This is topic Do You Return The DTS Discs? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 05-10-2001, 08:41 PM:
As the operator a second run theatre I find that one of every four prints that I get (both from Technicolor and ETS) are missing the DTS discs. My calls of complaint are generally ignored (after all who cares about the second runs?)It is truly sad what Ebay has wrought!
Posted by Pete Lawrence (Member # 130) on 05-10-2001, 09:53 PM:
I think your being a little hard on Ebay. The only ones I see on there are an occasional trailer disk and they are few and far between. DTS disks do show up on some collector boards, but not in any large quantities. After all, they are still useless without the DTS hardware. Now, trailers are another story.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 05-11-2001, 01:44 AM:
>> My calls of complaint are generally ignored (after all who cares about the second runs?)<<Don't bother calling the distributors or Technicolor. (they could care less IMO). Call DTS instead. Ask for Karen Hultgren. Request the proper disc(s). Watch them arrive the following day. Play your DTS movie in DTS. Piece of cake. 
Aaron
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-11-2001, 02:16 AM:
Results of calling depend on who screwed up.Last time we didn't receive the disks, I called TES. They said they didn't have any. So we contacted DTS. They said they would take care of it. The following Monday the disks arrived....FROM TES. 
Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 05-11-2001, 02:19 AM:
Im glad someone brought this up.
My theatre doesnt even run dts and the guys who usually biuld up prints keep taking them out of the cansFOR WHAT?!?!
Then theres another guy who likes to take them home because he has some Playstation game that will let him pull information off the disks to biuld characters.
Has anyone ever heard of this?
Since I have no authority over this person, I havent told him directly not to take them, but I have dropped subtle hints such as "You know some other theatre might need those."
He seems to think that thaey are automatically resent sine the print of Chocolat I biult up today came with them and the print was used.
What he doesnt realize is that the last theatre just might have done the right thing and returned them.
I asked my manager to talk to him about not taking these disks and only taking trailer disks for this purpose, so hopefully this will stop
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-11-2001, 04:01 AM:
The PlayStation game is called "Monster Rancher" or some such BS. It doesn't take data off of the CD, it just uses whatever is on there to "build" characters. Kind of like those nifty effects you see playing music in Winamp... it is all pretty random yet still based off of the music. You can insert an audio CD, data CD or whatever for this game to "use". I have never tried it. Sounds boring.
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-11-2001, 05:54 AM:
"We have met the enemy, and he is us!" --- Pogo. 
Not returning DTS disks with the print just hurts all of us. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you": return the disks so the next theatre can use them.
------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 05-11-2001, 08:12 AM:
Many times Karen (from DTS) has pointed out that the discs are owned by the distributors. So even if DTS or TES has the discs, shipping them to your theater must be approved first. I'm sure DTS would love to provide everyone with discs to encourage the use of their products!
Posted by Bill Langfield (Member # 818) on 05-11-2001, 08:12 AM:
Please return the DTS disks.Its very anoying to have to play a movie that is DTS only, and not have the disk(s).
As much as I like DTS, the fact that the sound track is SEPERATE to the the print
will in the end, prove SRD the winner.
(Ive not seen a SDDS theatre- are there any?)
That said SRD error rates seem to always be in 5 to fail area - mainly EX soundtracks.
In the early days where the players
used caddies, Yes I kept a few, I wish
I kept few more, as they dont send them in caddies anymore, and we are still using DTS players that need caddies.
Bill.
Posted by Bill Langfield (Member # 818) on 05-11-2001, 08:30 AM:
Erm, what i meant to say is :
Its sucks when you have a cinema that
has DTS only and don't have the disks.When you have a SRD cinena its not a problem
because all prints these days ARE printed with SRD - ie no need to hunt up disks.
Bill. - bed time.
Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 05-11-2001, 10:44 AM:
I ALWAYS treat them as part of the print- when the discs come in those 'big round things' I stick those in the can before reel 1 so if you're doing everything in order the discs will be the first thing you take out of the can and get put in the DTS unit if needed. Returning a print without the discs should be treated the same as not returning all the reels!
BTW is "Chocolat" being re-released again or something? I had to build up a print of that last night- it was a used print in about the worst condition I've ever seen one delivered (thanks, Technicolor! 
) but amazingly, the DTS discs came with it and they work. Has anyone gotten scratched-up or dirty DTS discs? What happens when you try to use them?
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-11-2001, 04:20 PM:
How does DTS feel about their discs being copied? Most CD Burners can easily copy a set of discs perfectly for another theater to use if they don't have any. And it's quicker than any overnight service. It's not like anyone makes a ton of $$$ off of the sale of DTS discs, and they can't be played in anything but a real DTS unit, so I wouldn't think that there would be a problem if the situation demanded it.I have always returned the discs with my movies.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-11-2001, 05:23 PM:
I have been asked before by studios to burn a set of discs for another theater when ones arrived scratched or broken. I can't imagine it being an issue. Without the print, they are pretty much worthless.I have also been able to borrow another theater's discs to copy so that my theater could play the movie in digital when we received two "A" discs and no "B" disc. Being able to burn them on the fly is a lifesaver. I've always thought it would be great if dts could have an online archive so that people could click on a movie and download the discs to their hard drive and burn a copy for repertory movies, or when prints come with defective discs.
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-11-2001, 05:58 PM:
DTS disks should be returned with the film. Theater owners and managers should insure this is happening. DTS disks are more worthless than AOL disks, and why anyone wants to keep them is beyond me. They won't run in a PC or MAC enviroment.
As a collector's item, they are equally worthless.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-11-2001, 06:30 PM:
DTS discs online is a good idea, but it would have to be a situation where you would call DTS up and they would put those discs on the site for a day. Since two discs (one movie) would equal over a gigabyte worth of data, storing multiple movies on the site would not be a good idea. Does DTS even have its own servers? A broadband connection would be absolutely necessary (duh). It would almost be easier if you had DTS just ship you the discs (or copies of them).
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-11-2001, 07:42 PM:
I don't know why anyone would want to keep DTS discs. Like others posting in this discussion, I have found the discs to do really nothing in an ordinary PC. The MS-DOS batch file tries to run after double clicking the dts.exe file. The only thing I found of interest were which exhibitors had their own fanfare included on the actual movie discs.The only thing I have been intriqued enough to copy is the graphical layout printed on the disc in CorelDRAW format. I'm a computer graphic artist on top of being a nut about this film-tech stuff, so my collection of logos has really added up.
I can understand an theater operator slipping up on a rare occaision and not putting the discs back into the cans when the print is returned. But being careless about it is not only ignorant, it is downright selfish. I don't know what the discs cost to make and how that averages in cost per theater, but I know it isn't free (a CD replication plant may charge you around $2500 for creating a glass and stamper master set for mass replication, with the replicated discs maybe costing anywhere from pennies a disc to over $1 per disc depending on how many you get made).
Another poster commented about the separate discs being a weakness for DTS and how that makes Dolby Digital superior. I disagree. The dual system format makes DTS easily compatible with just about any motion picture film format in existence. The separate discs also allow DTS to run at a much milder ratio of lossy data compression than Dolby Digital. (SR*D theatrical runs at only 320kb/s versus the 820kb/s rate for DTS theatrical). IMHO, that makes DTS sound consistently better. And then you have the reliability factor. I still see lots of Dolby Digital systems skipping out to analog at reel changes. DTS can ride through really worn out prints with little problem at all.
Sound on film formats will eventually be a thing of the past, especially if the movie theater industry moves to any "next-generation" audio formats for film (which would likely entail uncompressed LPCM at anywhere from 8 to 12 channels). You can print that kind of data load directly on a filmstrip.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-11-2001, 07:42 PM:
Joe, I was thinking more along the lines of storing the most recent 30 films and then being able to do the "for a day" thing for rep films that are not delivered with discs.
Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 05-12-2001, 01:59 AM:
<<BTW is "Chocolat" being re-released again or something? I had to build up a print of that last night- it was a used print in about the worst condition I've ever seen one delivered (thanks, Technicolor! ) but amazingly, the DTS discs came with it and they work. Has anyone gotten scratched-up or dirty DTS discs? What happens when you try to use them?>>I dont know what the deal is with chocolat.
Thisis the fourth time we have played this film.
We lost it right after the saward, got it back a week later, lost it again, got it back about two weeks later, lost it a week or two ago, and here it is again.
The print was scratched all over the place (which i reported to technicolor), but it did have disks.
Since we dont run dts, i didnt bother to look at the disks and left them in the can where tey belong.
Posted by Jonathan Haglund (Member # 807) on 05-12-2001, 04:04 AM:
I just got Chocolat again as well, no DTS discs though. It replaces The Forsaken, whose attendance dropped to zero. Chocolat is beating that, though still having the least attendance. I believe it is just a place holder that can make a little money whilst we wait for next weak hoping not to get another disappointing Knight's Tale experience.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-12-2001, 02:52 PM:
My friend Jack just had "Chocolat" booked again at his Carmike theater, and did get the DTS discs with the print. I guess having 7 of 8 screens equipped with DTS helps. He says the print came in for Mother's Day.He's put me on notice that he may need a late night CD-burning done when he gets his prints of "Pearl Harbor." The higher ups want him to interlock two prints of the film across four screens. He has to special order two sets of DTS discs per print, and if things get screwed up and he winds up with only one set of discs per print he'll need extra copies. No sweat for me really. My burner can CD-copy four discs in about 30 minutes. All four screens need to have digital sound showings of "Pearl Harbor", especially with the new stadium seated 12-plex across town in Central Mall opening up that weekend with "Pearl Harbor" (this new Dickinson build will reportedly have 2 DTS and 10 Dolby Digital screens). Jack's theater may not have statium seating, but his screens are bigger, auditoriums are larger and his sound systems will probably still be the best in this area.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-12-2001, 05:05 PM:
For the person who needs the CD caddies: any computer store should have these for a couple of dollars apiece. They're a standard item. DTS probably sells them, too.