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Topic: Christie CP2000

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-12-2006 08:48 PM

Dolby has stated that it will take them the longest because they want their server to be the best performing unit available.
Nothing wrong with that attitude!!

Mark

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 10-13-2006 07:17 AM

quote: David Stambaugh
Don't forget that Dolby was a distant runner-up to DTS in the early days of the digital sound rollout. A lot of people thought the Dolby system of digital-sound-on-film just couldn't work in the real world

Steve covered some of this but I wanted to add. The system that failed beause of the sound-on-film issue was CDS. CDS was killed by Dolby simply announcing Dolby Digital and stating that the digital prints would have backwards compatible analog tracks.

People were very skeptical of DTS. It took a lot of effort to convince universal that it would work and get them to put it on Jurassic Park. The reason DTS took the lead early was simply the price.

The DA10/Cat. 699 combo was close to $20k. At the time, Dolby didn't envision "all screens digital" they were marketing Dolby Stereo Digital at Flagship screens (namely those that had 70mm magnetic capability). DTS came along with not only a much cheaper 6-track system but also the really cheap 2 track player (all of which were eventually replaced by 6-track players).

The price pressure caused Dolby to develop the DA20/cat. 700 to cut down on cost. Then they had a deal going on Lion King for extremely discounted units. The DA20/cat. 700 was still several thousand more than DTS but at the time there was no dual formats. If you wanted to play Buena Vista, WB etc. you had to have Dolby Digital. DTS was Universal and MGM only I think.

With the lower price of the DA20/cat. 700 Dolby Digital was at least a viable option. I believe that once SRD/DTS and SRD/DTS/SDDS prints began to be available (starting with Die Hard With A Vengence) what led Dolby to dominance was the introduction of the CP-500 and later CP-650. Besides the convenience of the integrated processor, the cost of a CP-500 with reader (especially basement readers) was almost as low if not as low as a DTS-6D with a CP-65 or equivalent quality processor.

If Dolby still had their charts of installs vs. time, I bet the tipping point in the race was the CP-500 introduction.

Of course this has nothing to do with the Christie CP2000 but it came up in the thread.

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Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 10-13-2006 10:36 AM

Lyle,

You have an amazing recall of the facts and you are pretty much on the money. Are you sure you didn't work for Dolby at one time?

Dolby did in effect stop CDS cold with the announcement of SR.D but this was after CDS blundered on several occasions and proved to the industry that a film based system with no analog back up was simply not reliable. We all remember the "Thunder Blunder".

I was there for that time and if CDS had been robust we would not have gotten an entry point.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 10-13-2006 02:37 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
As for banking on Dolby...it is a MUCH safer bet than other brands that will get bored with Cinema when the numbers show that Cinema really isn't high volume, particularly when there is competition.

I'm not sure how that relates to Christie and AccessIT since they don't appear to be heavily vested in the consumer electronics market. I can certainly see such a concern applying to Sony. Overall, digital cinema is essentially a niche of the large business server and networking market. The gear being sold is worth enough $$$ to maintain interest.

The companies I'm most concerned about are those such as Texas Instruments, Sony, etc. Will they continue to develop new hardware components first for digital cinema? Or will they lose interest and leap frog directly to the more lucrative home consumer electronics market?

All computer gear gets obsolete very fast. It's very different from any sort of rack mounted sound system gear for consumers or professional users. Computer parts manufacturers stop making replacement chips and boards at a far faster rate. This is why DTS is being forced to stop supporting its original models. Where's anyone going to find a new i386 motherboard and Toshiba 2X SCSI caddy-based CD-ROM drives? I don't think Dolby's going to be immune to that problem either.

quote:
As to Dolby vs DTS in the early digital days...Dolby was first but if many recall, the cost of a DA10 with Cat 699 would top $10,000!

I seem to remember the first Dolby Digital systems in 1992 listing for $20,000. In 1995, when the DA20 and Cat No. 700 reader appeared the price dropped to just under $10,000.

When DTS was first released the DTS-6 player sold for $3,500. The 2-channel DTS-S model sold for only $2,500. Over 800 theaters installed DTS when Jurassic Park was released. The regular price for a DTS-6 player was $5,900.

Both Dolby and Sony ran pricing specials on their processors from time to time. Dolby sold DA-20 packages (including the Cat No. 700 reader) for $6,000 in conjunction with the releases of Die Hard With A Vengeance and Batman Forever.

quote: Lyle Romer
People were very skeptical of DTS. It took a lot of effort to convince universal that it would work and get them to put it on Jurassic Park. The reason DTS took the lead early was simply the price.

DTS wasn't "cheaper" for Universal. It costs more to make a time code negative and replicate thousands of CD-ROM discs. The real thing that sold Universal and Steven Spielberg on that format was the reliability of the dual system approach. The story I heard was Spielberg tried working with the Cinema Digital Sound process on Hook, but was really turned off by it for its glitches and drop outs to dead silence. Dolby Digital could be pretty flaky back then as well. It had the backup analog SR track, but it really needed that backup track. Today's DD readers are far more forgiving of film printing glitches and less than optimal film handling practices.

quote: Darryl Spicer
I think what helped Dolby was when they started offering it built into their processors.

Specifically, it was the introduction of the CP500 that helped Dolby finally get lots of theaters equipped for Dolby Digital. Before then their rate of installs was really low compared to DTS. Even SDDS was looking like it would overtake Dolby as well due to those volume deals they made with AMC, United Artists and Cinemark.

Dolby leveraged the quality of their cinema processors when they created the CP500. If you visit any Dolby Digital equipped theater at least 95% of the time you'll find a CP500 or CP650 in the booth rack. Standalone DD players like the DA-20 and DA-10 are somewhat rare.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 10-13-2006 03:59 PM

quote: Sam D. Chavez
We all remember the "Thunder Blunder".

The "Thunder Blunder":

From VARIETY, July 4, 1990
"New Digital Sound System Snafus At 'Thunder' Sites"

quote:
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.

Conspiracy theorists will note the close proximity of the Corte Madera venue to Dolby's San Francisco headquarters. [Big Grin]

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Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 10-14-2006 12:06 AM

Dolby also was in and out of every LA theatre each week if not more.

Truth is CDS screwed the pooch all by themselves. This was neither the first or the last bad product from ORC.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 10-14-2006 07:12 AM

The latest Christie/AIX signee is Cinema West.... our own Aaron Sizemore's chain....

link to the article in D-Cinema News

Mark

[ 10-14-2006, 09:21 AM: Message edited by: Mark Gulbrandsen ]

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 10-16-2006 09:07 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
DTS wasn't "cheaper" for Universal. It costs more to make a time code negative and replicate thousands of CD-ROM discs. The real thing that sold Universal and Steven Spielberg on that format was the reliability of the dual system approach.

I didn't mean it was cheaper to release in DTS, I was referring to the fact that it took the lead because it was much cheaper to install than Dolby Digital or SDDS when that came along.

I remember reading at the time that Universal had to be convinced that the dual system would work. I think Jurassic Park was originally slated to have an SRD track on it. It had the stupid tri-logo on the credits and "Matinee" another Universal release came out slightly after Jurassic and was SRD.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 10-16-2006 09:31 AM

Jurassic Park was never slated to have a Dolby Digital track on any of their original release prints. Universal Pictures and Steven Spielberg started testing DTS in February of 1993. Unadvertised tests were ran on two different movies in early spring to prove the system would work. JP was committed to the DTS launch then.

Universal did release Dolby SR*D prints of Matinee and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story in January and May of 1993, respectively. The studio didn't do another Dolby Digital track until the release of Blues Brothers 2000 in 1998, which was actually their first quad format release.

The Dolby "tri" logo and a really screwed up looking DTS "digital experience" logo are found on a second generation of Jurassic Park release prints made in late 1993 or early 1994. Dolby didn't start using the one size fits all purposes "tri" logo until the Buena Vista release of The Program in September of 1993. At that time they were just using it for DD releases only, but by the end of the year anything with a Dolby analog or digital track was using it (note the pretty crazy "verify theatre format" tag often included with it). And that's why those later prints of JP have it. Incidentally, the DVD versions of JP have that screwy looking credit run as well.

If Univeral revisits Jurassic Park anytime soon for HD-DVD release, I hope they'll use the original "digital experience" format trailer (rather than the lame piano trailer) and get the logos fixed on those end titles. Well, that's provided if they even bother to use some form of DTS on that disc (such as DTS-HD, etc.).

[ 10-16-2006, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]

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