Is it possible to copy the sound files for trailers (either from a regular DTS disk, or from a trailer disk) onto a copy of another DTS disk?

In other words. Let's say I'm playing 3000 Miles to Graceland, which includes the trailer for Driven. Next week I'm playing Traffic, which does not include the Driven trailer. Can I make a copy of the Traffic disks, but include the sound for the Driven trailer from my Graceland disks? (or could I do the same thing but get the Driven soundtrack from a DTS trailer disk?) Assuming the directory structure and everything else on the copied disk is the same, of course.

I know DTS doesn't want a person to copy the disks, but ...would it WORK? I thought this might be a good solution for playing the trailers for some of the big summer movies with films that don't include the proper soundtracks on their own disks.
 

Bye
Antonio
 

Apparently nobody else has tried this, maybe I'll do some experimenting when I get some spare time (whatever that is).
 

I would think that the trailer is in the R17 file (or whatever reel number they give the trailers). That way they don't have to make a new soundtrack negative for the trailer with a different timecode on it. Unless, of course, the trailer is a different version than previously released.

 

In fact, rather than put a selection of trailer soundtracks on each feature disc, why not move to a system of making trailer soundtracks downloadable from a website, and providing 'burn-your-own' software to take care of the whole process. You simply launch the program, tell it all the trailers you're going to be playing for the next few weeks, then it automatically downloads the data and burns you a disc with all the soundtracks on.

The only problem I can see with this is the download time involved.
 

DTS was created long before CD Burners were even remotely popular. There really was no reason (at the time) to include any way to prevent copying the discs or files. This could have been modified with new firmware, however. But seeing as how there is no possible way for this to become rampant and destroy DTS or their profits, I highly doubt anything much has been done.

Try to use an 80 minute CD if possible... that way you can cram even more trailers on!
 

The 2-drawer units are 386-based, and the 6D's are 486SX based (I believe the last one I had seen was 25MHz). Also theres 1 or 2 SIMM modules for ram and the SCSI card and two DTS playback hardware cards.

Aaron

 

I'm clicking anyway but nothing is happening.

Ah nevermind. You want me to click on MANUALS and then find the DTS manual. Too much work. I am much too lazy.

The file names on the disks are identical. Each disk includes a file for each reel named "r_t5.aud" where you fill in the blank with the reel number.

Then there's another file called "r14t5.aud" which is the sound for the various THX and DTS trailers, circuit policy trailers and the movie trailers.

Each disk contains a text file that tells the contents of that "r14t5.aud" file.

Too bad the trailers aren't in a separate file by themselves or this idea of mine could work. The way it is, if I copied the trailers file from an older movie to a disk set for a newer movie, I would lose the newer trailers because the file names are the same.

I suppose there could be a way of "splicing" the two trailer files together somehow but I'm not that technical. Anyone?

I dunno'... I'm guessing.
 

<scratching head>

I wonder if it would be possible to get the trailer sound files off of a DTS "trailers" disk. I don't have one of those here.

Come to think of it, why don't they just cram as many trailers as they possibly can onto each set of disks? Since trailers from competing companies are being shipped in the cans these days, it seems like a logical step.
 

Is it possible to just add a third drive to the SCSI daisy chain and run the ribbon cable to a drive outside the chassis? Or is there a proprietary BIOS-type thing with one of the DTS cards set to use just two drives?

 

The units do provide an extra power cable but I am not sure about the scsi daisy chain cable you may have to purchas this cable.

Important the third drive must be the same type of drive that the other two are. Big problem is that the older units use the toshiba drives. Dts no longer uses these drives they now use teac. So if you were going to do this I would order the three drive upgrade kit that also upgrades the firmware chip and scsi card was also updated I do believe along with another card that was added.

But how important is this. I have found with our automations that when a cue is placed on a trailer that is playing in dts it will kick the sound format back to stereo thus taking the system out of digital until it either stops reading a related timecode and then starts again or you manually push the digital button on format card.

For me the only way around this is to be sure that there is a non digital trailer between the last active trailer and the active policy trailer. Placing the cue on the non active trailer. That way it automaticaly goes to digital when active policy starts going thru.

CFS automation, right? There's a fix for that, but it involves cutting a wire. What I do is cut said wire and then install a crimp-on wire connector. That way you can reconnect the wire if needed.

It's the wire that goes to the CENTER terminal of the MONO/STEREO switch. It's white with an orange stripe if I remember. What it does is send the pulse to the stereo processor when the cue goes through. You don't really need that wire anymore since we always play trailers in stereo now.

I think I have a pic of the wire in question. Let me know if you want to do this and I'll give you some better info.

 

Do you know of any fixes, other than adding an extra inboard cue at the end of the movie, to keep the nsync from switching back to stereo. When the 4 second delay times out on the dts it will kick it out and back to stereo. Only selution has been to add the extra cue.
 

Suggestion for Karen: Why not make a tiny change to DTS feature programming to either discontinue timecode at the tail of the print (Must the 'Visit Universal Studios' or the rating tag have timecode if it is silent[with rare exceptions] anyways?) or just truncate the file on the discs so that once there is no longer a sound recording to be played the DTS player just stops, keeping the USL processors from reverting back to stereo/SR after being cued into non-sync?

Aaron
 

Sorry about the picture quality. It's really hard to take a pic like this in such cramped corners and under booth lighting conditions. Still, I think you get the picture.

For the DTS going back into digital after the IB cue... The reason that happens is because there is more time DTS time code after the blue band and when the machine sees that, it thinks it needs to play something again. It just ends up playing silence until the film tails out. Then it's left in digital.

There are four solutions that I tell people:

1. Put another IBQ on at the tail of the film.
   
2. Take a black Sharpie® marker and blot out all the time code after the end of the blue band.
   
3. Cut off the tail of the film after the blue band and splice on a piece of black leader, etc.
   
4. Check the revision number of your DTS firmware. The newer versions don't seem to do this. Maybe you can get the upgrade and cure this once and for all, without having to screw around with the film
   

(You'll probably need to get that upgrade sooner or later when your disk drives crap-out on you so my vote is for #4... IF you can get "Da Boss" to spring for it )

PS: Mark, can you just make a straight disk-for-disk copy of that test disk? I have been meaning to do that but I haven't quite figured it out. I should probably do this soon because I use that disk a lot and I don't want to "wear it out".

Karen at DTS
 

Movie discs are a different story. A studio will let us a film but only wants trailers from THEIR upcoming films on it. They don't want other studios' films on their discs.

The feature discs belong to the studios, not DTS. However, the trailer discws belong to us.

Karen at DTS
 

Surprising though that the studios are OK with putting other studios' trailers in with their films in the cans, but don't want them on the disks!

he does it for his school screenings

It almost worked on my computer...he was rewriting it for use on a mac with os x
 

--jhawk