With digital, you either get everything or nothing. OK, error correction, checksums and so on will protect against lost data up to a certain line in the sand, but beyond that line, nothing - silence, or, in the case of DLP, a blank screen. Presumably it was this thinking which lead to all the digital sound systems using the pre-existing SVA track as a backup.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Dolby is really who killed CDS by announcing Dolby Digital just after CDS premiered, and about a year and a half before they actually delivered a product. Dolby stressed the analog fallback to capitalize on the unfortunate overheating incident while the story was hot even though they had no digital system to sell. I still think it's strange to advertise your product by saying you expect it to fail. Good marketing from Dolby but the death notice for CDS.

Both Dolby Digital and SDDS have limited print life capability - the data area is abraded in normal projection. DTS too, but the DTS data density is so low it will survive print damage much worse than SRD and SDDS can handle. CDS - with the data on the protected sound track area - could still work after enough passes that all other digital formats' data is obliterated.
It didn't NEED analog fallback like the others all do.

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Thanks Dave. CDS was a really great system, with one fatal flaw. But it really did usher in the era of digital sound by proving it could be done. Kudos to the development teams at Kodak and ORC. But being first out of the gate doesn't assure success, a lesson that still applies with Digital Cinema.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

I actually want digital to replace film, but only after it achieves a certain quality level. Unfortunately, there are some people who want that replacement to happen now, before the quality is there. I am not accusing anyone on this board of being that way, but yes, such people do exist. Phil Barlow of Disney is one. Philip Anschutz (the guy who is buying out Regal and other exhibitors) is another. These people are in positions of sufficient power and control that they just might succeed in converting everything to digital before it's ready. That bothers me.

Paul, since you mentioned digital sound, I'll use that as an analogy:

Imagine if, years ago, someone had come along and said they wanted to replace analog sound with 8-bit / 11Khz digital sound. Why, everyone would rightly have told them they were crazy! Well, that's how I feel about digital video. It's a good idea in theory, but today's implementation isn't good enough.

I don't really have a "keen eye", nor is my vision really all that great. But I do try to pay attention. And I don't understand how anyone can look at a side-by-side comparison of current digital vs. film and not see the same thing I see. It's currently not good enough, and I wish they would keep it out of theaters until it is good enough, lest its current state becomes a de-facto standard and we end up stuck with it.