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Author Topic: Excesssive dynamic range in "Dirty Dancing"? Christopher Seo Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 530 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-27-2007 02:30 PM                     Probably off topic, but: George, when you say you set up the outdoor cinemas "in the usual way" according to the Dolby manual, did you EQ to the X-Curve? I'm wondering whether an open-air environment, such as the one in your picture, creates an acoustical situation which is close to that of a free field, and therefore whether the B-chain should be adjusted for a flat response on an RTA, not a rolled-off curve. Whether this would improve or worsen your specific problem, I don't know.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-27-2007 07:21 PM                     quote: Christopher Seo and therefore whether the B-chain should be adjusted for a flat response on an RTA, not a rolled-off curve. Thats a good point! When I worked on the Cinema Borealis Event we eq'd for somewhere between flat and the X curve. When it was on the X-Curve things sounded too rolled off outdoors. Mark  |  IP: Logged George May Film Handler Posts: 60 From: Bath, United Kingdom Registered: Nov 2001 posted 08-28-2007 02:10 AM                        Dear All When I first posted I was simply hoping someone would tell me "Yes, some prints of DD did have a dynamic range problem." Obviously not! Now we've strayed on to much wider issues. Recent posts suggest I should set up my B chain to have a flat RTA response. The engineer who re-calibrated my EQ set-up very recently is a senior engineer at Dolby here in the UK, and himself does big outdoor shows. I had set my system up with a flat response for the reasons some of you suggested; he said that this was wrong and that it should roll off like a conventional set-up. After he'd set it up said "Your flat response set-up made shows sound like a PA; now it'll sound like hi-fi." I've only done a couple of shows with it since then, but he seems to be right. In particular, the clarity of dialogue seems, subjectively, much improved.  |  IP: Logged George May Film Handler Posts: 60 From: Bath, United Kingdom Registered: Nov 2001 posted 08-28-2007 05:19 AM                        The Dolby engineer I spoke of in the last post has read this thread and comments (I've slightly edited you, Michael, I hope that's OK): “I read all the comments in your forum topic, a lot of valuable info there! As for the X curve versus flat, this is theoretically correct. What I was referring to with my PA/hi-fi comment was the two very powerful peaks in the response that was pulling the response away from flat. I forget what frequency they were but they were quite dominant. This was what I toned down, and were probably natural resonances in the HF and LF drivers or some artifact / comb filtering of the sound going through the perforations in the screen, the very reason for doing the EQ with the speakers behind the screen. With film mixes out doors I think a totally flat EQ to 20kHz still makes a film sound unnaturally bright/sibilant and thin sounding because the film has been mixed in a room with the ISO 2969 / Dolby X-curve built into the dubbing studio’s system, so there is a measure of HF pre-emphasis into the track . Personally I think it’s better to use the ISO 2969 / Dolby X- curve but to start the roll-off at, say, 4k rather than 2k. Was your print SR or A? There are SRD prints of Dirty Dancing available but as your print did not have a digital track you would not have had an SR track, as both analogue and digital tracks coexist together on the same sound neg, so you could not have one without the other (unless the digital exposing lamp was dead in the optical printer; this is unlikely and would probably only affect one reel). If you had the original 1987 version there is no way it could have been SR, as SR did not come out on release prints until 1988 with the release of Robocop. And that was a dual inventory release with A type and SR prints. The next major one was Rain Man, again a dual inventory release. It seems the 2004 and 2007 releases of Dirty Dancing do have Dolby digital and DTS sound but you say you did not see a Dolby digital track so you had an old A type print or a new print made from the original negatives. Playing this A type print with SR would really “suck” on the dynamics of the track, it would sound as though you were listening to it with cotton wool in your ears. All the atmospherics would disappear (wind, rain etc) because the SR would be treating these sounds as unwanted background noise.”  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 08-28-2007 02:08 PM                        I also agree that the Dolby curve be used. It makes no difference where you are (indoor or out), the quality of sound at the listener's ear is what matters. You EQ accordingly so that the curve is correct IN SPITE OF the location. BTW: get an SR print! Louis  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-28-2007 03:18 PM                     quote: Louis Bornwasser I also agree that the Dolby curve be used. It makes no difference where you are (indoor or out), the quality of sound at the listener's ear is what matters. You EQ accordingly so that the curve is correct IN SPITE OF the location. I disagree... where we were set up for Cinema Borealis we not only had a 70 foot wide screen to deal with but it was literally blowing in the Chicago breeze... away from and towards the horns themselves. Interestingly the then Dolby Field Engineer stopped by with some new mag preamps for us to test(we were running two 70mm shows) and he pretty much agreed with how we had done the setup. We had no choice but to cut it a little less than normal because we lost too much of the high end with the screen blowing out from the horns... It worked out fine in the end ecept for neighbors comming over and complaining when we had Pink Noise running through all those Inter Sonics subwoofers . Apparently we were rattling a good number of windows on the High Rise Condos straight north of the screen location. One guy even threatened us with his Pit Bull! Please note that it also rained for much of the showing of 2001 so the little extra boost probably saved the showing since the rain then plugged up the perfs.... about 500 folks sat in the rain to watch 2001 in 70mm. I think on a small screen outdoors the standard curve would be fine under normal circumstances. Mark  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 08-28-2007 06:22 PM                        Correct! If you had re-EQed, you would find yourself with less hf and you would have corrected. You must have EQed in still wind!(You probably arrived at the proper EQ by meter and then by experience.) Louis  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-28-2007 07:10 PM                     Actually the screen was blowing back and forth for a while when we were eq'ing so we could actually see the difference. I more or less split the difference between them. Mark  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-28-2007 08:16 PM                     Any experience using software like EAW's SMAART for real-time EQ-ing? You feed it the program audio on one input and a measurement microphone on another and it gives you realtime frequency analysis (and other functions) without pink noise. Of course, I'm not quite sure how you'd use this well if you had something other than mono in your outdoor theatre, but, well, it's a thought... (I can think of several ways you might...) --jhawk  |  IP: Logged William Phillips Expert Film Handler Posts: 117 From: Cardigan, Wales, UK Registered: Feb 2002 posted 08-29-2007 12:37 PM                        George I showed Dirty Dancing back in April for a charity event. On run in the morning to check the print, the sound was playing it in Dolby A was good and for the 1st time in a long while playing at volume 7 was stunning for the entire film  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 08-29-2007 02:06 PM                        quote: William Phillips the sound was playing it in Dolby A was good Eh wot?  |  IP: Logged Marin Zorica Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 671 From: Biograd na Moru, Croatia Registered: May 2003 posted 08-29-2007 05:52 PM                     For outdoor purposes I prefer only speaker EQ.....I mean to put mic on 2-3 meter from speaker and do eq....on this way you will only do EQ of speaker frequency curve, this is good because is opened and sound waves are much different then in room!  |  IP: Logged

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