We got a print of Almost Famous on Thursday. The DTS holder was in the can...complete with busted-in-half clear plastic retainer... but no disks.

I called Technicolor. They said "When that print was shipped, we did not have any in stock, and we are still out of stock today."

Figuring that was their way of saying I was screwed, I called DTS. They said they had disks, but couldn't ship them out without a direct word from Dreamworks. (This must be fairly new...I've called them a couple of times previous, and they've shipped disks with no question.)

So I called my booker, who called Dreamworks, and they called DTS, and the word came back from my booker that the disks would be overnighted.

So yesterday afternoon, I got the disks... FROM TECHNICOLOR.

Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing........
 

-Mike
 

We have sold many DTS units to our customers only to have to repair all of them, upgrade drives, and other problems all at the customers expense.

Indeed if that print did not come straight from Technicolor and was routed from another theater it was then not Technicolors fault, it was the previous theaters fault. The seperate disk is the one major drawback of the DTS system for the average theater owner and a huge drawback for the move over/second run theater. While it may support multi language that has little or no meaning in most places with the exception of large format, and even there with limited use. There is not a large format theater around here that runs multi language.
Indeed DTS has made the readers more reliable but only with many upgrades and modifications. All at the customers expense. That is what has made it a secondary format.
Mark

Gord, Its odd that you are the only one here hat does NOT have any DTS woes and the ONLY one that does have Dolby woes........perhaps your customers never use their units.
Mark

We have two DTS units. I find them to be very reliable, but have had a few problems with them over the past three years (to me, a "problem" is when you must run a show in analog because the digital unit won't work.)

On the other hand, our three SR-D units (over three years) have never failed.

I know that's not very many for a sampling, but....

Also, I'm sorry to say, people at the theater I work at seem to make it their mission in life to forget to include the DTS disks on ship-out night. At least once a month, I find disks for films that were returned. So, while I really like DTS for techinal reasons, missing disks does seem to be a real problem.

To me, not getting DTS disks is just like not getting a reel of film. Film exchanges do not say; "We are still out of stock of reel one today. Sorry." I'm paying the film exchange to deliver my print -complete-, including disks. It's bad enough they don't want to inspect prints (to verify the disks are there,) but don't give me this, "disks are not my problem," garbage.

Of course, the film exchange should then go back and fine the theater that forgot the disks in the first place.

We are an off-the-break theatre (usually) and we have played hundreds of DTS movies since getting the system in '94.

Only twice have I been totally unable to get disks at all, and only a handful of times (less than ten, I reckon) have I had to call Tech, ETS or whoever to get disks.

The reason I bought DTS had nothing to do with anything but the price. At the time, Dolby was on some movies, DTS was on others, and Sony was just coming out. It was a choice between spending $5500 (which I had) and $12,000 (which I didn't).

Finally, after over six years of use, I have had zero repairs on this DTS unit. I've had the occasional goofup (sound dropping out, etc.) but it's so rare that it's not a problem. Would I buy DTS again? Yes, but only if they give me a free jacket!

I am amazed that theatres keep the disks. WHAT FOR? Back in the NFS days, I once forgot to send some disks back with a print, and I got a phone call asking for them. THAT'S what's needed, along with a stiff penalty for theatres that don't send the disks back.
 

As far as the other argument about which system is more reliable, DTS or SRD. DTS is more reliable, and here is why I think so. DTS had some harware problems yes, but get the upgrade and the problem is solved. When DTS is operating correctly, it is flawless. SRD, while not having hardware problems, that I am aware of, has serious soundtrack problems. That's something that you can't just fix, it is ever persistant. Your soundtracks will occasionally go bad and there is no fix for that. I would rather have a system that doesn't have sound dropouts, and when the system isn't working just make sure your analog is working properly. There is nothing wrong with running a movie in analog, it can and should sound amazing as well.

I personally don't think that every movie that comes out actually benifits from a digital soundtrack. Huge special effects movies and action films, yes. But not everything NEEDS to be in digital anyway.

Also, many of the "kids" truly think that most times the print is thrown away after we have it. There are only two 2nd run theaters within 10 miles of us, (and they are both single-screens) so they don't think that's where our print might go.

After all, they send back damaged prints once in a while, and no one seems to notice. So they must not be used again, right?
 

------------------
Bob Minge
Manager/Projectionist
Westridge Cinema 5
Fergus Falls, MN
http://geocities.com/lakesandriverscinema/westridge_cinema_5.html
 

It is true that you need special equipment, but that equipment is getting cheaper almost every day, and with the internet, the info needed to set up digital systems is usually freely avaiable.

I bet that projectionists were complaining about the reliabilty of optical sound for years after it was introduced!
 

And thats not enough reason to have digital? I agree that many films that are released in digital are a bit silly. For the majority of films Dolby SR is just fine. I personally feel that digital is only necessary for high action or effects movies that require the channel seperation that is gained from digital. For instance Star Trek movies benifit greatly from digital (as the originals did from 6-track mag), but films like, oh, Pay It Forward don't really need to be digital.

Just my opinion.
 

DTS is an updated Vitaphone record!

It's a great idea, but once optical sound goes, then any 35mm sound machine will no longer be able to play any 35mm sound print. I think that the cyan track is the beginning of the end of optical, anyway.

I've been to theatres with mono optical sound and a fantastic, clear, bright, sharp, and steady picture.

I've also been in theatres with a dull image, and sound so loud that it hurt my ears.

I'd rather have the sharp bright image!

I ment to say that I saw films that were dull and dim that had sound that was so sharp and perfect that in one shot when a train went by, the intensity of the audio hurt my ears.
Sure, MONO can kill, too.

I cant for the life of me remember the title of the film with the train.
 

But, the point is, the audio "delivery system" at the theaters be of high quality and lower maintance (which I think digital does.) Even if the audio quality was the same, I'd still like to have digital because of less maintance.

Saying that; "... it's analog sound to begin with, so playing it back in digital doesn't matter.." would be like saying; "... why do a 35 to 70mm blowup since the orginal negative is only 35mm?"

I'm sure we've all heard the increase in quality on even old recordings when the master tapes were transfer to CD's.

As far as loosing the DTS disks, although true, that's not the fault of DTS. A system should be used as it was designed... ie: no one really complained about running Cinerama (threading 3 projectors and a sound reproducer.) It was required to get the quality desired. DTS has the lowest compression, can run multiple languges and operate other control functions. If these features are important, don't loose the disks!

Years ago it seend, engineers designed the highest quality motion picture systems they could; the work required to run them was secondary. Today, engineers design the "dumbest-downed" system they can, -then- try to squeeze in the quality afterward. Ho-hum.

Karen at DTS
khultgren@dtsonline.com www.dtsonline.com
 

We're playing Urban Legends 2 starting tonight. For some strange reason, my print arrived on Wednesday this week, so I put it together that nite. The last 200' of reel 1, and the first 200' of reel 2 had been FOLDED IN HALF down the middle at some point in the past. So there's a big crease down the middle of the film. The print was obviously run after the "fold" was straightened out, but that caused perf damage, since due to the crease, the film was now slightly too narrow for the average projector. Each reel also had scratches, a splice or two, etc.

So I called TES to order new reels. To their credit, they were very nice on the phone and said they would call the next day with an "ETA" on when the reels would arrive.

The next day... no phone call. As it turned out, I was out of town last night. Got home, and on my answering machine was a message from the bartender at the bar next door to the theatre, saying "This girl is here and says she's supposed to meet you at 9:00, so where are you," etc. Needless to say, my wife was VERY curious about this phone call! So I called the bar, and found out the "girl" was the TES courier with my new reels! She had left the reels at the bar.

So I hightailed it to the bar and got the reels. A happy ending, but ONLY because the print got here on Wednesday night!

Brad, maybe a new forum is in order...TES Horror Stories!
 

Much of the location recordings are done using the DAT format (Digital Audio Tape), and much of the ADR stuff would be done with any number of digital recorders.

Lets face it digital recordings are better all round. If you think you can get away without digital then you might find that your customers will start looking else where. With the recent upsurge of DVD units in homes these days, people are becoming more and more aware of the benifits of digital sound - whatever brand you choose! It is not surprising that Dolby have officially changed the name of SRD to Dolby Digital. Everyone recognises the phrase Dolby Digital.

I too have had frustrations with DTS discs not arriving, and on the other hand, I have heard some amazing sound in our DTS theatres. The same goes for Dolby Digital and SDDS. In the early days of digital we would often have a DTS print playing in our SRD house, and an SRD print playing in a DTS house. Now with films coming with multiple formats its not such a problem.

Frank.
 

Steven Gorsky