I must have died and gone to heaven. 
Being a good Catholic, I'll settle for a small "g" in god. 
)If dts or Buena Vista is listening, will there be a recall of some sort to distribute corrected discs? Many theaters are still running with the older 2 drive players and many of the newer units have one of the drives dead, so this is very important to THX certified theaters.
Sorry about the confusion and thanks for pointing it out!
Karen at DTS
(Egads! I've just crossed the 2000 posting threshold and become a "Film God". I must have died and gone to heaven. Being a good Catholic, I'll settle for a small "g" in god. )
------------------
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
We never vary the compression rate. It is always 4:1. The decision was made upon mastering and I know it is disapointing for theaters, but we'll just have to live with it for these two features.
Karen at DTS
Forgot to answer the other part of your question:
The maximum really has more to do with the size of the files (reels). But, in general, the maximum amount of time for a two-disc feature is 3 hours 20 minutes. As mentioned, it depends on the length of the reels. If some reels are over 20 minutes, then we have to move reels around on the discs to make them fit. (One disc can hold 90 minutes). Each reel has it's own file and is never "cut-up". It has to remain whole. So, sometimes, a reel simply doesn't fit and we have to move (for example) a long reel one to the "B" disc. It's ever trickier if more reels are over 20 minutes or we have to include alternate reels for foreign distribuation.
Usually, one half the feature is on one disc and the other half on the second. In the case of PEARL HARBOR and SWORDFISH, it was decided to shave off trailers to make all the reels fit on the "standard" number of master discs. Otherwise, PEARL HARBOR would have gone to 3 discs. I do not know why SWORDFISH was not increased to two discs.
Karen at DTS
I can always tell when my DTS player changes disks because the sound drops to analog for about 1/2 second when it happens. Every now and then, I notice this more than once in a movie and always wondered about the reason for it....but Karen's post above explains why this can happen. If Reels 1,2,4 and 6 are on one disk, and 3,5 and 7 on another (due to reel length) the machine would have to switch back and forth twice.
Thanks for the info Karen!
Karen, has there ever been a resolution to that quick instant of silence between reels? Perhaps a new timecode chip? I've seen it on ver 1.29 and 1.46 and it only affects some movies.
If my memory serves me right, 'Titanic' which at 3:15 runs ten minutes LONGER than 'Pearl Harbor' managed to fit onto TWO disks, INCLUDING all the requisite trailers and THX snipes... (The only three-disk title that I know of is GWTW)...
Aaron
Yes, Titanic had the THX trailers. Probably reels were easier to "fit" in the disks rather than pealr harbor.
Mike,
I never saw my DTS player drop out of digital at disk change. Sometimes I can note a brief moment of silence (just a moment, I'm the one in the auditorium that can note it!). But I think that in these cases the problem is on the soundtrack rather than in the player because if I remember correctly I had a movie with a continuous sound between disk change and the sound had no interruption.
I agree with Brad, I know that when you have SR drop at reel change the readers offset could be higher than 70.
Bye
Antonio
I know. I read about the "70 offset" on DTS troubleshooting manual.
I have 55 and I have noted, sometimes, that at disk change (usually changeover in my system) there is a very small blip of silence. But I don't know if I heard it with every dts encoded film I've projected. I will check.
Bye
A
It looks like there might not have been room for the THX soundtrack. (Aren't these on the trailer disks, anyway?) Disk A contains sound for R1, R3, R4, R5, R7; disk B contains sound for R2, R6, R8, and R9.
Karen, if the Mann audio is still put on the DTS discs, you should feel safe in removing it and saving some space.
The problem may arise when the (delay) offset is set higher than 70. Otherwise, it should never happen.
There has been updates to the EXE (on discs) that expands the freewheeling of timecode for another 1/2 second.
Karen at DTS
Hmmmmmm... Well, I hear that there was not enough room on the DTS Discs to include our THX Trailers. We checked out the discs, and yes, this is correct for Pearl Harbor, although compression ratios can be adjusted to insure that enough room exists during the DTS encode. This was not done on Pearl Harbor. Yet, on Swordfish, there is enough room on the disc for our Trailers... our 3 minutes of trailers. So, Karen, was this a choice? Not to include the trailers?
I hope this is a trend that will not continue, for the sake of the THX Theatres out there.
Thank you Brad, and others, for pointing this out.
Yours,
Ted Costas
Manager, THX Theatre Alignment Program
I REALLY don't want that DTS change film compression to have THX trailers on the disks...
I would prefer to have my THX trailer projected in DD or to skip THX trailer for that long films. Also, most of us have DTS6D units with a third drive: why not release a trailer disks with all possible trailers to use in these cases?
However I realize that to have room for 3 minutes of trailers sound compression should be increased just a bit... But in this way someone could think "Oooh! Why don't we increase audio compression to have just one disk for each movie so that we can spare money?".
Karen, is it possible to change audio compression on dts disks without modifying players?
Bye
Antonio
Perhaps the main DTS CDs (for each feature) should only have the feature itself, the DTS trailers and the THX trailers. Nothing else. The trailer discs should have trailers, company policy trailers, and everything else. I wouldn't mind of they increased the compression on the trailer discs, but definitely NOT on the feature discs.
Hi Ted
If I recall correctly DTS compression rates are non-negotiable. I do believe that DTS prides itself amongst the digital formats for having the best compression rate. With that in mind, it seems that an executive decision was made to sacrifice the THX trailers for lack "of space" problems. Great, I can live with that. I guess the decision was made to benefit the greater good. However, it does strike me curious as to why the communication lines amongst the giants of the cinematic technological world cant simply make a telephone call or let each other know as to the situation. I am sure THX would have appreciated prior notice, rather than having to resort to this highly informative medium, and with that Ted, I agree with your frustration completely. It shocked me to read your post as it seems that you folks were the last to know. A resourceful company like THX would have almost certainly have tried to rectify the situation prior to the DTS disks release. This is a good case in point scenario as to some of the flim flam that seems to go around.
Oh well what can you do but talk about it after the fact on this web page and hope that "executive decision makers" read these post and get a clue. Take care, Ted
Rory
I do not know whose decision it was to remove the YHX trailers. I will copy your email to our post production department and let them answer you.
Karen at DTS
Karen at DTS
Karen
I love you guys. And I'm sure we'll work everything out.
Yours, Ted
Manager, YHX Theatre Alignment Program
