The pupose of this is to improve the way the feature is presented, by allowing projectionists to raise their faders up to, or near to, the recommended settings. Previously, excessive trailer volume had caused projectionists to lower the faders and rarely were they raised back up for the feature.

I have two questions, if anyone cares to respond:

1) Are your faders going back up? Has the TASA committee's work in lowering the upper volume limit of domestic trailers helped?

2) Now that Trailers are down to 85 dB, are the Screen Adds and Policy reels still at the point that trailers were at 2 years ago? In other words, are the Screen Adds and Policy reels ruining the progress TASA is making with Trailers?

If you have experienced any Screen Adds and / or Policy reels that are significantly louder than the trailers they are playing with, and you can tell me the "name of the product", a brief description of the piece in question, the theatre showing the piece, and the feature it was playing prior to... You can e-mail me directly if you have all that information, or mention it here at Fabulous Film-Tech. The info I get here is invaluable... and damn it, I put it to good use. Really.

Thank you in advance.

THXfully Yours,

Ted Costas
Manager
THX Theatre Alignment Program

 

If they had lowered the upper level 3 db, then that would be some thing to celebrate. Since people are running their trailers at a setting of 5 on the Dolby fader so they can run there films at 7 on the fader tells me that trailers are about 6 db too hot.
 

I think NATO and TASA are doing a good thing, but if they really want to kick some butt, they ought to figure a way to get trailers distributed to the smaller screens that need them. IMHO, this would put more people in the seats. We've run at least half a dozen movies since the beginning of this year for which we couldn't get trailers.
 

My complaints with trailer loudness in general goes to the optical analog track in particular. I have seen some trailers in the past where the analog track is loud to the point of being very edgy and shrill. I can only guess the advertisers are pulling the same stunts that people in TV commercial advertising do --blast you out during the commercials.

I have noticed some improvements with regard to movie trailers being played back in digital sound. In the past few months it seems their level of loudness is more on par with the average volume level of the film playing.

Hopefully this problem with trailer loudness will get cleared up completely. I've been to more than a few theaters where master fader settings were dropped down to really low levels thanks to loud trailers and spot ads. If the fader is not up to a good point, the movie just has a wimpy quality in the sound department and will have more people "waiting for the DVD" to where they can crank it up properly on their home theater systems.

I've also never understood just why so many movie trailers are recorded so loud. Because, in general, most movie trailers sound like crap. Sorry, but that's just the honest truth. So why play bad audio loud? It is just going to sound even worse. Unless some care and real production value has gone into the making of a movie trailer, to where it has a good discrete surround mix and digital audio presentation, I don't want to hear it cranked. Hehe.
 

John F. Allen wrote somewhere that if you want to get an audience's attention, play the ad a little softer, as opposed to louder. I've tried it and he is absolutely correct! When I go into an auditorium with a lot of people that are chatting and the show starts with loud trailers, people keep talking! When the trailers are at a lower volume, everyone turns around and starts watching the show. Isn't the entire point here for the customers to watch and pay attention to the previews and ads? The trick works!

Seriously Ted, get the TASA committee into a properly calibrated auditorium where the feature plays properly at 7.0 and run some trailers at 3.5 for them. Maybe that will make them understand that a db here and a db there just doesn't matter. The sound mixers of these trailers know all too well on how to compress the sound and sweeten it so that it sounds louder regardless of what any meter says. 75db is a must and is perfect.

I don't think that have trailers at the same level of the feature is a good conquest.
Do you really want to play trailers at the same level of "Godzilla"??
I think that peole wants to chat and find their seat without going crazy with Dolby!!
Brad, I also play policy at 3.5 and film trailers at 4.0. Feature stay at 6.3/6.5 (reference level for my theater is 6.3, not 7.0 for tech problems!!).
This because my automation allow this.
Before that I discovered that people went out claiming for volume level...

I know that many theaters plays trailer in MONO to have a reasonable level.

And, having the Dolby Digital "broadway" trailer at 6.3 after 10 minutes of 3.5 policy and 15 seconds of black leader (for chenge lenses and/or make a little stop before feature) has a different result!!!

Bye
Antonio
 

Two reasons for this, IMHO:

1. To help make so trailers and ads don't play so loud.
   
2. To combat against kids who like to turn the fader up after I leave the site.
   

In the past I have noted that the volume of trailers hasn't been as loud but I think it has tapered off. Still too loud but better than it was. I think they could go down a bit more.

I'd say they need to go down another 3 dB. That's the minimum difference that your average person can notice without having to "try". People CAN tell the difference between 1dB but only if they are listening closely enough. If you are trying to convey a message (that you are doing something to solve this problem) you should change things so that people will notice the difference without having to be told.

Sometimes a change (in a given system) has more psycological effect if people think that they are the ones who "discovered" it. Then they will come and ask you if you've done something. You can answer, "Why, YES! We have lowered the levels. How astute of you to notice!" People who walk away thinking, "Ha-ha-ha! I'm smart!" are often better allies than ones that you have to point things out to.
 

------------------
Kyle Abel
General Manager
Plano Movies 10
 

The biggest problem we have though is that we have to keep the sound low during the trailers because with the DTS, it just overpowers them. The problem comes in with the PSA's and other trailers that don't come with DTS, and you literally can't hear them. So as of right now you either blow out your ear drums, or you can't understand what is being said for the PSAs.... Anyone have any ideas on solutions for this without having a projectionist adjust the fader for each trailer?
 

John,
I have been told that if you set up your B chain, as mentioned above, and get the best A chain set up on your scope possable. Then all you have to worry about is making sure that your DTS unit is outputting 250mv for each channel. Setting the actuale preasure levels off of source disc can actualy throw things off I have been told.

It would be cool if you could buy those Ioan Allen-designed db-time meters cheap. Even if it was designed such that you had to leave the processor cover open (so it could hang out as an extension card) it would'nt matter because it'd only be used to measure random trailers/features, then removed.
 

86dB for surrounds?
79dB for subwoofer?

I know 82dB for split surrounds (to have 85 when together) and 91 for Subwoofer.

Is it correct?

Bye
Antonio
 

On occasion I will tweek the center screen channel up by 1 dB (depending on the theatre) so that the dialogue is easier to hear.
 

For split surround we do 83 for left and right and when brought together becomes 86.
We do 79 for subwoofers to prevent bleed over int other auditoriums. 91 may be a little hot but depends on the size of auditorium and how many subs that are in use.
Really the subs are supposed to be set up using an analizer to achieve the proper frequency output not a sound preasure meter.

What you want is the average level of bands frome 20hz to 160hz to be the same as the average level of 1/3 octave bands 100hz to 1khz of the center channel. This should properly establish your sub woofer levels.
 

Get with Bob D. on that one the numbers I have been quoting are what he told me to do. Personaly I think if everything sounds good after set up and is EQ correctly there should be no problem but if he comes in and checks it he will probably change it that is the way he is.
 

I presume you ment to say that any TWO channels will sum to 85dB not all channels sum to 85dB...add three stage channels at 82dB each should yield you 86.77dB

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

If your theater is no longer receiving complaints on trailer volume levels, then clearly the problem is you are not presenting your features at their proper level. Simply turning the fader down (or resetting the levels) does nothing but turn the feature down too. Then again, some theaters are so poorly EQ'd that I wouldn't want to hear them at reference level! That is more likely your problem.

Randy,
LEFT 85db
CENTER 85db
RIGHT 85db
LS 82 1/2db
RS 82 1/2db
SUB (set this with your RTA and a multiplexer)

If the auditorium is properly EQ'd and the levels are set properly, features should play at 7 on the fader. If after doing that they are still playing below 6 1/2, your EQ needs work. (Assuming the acoustics of the room are decent.) The most common problem I see with EQs is OVER-EQing (the tech being hung up on making that line perfectly flat on the RTA and turning adjacent controls wildly in either direction to make it appear flat). Nothing sounds worse than that. I'd rather listen to the system flat. Also, the reason you feel the need to lower the center channel is because the surrounds are too loud in respect to the stage channels. This just ends up creating a mono/surround effect.

In answer to your original question (on the trailer volume). I would say things are still in very poor shape. We recently had a request to put compressors/gain riders on an entire chain of theatres to control the volume of the trailers (and even some features).

What TASA has to do is stop monkeying around and come up with a real number and not gradually move to it. If the goal is to have the previews and features at the same level then DO IT...don't gradually do it..... It should be something like...as of 5/1/01....all previews WILL meet sucha and such criteria or they will NOT be approved and won't be played in theatres.

Next, feature levels need to be looked at. Particularly, the dialog to Music/Effects level. In order to have the dialog at a reasonable level, the music and effects are too damn loud. An occational "sting" is fine but sustained high levels are turning people away from theatres. It is amazing that the industry survived so long on mono with very limited dynamic range except those engineers got the balance right. Even when 70mm 6-track (or 35mm 4-track) came into being and multi-channel wide dynamic range tracks were available, the recording eningeers used them to improve the films, no blast the crap out of everybody.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

I've personally found nothing wrong with the mixes of features. This only seems to be an issue in large and inparticularly "live" acoustic environments. In an auditorium with good acoustics that is properly calibrated, things are fine and dandy as far as I am concerned. My issue is with the trailers. I am also considering going back to what we did back at GCC Northpark 1&2, being that we programmed in a format to turn the subwoofers and surrounds off. Some theaters I know of are actually going back to running the trailers in mono. Yes, everyone read that correctly...MONO! I suppose that's one way of handling it.

Why don't you set up some form of trailer fader for this theater chain?

I seem to be having a bout of dyxlesia here. I'm getting my mords all wixed up!

This is why they don't let me go downstairs and help the ushers: I keep offering to sew people to their sheets!

Because that is not good enough for them (it has been discussed). They complain that some trailers are too loud while others are too soft so if a lower trailer level was set, then the soft trailers would be hard to hear. They run a lot of art film, chain wide. My guess is that the Holywood product are the loud trailers and the art films are the soft trailers.

I'm glad you like the current mixes Brad (an I presume others too) but I sure don't. Now that is a general statement. There are certainly some really good mixes but I find them few and far between.

I agree with you on the liveliness on the room affecting how bad things seem. In order to curtail some of this, in live rooms, I will often drop left and right from 2-4dB to keep the music from drowning out the dialog. Depending on the RT-60 times in the bass, the subs will also get dropped. The worse shape the room is in, the more "hand-tweeking" that I do....I hate it. There is no substitute for a properly made room and quality speakers.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

Completely agree with you about "Over EQ-ing". I have a bad tech make a "Over eq-ing" in my theater and the result was horrible. We had to call another tech to have a very good result.
Bye
Antonio
 

another possability is that the crowds we have been geeting lately are older and are probably becoming deaf.

I have the sound set to what I think it should be to my ears. I like movies to have a punch. I personaly checked the EQ's and was told to fill in the holes and try to get the best I could out of it. Our theater is 11 years old and acustics are not the same as they were origonaly so that can play a part in the RE-EQ. The reason we do not set the subs above 79 on DTS houses is because of bleed over into other auditoriums. The faders do run a little over six not exactly six. The last few times I have screened movies I have been pleased with the sound. I am very picky about sound.

Who knows maybe people are just tired of complaining.
 

Already been a standard prodcedure (analog previews and digital feature)....still not good enough. Even played with mono previews and digital feature.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

I personally love to be immersed in the sound! I still remember the first feature I ever watched in digital sound..."True Lies." That first "kaboom" explosion was amazing!

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

If you are using the equipment Bob has then you have an Ivie IE-30A analyzer and a USL MMX-10 MUX.

Lemme' tell ya' I found out that doing a good EQ is just as much "art" as it is "science".
I've done two of them by myself and I got "good" results in one house and "just so-so" results in the other.

At this point, I get so tied up with "other" things that I don't have time to sit down with a cup of coffee (figuratively speaking) and really tinker with things to "teach" myself how things work. Right now, I just leave things as they are unless they really need it. (Replacing a speaker, for instance.)

I've seen EQs done before and I was shown how to work the equipment but nobody ever went through the whole process in-depth with me to show me the finer points of what I'm supposed to be looking for.

What I'd REALLY like is to sit down and do a full-on EQ from the ground up and have somebody who is 10 times smarter and more experienced than I am looking over my shoulder showing me what I should be doing. At least I'd like to see some pictures of an analyzer that show a "good" and a "bad" EQ. That way I have someting to compare to when I have to do it again.
 

I'm really starting to get the hang of doing the A-Chains. Some of them were REALLY messed up. (For various reasons) Now that I'm starting to get them all fixed I think it'll be time to start straightening out the EQs. That's why I was asking for tips on doing that.

Some days I do a better job than others. As it stands now, all I seem to be doing sometimes is damage control. I think I'm getting things shaped up little by little. Soon, it will be time for me to say, "Now's the time to REALLY bear down and do things right."

It has been 1085 days since the last post.