This is topic Dolby "A" in 1993? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 02-22-2001, 08:58 AM:
I was screening a print last night that was released in 1993. I noticed on reel 1's tail that it said Dolby "A". I thought that was wrong and so started it in SR. It didn't sound right so I switched to "A" and it was fine. I was under the impression that after 1986 (and certainly by 93)everything was SR. Is encoding "mode" an option for the film maker? ------------------
Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 02-22-2001, 09:09 AM:
SR really didn't take off until after the introduction of dolby digital. Wich at the time was not printed on every film. There were dual release prints that had SRD and A type noise reductions. Most likely you have one of these films. Even SR had dual release prints due to the fact that not everyone had the SR cards so only theaters with them got the SR prints. What was the title of your film in question? One of the first SR prints was Robocop (1987).
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-22-2001, 12:01 PM:
There's still some Dolby A stuff being printed now. At least one of the SDDS trailers is Dolby A, for example. "Big Night" was Ultra-Stereo and should not have been run in SR. There are others, too, but none that come to mind immediately.
Theoretically, one could make an optical track with any type of NR, even something like dbx, but the only formats that anyone can reliably assume that theatres will be able to reproduce are Academy mono, Dolby A (mono or matrix), and Dolby SR (mono or matrix).
Posted by Ari Nordström (Member # 288) on 02-22-2001, 03:14 PM:
Dolby A prints are somewhat rare these days but I've seen a couple. At the last Göteborg Film Festival, I screened one Dolby A print. On the other hand, I had about eight or ten the year before.Most of them weren't American, obviously. 
Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 02-22-2001, 04:01 PM:
It was Last Action Hero------------------
Greg Mueller
Amateur Astronomer, Machinist, Filmnut
Posted by Ben Stephenson (Member # 741) on 02-22-2001, 04:51 PM:
When I ran " Man In The Iron Mask " it was in D.T.S or Dolby A . We checked with the distributor and they said that this was correct .I tryed it in SR and it sounded crap.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 02-22-2001, 10:08 PM:
>>It was Last Action Hero<<Wasn't this the first wide release print to carry SDDS? If so, it was most likely ( as were practically ALL Sony(Columbia/TriStar/Triumph) titles until about 1997 or so) SDDS/Dolby A only. No DTS, no SRD.
Aaron
Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 02-23-2001, 12:43 AM:
Yes Aaron, last action hero was one of the first SDDS films and only featured A type noise reduction. If I remember right not all prints had the SDDS soundtrack on them. Also all SDDS only prints only featured A type noise reduction.
Posted by Stefan Scholz (Member # 147) on 02-23-2001, 02:40 PM:
Different in Europe, most films from 1990 on carried NR2 (SR) tracks.Reason. Within the US the penetration with NR1(A) type systems was high, whereas in 1994 only 20% of the German theatres were optical stereo at all. So even with early digital sound, US operators did not neccessairily upgrade to NR2. In Europe digital was taken the chance to upgrade from Mono to Stereo-digital. In 1993 all available processors were NR2 capable, so prints normally came digital and "SR".
I remember the difference with the SDDS install reel. In 1994 I was asked, if I would prefer the NR1 version for domestic, or the NR2 version for Europe.
Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-23-2001, 04:54 PM:
Yes, not all prints of "Last Action Hero" had the SDDS track on them, probably it was only on prints sent to theaters that actually had the system. I never got a film with SDDS on it until "Madness of King George"- "Heaven and Earth" was the first print I got with Dolby Digital (which we didn't have the equipment for) and "Mortal Kombat" was the first I saw with both Dolby and SDDS, as well as DTS.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-23-2001, 07:27 PM:
The French used A-type until the late 90s. The last A-type films I remember running were 'Ridicule' in 1997 and 'Ponette' early the following year. The next big French film to be released in Britain after that was 'Le Bossu' which was SR and SR-D. It was also around this time that the French started switching from 1-66 to 1-85.
Posted by Ari Nordström (Member # 288) on 02-25-2001, 01:20 PM:
The French have made movies in both 1.66 and 1.85 for a long time. I've screened enough of them to see both. If there's been a switch from 1.66 to 1.85, I've certainly not noticed it.As for Dolby A vs SR: again, I've seen both in French films since '93 or '94. The first French SRD film I handled came some years later, though. The last two or three years, most of the French films I've screened have been SR, a few SRD.