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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: DTS time coding
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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006
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posted 04-26-2016 03:23 PM
Yes, Randy- -that was supposed to be a big selling point.
And while that promise was accurate in a technical sense, it was not always
true in practice.
Case in point:
We have a large Asian population here in San Francisco. I know one theater
owner who put DTS into two of his theaters, one of which was in a primarily
Asian populated neighborhood. He did this because some of his older Asian
customers often asked if it was possible for him to get some of the major
American releases with 'dubbed' Mandrin or Cantonese sound tracks, so they
could better understand and enjoy their moviegoing experience.
His plan was to have at least one or two alternate language shows a day to
accommodate his non-English speaking customers.
Of course the equipment sales rep said this would be "no problem".
In practice however, he found out that almost 99% of the time he tried to
do this, he was told that the foreign language version DTS disks he wanted
to get "were not licensed for use in the USA".
So, even though we knew these films were playing with DTS foreign language
tracks in places like Hong Kong & Singapore, ete, it was impossible to get those
disks for USA use due to various licensing agreements. It was further complicated
by the fact that in many cases foreign distribution was handled by a different
company than in the USA, and their contracts prohibited them from providing
content outside their 'home' country territory.
Almost every request was turned down. I remember the theater owner was
pretty pissed since he felt he'd been 'duped' into buying the DTS systems
which turned out to be 'useless' for the primary purpose he bought them for.
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Daniel Schulz
Master Film Handler
Posts: 387
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 04-30-2016 02:42 PM
Just a little more background on how things like this *should* have been handled.
DTS always encouraged international distributors who wanted to attach their own distributor logo to do that at negative assembly, with the distributor logo (whether silent or with sound) treated as a separate soundtrack element. DTS always treated trailers as Reel 14, so what you'd see on the print is a Reel 14 with the assigned serial number for the logo, and then at feature start the timecode would start at Reel 1 Frame 1.
However, for their own reasons, international versions often created an all-new Reel 1 that incorporated the different logo build as part of the Reel 1. DTS would typically handle this by using an alternate reel number and include both versions on the disc, so that we could have a single disc inventory. So if for example you have a movie that is Fox domestic but Paramount international, the disc would contain reels 1-5 plus a Reel 13, which is the international reel 1.
When dubbed versions were created, we would have to confirm with the dubbing studio which version of picture they were conforming to. On Tarzan it seems DTS was not informed (or misinformed) about the fact that the German dub did not match the OV picture and sound. What *should* have happened is an alternate reel number should have been assigned to the Germany version reel 1.
Where it gets interesting is if there was ever an English soundtrack that matched that German picture it all. Tarzan being a children's movie, it could be that the only soundtrack created that matched the German version picture was the German dub, and so although using a correctly-assigned alternate reel number would prevent sound from playing out-of-sync, the system would revert to analog when playing the reel that doesn't have a corresponding DTS audio file.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 05-03-2016 09:23 AM
quote: Daniel Schulz
However, for their own reasons, international versions often created an all-new Reel 1...
A major reason was censorship, and that didn't just affect reel 1. For example, as a general rule, at the different age points, the British Board of Film Classification is more tolerant of sex and less of violence than the MPAA. So it frequently happened (and probably still does happen) that a reel containing a sex scene (or a sexually suggestive scene) that was cut in the US was shown uncut in Britain, or one with a fight or torture scene that was shown uncut in the US was trimmed for the UK release, because the UK distributor was willing to make whatever cuts were needed to get a given certificate (rating). In particular, they would not want a major blockbuster to be rated 18, and would change was was necessary to get 15. To a lesser extent, that also happened with 15 to 12 and 12 to PG. If that happened, specific prints of the affected reel would be made for the British market.
Mix and match prints, containing some reels recycled from the US release, and others reprinted by a British lab, were very common. You could see instantly when you got one, because the US recycled reels came on 4" cores (that had been unclipped from the Goldberg flanges of their original shipping reels) and often smelled of the ultrasonic cleaning chemistry, whereas the British ones arrived on 3" cores and often had Technicolor UK (or whatever) lab labels on them.
So I'm guessing that DTS handled these the same way, except that if more than one reel were affected, there would have to have been a reel 14, 15, etc. on the discs.
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