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Author Topic: 70MM ultra panavision Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 04-30-2015 09:35 PM                     No, not Datasat, just the production of dts discs and timecode.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-01-2015 06:41 AM                     That sort of makes sense then. The format is essentially dead and definitely now boutique. That sort of format has a much different business needs than a full production one. Something that film itself is in now too.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-01-2015 01:15 PM                        The word on the street here is that FotoKem is keen to buy out the rights to the DTS film sound system in order to be in a position to provide a full service, in-house package for boutique 5/70 releasing. If so, then presumably they are figuring that for the foreseeable future, there are likely to be one or two Interstellars or Hateful Eights a year, thereby keeping that side of their business a steady, if not growing income stream. With BLSI taking care of the theater end (developing an inventory of projector/lamphouse/platter/lens/audio processor packages that can be installed temporarily for roadshow runs, and providing spares support for the few remaining permanent 5/70 installations), it's starting to look like the 5/70 roadshow may have a more secure future than it did this time last year.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-02-2015 11:32 AM                     With a place like NT Audio Visual already set up to record DTS time code it makes more sense to just leave it there. They did the highest quality optical tracks in the industry anyway. All Fotokem needs is the negative to print the track on release prints. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-02-2015 11:40 AM                     Uh...sorry Mark...NTAV is no more.  |  IP: Logged Daniel Schulz Master Film Handler Posts: 387 From: Los Angeles, CA USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 05-02-2015 11:46 AM                        quote: Mark Gulbrandsen With a place like NT Audio Visual already set up to record DTS time code it makes more sense to just leave it there. They did the highest quality optical tracks in the industry anyway. All Fotokem needs is the negative to print the track on release prints. NT Audio shut down their optical sound department, another casualty of the declining film business. The last standing facilities shooting sound negatives with Datasat timecode with any regularity are Fotokem and Inventure Studios, both in the LA area, and the occasional track in India. Just to confirm some of what's been reported here - the Datasat film services division is being wound down in terms of support for Datasat Digital Sound. I myself am no longer an employee, but I am consulting with them to manage the last several 35mm films we're producing discs for (and for The Hateful Eight). The AP20 cinema processor remain in production and supported - all that's going away is the department that handled the timecode-and-disc business. Technicolor is closing their 35mm print shipping ops in July, and so Datasat is timing their end-of-life to that timeframe. Apart from the 35mm business, which I expect to be truly end-of-life by mid-July, we are supporting the 70mm release of The Hateful Eight with both hardware and software. I don't know anything about the Magnatech run, but I do know that Datasat is manufacturing a substantial quantity of 70mm timecode readers, as well as a smaller number of XD20 players, and of course we will be providing soundtrack discs (and probably CSS subtitling discs as well, since you can't laser-etch subtitles on 5/70 prints) for this release. After The Hateful Eight I am hopeful that a home can be found for the technology to support whatever future 5/70 releases there may be, with one of the companies interested in supporting such an endeavor.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 05-02-2015 07:56 PM                     Hello Daniel, As part of your consultations with the DTS remainder, please plead for the saving of all of the recordings that were made for feature films. Although there are many time code rich prints, the discs have, world wide, been the bugger in the DTS system. It appears that the absence or destruction of discs in shipping have made this wonderful sound system mute. Please try to have the archive save these recordings and make them available to exhibitors showing the features for which the DTS sound exists. Perhaps this data could be sent by internet since the recreation of the discs might require excess cost,time and physical shipping. Your assistance in this matter may help to preserve the integrity of the DTS digital sound system for future audiences. KEN  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-03-2015 10:57 AM                        Datasat have been extremely helpful in supplying discs for older titles when we've needed them recently: all we've had to do is ask, and Daniel or one of his co-workers has been able to provide us with discs. I'm guessing that they have images on their servers for most if not all of the titles they produced. That having been said, if they're no longer going to support the DTS/Datasat film sound system from July, the question of long-term preservation of the audio data does start to become an issue. There are some permanent DTS 70mm houses - ours included - who keep disc image files of every disc that passes through our booth, in case of difficulties in getting hold of them later. I've been ripping every disc that has passed through our booths since I started here, and for our 6D auditorium I burn fresh sets before every engagement to minimize the risk of disc sticking/jumping during the show (for our XD-10 auditorium I'm working on the basis of replacing the hard drive every five years). However, I would hope that a more official long-term preservation plan for the digital audio data is in the works. If the current situation is that Datasat has all the audio data from all the DTS titles intact, we potentially have a one-time opportunity to avoid getting into a Vitaphone situation, whereby films survive for some titles but not the discs, and vice-versa. Perhaps involving one of the larger, better-resourced non-profit archives (e.g. UCLA or the Academy) could be persuaded to acquire the audio data for permanent preservation. There will be issues with rights owners involved, but a non-profit archive would normally get around them by asking for clearance at the point of each usage, which in this case would probably come automatically with each theatrical booking. I wouldn't have thought that the studios would be too worried about an archive looking after the audio long-term, given that they're already confident about their ability to look after actual movies. And the preservation cost for this data would eventually reduce to the point of being trivial. Let's say for argument's sake that all the audio data for all the DTS movies made since 1992 comes to, say around 100TB. It's not going to increase, because no more DTS movies are being made (well, at the absolute most, two or three a year from here on in). The cost of migrating and preserving 100TB is going to be whittled away by Moore's Law from now on. If it carries on at the same rate that the cost of hard drive storage has decreased since around 2000, we'll be able to buy a 100TB flash drive for around $80 in 2025.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-03-2015 11:39 AM                     Thats too bad about NTAV. They did the best work out of all the places... I wonder where their recorders went to? Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-03-2015 11:52 AM                     Recently, at the AFI/Silver, we updated their three XD10s (first with new capacitors because their were having the leaky cap syndrome) with 1TB drives and then networked them. We increased the feature audio capacity to max (you need the latest firmware in order to be able to change the storage allotments based on content type). They now have about 850GB of feature title storage. At this point, any movie that comes in is going to effectively be there forever. They would have to have a triple drive failure to loose it since once networked, all three XD10s (XD20s will do it too) will backup to each other. That said, yes, I think there should be a DTS disc repository. I nominate Film-Tech! They are already a functioning NOC and understand proper security procedures. I'd bet they would be interested if asked. Most people already would think of them as such a source and it could be a handy tab at the top of the screen. That said, I think having multiple repositories make the chance of losing content even better.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-03-2015 02:48 PM                     This day was inevitable. We all knew it would come sooner or later. As such I already have the vast majority of all dts released archived properly. I've been maintaining a private archive since Jurassic Park in 1993 and its quite massive. Since the studios keep futzing up the original mixes with that destructive "near field" nonsense, I believe this archival endeavor is becoming more and more important. As more time goes by, the true original mixes are going to become lost forever and the dts archive will become the official historical documents on how those movies were supposed to sound. Down the road it will be just like a "lost film" that suddenly surfaced in some guy's attic.  |  IP: Logged Daniel Schulz Master Film Handler Posts: 387 From: Los Angeles, CA USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 05-04-2015 02:14 PM                        The preservation of the disc archive is very much on my mind these days. Datasat did not preserve an archive of every single feature ever encoded by DTS or Datasat (there were a lot of midlist comedies that only lasted 2 weeks in cinemas, or features with 23 different language versions encoded), but there is an archive of about 500 feature films that covers the films one would expect to see on the repertory circuit. That archive include both physical copies of the final production CDs as well as ISO image files backed up to redundant hard drives. Finding someone willing to provide those images as needed (possibly for a fee?), provided studio clearance is provided, is my current task.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 05-04-2015 03:13 PM                     Daniel, I am less anxious about the loss of these sound tracks since you are working on the problem. What a shame it would be to have to use the analog optical backup rather than this digital system that otherwise works so very well. (Sounds good too!!) If the cost of supplying these tracks is what would make them go away, what a shame that would be on the film industry. If exhibitors can obtain a screen worthy print, there should be a way to get the original DTS track to complete the screening with authenticity. With the large cost of the rights and more for shipping, what is an additional charge for the DTS sound track? It always costs a little more to go "first class". DTS is a feature that the audience can hear and appreciate.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-04-2015 05:31 PM                        If we're only talking about 500 features, the volume of data involved can't be big: 2TB at the absolute most,* and only that much if there are multiple versions of the audio for a significant proportion of that 500. You could put the whole lot onto a portable hard drive costing $150. We're talking about the same amount of storage that you'd need for 10 to 15 typical feature DCPs. I'd be very disappointed if none of the major archives in town were willing to take the custodianship and access provision of this audio data on. Hell, if you're not having any luck with any of them, I'd be willing to explore if this is something that we (the American Cinematheque) might be able to do (though obviously I can't promise anything like that on a public website, would need to consult with my boss before being able to make any commitment, etc. etc. etc.). * Let's say 2 650MB CDs per feature = 1.3GB x 500 = 650GB; assuming two audio versions per feature, 1.3TB. This is very rough and ready, but demonstrates that we really aren't talking about a major data storage and migration problem.  |  IP: Logged Daniel Schulz Master Film Handler Posts: 387 From: Los Angeles, CA USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 05-04-2015 06:35 PM                        I think we're all in agreement that the amount of data is not the problem. The problem is, who wants the responsibility? In my experience, people don't realize they need a disc until the 11th hour. Does the UCLA Film Archive, or the Cinematheque, or Schulz Audio (which doesn't exist, but you take my meaning) want to be on call 24/7 and be prepared to drop whatever we're doing to FTP some files to a cinema in Buenos Aires because they forgot to check the film can for a disc, and the screening starts in an hour? When DTS or Datasat were in that business they could handle it - after all, they had staff whose full time job was to monitor emails and telephones, a disc shipping warehouse, a spreadsheet of available titles, and a rolodex of studio people to confirm clearance issues. In the absence of that infrastructure the exhibitors will have to come to understand that although a disc archive does exist it may not be able to provide the data instantly or at ultra-low cost as had been the case in the past. To answer an earlier question - DTS or Datasat never charged exhibitors for discs. Maybe in a few marginal cases for shipping. Billing questions were always handled with the studio or distributor, and in most cases the cost of the discs were cleared up front as part of the overall license fee. In the future, whoever does wind up taking possession of the archive may well need to charge exhibitors something for disc or file delivery, if only to cover the costs.  |  IP: Logged

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