Come on DTS, what's the problem here? Last I heard this "would never happen again", and yet here it is happening again on another major summer release. This is just unacceptable. Is it the "there's only enough room for our sound logos because it is a single disc release" thing again? If so, please correct this and send all theaters out a single disc with all of the sound logos and theater chain policies on it so that it can be coupled with the "single disc features" and not degrade the presentation. This really should be done immediately. If that's just not possible, then please start putting those files on all trailer discs. I cannot imagine there wouldn't be enough room on those, but I would personally prefer a stand alone disc.

Better yet, DTS should start considering to use DVD discs and take advantage of the storage space. They could eliminate alot of the compression that DTS uses now on regular CD's.

Hey Jonathan...maybe we can work for DTS?

Pipe dreams...

What is the approximate time frame for those trailer discs where the THX logos were printed on them? I don't think I have any laying around, but it would be worth a shot.
 

Mark, I think that you are thinking of the EPROM, which is Flash RAM (I think), but it carries all that stuff you mention. It is a little black chip.

I agree that the artwork should relect when included on the disc. This is being addressed and you should be seeing accurate artwork on all future movie discs.

Karen at DTS
 

Rory
 

If you have a theatre that has forked over the money to display the THX badge then you will wan't to "blow your own horn", so to speak. That is, you want to display the THX tag before each feature so the entire audience know's that Lucasfilm has given this particular theatre the good housekeeping seal of approval as being a good technical presentation.

DTS, being a quality digital sound system, is likely to find it's way into a THX theatre. Therefore, the THX tags have been recorded on the DTS discs so that the dynamics of both systems can be shown off prior to the feature in addition to merely stating that the feature is in a THX certified auditorium. To that end, is would be considered anti-climatic for an exhibitor who has shelled out the money for not only THX but digital sound to have to run the THX tag in analog (essentially the "backup track" nowadays).

If you do not have a THX certified room...you might not see why this would be such a big deal. I can understand Brad's point. Regardless of the "why" the THX tags are being considered expendable, it might make someone that has a THX room not wish to use a particular digital sound system if they can't be assured that the THX tags are not going to play in digital, regardless of which digital it may be.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

A. A Spy

B. CIA

C. FBI

D. DEA

E. ATF

I will believe, whatever you tell me. Maybe Maybe not
 

Do not install DTS systems in THX auditoriums! Sure, DTS may lose some sales, but that's OK. Can Dolby Digital play the THX snipes? Yup. Can SDDS? You betcha (when it is aligned properly). So only put Dolby Digital and SDDS in your high end auditoriums and put DTS in the crappy houses. That way when you advertise a movie in DTS, the audience will KNOW that they are not in your cream of the crop house and could be getting a better presentation.

Even Bob Maar will agree with me on this one.

Seriously though, all sound snipes should always be present. I mean c'mon! Which is more important to present in digital - The THX logo or the trailer for America's Sweethearts? This should be non-negotiable from DTS' point of view. Even if a studio pays to have their trailer put on the disc, they should be refused when it "gets full".

I would be curious as to the megabyte count for all of the THX trailers combined on the disc. Bet it's not too much.
 

------------------
"It's not the years honey, it's the mileage' - Indiana Jones.
 

Karen, I've said this before but I am going to repeat myself again since I have a feeling it didn't sink in the first time. If dts would just issue a cdrom of all of the sound logos (THX, theater policy logos and so forth) to every theater one week along with their normal printing of trailer discs, none of this would be an issue any further. I guarantee you that this WILL affect the sales of dts units and the lack of THX logos will constantly make their way onto this forum until this practice stops (or extra stand alone discs are issued). Drop one of the dts logo sound files if you have to, but at bare minimum don't delete the standard THX Broadway logo.

Allow me to put it in a more straightforward manner. I like the dts system A LOT, but if the THX logos are going to continue to be absent from feature discs and no stand alone THX discs will be made available, to hell with the format. I think my customers watching Rush Hour 2 would agree.

If something has to be dropped, why not drop the old flying disks logo? I can't believe anyone is still using those (although I still have a couple of new copies of it).

As long as we're harping about DTS here, my main complaint is that they don't come out with new logos near often enough. One new logo in 9 years doesn't cut it!
 

With more careful thought I believe that you make a good point. We are in the business of doing things right around here especially those folks that explore the gaunlets of the film-tech threads, most people try and do things the right and proper way. This would also include the audio in the equation. Why should we have to dig up old DTS disks with the correct audio snipes when they should have been there to begin with/??!!!
There is alot of money involved into building a good theater, let alone a properly set up THX auditorium. <remember there are 3000 + world wide and alot of them are proudly packed with DTS!> A theater owner I believe has the right to be upset when hearing that all this "eqipment" that was once thought to be compatible <probably not a good choice of words> and veratile with each other, although infrequent, is now not the case. Remember the early SDDS days where in order to play a newline movie or Sony pictures flick in digital you had to have an SDDS unit?
The DTS processors are on the THX certified equipment list <and they never get taken off> and thus it would pose the possibility of conflict of interest in my opinion should this happen more and more.
Questions that flood my mind are...
Why has this happened all of a sudden? Seems that just this year.
What was so different about the way they did things in the past that this never happened? Feature length can't be a culprit!!
What are the possibilities that it will happen again?
What can be done to prevent this from happening again?
From the previous post weeks back I understood that THX was not aware of this happens. Have they been made aware that this can occur now? (since its second time i think)
Can THX offer a solution to protect its interests?

I dont know if it will affect DTS unit sales however, leaving out some of the big players <THX> out is kind of unfair and ridiculous. All those people that had to decide what equipment to buy are going to be made to feel pretty silly and are going to regret it! Imagine if this (DTS-problem) was part of the thought process originally, sales WOULD have been affected.
Brad I agree with leaving out trailers over the audio snipes. perhaps reconsidering the 4:1 compression rate would help to make more room on those disks. Is it really a storage space problem? its hard to believe that DTS wouldn't then send out a special "three CD-rom set" with their shipments. alot of the DTS units out there are the 3 carriage models, why not ship out three then? some movies come in one CD... others require two. its hard to believe that 3 minutes cant be fit somewhere.

Hell, omit your own snipes before cutting out everyone else if thats the case. thanks for making me rethink this Brad. I figured it be allright to just slip in alternate disks or just playing trailers in analog, but thats like condoning Dolby from encoding all but reel #3 of a feature. Is that right? Its almost like DTS knows there is so much Dolby Digital out there that someone in their engineering-decision making process said "thats ok it we'll leave out the THX.....it will probably switch over to DD for that part" Thanks for improving sales for Dolby!!!!!!! talk about insider trading!!!!
In short, you seemed upset Brad, and I thought to myself "its not that big of a deal, I can make do", but it really is a big deal....a bigger deal than I think DTS has ever guesstimated to be.

RORY(all opinions are just that...opinions)
 

I've been to the Carmike Wynnsong in Billings several times (it is a 10-plex with 4 THX auditoriums...the plex has 9 DTS units and one Dolby). In all the times I've been there, I've yet to see the THX trailer used. Of course, the place IS a Carmike, which explains a lot.
 

At least for now, DTS is not 100% compatible with THX equipped auditoriums. However, both Dolby Digital and SDDS are.
 

"THX" already knows about this problem. Reporting/griping (call it whatever you wish) about it here is just another effective way to help remind them. Also, if this practice continues, it will remind people thinking of installing THX auditoriums to not choose DTS as the digital format of choice for those particular screens.
 

What I would like to know is just how feasible it would be to have all the DTS and THX trailers included on those movie trailer discs. If a film has only one CD-ROM for the release, then it will not matter at all if the theater has a DTS-6 player or 3 drive 6D unit. With only one movie disc, the trailers disc would go into the second drive on either type of player.

"Jurassic Park III" was an extremely bare bones disc. There wasn't any room on there for any of the film company policy trailers --at least I know Carmike Cinema's policy was not on the disc (and it really sucks to hear that one in analog, you don't hear the "Carmike across America" music lyric rotating in the surrounds). For most 2 disc releases DTS is pretty good about getting most of the THX and DTS snipes on the movie discs. Overall, there have been 10 THX trailers made and the cumulative total can start to eat up valuable CD space.

I think if they are a standard feature on trailer discs then there won't be any THX trailer lacking digital problems --and DTS might feel more like getting more trailers for their format made. I wonder if the space issue on the CDs is one reason why they have only 2 trailers in 8 years.

Another item, if DTS goes through with putting all the THX audio on CD-ROMs, then I feel like THX should finally get with it and offer a couple trailers that have not been featured with DTS audio. The THX Cimarron trailer is one of my favorites (along with Grand), but it really sucks that you can only seem to get that snipe in Dolby SR*D. They need to redo that one in quad format already (as well as include it on some THX Digital Mastered DVDs).
 

As far as the DVDs and LaserDisc logos go, really, is this a big deal? The home THX system is NOTHING as compared to the theatrical THX system. I laugh quite hard when a customer blabs about "I have THX in my home." Hardy, har, har, whoopie shit. So far every "home THX" system I've heard is PATHETIC! Just give me the 3 inch built in tv speaker anyday. I think Mr.Norwood put it best, good mono is better than bad digital. Home systems are the same thing and it seems that few are set up properly. I just LOVE that guy who comes into the theater and complains that "the surrounds aren't working. I have THX in my home and I can hear the actors talking out of all the speakers." Yeah, right buddy. Home THX = nothing.

As far as the DVD/LaserDisc logos go, the THX Broadway logo isn't even the same damn note! It's a higher note, I guess because so many "home theaters" cannot reproduce the theatrical note, even though it isn't really all that low in the first place. In fact, it's not even one "note". It's just two notes combined together which give the illusion of a single, deeper bass note. It's not hard to reproduce at all.

And yes, it is a problem.

This may call for a retaliatory air strike. I say we settle this on the softball field... THX vs DTS, winner take all. If DTS wins, they can leave THX Trailers off their discs forever. If THX wins, we are on each disc as an "obligation" and if there is not enough room, DTS spends the money to send out two-disc sets to accomodate the "space problem", which as many of you have mentioned, had not happened prior to the recent rash of THX Trailer exclusions.

THXfully Yours,

Ted Costas
Senior Manager
THX Theatre Alignment Program
 

1. The THX/DTS/Circuit snipes were all on the "trailer" discs. And,
2. The "trailer" discs are not compatible with the DTS-6 players, even if you have a single-disc feature.

It's been a year since I've used DTS, so maybe they've corrected this phenomenon.

By the way, what is considered max capacity for a single-feature disc -- 650MB or 700MB? The difference would be about 6-7 minutes of data.

 

quote:

---

I laugh quite hard when a customer blabs about "I have THX in my home." Hardy, har, har, whoopie shit. So far every "home THX" system I've heard is PATHETIC! Just give me the 3 inch built in tv speaker anyday. I think Mr.Norwood put it best, good mono is better than bad digital. Home systems are the same thing and it seems that few are set up properly. I just LOVE that guy who comes into the theater and complains that "the surrounds aren't working. I have THX in my home and I can hear the actors talking out of all the speakers." Yeah, right buddy. Home THX = nothing.

---

Brad, I think this is a bit extreme. If someone has their home system setup so that they hear the actors talking out of their surround speakers, then they either do not have their system wired correctly, are not operating it in the current "mode", or do not have the speaker levels calibrated properly. There are excellent home systems out there, and bashing them all is a bit unfair. I agree that many people run their bass and treble up way too high and run their surrounds up to insane levels. I don't. I run my bass and treble in the "center click" positions and used a Radio Shack sound meter to calibrate my speaker levels. I do not hear actors talking out of the surrounds (unless the audio on the DVD/Laserdisc was mixed that way). In the past 10 years, I've spent more than $10000 on equipment alone (not counting DVDs and Laserdiscs). My system definitely sounds better than mono on a 3 inch TV speaker. I will not make the claim that it sounds better than a well-setup theatre, but I will say that it sounds better than many of the ones in my particular area (not "well-setup" theatres).

By the way, none of my equipment is THX-certified, nor does it need to be. I think many people buy a Dolby Digital receiver and a DVD player and see the THX logo on some of their movies and then go around telling everyone they have "THX in their home". I say that I have DTS and Dolby Digital and usually have to explain to people that THX is not a sound format as most people think.

The key to a good home system is

1. Buy high quality components capable of giving the desired functionality at the desired performance levels.

2. Install the components properly and wire them correctly.

3. Calibrate and operate those components in a manner that perserves the integrity of the material being played.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

There is no reason why DTS couldn't make use of the newer 90 minute capacity CD-Rs. At least there shouldn't be a reason.

I agree with both Brad and Evans about home theater. People usually don't realize how bad they have theirs set up. Then they go to a movie theater and they don't have the bass cranked up as high, nor do they have the low end of every speaker deligated to the subwoofer like they do in their home. And sound isn't coming out of the surround speakers 100% of the time at an insane level like it is at their home. They automatically perceive this as having better sound than a movie theater. People should have to pass tests in order to buy home theater surround equipment.

The main thing plaguing home theaters is the center channel. They all suck. The only proper way to implement a center channel is to have the exact same speaker as the left and right channels. There is no way that a dinky little speaker sitting on top of a TV (horizontally, no less) can match the huge tower speakers sitting on the floor. And syphoning the low end of the center channel to a "subwoofer" is just plain wrong. It sounds incredibly bad.

In my home theater system, I use a slightly modified version of my left and right speakers for my center channel. It doesn't quite have the same output per se, but I don't have to send the low end elsewhere. The subwoofer produces only discrete subwoofer noise. The timbre isn't perfect, but it's better than most people have their home theaters set up, I guarantee that! People need to be educated. I just wish I could get a receiver with a nice 1/3 octave EQ built in.

The problem is I am getting really tired of seeing the same Broadway logo used on just about every THX Digital Mastered DVD. They have 10 trailers total, 8 of which can be used to vary things up a bit. Not too much to ask, especially when THX is going to promote themselves to anyone with a DVD player. It is also not to much to ask for some movie companies to put some of the better DD trailers on the more aggressive sounding DVD releases. And DTS needs to get more trailers made too. I'm tired of seeing the piano trailer, especially when it is stuck on action oriented discs like the new "Die Hard" DVD and "Jurassic Park."

About the difference regarding the "Broadway" logo and that note, it is a completely different audio master and is basically a different trailer altogether. I have a VOB of the theatrical trailer and when I play it, it hits the same notes as it does in the theater.

The theatrical "Broadway" trailer lasts a lot longer than the DVD trailer. It has absolutely nothing to do with what home speakers can reproduce. I would also go so far as to say the near field environment of a home theater speaker system (at least with really good quality speakers) has more frequency reproduction capability than the large room of a commercial installation.

Back to the DTS CDs controversy, is there any kind of snafus that would result from putting all the DTS trailers and THX trailers on those separate trailer discs. As I stated in my earlier post, I think doing this would solve a lot of the problems.
 

Home speakers dont have a better frequency reproduction necessarily....In fact I would say that a commercial set up is more apt to give you a better frequency response(better word to use). Home speakers cant necessarily produce more ferquencies. There are only so many to go around. 20hz to 20khz. A well tuned commercial site lets say a perfectly certified THX auditorium will give you a far better quality experience.
Essentially a commercial set up is probably going to EQ better and more accurately reproduce the audio for a movie overas compared to your top third tier of quality home theaters.
And that business about "near field" throws any comparison out the door between home and commercial simply because they dont EQ the same. Ever see that "ReEq" button on higher end home receivers/ processors? thats precisely cause the home system need to compensate to match the frequency response as compared to the commercial sites!!

I say while home theater has the potential to be great it most rarely is acoustically sound let alone properly set up!!!
Rory!!

 

I don't think I'm gonna agree with you here...I good home set up, speaker wise, should easily top a theatre system in just about all areas except bass. Use of compression drivers for HF in theatres all but guarantees a higher level of distortion due to their nature...they trade power efficientcy for distortion. Conversely, it isn't too hard to get a low distortion speaker for the home that needn't have the power/efficientcy requirements.

Then there is the whole subjective thing. Sound is very subjective or there would only be one brand of speaker since obviously everyone would agree that is the perfect sound...in fact we all have our own opinions on what sounds best...in the home, the purchaser decides what is best. To their mind, their system may surpass the theatre's even if everyone else on the planet disagrees. It would still remain that THEY (homeowner) think theirs is better....Now if everyone feel's their home system is tops (even if different from each other) then the perception, as a whole is that the home systems sounds better. YOU may have the benefit or experience that the theatre sounds better but you can't convince someone who subjectively feels their home system is best that the theatre is better.

I know that in my "home theatre" I got much more bang for the buck than the typical theatre owner. I don't proclaim mine to be the best nor better than a well done theatre but my cost was substantially less than a well done theatre too. I used some JBL Control 1s (mag sheilded so they can go around the monitor)...a cheesy Teac receiver with Dolby Digital and 5-100 watt chip amps (they pretty much suck but for the cost, what do you want)...the above cost less than a grand (by a fair margin). The subwoofer is a JBL B-460 (18" JBL 2245H driver in a 10cu ft. enclosure) and 500 watts behind it.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

quote:

---

I know that in my "home theatre" I got much more bang for the buck than the typical theatre owner. I don't proclaim mine to be the best nor better than a well done theatre but my cost was substantially less than a well done theatre too. I used some JBL Control 1s (mag sheilded so they can go around the monitor)...a cheesy Teac receiver with Dolby Digital and 5-100 watt chip amps (they pretty much suck but for the cost, what do you want)...the above cost less than a grand (by a fair margin). The subwoofer is a JBL B-460 (18" JBL 2245H driver in a 10cu ft. enclosure) and 500 watts behind it.

---

The funny thing is that everyone thinks I have a subwoofer, but I don't. I'm using a Yamaha DSP-A1 receiver (DTS, DD, PCM), a pair of JPL HP520's as mains, an Infinity CC3 center speaker, and a pair of Infinity RS5's as surrounds. When I'm able to get a screen I can hang on my front wall , I'll then be able to change speakers and have 3 identical speakers across the front, but for now, I'll just use what I have. When I play certain movies, the floor vibrates and things in the room vibrate. I'm doing the opposite of many people and am sending the subwoofer output to the left and right mains. The JBL mains are a bit deceptive looking and people are always asking me where the bass is coming from. It's coming from the two 8.5 inch drivers that are mounted together inside the enclosure. When people look at the speakers, they see the tweeeter, mid, and 6.5 inch woofer and then wonder why the speakers have such a full bass response. A 35Hz test tone vibrates the room fairly well.

One friend jokingly told me that if I did get a subwoofer, he doubted that people would be able to survive the experience. I'm not one of those people that likes the overdone bass that you often hear in stores like Best Buy (bass and treble run up on everything) or that you hear from cars driving by with bass emanating from the trunk. That's not how music and movies are supposed to sound. If I can vibrate the room with some actions movies really well with my bass and treble set to the center positions with the mains the way they are, I really don't think a subwoofer is going to help much. BTW, the JBL HP520's were $768 a piece when new, and I got them for $299 each when Video Concepts went out. I've never regretted buying those. The bass seems much more accurate and controlled than from other speakers I've heard. I fear that if I got a subwoofer, the accuracy of my bass overall might go down.

I have become very sensitive to detecting music being played with too much bass or treble and I cringe every time I walk into Best Buy. They have tweeters mounted above the racks of CDs and subwoofers below them. They have treble and bass with practically no mid-bass or midrange. Ugh. Teenagers like that, though, and running bass and treble up on their receivers when demonstrating speakers makes teenagers think they sound better, and they probably sell more that way.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

I think this kind of mentality leads to home theater and even the movie theater where one punk decided that the auditoriums didn't have as much bass as his car, and therefore didn't sound as good. He found a way to crank all of the subwoofers up to maximum and apparantly blew out the majority of them.

Two disks is one thing but a one disc release that omits some sound files is just plain iresponsible, lazy, and I'm gonna end this post now before I start!

Rory
 

------------------
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
 

I guess this would be a HUGE argument AGAINST a dual format, as SDDS and SRD don't have problems like this.

Of course the other more obvious thing to note is how the vast majority of commercial theaters don't play the sound format trailers anymore. I've been to plenty of THX houses that don't even play the THX logos at all. With that in mind, maybe the movie studios don't feel like paying any extra money to make a second disc to fit all those trailers when the movie audio alone will fit on one disc.

On Rory Burke's "WRONG!" retort, Steve Guttag covered a lot of what I would have said as well. Home systems do have the --potential-- to sound better. It does require top end equipment. Some chintzy home theater in a box package certainly will not do. It also requires someone to set the system up properly.

It should also be said that commercial theater systems are far far from being equal. Some are high quality and some are crap. I wish Dallas' Northpark #1 was still around. Now that theater had a well done sound system, especially for a large room. I've been to a lot of large theaters (particularly stadium seated ones) where noticeable echo was present and the audio quality was very lifeless.

I saw "Rush Hour 2" at the new Cinemark theater in Colorado Springs (very classy looking theater --not tacky like all the others) a couple nights ago. Even though the place was very well decorated and had a nicely impressive IMAX 3D theater, the sound system in the room I saw "Rush Hour 2" sounded like crap. Hardly any low frequency to speak of. And the speakers chosen for the room were not designed for the amount of that amount of cubic air space. A lot of the upper frequencies were filtered out and so were numerous bands of midrange and low end. I could see in through the port glass that the DTS player was operating. But the audio quality was not what I would normally associate with good digital sound presentation. It sounded terrible. On top of that, the damned movie screen had a fixed masking of roughly 1.9:1. Part of the scope image was being chopped!

I am of the opinion that traditional seating auditoriums generally sound better than stadium seated ones. Unless speaker systems are properly chosen for the room size (which in many cases they are most definitely not) the smaller auditoriums can often wind up sounding better than the larger ones. When the amount of cubic air space increases to large sizes, that is going to create more challenges for getting good sound. How often has anyone been to a rock concert in a basketball arena and found the sound quality to be honestly good, or even great? I think such occaisions would be pretty rare.
 

So, yes, if the THX trailers are on the trailer disc in the third drive, then they will play. However, the drawback to the trailer disc is that if the attached trailer (which is usually on the feature disc) is not on the trailer disc, it will NOT play in DTS. The override thing strikes back!

 

The really, really sad part about this one is that there is 70 megs to spare on the disc. This is really just beyond pathetic. Come on dts, what's the problem???
 

O'kay, fine. You want some different THX Trailers on your THX Certified DVDs, you got it. Soon, you will start seeing "Grand", "Cimarron", and the new one that Brad "likes, but thiks it is way too short," "Cavalcade."

DTS... Softball for disc space, great idea!

Yours,

Ted Costas
Senior Manager
THX Digital Services
 

Ted, when is THX going to remix that Cavalcade and lengthen it a good 20 seconds?