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Topic: 6 Track Magnetic vs 6 Track Digital
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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 12-31-2010 01:14 AM
quote: Daniel Schulz
One of the big lessons that CDS taught was the importance of existing alongside the analog tracks, both for failsafe and also to eliminate the need for dual inventory of prints. There was an infamous instance of the CDS player overheating for a Days of Thunder premiere and sinking the presentation.
quote: Variety, July 4, 1990
"New Digital Sound System Snafus At 'Thunder' Sites"
A glitch in a heralded new sound system forced several theaters to pull prints of "Days of Thunder" over the weekend.
Officials of the joint venture of Eastman Kodak and Optical Radiation Corporation could not be reached for an explanation of the failure of their Digital Cinema Sound [sic]. But film's distrib, Paramount, confirmed that the much-advertised digital prints were pulled from at least three theaters.
Key houses lost were Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood and its National in Westwood, and Pacific's Cinema Theater in Corte Madera in Northern California. It's understood the same problem may have developed at Pacific's Lakewood house, but no one at the exhibitor's office could confirm.
A Cinema staffer said some "Thunder" dialog began dropping out in the sixth screening after the Wednesday opening. Par quickly arranged for the houses to switch to 70mm Dolby prints.
Digital Cinema Sound [sic] also is used on "Dick Tracy," but a Buena spokesman said that film has had no troubles, suggesting to some that the "Thunder" blunder may have been due to the rush to get pic ready for its opening.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-31-2010 02:39 PM
quote: Sean Weitzel
I believe it will be rather simple to repair the power supply, but what concerns me is the onboard firmware.
This issue is one example of why I am wondering how hard it would be to put together some other kind of setup that could actually play the CDS sound data off one of those film prints.
That existing CDS gear could be "dead" for a number of reasons. Any piece of computing or electronics gear is going to eventually die for various reasons. Certain pieces of hardware break or wear out over time through use. At some point you can't buy replacement parts to get it fixed. Then you're forced to buy something new.
It may be possible to revive CDS through use of software in a computer system and a more up to date film reader that works much better than the old circa 1990 models. Some of this reminds me how people are using MAME to play old coin operated video games without the actual game cabinets. Of course, this approach isn't quite the same as having a fully functional CDS system. But the audience wouldn't know the difference.
SDDS is already a near-dead format, at least in terms of hardware. What does someone do if an existing reader or piece of hardware in the processor breaks? I'm not sure if you can still buy any of that stuff brand new. Probably have to cannibalize parts of another SDDS unit. The same may hold true for first generation DTS players. I doubt Toshiba still makes those 2X speed SCSI CD-ROM drives. What is Datasat able to do to support three drive DTS-6D machines, or the 6AD cinema processor? Can someone repair a broken Dolby Digital DA-10 system from 1992?
Commercial movie theaters have been transitioning to digital cinema for a few years now. That's putting a lot of Dolby Digital, DTS and SDDS players out of service. Eventually those three lossy compressed digital formats will be "dead." Many thousands of movies with film prints encoded in those formats will still be around and be playable if there is any compatible hardware to do the job.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a system that could play all of those audio formats? One reader that can see all the digital audio formats for 35mm and 70mm. One piece of rack gear that can process all the audio codecs. It sounds silly at first, but CDS is dead, SDDS is near dead, Dolby Digital and DTS are still viable but their parent companies have shifted focus away from 35mm/70mm to digital cinema efforts, etc. The various patent holders could cooperate to allow a new, even more precise film reader to be developed. It might be possible to use a computer to process the audio and then somehow send it to a cinema processor. The idea of using a computer instead of a dedicated piece of rack mounted gear is that it could cut costs and also allow the all purpose system to have a much longer life span. When one computer breaks and can no longer be serviced, just replace it and reinstall the software.
I don't know. It's kind of fun thinking about those possibilities. But the obstacles in making such hardware are obvious. And then you have the movie studios who own the rights to the movies. If you're running a revival house and want to play a certain classic title the studio may prefer to just send a digital cinema hard disc or Blu-ray instead of shipping an old 35mm film print.
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Edward Havens
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 614
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Mar 2008
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posted 01-01-2011 02:13 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
DTS had the philosophy that 6-track audio should be in every neighborhood theater. That gave the company a permanent foothold in the market.
Forgive me for disagreeing, but what got DTS a permanent foothold in the market was cost and George Lucas. DTS was half the cost of Dolby Digital and SDDS, and when Lucas demanded theatres be equipped with digital sound in order to book the Star Wars Special Editions in 1997, that's when they exploded. Houses in smaller markets like the one I was managing at the time (one of two theatres in a town of 44,000) went with the least expensive option.
Strangely, Lucasfilm didn't inspect the theatres it demanded digital sound from, and my competitor in town bought a $350 Dolby Home Theatre system, set it in their booth and told Lucasfilm they had set up a Dolby Digital system, stealing Jedi away from my theatre. Not set the home theatre system up, but just set it in the booth. Still boxed up. Never installed. But then, they went out of business less than a year later, so they were never that much of a threat to begin with.
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