Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Dolby Digital(EX)

This is topic Dolby Digital(EX) in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Justin McLeod (Member # 1329) on 07-05-2002, 03:30 PM:

Hello All,

This is my first post on this forum after being a lurker for over 3 years and its nice to see that all who post here are friendly and very well educated in the field of film and sound.

Now on to the topic of this post! I know you dont have to have a SA10(EX)adapter for (EX) decoding. I have read from older posts that Dolby CP200's have been used to achieve it but has anybody ever used a Ultra Stereo film processor to achieve it? Prefferably the JSX1000-S.

I work a 14 screen (Wallace Theater)formerly a Hollywood Theater in Norman Oklahoma. All of our stereo processors are the JSX1000-S type. I dont know if these processors are able to switch to straight 2 channel stereo if in the case of a (EX) installation where a none (EX) film was played through. All our JSX1000's seem to play in surround in any sound mode with the exception of the 3 channel stereo option.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-05-2002, 03:40 PM:

You have to have either an SA10, dts's ES unit, or ANOTHER sound processor (this can be an Ultra stereo) to process the surrounds after the output of your base processor. Only the CP200 can be processed within.

It's also not just a matter of getting the processing done, but also you will probably need at least one more amplifier and if your surround cabling was not "home run" during the installation, you're looking at a lot of wiring in the auditorium. If the wiring was home run, then the surround speaker wiring can be "rewired" so to say in the booth.

Posted by Justin McLeod (Member # 1329) on 07-05-2002, 04:02 PM:

Im not to familiar with the term "home run wiring" Not one set of our speaker cable's are color coted. Everything is fed through wire conduit's in booth to "its" theater ( each sound setup is exclusive to its own theater ) and sound insulation and wall fabric covers any wire feeding to the surrounds.We do not have the extra amps for the (EX) channel. It would be a pain in the butt for any tech to set up an (EX) system at my theater even they drilled a hole in the wall at the back of the theater and re-wired our back surround speakers. I was just curious if a JSX1000 could be used for (EX) with the concern of the switching from (EX) to none (EX).

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-05-2002, 04:18 PM:

Yes it can be done, but you are going to have to have an experienced tech come and set it all up. Even rewiring the back wall of speakers isn't as easy as it sounds. If your surround lines are not home run (straight shot from the booth to each speaker), then altering any of the wiring will throw off the load.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 07-05-2002, 04:48 PM:

A fully populated CP-650 (not the D or SR models) can do EX as well.

"Home run" wiring means each surround speaker unit has its own cable pulled to the booth. That way the issues of series-parallel wiring or later separating out speakers for EX can be handled at the booth rack. Some installations simply pull one or two runs down each side of the house and deal with series-parallel connections at each speaker's junction box. Like Brad said there'll be some extra pulling involved to add EX to such a house.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-05-2002, 06:14 PM:

I doubt if Wallace will pay the extra for a Dolby CP-650 (although the Spotlight 14 in Norman is a high enough profile theater to justify better quality equipment than what it has at this point). Wallace Theaters seems to be pulling the plug on a number of Oklahoma locations (they just closed down the Penn Square Mall 10 and handed the keys over to Dickinson Theaters).

I can't Wallace still has the crappy Cache 8 theater in Lawton running. When are they going to finally close that rust bucket?

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 07-05-2002, 10:07 PM:

Isn't the manager of the Cache 8 a part owner of the theater? Or is that the Cinema Center in Shawnee?

Posted by Justin McLeod (Member # 1329) on 07-06-2002, 02:38 AM:

I have no idea if and when they will close the Cache 8. Its got to be making money or mabe its a contract deal. Wallace bailed out of the Penn square location because of rent the mall was charging. 60,000 a month from what i was hearing and the theater wasnt really making any money. They sent their GM to my theater to be a salary assintant.Wallace inst in the Game for quality presentation. They are cutting hours even in the busy summer hours. Even our tech company has been cut back because of wallaces cutbacks. He comes in 3 times a year now so when somehting happens we haft to wing it unless its an emergency. We have 3 stereo sound systems with major sound distortions and one has been bad since march and we are selling tickets to movies in this auditoruim. Even our theater cleaning crew has been cut back and we can only get our carpets clean 3 times a year. Right know our carpet is in bad shape.Wallace is making a gold mine off my theater and wont put some of it back in the theater.

My theater will never have "quality presentations"

Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 07-06-2002, 10:45 AM:

Justin, my company installed your projection equipment, I have service your theatre a couple of times...there is a 2X2 junction box on the wall above the sound rack at each sound rack, inside is all the surround wires # 1 being front spk. left wall, counting each spk counterclockwise, the home run surround wires are there, wired in a series/parallel config. so to install a EX unit would be quite simple, if a amplifier is already install in the rack for a EX system but is wired to the L/R surround, then half the work is already done, but I can't remember if we added any extra amps for EX without being a EX theatre, I have installed two many theatres since we did Norman for Hollywood to remember everything we racked up...

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-06-2002, 11:48 AM:

The Cinema Center in Shawnee is half owned by Carmike Cinemas and the other half owned by the theater management there --at least if I remember correctly.

The Cache 8 theater in Lawton is around 20 years old. It was originally run by Litchfield and then was sold to United Artists. UA dumped the property off to Hollywood Theaters when they pulled out of Oklahoma a few years ago. Hollywood got bought out by Wallace. The theater auditoriums have walls so thin you can hear a normal mono or stereo optical show leaking through. There's no way this theater could be upgraded to the standards the Carmike 8 has down the street with DTS on every screen. The old theater just was not built with digital sound in mind.

I had heard rumors the Cache 8 has lost near $200,000 over roughly the past year from not being able to compete with the new Central Mall 12 theater in downtown Lawton. On top of that, the Cache 8 and Carmike 8 are stuck in an allocation process where a film distributor has to place one of their films at the Cache 8 and their next at the Carmike and so on and so forth.

The Carmike 8 isn't getting half the films it could be getting, but is still able to hold its own since it is by far the best theater in the area. If the Cache 8 were to shut down, the Carmike theater would get far better bookings and be doing much much better financially.

I think Hollywood/Wallace is playing a game of attrition, thinking that the Carmike 8 theater will close before they have to close the Cache 8. Well, Carmike has absolutely no plans of closing the Carmike 8 in Lawton. Meanwhile the Cache 8 continues to lose money hand over fist. Do they want to be $300,000 or $400,000 in the whole with that old dump by continuing to keep it open or just do the sensible thing and close it down?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-06-2002, 05:15 PM:

I just made a detailed post about the Cache 8 theater in Lawton, and included a picture of its sign.

I'll make further posts about that theater and Wallace's business model there and let this thread get back to the Dolby Digital Surround EX topic.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-06-2002, 09:21 PM:

I forgot to mention that new post is over in Film Yak with the topic heading "Wallace Theaters -- Signs Done Wrong".

Posted by Justin McLeod (Member # 1329) on 07-07-2002, 11:53 PM:

Don Sneed,

Do you know a tech by the name of Don Bradshaw formerly of "LJ technologies".

Im just curious of a cost effective way to upgrade one of our almost THX auditoriums to EX or ES via JSX1000. My only concern about the JSX1000 is its switching from EX to non EX. I cant find a 2 channel only sound mode on it. Every mode except for the mono mode I think goes through the surround decoder.I would hate to run a non EX print with EX decoding enabled, sending all info to the center surround and cancelling out the side surrounds. However I HIGHLY doubt that wallace will ever spend any money on my theater in that respect.

Posted by Clint Koch (Member # 1179) on 07-08-2002, 02:05 PM:

Justin,

The JSX-1000 is the THX approved version of the JS-200 series and does not have dip switches on the backplane to set the unit up for "a 2 channel only sound mode". THX made USL remove the dip switches so it may only be played with 3 stage channels, surrounds and subwoofer.

Clint

Posted by Justin McLeod (Member # 1329) on 07-08-2002, 04:24 PM:

So much for Ultra Stereo!

Any other cost effective ways of upgrading to EX without having to buy the Dolby's SA10 EX decoder or the DTS's DTS-ES decoder?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-08-2002, 11:21 PM:

The most costeffective is the SMART FX unit