This is topic What is Ultra Stereo exactly??? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by john bishop (Member # 36) on 05-15-2001, 06:07 PM:
hi folks---i've been wondering for a long time now, how does Ultra Stereo work? is it the same process as Dolby? if so, how do they get away with it? do they pay a licensing fee? is Ultra-Stereo inferior sounding? does it use type-A N.R.? thanks for the help!
Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 05-15-2001, 06:32 PM:
Dolby no longer holds the patents for the Dolby A type noise reduction circut. The patents expired. Anybody can use this system now. A type noise reduction was just a simple fequency shift anyway. Ultra Stereo is another manufacture of cinema sound processors. There are a few more like, Smart. Smart was making film sound systems long before Dolby. They were making mono sound systems. So they figured they could play in the stereo field as well. Dolby has had legal discussions with all the other manufactures and discovered that they can defend their name without damaging these other companies. Some of these companies make SR emulators which Dolby allows as long as you don't copy their circutry. Ultra Stereo is made by the USL corporation. If you ask real nice they will even let you use their process when you make your film so you can have a Sound By Ultra Stereo tag at the end of the credits. I have only seen two films do that.I could have Joe Redifer mix my sound on his MAC and put Joered Sound at the end of my film. I'm sure that this would make me and Joe a hundred million dollars. Most filmakers stick with the big names in sound, Dolby, THX, Todd AO, SDDS, DTS. But you don't have to.
Ultra Stereo is cheaper to install.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-15-2001, 07:35 PM:
There's been some debate here before about how good Ultra*Stereo is. Without getting into that, I'd like to share an anecdote.We installed Ultra into my (single screen) theatre in 1992. Two years later, we installed DTS. As it turned out, the DTS unit would not work with the Ultra unit, for some reason. (You'll have to ask John Eickhof why; he's the one who installed it.)
Anyway, John called USL, and without any hassle they shipped out a brand new unit to replace ours, at no charge. It is still working fine to this day. The only probems I've ever had with it were solved by re-seating the various cards in the unit.
Remember this all took place a long time ago; their policies may have changed and your mileage may vary, but they have earned my ongoing support from this example of great customer service.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-15-2001, 10:03 PM:
IMHO Ultra Stereo has outlived its days. While the units are not too bad I would never push them anymore. For me its Dolby or Panastereo or nothing at all. There are a number of aspects of the Ultra units that leave allot to be desired. Most of them have to do with input switching and that annoying, never used, backup power button that fails on just about all units ever made. The SR noise reduction is a long way from real Dolby SR and there is a BIG difference in sound Type A prints are now as rare as mono was in 1990, basically non-existant unless you are running a film from that era. On the Panastereo unit they did a great job on ther SR, perhaps even better than Dolby did. The Panastereo SR module is also a record/playback module, not play only! A testament as to how good they did with it. Those that think Ultra is as good as the others are fooling themselves, and cheating their customers.
Mark @ GTS
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 05-15-2001, 10:37 PM:
"A type noise reduction was just a simple fequency shift anyway."No, it was much more that that. It is definitely older technology (it's about 35 years old.) But, even today, it's a pretty complex circuit.
Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 05-16-2001, 07:48 AM:
Ultra-Stereo did the sound on a lot of B-movies in the 1980's, but I haven't seen much of them since digital became the norm. The last Ultra-Stereo film I saw was "Big Night", which was a pretty high-class film compared to most of the stuff their name was on.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-16-2001, 01:18 PM:
A related question: what is 'DTS Stereo' (as distinct from DTS digital)? Examples - on the prints of 'Out of Sight', the following sound logos appear at the end of the credits: Dolby Digital, DTS [digital], SDDS and 'DTS Stereo'. On 'The Daytrippers' it was just DTS and DTS Stereo, no Dolby anywhere.Would I be right in thinking that this is a stereo variable area format developed by DTS as a (presumably cheaper) alternative to A-type or SR?
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-16-2001, 01:40 PM:
Type "A" consists of 4 audio compressors that are split up between different audio frequency bands. The original Ultra Stereo Type A card actually had 3 compression stages at different audio bandwidths hence did not provide as good of noise reduction an real type A. Ultra Stereo now uses 4 compressors as well since the patent expired but no one uses type A anyway. During record mode the bands are compressed according to the signal level in that band and during playback they are uncompressed resulting in a lower noise floor. Keep in mind that this is a very simple explanation of it. A type A card had well over 800 components on it! SR goes way beyond this and utilizes sliding bandwidth compressors.
MArk @ GTS
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-16-2001, 01:42 PM:
Here is a link to USL's website:
http://www.uslinc.com/ ------------------
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 Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-16-2001, 01:46 PM:
Karen can explain DTS Stereo in better detail, but here's the quick summary: yes, it's an SVA format that's compatible with the Dolby matrix and NR (A-type, if I remember correctly). Most of the early DTS digital releases had DTS stereo optical tracks. They're functionally identical to Dolby tracks, for all intents and purposes.
Have there been any recent releases in "DTS Stereo"? I can't think of anything offhand. Pretty much everything that I've seen in the past few years has been either mono (rare) or Dolby Stereo. There's a "restored" (but pretty bad-looking) 35mm print of Doctor Zhivago with a DTS Stereo track (and, I think, DTS digital as well, but I don't remember).
Posted by Steffan Laugharne (Member # 800) on 05-16-2001, 02:13 PM:
Just a quick note. Here in the UK the majority of cinemas (if not all) who have stereo of any description, use the Dolby system. I don't know of any dealer at the moment who supplies anything but Dolby processors in the UK. At one point there was a dealer pushing Kintek systems that found their way into some Warner Bros. 'plexes, but I don't believe they are trading any more.Steff
Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 05-16-2001, 02:36 PM:
as far as i know DTS no longer makes the dts stereo discs. The newer units i do believe eliminated that capability a few years ago.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-16-2001, 03:34 PM:
Jack Roe used to sell Ultra Stereo processors (dunno if they still do) - I know of two independently-run cinemas, both in Cornwall, which installed them. I've never visited either, but a friend of mine who lives near one of them tells me that she avoids the place (preferring instead to drive 25 miles to the Warner in Plymouth) because the sound is awful, and 'you can never make out any of the dialogue'.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 05-17-2001, 02:29 AM:
>>Have there been any recent releases in "DTS Stereo"?<<ANYTHING from MGM (except the Bond pictures which are all Dolby SR analog) carries the "DTS Stereo" analog tracks (Usually SR-compatible, but some A-type as well.)
AFAIK, the DTS Stereo logo as still used on prints is for the analog track.
Aaron
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-17-2001, 02:44 AM:
Ultra Stereo did provide excellent support of their product in the field. The only problems I have had with Ultra Stereo is one power supply failed, and the later vintage EQ card failures was a bit higher than what I would expect.Other than that, I was quite impressed with them as a general rule. We got what we paid for.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-17-2001, 08:22 AM:
I agree on that one!
I had a couple occasions to call them for help.
I had a very strange problem with some USL equipment (a DSP-60) When I called them up and told them who I was they were very helpful. It took a while to get it straightened it out but we eventually solved the problem.
Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 06-25-2001, 11:11 AM:
AFAIK the last significant releases "Recorded in Ultra-Stereo" were Kiss Me Guido (gay movie from Paramount in summer '97) and Hurricane Streets (youth drama from United Artists in winter '98).Aaron S: All Universal releases should have DTS Stereo as well as DTS Digital.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 06-25-2001, 09:14 PM:
>>Aaron S: All Universal releases should have DTS Stereo as well as DTS Digital.<<True, from "Jurassic Park" until "For Richer Or Poorer" this was the case.
From "Half-Baked" on, ALL US Universal prints have been quad-format. (The only exceptions I can think of would be Universal-distrubuted arthouse product...)
And unless Dolby made some kind of contractual changes, ALL Dolby SRD prints, regardless of lab or studio, have Dolby SR analog backup tracks.
Aaron
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 06-26-2001, 07:24 AM:
This reminds me of something I have been thinking about.How can a film have more than one analoge track?
This is in reference to films such as Space Jam and Jerry Maguire which according to the credits have both Dolby SR and DTS Stereo sound.
------------------
------------------
Michael Brown
Bradford Student Cinema
www.Bradfordstudentcinema.co.uk
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 06-26-2001, 12:57 PM:
This is assuming as Aaron said that all Dolby Digital prints also have Dolby SR.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 06-26-2001, 07:19 PM:
According to Dolby's specifications, the analog track on ALL SRD prints is Dolby SR.And the only way a film can have more than one analog track would be if it were a 35mm mag/optical print.
In the cases of the films you mentioned, are you certain it was the 'DTS Stereo' logo and not the 'DTS Digital' logo you were seeing? The two formats have two completely different logos. And, both 'Jerry Maguire' and 'Space Jam' carried DTS Digital tracks, but 'Jerry Maguire' was SDDS/DTS/Dolby SR only (no SRD)
-Aaron
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 06-27-2001, 09:43 AM:
I'll put it down to just in-accurate credits. I think jerry maguire had the dts stereo logo as well as the dolby analog logo.
Posted by Andy Muirhead (Member # 712) on 06-27-2001, 07:39 PM:
Michael, I think you may be somewhat confused. Yes that print probably had both Dolby SR and DTS, but Dolby SR is analogue, while DTS is digital. If you look at a DTS encoded print, you can see the dots and dashes of the DTS timecode between the analogue soundtrack and the picture area. This is why the print you talked about was both Dolby SR and DTS encoded. DTS is not analogue but a digital process.Anyway, what i was going to post in the first place was in response to Leo, in that we have UltraStereo in two of our 4 screens, courtesy of Jack Roe, and it sounds spot on, far superior to our Dolby CP55's in 2 & 3.
Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 06-27-2001, 08:14 PM:
OK, OK, OK, lets get this straight. 
when the process was first developed only Universal Titles featured the process and it was exclusively only on these prints. No other digital present. What they were doing was this.
First there was two types of dts setups. 6-track and dts stereo two channel matrixed to four disks. These disks were not discrete like the six channel disks. They fed into the processors and were decoded into four channels. This same mix was used to create the analog soundtrack. The two types of logos were created originaly to distinguish between the two types of dts systems.
If jerry maguire did not use dolby digital then it was not bound under any contract to use the sr analog track. Not having a print of this movie in front of me to see, I could not tell you whether it was or wasn't sr analog tracks. My feeling is it could have been dts four channel encoding used for the analog.
By the way, since all major releases have all three digital tracks. I would not see the use of dts analog ever used again.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 06-28-2001, 12:57 AM:
'Jerry Maguire' had a Dolby SR analog track. Therefore the Dolby logo in the credits.Darryl: The 'DTS Stereo' logo as it is used today refers to the A or SR-compatible ANALOG OPTICAL track on certain (now almost exclusively non-Bond MGM) titles. The matrixed stereo tracks [via the CD's] haven't been available for years.
Perhaps Karen can referee this one and make an official call on this issue.
Aaron
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 06-29-2001, 07:39 AM:
I was trying to get hold of copies of the logos so we know what we are talking about. Does anyone have a picture of the DTS stereo logo?
Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 06-29-2001, 09:32 AM:
yes Arron I know the discs are not made anymore. I remeber the Flintstones used them because they sent me the wrong disc. That was 1994. My point is that the two logos were origionaly developed for the two different types of systems at the time. Now there should really only be one logo.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 06-29-2001, 10:53 AM:
The DTS stereo logo was not in relation to the single disk system but to the backup optical track on the print and it could be a emulation of A type or SR
If the film is also encoded in SRD then the backup would be a genuine Dolby SR track but on a DTS only print the producer has the option of useing the encoding of their choice genuine dolby encoding UltraStereo encoding DTS encoding or Panastereo encoding
The disks for the DTS single disk system were labled stereo but the DTS stereo logo was for the optical track encoding
Posted by Tao Yue (Member # 836) on 06-30-2001, 10:43 PM:
FYI, here are the two DTS logos that I've seen: DTS Digital and DTS Stereo. These are both taken from Hackers, a terrible movie, but one which, fortunately for this discussion, was recorded only in DTS. 
By the way, as long as we're on logos, did Ultra Stereo ever have a logo for the handful of films that bore its name? I remember in Robert Altman's The Player, the Ultra Stereo credit was just text -- no logo.
------------------
Tao Yue
MIT '04: Course VI-2, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Projectionist, MIT Lecture Series Committee
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 07-01-2001, 12:15 AM:
Ultra*Stereo uses the same logo that is on the processors (not the "USL" logo) for their analog sound format.Michael: Which of those logos shown above did you see on 'Jerry Maguire'?
Tao: there is an alternate DTS Digital logo that I have seen on prints as recent as 'Flubber' it is a variation of the 'flying disk' logo (The Digital Experience)...
Aaron
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 07-01-2001, 07:32 AM:
I believe that jerry maguire had the bottom DTS Stereo logo as well as the dolby analoge logo, just to confuse us. The same with Space Jam and didnt Out of Sight have them both as well?
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 07-01-2001, 03:00 PM:
OK... Someone grab their video of 'Jerry Maguire' and get to the end credits and capture it so we can end this once and for all!'Space Jam' did not have the DTS [analog]
Stereo logo.
'Out Of Sight' was a quad-format print, and if it carried the analog logo it would have been a mistake.
Aaron
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 07-02-2001, 07:16 AM:
Good plan, Does anybody have a copy?------------------
------------------
Michael Brown
Bradford Student Cinema
www.Bradfordstudentcinema.co.uk
"Do you snorkle?
No, I get nervous when brightly coloured fish stare at me face to face."
Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 09-20-2010, 07:22 PM:
It has been 3367 days since the last post.
Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 09-20-2010, 07:22 PM:
So I finally got around to.....
Jerry Maguire
and Space Jam is the same
Just looks like in the early days of quad prints they hadn't got properly familiar with which logos to use.
Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 09-21-2010, 01:45 PM:
My understanding is that DTS stereo was just that..a 2 channel track on DTS discs that was intended to go through a matrix for decoding. I heard it was more popular for foreign versions of films. DTS Digital is the discrete version.
As for Ultra*Stereo, they make quality products at a favorable price point to compete with Dolby and allow smaller or budget theatres to get stereo sound. Some of the advantages other than the cost point is versatility (the JS Series for example was programmable by dip switches for center/surround, etc.) and their booth monitors feature the adjustable LED meters to help with relative level setting.
Yes the EQ cards had a problem for a while (which was failure of the muting relay, a bad batch got through, but they sent me a bunch of them to carry as service spares..I still have a lot of them) and the bypass switch mentioned was a problem. But overall they hold up well, I had one of the original CS Series processors which was fully functional when I sold it.
And as I posted in the other thread, as a company they are great at both customer service and tech support. A lot better than most if not all of the other companies in this industry.
I still recommend Ultra*Stereo for anyone needing great sound on a budget. Unlike Smart (not bad products but good luck getting them now) USL is still around and will be for the long haul. A very important thing in today's climate.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 09-21-2010, 02:11 PM:
Ultra Stereo also was a competing SVA format to Dolby. They even had 70mm releases like "Cobra."
Somewhere, I have a T-shirt that has all of the Ultra Stereo releases, at that time. They were mostly "B" pictures.
Steve
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-21-2010, 03:36 PM:
Ultra*Stereo was used on most of the Cannon pictures
There is still acouple of there encoders kicking around several local post houses
Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 09-21-2010, 03:55 PM:
Tony is right, my old DTS-6 had STEREO outputs as well as 6ch outputs. But a different DTS disk was supposed to be used. If I remember correctly there were dedicated trimpots on the front panel for stereo as well. (Was it stereo + sub?).
If memory serves, there was a DTS 6 version stereo only. Didn't work.
Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 09-21-2010, 04:52 PM:
'Cobra' was Eagle Stereo.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 09-21-2010, 06:48 PM:
Maybe down under...up here...Ultra Stereo
Posted by Eric Robinson (Member # 2966) on 09-22-2010, 12:03 AM:
