This is topic First movie to ship DTS disc in paper envelope results in first broken disc in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 06-07-2001, 08:37 PM:
I opened up 2 prints of "Swordfish" last night, each coming with one DTS disc, and noticed both of them had the discs in paper sleeves instead of the usual plastic cases, though they were still in the big reel-shaped things the discs come in. Wouldn't you know it, one of the discs was cracked right out of the case. I've never seen this happen with the plastic cases, I hope they aren't planning to use paper sleeves from now on because I predict there will be a LOT of broken discs!
Posted by Brian Potts (Member # 429) on 06-08-2001, 12:57 AM:
I found the same thing with my print of Swordfish. Also, the last 2 sets of DTS trailer disks came in the paper sleeves. Luckily enough, I haven't had any of my disks broke. I agree with you Jesse on hoping that the paper sleeves aren't permanent.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-08-2001, 01:34 AM:
I wonder why DTS is getting cheap? Are they losing money? Or is this the result of a cheap studio that made this decision to ship the discs in paper sleeves?
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-08-2001, 02:26 AM:
Even if they don't get broken, scratches are a big possibility, especially if the print is shipped in those flimsy TES cans via Airborne.I would think those soft-plastic disk cases are nearly indestructible, why can't they just recycle these from old films?
Oh, that's right, it's because all the old disks are still SITTING IN THEATRES!!!
[sarcasm mode OFF]
Posted by Karen Hultgren (Member # 395) on 06-11-2001, 04:12 PM:
Jesse,Thanks for letting me know. I'll look into that.
Karen at DTS
Posted by John Keegan (Member # 290) on 06-21-2001, 11:41 AM:
Funny this topic would come up.. I noticed this too when we got our prints of Swordfish and even Shrek for that matter! I haven't had one break yet, but who knows. I disagree about the plastic cases being nearly indestructable as when I received out Open Captioned Print of "Driven", Both cases were shattered...Don't know if this was they were loose in the can or whether someone stepped on it...At least the discs survived...
Posted by Kevin Crawford (Member # 469) on 06-21-2001, 12:28 PM:
I recently got the trailer discs, and one was broken.I say that if DTS wants to save money, stop sending them out every week. It isn't like the list of trailers on the disk changes from week to week.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-21-2001, 02:48 PM:
Karen,Is there a way that someone could assemble a "trailer" disc using a computer with a cd burner? If so, I would be pleased to offer dts trailer downloads from this site that theaters could download, customize and burn for their particular theater. I know not everyone would have that option, but cd burners are becoming increasingly popular and blank cdroms can now be had for about a quarter. It would also get trailer audio files to the theaters quicker.
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 06-21-2001, 08:03 PM:
Can you copy a DTS disk over the internet? That is, can someone make a kind of image file, save it on a server and later download it to their CD burner.I'm thinking of some way where 2nd run theaters (many of whom seem not to get the discs with their print) could go to a site and download the image file. I realise that's a lotta megabytes, but maybe this "DTS server" would only hold films up to two months- after that, it's purged.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-21-2001, 08:58 PM:
If dts and the studios would agree to it, the Film-Tech servers are severely overbuilt now and they have TONS of spare storage space on them and I have TONS of bandwidth that is not being used. We could easily take care of it. 
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-21-2001, 10:08 PM:
A disk image file (.img) already has its own compression of sorts. You probably don't need to compress it any more. You could just blast it over the internet as-is. (Using BinHex if needed.) If you made it into a StuffIt archive, you would get even more compression. (If it will compress any more.)Essentially, you just download it, Un-Stuff / De-BinHex it as needed and then burn it onto a CD. Seeing as how a CD holds a max of 700 MB, you could store an awful lot of them on a server if you had the proper resources.
It's all just a matter of getting permission and then setting it up.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-21-2001, 10:29 PM:
The information on a DTS disk is already compressed. You can't compress it any further (actually, like encrypted data, it would get bigger if you tried to compress it). The best thing to do is to make the information available in .iso format, which can be used by most cd-burning software to create an exact clone of the original disk. The format is pretty common; for example, most of the Linux and BSD distributions are available in this format, from which a bootable CD can be created from the downloadable files.
Posted by Heyward Garner (Member # 722) on 06-22-2001, 01:52 AM:
Yeah! Broken disk! I am not alone!!! I had a broken trailer disk shipped to me. I also wouldn't doubt that they are losing money, because for the past several weeks they have been sending me 12 trailer disks... I only have 6 units. Go figure...
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-22-2001, 02:32 AM:
Saw 2 broken trailer discs sitting on a desk today. I'm not sure when they came in, but the projectionist of the theater told me they arrived broken and showed me the new paper sleeves (along with a few explecatives). There is one thing about saving money, but it is a completely different story when a new practice becomes "cheap".
Posted by Karen Hultgren (Member # 395) on 06-22-2001, 05:03 PM:
Please call us to report broken discs. We are experimenting with new packaging and the only way we know if it is working or not is if we hear from YOU. So, please let us know when/if you are experiencing problems.Our telephone number is (800) 959-4109 (conti. USA only) or (818) 706-3525
Email: cinematech@dtsonline.com (another email addy for me).
Thanks, Karen at DTS
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-22-2001, 06:19 PM:
I agree with Scott. I have seen files get bigger as I tried to compress them. If you must use compression, split it up with the RAR format. It is one of the most efficient schemes out there, far better than Zip, Stuffit or BinHex. With RAR the file can be broken up into many separate files, so that if there was a problem downloading, you would only have to redownload the problem file again. Much easier. Unfortunately, the RAR program on the Mac sucks, unless they have updated it and didn't tell me about it.I think Brad has a great idea. There would have to be an instructions page for burning the disc, and also a disclaimer that says that if the resulting burned CD does not work, neither Film-Tech nor DTS can be held responsible. The only thing that would suck is if someone had a pissy slow burner and a 16 screen with DTS in every house!
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-22-2001, 08:55 PM:
Joe, you probably know this already but BinHex isn't compression. It takes the binary data and makes it into hexadecimal digita then writes them as text. It's used because some servers (UN*X) like to crunch the data. It often makes the file bigger but because text sometimes transfers faster its the better way to go.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-22-2001, 11:09 PM:
So...umm...how does BinHex differ from good old "uuencode"? From Randy's description, it sounds like it does the same thing, but in a non-standard manner. Am I missing something? (I gather that BinHex is a Mac thing. Having not used a Mac at all in the last 10 years or so, I'm not up on what's current.)
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-22-2001, 11:19 PM:
BinHex is a Mac thing. It's been around for as long as I can remember. I have used uuencode on occasion, though.
I don't know all the reasons but I understand it has something to do with the way one of the two systems treat the high order bits. If I remember right, Un*x systems ignore it, thus munching the data.I just thought BinHex was a pretty natural way to do things: If you have a series of bits like 1101 0110 that would come out to D6 in hexidecimal. If you just wrote that as text there'd be no worry about who does what with which bits.
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 06-22-2001, 11:55 PM:
Well, it would have to be simple, probably tailored to work with Windows. Remember, some of the same popcorn-projectionists will be the ones who will want to download DTS discs. They most likely never heard of UNIX or Linux, let alone any commands. That's why I was thinking of an image file: everything in there and already compressed.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-23-2001, 01:41 AM:
But with an image file, while definitely easier, you wouldn't be able to pick and choose the trailers to burn onto the CD. Say you want these four trailers, and those other eight trailers, plus this company policy, and that Will Rogers ad, etc. The idea is to download the individual trailer files (or filez, depending on your age) and burn them all onto a single DTS CD that would play in in your very own movie theater, provided it was equipped with a DTS player. Image files would have to be premade. If ya want it that way, it would just be easier to use the trailer discs DTS sends out every day.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-23-2001, 03:24 AM:
Wouldn't it be cool if all the trailer files were on a server and you could pick and choose which trailers you wanted on your disk? Then the server would "stitch" all the files into an image and download it to you. All you would have to do is blast it onto a CD.I think it's about time somebody did a little research on just what it takes to make a trailer disk. Next time I'm in a theatre and they are tossing out their old trailer disks I think I might pick up a little research material.