Why? It's printed on the film. There is no outboard equipment that can set you back thousands of dollars.

Almost any 35mm sound projector in the world can play it properly.

Drawback: Iffy stereo, pops and clicks at splices. A sprocket run in the soundtrack is usually the end of the print... Until I come along....

I have no problem with MONO sound, personally...

Glad you have come here, Peter. Now I will yield the floor to others that have projectors that are newer than a 1941 Holmes model 8.

That's not an opinion, that is fact
 

Regarding the digital formats of today, both SRD and DTS can produce good results and are relatively reliable. I haven't heard that many SDDS movies, but none of the ones so far has matched SRD or DTS in sound quality. As for SDDS reliability, read the Film-Tech archives...

If I got to choose (and I did, at our theatre) I'd pick SRD. Why? Availability, first and foremost. You can't misplace the SRD track, which means that most of the new prints today come with ready-to-run Dolby Digital. The DTS discs, on the other hand, always seem to be missing, and not that many films have SDDS tracks, either.
 

As far as practical formats go......
1. Cinerama Sound System
2. Dolby Optical SR
3. Dolby SRD if you have to have digital.
4. 70mm Dolby 6 Track SR
5. DTS Digital.
There is nothing left after these as any other film format that may exist is not practical to have in the booth.
Mark

You ask a big question that will never have a specific answer, not to mention will result in heated debates. Look at the results so far. I too like a 70mm 6 trk in a well tuned room. I've also enjoyed many digital sound tracks as well as optical. I assume your question was more specific as to which of the three current digital sound formats are better???

As mentioned, you will not find a specific answer for this question. As most of us know, you can run the same print in ten, or more, different rooms (same size or not) with the same sound format and each room will sound different. Many of the differences will be slight, and then some will be major. Most of the rooms may sound great, but then others may sound horrible. Many things play a factor in sound quality, with acoustics and tuning having major rolls. You can have perfect acoustics (is that possible?), but if your room is not tuned properly--of which many are not--then you will not get the best sound. Etc, etc. etc.

Another thing that plays a big roll in good sound quality is the recording itself. Most soundtracks today are well done, but all too often motion pictures are on a schedule that is too short or falls behind which means the sound mix has to be rushed. The results are still usually quite good, but can be much better. And what about prints that have errors on them--this is a topic of much debate already here on the fourm, so we do not need to go there.

As to your specific question as to which digital sound format is better (putting aside all the issues of reliability, maintenance, support, etc.) and considering only the sound playback quality, how about the one that sounds as close to the original print master? But that leads to another question. How many people actually get to hear the print master? Not many. When I ran film (changeovers of course!) I would run in the format that was prefered by the sound mixer, or at least the studio's preference. On occasions I was given specific instructions as to which format to run, instructions coming from the sound editors. Not everyone has this information, but mixers, directors, studios, etc. usually have a preference and that is what the motion picture should be ran in if you have the ability to run all formats. i.e. Columbia pictures would be of course SDDS; Universal dts; Disney, Fox, Warner, and Paramount Dolby Digital--and these are not always the case. Are we confused yet? How about when it comes to a Woody Allen picture? I ran in SR with all amps turned off except for the center channel, unless other intructions stated differently, because this was the usual choice. The bottom line, when I ran/run motion pictures I do my best to run in the sound format prefered by the mixer/director because that is what they want. If you only have one digital sound format then you do not have much of a choice as to which one to run.

We all have our opinions as to which format we think is better, and rightly so. But why is it you rarely see discussions or considerations of the format of choice by what the mixer/director wants?
Well, I guess I have rambled enough.
 

The chain where I work, has got DTS, SRD, and SDDS in all big Houses (well they are all Duplex-Houses). First choice system is DTS, then SDDS and finally SRD. Although SRD sounds way better than SDDS (my opinion), we run films in SDDS because the Cinemeccanica DD-Readers do not read very well, which results in many dropouts. Even new copies run at 6 or max. 7 ! So if the film is not DTS, we run SDDS. Personally I don't like SDDS to much, because the sound is very cold compared to SRD or DTS. And I know many people who share the same opinion. Just look for the topic "SDDS" in this forum and you'll know what I mean ;-) !!!

Have a nice weekend

Nic from Switzerland
 

The most practical current digital sound system for 35mm today is SRD. Virtually every 35mm print produced today has an SRD soundtrack. AFAIK, it is standard for any film wanting a Dolby SR analog track to get the SRD track included in the deal. The SRD track my simply be the 2 channel mixed into 5.1 channels for a clearer reproduction. I could be wrong on that, but that's what I have heard.

IMHO, the best current digital sound system for 35mm is DTS. I won't go into why, because this choice is very subjective. Everyone has their opinion and this is mine.

 

I agree with John. No digital format sounds as good as the print master. Especially in the room the soundtrack was mixed in.

As to the issue of which format sounds the best.... I've done a number of A-B tests in the same auditorium between all of the digital systems. When the digital systems are aligned properly there are not great differences in the playback of the program material. The truth is that you don't want the competing systems to sound different. Each system should accurately reproduce the print master. The question then becomes which digital system is the best economically and is the most reliable in regards to day-to-day operations.

I'm going to leave it at that.

------------------
Andrew M. Poulain
Field Service Technician
THX Division
Lucasfilm Ltd.
apoulain@thx.com
415-492-3955
Cel: 415-302-0825
 

See I told you I might be wrong. It doesn't happen often though.
 

Best format for quality and reliability: DTS

Best format for convenience, programming, quality and reliability (if not a basement reader): SRD

Overall my choice is SRD. There are no discs to mess with and provided it is being read by a penthouse reader, will very rarely ever have problems. Of course for all around reliability, DTS wins provided you do not have Toshiba drives.

I have found DTS and SRD are virtually identical in quality on A/B comparisons. If I had to make a choice, I'd say the DTS sounds just barely a little bit more crisper with a slightly more "deeper" sub bass. However, such subtle differences would only be noticed on A/B comparisons. SDDS also sounds very good provided it is ran through the processor's EQ as well, but I find it is very cold, harsh and bland when the internal EQ is used.
 

------------------

 

Others may disagree, but your post made it sound like "digital is better" as a fact. It reminds me of when "HQ" (for "High Quality") was the big buzzword for VHS decks and everybody just HAD to have it, even though the picture difference was so subtle it wasn't worth the hassle of an A/B comparison.

------------------
Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
 

David
 

After years of trial and error what eventually turned out was SDDS, SRD, and DTS each with their own proprietary perceptual coding methods each of which has its merits and downfalls. Note: some Sony coding is licensed thru Dolby(funny eh?)

Phychoacoustics (3 principles):
The variation of human auditory sensitivity and perceived loudness with frequency and time and frequency masking of sounds and discrimination between bands of frequencies.

Sony's ATRAC and DOLBY's AC-3 similarly transform audio signals to the frequency domain thru bit allocation and floating point conversion etc etc etc.... The process is similar but not the same.

Some folks think they hear a difference? hmmmm not sure bout that.....Even if you had the ability to directly compare between digital formats on the same sound system, you need to know what coding artifacts to listen for and what types of audio signals are likely to tax the limits on certain codecs(such as transients and multitone signals)
STILL THAT IS NOT ENOUGH!!!...
You need access to the original uncompressed sound mix as well as encoders for each format so that virtually every possible variable in making such comparrisons can be controlled. Then you can decide which format is trully best.

Rory
 

Timothy,

The dropping back to SR from SRD shouldn't have to happen at splice points. I know that we don't have that problem (we're running a CP500 and Cat 701 readers) so maybe you should upgrade the digital decoder software or check your reader. What's your setup?
 

Hooper was in Dolby???
 

No it was not, good old mono. Trust you to pick that up!

I saw a few films at Village East End in Melbourne in the late 1970's early 1980's and they used to run the Dolby Stereo presented with Eprad SuperStarscope logos. I could not recall specifically which were in Dolby at that time, but I do remember seeing Hooper there. Others were Orca, Battlestar Galactica, Mission Galactica, Orca, Abba The Movie, Porky's, etc

I recall it being frustrating at the time to figure from the ads what shows were Stereo (4/6 mag or later Dolby). Shows in 4 track mag in the 1970's were generally not advertised as such. Often the fact a film was in 70mm was not advertised either. I recall Grease moving from the Bercy in 4 track to the Forum in 70mm 6 track and it was not even advertised as stereo! Boy, it sure sounded good in 70mm compared to when i saw it later in mono!

In those days Hoyts Cinema Centre 1, Midcity 5 & 7 and GU Russell Cin 6 were the best sounding theatres in Melbourne with Forum and Capitol a little further behind.