. Louis

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 01-21-2008 12:04 AM

quote: Louis Bornwasser
No, this was just ahead of SVA.

How so? SVA was used on "A Star Is Born."

quote: Tim Reed
Eprad used to run ads (I remember 1/4 page display ads for the Starlet processor in particular). At the very least, there should've been mentions under "new products" or Show-A-Rama trade show reports.

Earliest thing I found for the Starscope line in Boxoffice was an ad from October 1977.

A summer 1978 trade piece mentioned about 60-70 Eprad processors sold and installed. Now if I can just secure a list of where those were installed, then many of my questions will be answered.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 01-21-2008 02:14 AM

Michael. Check out the Washington Post ads for the K-B Cinema on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I know the Cinema had a Starscope up until the point that the Cinema received its CP200 for Empire in 1980. The K-B MacArthur ran the world premier of Star Trek The Motion Picture on an Eprad Starscope but that was clearly after the time frame you are interested in. The MacArthur ran on that Starscope until the release of Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn in 1982, when it had a CP200 installed.

If you look at the K-B ads, they would state that the film was in "stereo" if it was an EPRAD processor or "Dolby Stereo" if a Dolby processor was used. There was also the more humerous "Kintek-dbx" tags if there was a Kintek system installed...most notably at the Cinema and Langley. K-B put most of their stereo processors in mobile racks that had the processor, amps and monitor...they would move about as needed during those early days to maximize the benefits of the expense. Only big-gun theatres like the Cinema had the units permanently mounted in the K-B chain.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 01-21-2008 03:01 AM

quote: Steve Guttag
Check out the Washington Post ads for the K-B Cinema on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I know the Cinema had a Starscope up until the point that the Cinema received its CP200 for Empire in 1980.

The Washington Post display ad for "CE3K" during its initial weeks includes five area theaters. The K-B Cinema was the only one to include an asterisk. The legend for the asterisk reads: "IN DOLBY SYSTEM."

Steve, your recollection of the K-B Cinema not having a Dolby processor until 1980 appears to be correct as this theater does not appear on any of the Dolby install lists that I have for the 1977-79 time period, and it does appear on the 1980 and forward listings.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-21-2008 07:18 AM

There was an article in a old boxoffice about KB and there mobile racks and there was a picture of two racks one with a starscope the other with a cp50

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-21-2008 08:35 PM

For those who care, the Opera House cinema in Newport, RI has not one but two Eprad units still in operation. At least they did as of last summer and I doubt that anything has changed since then. I believe that one is a Starscope and the other is a Starlet, but maybe someone else can identify them from these pictures:

This one looks slightly different, but the rack is identical:

These houses are (were?) both mono/surround only.

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