Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Do German and French films release in the DTS ?

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Posted by Kamakshipalya Dhananjay (Member # 1391) on 08-30-2002, 12:10 AM:

I always wondered whether European films feature the DTS sound as much as say American or Indian films.

A German Film Festival is about to be arranged in my city and my participation is being sought.

I have seen very German films and so, does anyone have any idea what digital sound formats are generally available in German films. Also, for French films.

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Posted by Antonio Marcheselli (Member # 373) on 08-30-2002, 04:31 AM:

You asked for european movie, I can say something on Italian ones!

In Italy not all movies have DTS soundtrack. Usually all UIP, some Fox, Some Buena Vista, Some Columbia. I would say that 50% of movies have DTS soundtrack.
Almost 100% has Dolby Digital.
SDDS is printed on all UIP, all columbia, few fox, few buena vista.

Bye
Antonio

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 08-30-2002, 10:47 AM:

Hello Kamakshipalya,
why do you want to organise a German film festival? There are no good German films except for "Das Boot" ("The Boat")

Anyway, German versions of foreign films come in all three digital formats if the distributor supports them, just like the original version.
German productions generally only support Dolby Digital. I have never seen or heard of a German production with dts. SDDS is used only on Columbia-produced movies. Columbia belongs to Sony so their releases always have SDDS.
Our neighbours in France use Dolby Digital and also dts on all their major releases. dts is quite popular in France because you can swap the discs to play the print in different language versions. When American/British movies are released in France, they play about 50% in English and 50% in the dubbed French version and sometimes a theater offers both versions at different times. Which is quite strange since French people as a rule don`t speak English or at least refuse to speak English with foreigners.
British productions often support all three digital formats when they are aimed at the international market (e.g. "Bridget Jones","Chicken Run"), smaller British productions generally have Dolby Digital.
Michael

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 08-31-2002, 11:06 AM:

These titles from France were in DTS in the US:

Va Savoir (Who Knows?)
Amelie
Brotherhood of the Wolf

All three had their US release in the past 12 months.

The Chambermaid on the Titanic (from 1998) used DTS in France but I'm not sure if it used DTS for the US release.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-31-2002, 12:02 PM:

Lots of French films feature DTS (as well as Dolby Digital). This has pretty much been the case since the early to mid 1990s after the LC Digital format failed. LC Digital was a French process using a Magneto Optical disc synched to SMPTE time code on a 35mm film print (the audio was encoded in the Phillips Musicam 5.1 format at 320kb/s). DTS bought ownership of the LC Digital patents, and I can only guess some of the other stuff they got out of the court deal gave them an easier time in the French film marketplace. DTS seems a lot more popular there than any other European country.

German support of DTS is spotty at best. One thing I think is kind of strange is how DVDs released in the German market (such as "Run Lola Run") will feature DTS audio tracks, whereas the American counterpart is Dolby Digital only. Some European releases such as "Koyla" and "Trainspotting" have had DTS audio tracks, whereas the Miramax distributed American release would be Dolby Digital only.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 08-31-2002, 05:16 PM:

Bobby,
remember that the dts formats on dvd and movies are quite different. The dts track on the dvd of "Lola" (which also was a good movie, so I have to change my statement about the number of good German movies) was probably included because German hifi magazines have labelled dts on dvd as the "high-end format for dvd". Was that movie dubbed in English?
As I wrote before, I have never seen a print of a German movie with a dts track.
I heard about the LC format before. Do you know where I can find further information about it?
Michael

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 08-31-2002, 06:14 PM:

LC Concept
Filmvorfuehrer Kinoton
Das L.C. Concept wurde 1991 in Frankreich von Pascal Chedeville entwickelt. Es funktionierte in etwa wie das heutige dts System. Anstatt von CD-ROM wurden zwei "Sony 5"1/4 rewritable magneto-optical discs" mit 300MB hergenommen. Mittels der Musicam Kompression (6:1) konnten bis zu 3h Filmton im 5.1 Format aufgezeichnet werden. Der L.C. Concept Prozessor konnte Einstellungen von mehreren Kinos speichern und konnte deshalb flexibel eingesetzt werden. Im Französischen Sprachraum wurden etwas 20 Theater mit dem System ausgestattet. Es wurden um die 30 Filme veröffentlicht (z.B.: Cyrano de Bergerac (1991), Until the end of the world (1991), Basic instinct (1992), Cliffhanger (1993), Free Willy (1994)). Es scheiterte daran, dass es keine Unterstützung von den großen Firmen bekam (unter anderen auch wegen der Dolby Digital Ankündigung). Pascal Chedeville bekam 1995 den Academy Award für technische Errungenschaften (technical achievement).

Silver Screens - Le son numérique
Le son numérique (ou digital) est apparu en 1991 dans les salles de cinéma. Deux systèmes étaient
alors concurrents: le procédé français LC Concept, dont les initiales viennent de ses deux inventeurs
"Elisabeth Löchen et Pascal Chédeville" et le système américain CDS (Cinema Digital Sound),
développé conjointement par les sociétés Optical Radiation Corporation et Kodak.

Le LC Concept fut dans un premier temps installé, sous forme de test grandeur nature pour le circuit
UGC, à l'UGC Triomphe sur les Champs-Elysées, par ailleurs également doté du son CHF Cabasse, et
ce à partir du 26 juin 1991. Le premier film à en bénéficier est alors Cyrano de Bergerac de Jean-Paul
Rappeneau, préalablement exploité en son analogique avant de finir sa carrière dans cette salle dans
des conditions de restitution sonores supérieures à celles de sa sortie!

Le LC Concept consiste alors en la synchronisation d'un code temporel (ici un code barre) situé sur la
manchette du film, qui conserve ses deux pistes analogiques, et un disque magnéto-optique double
face présenté sous forme de cartouche. Si le procédé se décline en deux versions, le LC 4 à quatre
canaux de diffusion et le LC 6 à six canaux, il semble que la majorité des salles équipées, et celles qui
passaient le plus de films dans ce format, l'aient été en quatre pistes (trois enceintes derrière l'écran
-gauche, centre, droite- et une batterie d'enceintes réparties sur les murs gauche et droit de la salle
correspondant au canal d'ambiance ou surround).

Le monde du cinéma est alors en émoi, des
réalisateurs se prennent à rêver: certains vont
plonger très vite dans l'aventure du son numérique:
Wim Wenders avec Jusqu'au bout du monde
(exploité au Max Linder Panorama en Super 35),
Alain Corneau avec Tous les Matins du monde
(César du meilleur son), Jean-Jacques Annaud
avec L'Amant, Claude Lelouch avec La Belle
Histoire (le film fut apparemment reproduit en LC
Concept au Palais des Congrès de Paris où il fut
exploité durant quelques semaines en
avant-première et en 70 mm), Roman Polanski
avec Lunes de Fiel, Jean-Jacques Beineix avec IP5
(qui fit ainsi l'ouverture le 12 juin 1992 du Gaumont
Grand Ecran Italie), Paul Verhoeven avec Basic
Instinct, Emir Kusturica avec Arizona Dream...

Malheureusement, une mauvaise politique commerciale (le procédé était, selon ses inventeurs,
prioritairement destiné aux "grandes salles de prestige"), conjuguée à un quasi-vol du brevet par le
système américain DTS en 1993, le tout suivi par une longue action en justice qui interdira par exemple
l'exploitation en France de Jurassic Park en DTS (projeté chez nous en simple Dolby SR), va
condamner le procédé qui sera finalement vendu aux Américains.

Il semble que le Max Linder fut la salle française à passer le plus de films en LC Concept. Elle conserve
d'ailleurs le matériel ainsi que quelques disques, et repasse régulièrement, lors du festival annuel "Le
Max Linder fait sa Cinémathèque", Arizona Dream dans ce format aujourd'hui disparu. Il est à noter
également que la salle Prestige de l'UGC Normandie a projeté Basic Instinct dans ce système, la
projection étant précédée d'un déroulant-image comportant simplement le nom du procédé. Exemples
de salles qui furent équipées en LC Concept : Max Linder Panorama, Gaumont Grand Ecran Italie, UGC
Triomphe, UGC Normandie, Forum Horizon...

IMDb list

Chronologie : le son
1989
France
Le "LC Concept" : Procédé de son numérique (disque laser asservi à la projection) mis au point par Elisabeth Lôchen et Pascal Chédeville. Ce premier procédé sonore numérique sera utilisé pour le film "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990) et "Jusqu'au bout du monde" de Wim Wenders, puis sera abandonné un an plus tard. Le procédé à "insipiré" Universal pour mettre au point le système DTS.

http://awards.fennec.org/years/Y-1995x.html
1995
The 68th Annual Academy Awards
Scientific And Technical Awards
Technical Achievement Award - Certificate
Sound
Pascal Chedeville
For the design of the L.C. Concept Digital Sound System for motion picture exhibition

Formats de son numérique

Nick's Auditorium : the Digital Revolution
L.C.Concept was the first digital sound-on-disk system available. The soundtrack was placed on 2 5"1/4 rewritable magneto-optical disks manufactured by Sony. The 2 disks were capable of storing 300MB of data each, equivalent to 90 minutes of soundtrack so the system could handle films of maximum 3 hours. The sound-mix with 4 or 5.1 discrete channels was compressed with the MUSICAM-algorithm (Masking Pattern Universal Subband Integrated Coding and Multiplexing). It was a variation on ISO/MPEG Layer 2 lossy coding algorithm and provided a 6:1 compression ratio. The standard SMPTE time-code track, located on the analog soundtrack side if the film, provided synchronization. In order to avoid the need to restart the setting process each time the system was transferred to a other theater, several settings could be stored in the processor. L.C.Concept, developed by Frenchman Pascal Chedeville, was first demonstrated in 1991 with a experimental re-release of the 1990 film "Cyrano de Bergerac". Late 1991 "Jusqu'au bout du monde" was the first commercial release to feature the system. In 1994 the system was modified for use with CD-ROMs instead of magneto-optical disks but it was never put to use commercially. The system had no technical drawbacks (unlike CDS) but the L.C.Concept company failed in 1994 mainly because of a lack of financial strength caused by large companies not supporting the system in anticipation of Dolby's announced digital system in 1991. Pascal Chedeville received in 1995 an Technical Achievement Academy award. In total some 20 theaters in France, Switzerland and Belgium were equipped with the system and about 30 films featured a L.C.Concept soundtrack.