Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Buying Dolby SR chips

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Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 10-10-2002, 09:28 PM:

Is there anywhere that one can buy dolby NR chips?

Josh

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-10-2002, 11:04 PM:

Since devices using Dolby NR usually have their logo on it I would hazard a guess that you must be a licensee of Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation to obtain the chips.

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 10-11-2002, 12:01 AM:

hmmmm.....

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-11-2002, 02:44 AM:

I think Josh heard that the SR/NR cards were using home entertainment "S" chips. I don't know how true this is, but I think he wants the non-household chips if that is what they are.....or at least upgraded ones.

I seriously doubt if they could be obtained from anywhere other than Dolby Labs. Josh, if they are solder-in chips, better make sure you have the right equipment to do the job if you are fortunate enough to "land" some. It might be cheaper to upgrade to state-of-the-art cards, and find a buyer for the old cards you have. I suggest you find out what your cards are worth on the fair market and act accordingly. I never looked inside the cards, so I really don't know what is in them. I don't have the equipment or facilities to work on them anyway.

With the new and improved version of the chips, (if there are any) beware of other circuit changes that might have been necessary to make them work.

Remember....Screwdriver getwitzen and gerfingerpolkin make for sparkin und spitzen...

I swiped the idea out of the PRO-35 manual.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-11-2002, 09:05 AM:

Dolby is using consumer NR chips? In what? Not in its Cinema Processors, one would hope?! What's this all about?

Frank

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-11-2002, 11:25 AM:

In one word NO
You need to be a license of Dolby
Anyway the chips by them selves would not help as there is a lot of circuitry around them that is protected by several patents

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-11-2002, 11:51 AM:

Frank said:

quote:
"Dolby is using consumer NR chips? In what? Not in its Cinema Processors, one would hope?!"

Frank, I am with you on this one.

Apparently, he is not happy with the sound of them. If the modules sound like companders, maybe there is another problem with the CP-55 or he has some really old modules. What do you think?

Maybe he wants them to build something himself. In that case, Gordon is on target.

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 10-11-2002, 05:20 PM:

Actually, I was thinking of implementing a set of encoder and decoder chips in one of my 1/4" tape decks, theoretically.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-11-2002, 06:40 PM:

Rip apart an old cassette deck. It probably has what you need. I just tossed one in the dumpster, but I'll fish it out for you.

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 10-11-2002, 08:38 PM:

the only drawback of that is you will have dolby B NR, which sucks ass.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-11-2002, 09:21 PM:

Dolby A type encode decode cat 360 serries are on ebay all the time
get those instead

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-11-2002, 10:30 PM:

What is a derry? It is not in my dictionary.
Michael

Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 10-12-2002, 09:57 AM:

Josh, the Dolby Cat222/SR card does indeed use the "Dolby S" chips, which were originally developed for home entertainment products. The S-type chip is an LSI analog chip which provides a single level of noise reduction. The 222/SR card uses two S-type chips in series (per channel) to try to emulate the SR process, which actually uses three levels of NR. The 222SR also makes use of some shortcuts to reduce circuit compexity which results in some audible abberations. AFAIK there is only one version of this chip - no upgrades.

In contrast, the Cat280, Cat300 and Cat350 cards all use a near identical circuit that uses discrete ciruitry and which is "real" SR.

IMHO the Dolby SR process is one of Ray Dolby's finest achievements. The Cat280 is a masterpiece of design. It is a real shame that the 222SR card was ever allowed to see the light of day.

------------------
Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-12-2002, 01:00 PM:

I have been officially in this industry for 35 years now, and I still learn something new practically every day. Thanks for the information, Ray.

I had no idea Dolby used the "S" chips.

Personally, I always thought the Eprad StarBelch sounded better than the CP-55. Maybe I have been around turbine engines too long and it ruined my ears.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-12-2002, 01:20 PM:

paul said" had no idea Dolby used the "S" chips"
I think you will find it has been brought up a lot on the site regarding the 222sr/a card

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-12-2002, 03:02 PM:

Gordon, I didn't follow those that closely since I really didn't have to know that information. Now I know...

Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 10-13-2002, 03:47 AM:

Sorry to reiterate, Gordy and Josh. I didn't see the other thread in which this topic was being discussed before I made my post. Josh obviously already knew all about the S chips.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-13-2002, 10:49 AM:

That comes as a surprise to me. I knew it was a compromised SR but I had no idea it was really just a couple of S chips in tandem.

Is the "A" part of the 222SR/A legitimate?

Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 10-14-2002, 03:49 AM:

Steve, I believe the circuit for A-type section of the 222SR/A is the same as in the standard 222 card. We've never run tests on the A part of a 222SR/A, but I do know that the critical elements of the A-type process (the dual matched FETs in the compressor circuits) are still there, so I would be confident in saying that the A part is "legit".

------------------
Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-14-2002, 07:17 AM:

Seems to me that they ought to be able squeeze two real SR circuits onto a single card by now, even if it was once impossible. But how to offer an updated card without admitting to what a scam the original was? How much longer to go on the SR patents and someone else can offer an alternative that is true SR?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-14-2002, 08:43 AM:

Rays SR actually sounds better than the original

Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 10-15-2002, 02:35 AM:

Oh come on Gordy! I do appreciate the compliment but "sounds exactly the same" would be more accurate and is possibly what most people would prefer to hear. We came up with a process that decodes SR very precisely without infringing Dolby's patents (which are almost extinct anyway). Our process now carries a US patent of it's own because it uses some original concepts. Mind you Dolby did try to sue our USA based sister company over our first attempt at SR which admittedly came awful close to infringement (not deliberately I might add), but fortunately for all concerned that was sorted out before it got to court.

But as a result of all the work we had to do in building a case to defend our position, I came up with a much better way to achieve the same decoding algorithm as a Cat280 using a somewhat different technique. The result is the CM353 card which is used in Panastereo processors and is now also available in a separate adapter for upgrading older processors that do not have SR.

Now I have a policy of not plugging my own products on this Forum, as I don't believe it is an appropriate place to do commercials - and I just blew it! Sorry folks, it won't happen again. Gordy it's all your fault, you must learn to be more accurate!

------------------
Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-15-2002, 02:49 AM:

OK, now what is the word on Smart's CopyCat 280 card? I have heard conflicting assesments -- some say it mimics SR with no audible difference, but I also heard one tech say it mistracks. You certainly have to give them a A+ for chutszpa for the name. And didn't Dolby go to court over it?

Posted by Oscar Neundorfer (Member # 458) on 10-15-2002, 06:51 AM:

Frank,

The SMART CopyCat 280 card has never been the subject of a court case and has never been challenged by Dolby. We have never claimed that it is a true SR card. Our claim is that it is a SR Emulation card. By that, we mean that it closely mimics the action of a true SR card for MOST situations, but not all.

We did an AB test one time at ShoWest where we took a soundtrack of a movie from a laserdisk, ran it through a Dolby SR encoder, Model 363 with Cat 300 SR cards, and then decoded the encoded signals with the real Dolby CAT 280 cards and the SMART CopyCat cards. The decoded outputs of each set of cards as well as the original unencoded source material directly from the laserdisk player could be selected with a switch and fed to headphones. Probably about 100 people listened and switched back and forth. Only about 5 out of the 100 could consistently tell which was which, and then only in certain parts of the movie where the decoding of the CopyCat cards did not track properly. I do not claim ANY scientific validity for the test, but its results were such that I believe our SR emulation circuit is definitely good enough for most people.

Our circuitry is extremely simple, and as such, it will not decode every soundtrack situation properly. However, the worst thing I hear is at times, there will be a slightly higher amount of high frequency material due to the bandsplitting arrangement we use where mid-band material will open up the signal path for the higher frequencies also. Sometimes this manifests itself as a slightly higher level of hiss. The other thing I sometimes hear is a low frequency level alteration due to the way the very low frequencies are handled. However this is manifest as a slight raising of very low frequencies at lower levels which is somewhat like a loudness effect on a home stereo, so it does not really sound bad.

Now for the purists out there, I am sure you want nothing but the true SR noise reduction, and I have no argument with you. And you can get that with the Cat 280 cards, the Cat 300 cards, etc. Or you can use the new patented Panastereo CM353 SR cards and also get the real thing. The CM353 is a real work of art. We at SMART and, I am certain, Ray Derrick, the designer, will put it up against any thing out there.

As for the name "CopyCat", I always thought that was rather cute. I did not come up with it, my boss did.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-15-2002, 09:54 AM:

Actually Ray it wasn't intended as a compliment just a fact. Your new card is far cleaner sounding Actually there is a fair bit of realestate on that board so why not build us a combo A/SR card that could be a replacement for the 222SRA cards in 65's 500's and the only option in the CP45's
Did a US patent search and couldn't find it what is the number

Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 10-16-2002, 08:49 AM:

There's a fair bit of real estate but there's not much VACANT real estate. It would be a real squeeze, even using surface mount components, to get both SR and A type on that one board. Also you may have noticed the CM353 is the same height and pinouts as a Cat280 but is somewhat longer than Dolby's cards, so it would take a lot of imagination to fit one into a Dolby processor. Besides I don't think Dolby would take too kindly to one of our cards adorning one of their processors. I think it would be like rubbing salt into a wound.

The Cat222SR/A with it's SR shorcuts was obviously developed by Dolby so they could fit SR into a CP65 chassis. There is no way in a month of Sundays they could have squeezed the circuitry on even one, let alone two Cat280s onto just one little piggy back pcb for the Cat222. I would say they had no choice.

We only received notification that our patent had been granted a few weeks ago so we are still waiting for the formal documentation to arrive from the US patent office. I will send you an e-mail when we get the number. We do have the App. number but that is of no use to you.

BTW sorry that I misunderstood your non-compliment remark.

------------------
Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-16-2002, 09:20 AM:

Could it not be a piggy back design using surface mount technology it sshould not be that difficult

Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 10-16-2002, 04:07 PM:

Shouldn't be that difficult? How many high density pcbs have you designed Gordy? It may be worth a look, but are there enough folk out there interested in improving the sound of their Dolby processor to warrant me (or Scott) spending countless hours slaving over a hot computer keyboard? After all they settled for a Dolby because they didn't want the best

------------------
Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 10-16-2002, 04:14 PM:

Just pulling your chain Actually a 4 layer +ground and power plane board is the worst night mare of design I have delt with and it wasn't surface mount either and it was done with Protel software from australia no less
I don't know how well it would sell but a lot of people are doing the 222sr/a upgrade to cp55's now days so it might be a nitch market

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-17-2002, 05:05 AM:

Oscar,

Thanks for the information; actually I asked because I wanted to get some feedback from the knowledgeable folks here -- I have a pair for our CP50 and my experience has been that they sound just fine. My room is very large -- 2500 seats -- so it is very difficulty to hear minute differences in things like hiss or low-end emphasis. All I know is they sound silky smooth and very natural. Plus, I have no Dolby cards to do any kind of precise A/B tests. To my ears, and happily to my audience, our theatre sound is very impressive. Besides, even if we had the Cat 280 cards, audio band compression and expansion tracking are not easily tested with common test equipment.

Actually if you consider the minimal amount of anomalies that the CopyCat might produce, and the very limited conditions of audio content when it would even become audible (I've never heard any), the price differential is like manna from heaven -- enough to make many an art house or non-profit which ALWAYS must live right on the edge of the ledger line between the black and the red. The CopyCat is very attractive.

I don't know where I heard that rumor about a patent court case between Dolby and Smart -- probably just more of my brain cells dying.

Frank

Posted by Oscar Neundorfer (Member # 458) on 10-17-2002, 07:56 AM:

Frank,

Thanks very much for the compliments on the sound of the CopyCat cards.

Actually, you heard correctly that there was a patent infringement case between SMART and Dolby, but it was NOT the CopyCat card that was involved. It was the CM333 SR card in the Panastereo processor. In a previous post in this thread, Ray Derrick, the Panastereo designer said this:

"We came up with a process that decodes SR very precisely without infringing Dolby's patents (which are almost extinct anyway). Our process now carries a US patent of it's own because it uses some original concepts. Mind you Dolby did try to sue our USA based sister company over our first attempt at SR which admittedly came awful close to infringement (not deliberately I might add), but fortunately for all concerned that was sorted out before it got to court."

As a result, the Panastereo SR card was re-designed and is now the CM353 which, as Ray says, is now patented in its own right, does not in any way infringe Dolby's patents, and it absolutely decodes SR soundtracks properly. And as Gordon says,"Your new card is far cleaner sounding."

Perhaps the confusion may have come about because of the two different company names. SMART owns Panastereo, and even though the law suit in question was over the Panastereo card, SMART was the corporate entity that Dolby sued.

I hope this clears this up a bit.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-20-2002, 08:39 PM:

Of the many "SR" and "SR" like cards I've heard...NONE and I mean NONE have sounded like the real thing. Some emulate better than others and the digital emulation that Dolby is doing in the CP-650 is quite good.

Some of the emulators are horrible all the time, some mistrack when certain signals are present. The only SR cards that sound right to me, thus far, are Dolby Cat. 280, 300 and 350.

Now in this age of digital correctness...the analog track is often thought of as the backup...and if money is tight, why blow a hefty hunk on genuine SR back up...they are $900US per channel (list).

As far as someone's being "better" than Dolby's, don't be silly, the films are encoded using Dolby's...it is a complimentary process...unless you decode it exactly as it is encoded, you are just approximating it. When the films are mixed, they are not monitored for quality on other SR decoders...just Dolby's.

This should NOT be construed to say that Dolby has the only or even the best way of achieving a high-quality of noise reduction. If say the Pana CM-353 was used on the encode, I'd suspect it would perform the best on the decode...it might, in the overall scheme of things, perform better as well. To the best of my knowledge, I have not heard a film that was encoded with the CM-353.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 10-21-2002, 09:06 AM:

Nor are you likely to Steve. We at Panalogic (read Panastereo) do not haunt the back alleys of Hollywood, nor sleep with producers etc to get our system accepted. I have better things to do with my life. I am yet to hear from you privately about your appraisal of the CM353. As far as I know you have never taken the trouble to even compare. When are you going to sit down with an A-B button and do an accurate appraisal?

The CM353's are used in Hoyts preview theatre at the Fox Studios complex here in Sydney where Australia's (and America's) leading mixing engineers are invited to listen to their finished product. I am yet to hear any criticism from "the masters" that the CM353 playback is not true SR.

I have edited some of the original contents of this post as I think I may have misinterpreted Steve's comments. I would like to add that it is possible to reproduce to absolute precision the algorithm of any analog circuit with a quite different analog circuit, or for that matter in the digital domain. I have not had the opportunity to test the digital SR decoding in the CP650 but it is technically possible that they have reproduced the algorithm used in the Cat280 family with great precision. It would take a lot of processing power as the algorithm is complex but it could be done.

------------------
Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-21-2002, 06:19 PM:

Ray,

Nope, I haven't e-mail you regarding my SR evaluations...been a bit busy and I haven't done enough listening to the CM353 to carry on that sort of conversation....as you know, when I get going it can get quite lengthy.

Now as to having made up my mind...what a load of crap! If anything, I would have come into listening to the CP-650 (or any digitally based emulator) predisposed to dislike it. In fact, I have found the CP-650 to be surprisingly faithful though not perfect.

But true to my statement in a previous message, the only SR decoding that I have not found fault with has been genuine Dolby 280, 300, and 350s. Some emulators I have spent more time with than others. I've been pretty vocal about one (made by Dolby even) that I simply can't stand.

As to the CM-353 I haven't done as rigerous a test as with other units. It has been more casual. On one title, nothing jumped out at me as being wrong. On a couple of others...something seemed off in the HF department. I tend to key off on the HF much more so than a LF mistrack. This is even true of speaker systems and even digital systems. There is one combination of digital types and speaker brands (and in particular a HF compression driver) I simply can't sit through the movie I find them so horrible and yet others will consider them the most natural sounding.

Believe me, when I have something more concrete you will get it.

As to other people's opinions of how well your product (or others) perform, they are entitled to them as am I to mine. In fact, everyone IS entitled to MY opinion

I have supported your product, and will continue to do so. In many respects, it is the best out there. Do I think it is perfect for me? Nope. I didn't design it and you and I do things differently.

You can believe I am predisposed to prefer Dolby or any other brand of any other product and you'd be wrong. I judge things as I see/hear them. Do I have some "brand loyalty?" You bet! If one gets good service and support out of a company, it goes a long way to satisfaction. But that NEVER clouds how I evaluate a product and I don't like it being even inferred. If I like something, I like it...it is that simple.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-21-2002, 06:39 PM:

Steve wrote:

That is a very good point, but... Dolby themselves are offering several different solutions for decoding SR (as widely discussed here recently) - "classic" analogue, S-chips based, digitally emulated as in the CP650. They see the CP650 as superior to earlier products, don`t they?
So, theoretically, can an alternative manufacturer not claim the same for his products? Or that the other components of his unit were of superior quality, resulting in overall better sound?
I really mean, theoretically. I am NOT referring to any particular manufacturer here, neither Sony which I like (obviously I am the only one on this forum), nor Panastereo which I never heard, or any other.
But I think it is good to have people like Ray who issue fresh challenges and keep the competition alive.
Michael

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-21-2002, 09:08 PM:

I don't believe the CP-650 is used to monitor Dolby-SR tracks. From what I can tell, Dolby has seen the bottom drop out on analogue sound (not just the movie industry). The CP-650 represents a VERY cost effective solution for the typical main-stream cinema. It's hallmark is not it super analog sound though it is quite passbile.

I have no qualms with saying that the Panastereo CSP-1200 is the best analog processor on the market. Furthermore, anyone that liked the CP-65 will think it is the best processor yet. It is VERY flexible and sounds good. It is the closest thing to cinema "high-end".

As for the dreaded Cat 222SR/A....I agree that it legitimized the other psudo-SR cards out there. The only "reason" I can imagine for it was cost. That is, to lower the cost of the Dolby processor to make it more competitive.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-21-2002, 09:27 PM:

Speaking of SR....At ShowEast 2002 these offerings were at the Panastereo booth....

The unit with the front panel off is Panastereo's outboard SR offering. On the left are two CM-353 SR cards. On the right is the controller card complete with trims to calibrate it's input and output to your processor.

Also pictured are the other fine 1-U gizmos by Pana. The SP-23 surround SX decoder (aka EX) which can have up to three 1/3-octave EQs in it and the new mag preamp unit which can accept Pana's 6-channel mag preamp cards (4 cards for 2-projector 35/70 and dubber)

The rear of the SR unit is pictured below...kinda reminds one of the SRA-5 of yesteryear but it costs a whole lot less and is more flexible.

That is about all of the ShowEast pictures I have.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

Posted by Gunter Oehme (Member # 499) on 10-23-2002, 04:42 PM:

Steve said he doesn't believe the CP-650 is used to monitor Dolby-SR tracks.
Certainly true for the studios in the States.

Studio installations are a little bit different in Europe.
Over here it is common practice to use a cinema processors in the monitor chain.
Up to now it is a CP 65 S with the Cat 448 dubbing card to provide the routing.
With the introduction of the new Dolby Digital encoder unit with digital in- and outputs the CP 650 with the Cat 778 digital input interface board is certified by Dolby. This allows the studios to stay in the digital domain.

The new DMU encoder also includes a software implementation of the 4-2-4 matrix encoder and SR to encode the print master. I guess they use for SR the same implementation as used in the CP 650.
So Dolby seems to be pretty sure that the digital SR is legitimate.