Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS decoding

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Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 03-31-2004, 05:41 AM:

With films ve got a dts disc but because we got only analog optical sound ve can't play dts, but i try to play dts on PC with no results.

Are there some software for playing dts on PC or something similar, does is possible to connect dts time code reader to PC and play????

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 03-31-2004, 05:51 AM:

Aptx does offer editing and playback software, but I doubt they would grant a software liscense unless you were part of a studio company.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-31-2004, 05:55 AM:

Note that theatrical DTS audio discs are only licensed for use with a DTS manufactured player.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 03-31-2004, 08:19 AM:

DTS ROCKS!!

Sorry I had to say it.
By the way. Have you checked the Dolby site lately?? There is a new article which says that DOLBY is much better than DTS although people say that there are differences in the two formats! Ok the BIG LONG topic for discussion. I know that Mark and Brad will say that YOU CAN'T REALLY TELL A DIFFERENCE but one thing is for sure
DTS ROCKS
YEAH

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-31-2004, 08:20 AM:

Were you expecting an article on Dolby's site proclaiming DTS as the superior format?

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 03-31-2004, 09:20 AM:

One should be careful in a film forum to specify if "DTS" refers to the theatrical version or the home video version. Dolby Digital is the same in either venue though the video version runs at a higher bit rate. But DTS at home is a completely different animal than DTS theatrical. I presume the discussion referred to above is about home DTS.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-31-2004, 10:28 AM:

I assumed we were talking about cinema DTS since most people that can handle optical analog, in a home setup, can also handle optical digital.

That and my extreme confidence in people posting in the correct forum. [Big Grin]

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 03-31-2004, 11:47 AM:

DTS has a release on their site proclaiming lossless compression, but there isn't much in the way of details:

quote:

DTS Announces Lossless Digital Sound For Cinema

New Technology Delivers Lossless Soundtracks Identical to Master Tracks

PR for: DTS Cinema

DTS (Digital Theater Systems, Inc.) (NASDAQ: DTSI) announces the development of a system for delivering lossless digital soundtracks into movie theatres. With DTS lossless technology, a soundtrack played in the cinema is bit-for-bit identical to the original master. Demonstrations of the system to distributors and exhibitors will take place during 2nd quarter 2004.

DTS lossless technology works with all film specifications used in exhibition, including 16mm, 35mm, 70mm and any pulldown or frame rates, as well as digital pre-show, alternate content and digital cinema sources. Sampling rates include 44.1, 48, and 96 kHz at 16 to 24 bits.

DTS lossless coding is made possible by a new extension to the DTS Coherent Acoustics codec, which is used in applications including home theatre, car audio, PC and game console products, DVD-related software and broadcast. With this new development, Coherent Acoustics is able to offer a single, comprehensive system that can deliver quality levels from Internet streaming up to high definition and lossless.

“DTS lossless technology delivers the only audio for standard film equivalent to the best sound that has been proposed for Digital Cinema to date. Because of our unique timecode system, we are the only format that is capable of delivering this,” said Mike Archer, Director of Cinema at DTS. “The introduction of this technology continues DTS’ tradition of leadership in digital audio for the entertainment industry.”

Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 04-01-2004, 03:56 AM:

Ok i know the theatrical DTS disc are licensed to play with there own player, but in case DTS Cinema Processor what i know is PC with three cd decks and time code reader for symphonizing with film, it would be good to have software for PC and connect time code reader to pc, becose in that case in cinemas we could play dts with PC. Is there any kind of software for theaters sound or similar, not for editing or encoding surround, but for playing sound??, not just for DTS can SDDS, or DOLBY play with PC suport, or simmilar methods, as connecting reader s to PC and decoding it true pc with software or similar???, I know I little bit funny but that things interested me very much, because till 2 year ago i work mostly with optical sound, because a lot of cinemas here don't have any kind of digital sound.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-01-2004, 07:22 AM:

quote:
I assumed we were talking about cinema DTS since most people that can handle optical analog, in a home setup, can also handle optical digital.

I was referring to the "DTS rocks!" comment and the mention made of some comparison on the Dolby site as possibly being about home DTS. I haven't seen the article in question.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-01-2004, 10:07 AM:

The DTS processors are basically x86 PCs with specialized HARDWARE installed in them. If I understand it right, the only software used by the DTS cinema unit (aside from the software on the boot ROM) is the dts.exe file - which is on all of the DTS CD-ROMs.

The short answer is that it's probably technically possible to make a software only player, but no one has figured it out yet. And when they do, it will most likely be at least a contract breach, and at most illegal, to use it for a public showing.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on any of that.

Posted by Patrick A. Meister (Member # 1812) on 04-01-2004, 11:19 AM:

Hello!

Does someone know, WHERE the system is installed? Is there a Harddisk in it or is it on a ROM-Chip?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-01-2004, 12:17 PM:

What system? The operating system?

As far as I know it boots from ROM and then runs the dts.exe file, and waits for the time code.

The XD10 does actually have a hard drive for storing sound tracks for multiple movies, but I'm not sure if that model boots from the hard drive or boots from ROM like the older units. Maybe someone else can comment on that.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-01-2004, 12:51 PM:

It is almost certainly physically possible to do DTS decoding all in software given the power to today's PC's. Someone would just need to cobble together the decompression code together with whatever playback software and timecode management don't come from dts.exe on each disk. You still need a timecode reader and whatever means to connect that to the PC.

Now that the analog track is going to drop in quality maybe some hacker ought to be encouraged to do this so DTS playback can become universal.

(I already have the real thing so this is purely academic to me.)

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-01-2004, 08:49 PM:

Demetris,
I agree DTS definately rocks big time. It has also been far less trouble for our customers in the last year or so.... we see so many bad SRD reels that at least one large customer we service has discontinued buying SRD equipment. I realize that other parts of the U.S. don't expereince this problem... for what ever reason. To me there is nothing worse than telling a customer to shut off his 8000.00 SRD system because of a bad reel and customer annoying reversions!! This is not to chastise Dolby for what is a good performing system.... The labs really have to be blamed for this....

Mark

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 04-02-2004, 12:38 AM:

Mark,
SRD is good, especially when it is properly equalised. But in my opinion NOTHING beats DTS. The only problem is that distribution companies sometimes don't offer the discs to cinemas and that is the reason why most chains choose Dolby Digital. Don't get me wrong. I have installed several Digital Systems and tried to equalise them as good as I can. We only have one chain here in Cyprus which installs both systems on its screens. The manager is really pleased with the performance of both systems. When the installation was done we showed the manager 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. The opening scene in both situations. He loved Dolby Digital but when we replayed the scene in DTS the theater just ROCKED!!! I don't know how they do it. Even if DTS is not better in responses e.t.c as some people suggest, everyone has to admit that DTS does a better job in "tricking" people that it sounds better.
Demetris

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 04-02-2004, 02:36 AM:

quote:
The short answer is that it's probably technically possible to make a software only player, but no one has figured it out yet. And when they do, it will most likely be at least a contract breach, and at most illegal, to use it for a public showing.

Software was already designed by a hacker early last year as a winamp plugin (and I am not referring to "in-dtsc", which was never finished). Probably breaks copyright laws regardless.

Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 04-02-2004, 03:07 AM:

I agree with you guys, but does dts have some special sound cards or cards similar to standard pci like creative labs live, teratec and similar??

Yes it's thru that distributers don't send Dts disc for every film, but film got dts, i don't know why they do this.

Connecting time code reader to pc and software be very good, because people can then made systems by they own, basicly whats is time code reader??, on my opinion is laser, or led source focused on time code on film and collect with photo sensor from which signal goes to processor.

What is that plugin forwinamp, does somebody all ready try that???, somebody got any link for dwnloading it??

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-03-2004, 09:24 PM:

First you would need an interface board to get the timecode into your PC
In the current DTS players the decoding is done on a hardware chip (in effect a proprietary sound card)
I can't see DTS ever licensing a software PC theatrical version since they are in the hardware business

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-03-2004, 11:13 PM:

Gord,
I'd bet that a software based time code generator could be built in as part of the "hacker" DTS playback software.

Mark

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-03-2004, 11:24 PM:

'scuse me... but isn't this a bit out of sorts... a group of technical professionals, discussing the hacking of that which we operate for a living?

Not wanting to moralize to any great extent, but we don't discuss details of how to pirate our product, so this somehow doesn't seem all that appropriate here, either.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-03-2004, 11:32 PM:

Hollywood wouldn't exist were it not for the desire to avoid patents.

This is purely an intellectual exercise since I wouldn't know how to do this (nor have a need to) and not sure who could. And DTS has been magnificent in their support of a film festival I am involved with.

Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 04-04-2004, 04:14 AM:

This is not mention to hack dts, but to understand principles how dts systems works, because people don't understand the digital tehnology in such manner like analog, and dts and things about are little bit complicated, again the purpose of this is to understand how dts works.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 04-04-2004, 06:39 AM:

Just one question everybody,
Have I missed something?? Where is KAREN?????
KAREN??

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-04-2004, 09:00 AM:

She ran off with Strong's Pat Moore.

[/joke]

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-04-2004, 10:01 AM:

JSK makes a excellent time code generator that will supply both SMPTE and DTS timecode
Generating time code would be the easy part decoding the actual audio is the hard part

Posted by Patrick de Groot (Member # 858) on 04-04-2004, 10:49 AM:

I just found it and tried it on the DTS of Notting Hill which I still had laying around for this kind of test... It works! I can play DTS discs with winamp. I don't know yet how it handles the different channels.

update:
The settings dialog of the input-plugin does have some interesting options:

The single channel options are disabled... (which happened to be because I had the Downmix checkbox checked)

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-04-2004, 01:59 PM:

quote:
I can't see DTS ever licensing a software PC theatrical version since they are in the hardware business

DTS could potentially get themselves into a lot of legal trouble if they ever did so. They don't own the copyrights to the audio on the discs, the film companies do. They're specifically hired to encode the audio and distribute it to commercial theaters booked with said film and equipped for DTS.

It is kind of interesting that some people would actually go to the trouble of putting together an APT-X100 playback hack. I wonder what kind of capability this thing would have on a computer system equipped with 5.1 channel speakers.

Posted by Patrick de Groot (Member # 858) on 04-04-2004, 02:07 PM:

quote:
It is kind of interesting that some people would actually go to the trouble of putting together an APT-X100 playback hack.

Some text from the info file included in the zip archive :

Release Notes:

Beginning with its first release in 1993, Jurassic
Park, Digital Theater Systems has positioned itself
as the worldwide standard release format for digital
motion picture sound tracks.

Now, 10 years later, you hold a decoding software
for 5-channel-DTS sound tracks in your hands. It
will allow you to convert APT-X100 compressed
material (used in theaters for example) into the
PCM wave format.

This has basically been made possible by Audio
Processing Technology, Inc. During my work, I could
not find any real precautions to prevent this tool
from being coded. This leads inevitably to such a
release.

Furthermore, I wasn't able to find any legal APT-X
license agreements, so you will have to find out
yourself whether you have permission to use this
software or not.

If I did not release this, someone else would for
sure. The major thought behind this, is proof of
concept. It could be done, so it was done. Live
with it.

Greetings fly out to all the people who helped me
and also to Alexander Vigorsky, keep on the great
work on your AC3 project!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-04-2004, 11:36 PM:

After thinking about it a bit, actually I can see some nefarious motivation for creating the APT-X100 playback hack. It might provide film pirates an additional method to create bootleg DVDs, although not without a couple tradeoffs in audio quality.

Bear in mind, this little app is probably of very little consequence for the problem of film piracy. Much of it comes from mass reproduction of screener DVDs. Hell, the screener DVDs are often posted on the Usenet!

Since the program can apparently extract the audio from specific channels, it would be simple to patch together the 5 channels of LPCM and then use apps like the DD and DTS encoders from Surcode to create surround tracks for DVD.

The tradeoffs:

One: this APT-X100 decoding program extracts LPCM from already lossy compressed audio. You're down one step in generational quality. Another trip through a Dolby Digital or DTS encoding process and you're down yet another step. The end result will have no chance at all of sounding as a good as a legit DVD release found on store shelves.

Two: Where's the subwoofer audio? With theatrical DTS, the LFE audio is recorded into the surround channels. This is typically an okay approach since the speakers in most commercial theater surround arrays have little LFE reproduction capability. A crossover filter is used to re-direct the LFE audio to the subwoofers. This same method has been used in the past for 70mm Dolby mag formats. The audio on the CDs may technically be 5 channel, but the DTS hardware outputs it as 6 channels. I suppose if you play back the 5 channel track on a home theater system with bass management enabled, you might get a better idea of the intended sound.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 04-05-2004, 02:28 AM:

Well, I will admit the program works, but with those trade off's Bobby mentioned. However, it does make for good testing of individual speakers, most especially the center channel. I had some old discs lying around and used a sample of George Clooney's voice. It sounded fantastic. It really does make me wonder how much the studios change the mix for a DVD because everything I threw at my speakers sounded so much crisper and clear than DVD counterparts. Thoughts?

EDIT: It was also fun to hear an old Cinemark snipe at home. Can you say Windows startup sound? [Big Grin]

AJG

Posted by Patrick de Groot (Member # 858) on 04-05-2004, 05:34 AM:

Does someone else who got the "package" have any idea where start.exe is for? Some virus scanners say it contains a virus someother say not... Since I have just bought a new computer I checked it first out on my old one. Start.exe doesn't seem to do anything visible.
However you don't need start.exe to play DTS files so just leave it alone.
What I do miss is the option to output all channels to a 5.1 soundcard at once...
Does someone already experimented with playing the Dolby Prologic an Prologic 2 downmixes? How does it sound?

edit
I have also found an archive without the start.exe. So it seems you should ignore that file.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-05-2004, 11:36 AM:

quote:
'scuse me... but isn't this a bit out of sorts... a group of technical professionals, discussing the hacking of that which we operate for a living?

I maintain a wide area computer network for a living, and I try to hack and break into things on our corporate network all the time. Of course, I wouldn't try to steal from myself, but the skills I've aquired have helped me help others who lose access to things on their networks for example.

No one is discussing stealing anything, only how things work, and what would and would not be possible, and what would and would not be legal. I think it's a pretty interesting discussion, actually. But that's just me.

Edit to fix stupid mistake.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 04-05-2004, 01:12 PM:

quote:
Does someone already experimented with playing the Dolby Prologic an Prologic 2 downmixes? How does it sound?

Well, it sounds fairly good, almost like a DD5.1 track on DVD being downmixed to two channels, but not quite that compressed. You can definitely hear a difference if you play each channel individually. Hopefully, some sort of support for 5.1 would eventually be possible.

AJG

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-05-2004, 05:13 PM:

quote:
It really does make me wonder how much the studios change the mix for a DVD because everything I threw at my speakers sounded so much crisper and clear than DVD counterparts. Thoughts?

This is just a guess, but I would strongly bet you're hearing evidence of the "X-curve" being applied. Theatrical mixes are often made with more treble to counteract the filtering away of high frequencies that occurs in commercial theater auditoriums. This was one of the main justifications for "Home THX" re-EQ, basically to strip away that overly bright treble.

Audio editing tools these days are so much more powerful and flexible that we're seeing multiple 5.1 mixes tailored for different environments. You have your X-curve altered commercial mix. Then you get a "near field" home theater tailored mix. New Line Cinema has been a strong proponent of this approach, establishing the standards bar on DVDs like the Platinum Edition of "Seven". Some of their DVDs, such as "Blade II" mention the specialty of the near field mix and advises to turn off re-EQ functions.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 04-05-2004, 05:50 PM:

I don't see how anyone could use the output from a DTS theater disc to add audio to a video tape or DVD, there would be no way to keep it in sync. Same thing for making a multi channel recording one track at a time from a DTS disc, there is no way to keep everything in sync.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-05-2004, 06:20 PM:

Bobby, the subwoofer information (I refuse to call it "LFE" because that is lame) is indeed in the surround channels. You have to run the crossover yourself. Extract it out of the surrounds.[av=m]

Bruce, exporting one channel at a time definitely stays in sync. I have no idea about syncing it to camcorder video, though, nor do I really care. Why have great sond when your video looks like crap? The pirated screener DVDs usually have 5.1 AC3 anyway, so I don't see why anyone would bother.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 04-05-2004, 06:53 PM:

I'd really love to be able to do A/B tests with this to see what real differences there are. I'd love to compare it to some AC3 or DTS laserdiscs too. I was told many of the LD's were just direct copies of the theatrical soundtracks, with no new near field mixes made. Maybe my theater would just let me borrow a DTS 6... [evil]

AJG

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-05-2004, 09:46 PM:

The AC3 and DTS audio from old laserdiscs would probably still sound better than an audio extraction and rebuild in DD/DTS from a DTS movie CD-ROM. Again, the audio on the CD-ROMs is already lossy compressed and then you have to lossy compress it again to get it to play back on your home theater gear.

Even if the AC3 and DTS laserdiscs used theatrical sound mixes, they got that audio encoded from the uncompressed digital or SR mag analog 6-track masters/stems. With a DTS CD-ROM you are not starting from a master quality source.

I imagine it might be kind of nifty to extract and build up a home DD or DTS track from a DTS CD-ROM just from nuts and bolts curiosity of how things work. But with the time and work involved and bringing it all together, why bother? I certainly could not see making a practice out of doing that. My time is worth more to me than that. I would just cut out the hassle and go buy/rent the regular DVD.

Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 04-06-2004, 04:01 AM:

Yes, is wonder what pc's can do now today, but are we little of the rely subject of discusion, because we now talk of extracting dts sound, dvd's all thing, but the really subject of disscustin is decoding dts in theatres, and how that work. Also what is with that APT decoder, anyone else try it?

Posted by Patrick A. Meister (Member # 1812) on 04-06-2004, 04:53 AM:

<<With films ve got a dts disc but because we got only analog optical sound ve can't play dts, but i try to play dts on PC with no results.

Are there some software for playing dts on PC or something similar, does is possible to connect dts time code reader to PC and play????>>

THERE IS a possibility to run them
I can't tell it to you [Wink]

Posted by Patrick de Groot (Member # 858) on 04-06-2004, 12:38 PM:

Just a thought which has crossed my mind before...
A PC with the proper software and soundcard can ofcourse replace a DTS player. Just plug the timecode reader to the serial port (or whatever) and synchronize the player with this signal. You can output the sound analog or digital to a Dolby processor. Heck, you can even do equalization emulation on the PC but I would probably prefer the analog real equalization of a Dolby processor.
You can buy some professional PC audio hardware/software.
The only legal problem is maybe that the timecode is a propietary format of DTS which is stupid btw...
DTS wouldn't be happy about it, but after all the DTS player is a low-end PC with custom hardware added (with duplicated functionality of a Dolby processor).
It would sure be a lot cheaper!

You can also input the analog Dolby SR signal into a computer and process it... if you have the software for it.

Professional audio software like Cubase SX shows the audio capabilities of a modern PC.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 04-06-2004, 01:25 PM:

Something interesting I found was a program that allows one to mix a Meridian Lossless (MLP) track for a DVD-R. I wonder, just for fun, what kind of results that would merit if the source was the DTS CDROM?

AJG

Posted by Antonio Marcheselli (Member # 373) on 04-06-2004, 01:36 PM:

I knew that software and my fear is that it can be used to make DIVx software that is so popular during these days.

What do you think about?

Bye
A

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-07-2004, 01:02 AM:

quote:
A PC with the proper software and sound card can of course replace a DTS player. Just plug the timecode reader to the serial port (or whatever) and synchronize the player with this signal.

You might technically be able to get a hacked together system like this to work. But as you mentioned, DTS would not be very happy with it. In fact, anyone operating such an informal setup in a commercial theater with paying audiences would put themselves at great risk of a very expensive copyright lawsuit. At the bare minimum, you would have a hell of a time trying to get on DTS' distribution list. Good luck on getting discs!

quote:
Something interesting I found was a program that allows one to mix a Meridian Lossless (MLP) track for a DVD-R. I wonder, just for fun, what kind of results that would merit if the source was the DTS CDROM?

In the very best case scenario, you would get no better audio quality than what was on the DTS CD-ROMs. You cannot hyper inflate audio bitrates up to the levels boasted by MLP and expect added nuances to appear.

A good analogy would be taking a low rez JPEG image from a web page and running it through a $250,000 3M Scotchprint graphic maker for a billboard. The Scotchprint machine's RIP hardware would interpolate lots of extra pixels, but the end result would just be very fuzzy and look like shit.

When you mention MLP apps, are you talking about Minnetonka Audio's Surcode apps? They make a wide variety of surround sound software encoders for DD, DTS and MLP. Their MLP encoding app costs $2495. Pretty damned pricey. Even more so than the $1995 they want for their DTS DVD audio encoder (they sell a separate DTS music CD encoder for $499). About the least expensive way Minnetokna/Surcode will allow you to do 5.1 is with their Dolby Digital 5.1 encoder plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro. According to their website, the DD 5.1 plug in is already built into Premiere Pro, you just have to pay Minnetonka $295 to activate it. I would expect to see an activation hack for that floating around the Internet, if it isn't doing so already.

quote:
but the really subject of disscustin is decoding dts in theatres, and how that work. Also what is with that APT decoder, anyone else try it?

The APT-X100 algorithm is a pretty simple waveform based codec. It is a completely different audio compression coder from that used in the home theater version of DTS. But some of the same audio engineer guys in Ireland worked on both formats.

The DTS players have some proprietary hardware inside the machines to do the decoding process in real time. The WinAMP plug-in obviously does much of the same thing using some software tricks to get the decoding work without the expensive custom circuit boards found in a $6000 DTS machine.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-07-2004, 04:50 AM:

The Winamp plugin only works with recent DTS discs. Put in something old and it will not play. Put in a DTS 2 channel disc and it will not play. The plugin is guessing on the correct way to decode, unless DTS has changed something in the codec over the years.[av=n]

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-07-2004, 09:02 AM:

I will hazard a guess that at the time realtime APT-X100 decoding might only have been possible in hardware. The idea of doing it in software is based on the vastly increased computing power now available on a PC, and as you say, it's not a complex algorithim but it was probably beyond the capability of a 80386 PC. Not sure what patents or copyrights would be violated if someone used a PC-based decoder in a commercial theatre. I guess it mostly depends on the APT-X100 software itself. You're certainly not violating the copyright on the soundtrack if you're an exhibitor showing the film under license. The DTS software that is on the disks may be intended only for use on their own players but given that the disks are simply sent along with the print that could be construed as an implied license to run the software. There's no stated license, not even a shrink wrap license, for owners of bona fide boxes so not sure what would prevent its legal use on a homemade box. Not that they could not add such legalese to future disks if this ever became widespread. Then again only the booth staff would know for sure and many theatres simply advertise "digital sound" without being specific about what brand.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-07-2004, 10:18 AM:

How often are films distributed with DTS discs accompanying every print? I have heard of theaters not equipped for DTS receiving discs. Still, my understanding is that if you want to receive the CD-ROMs with any kind of dependability you have to be in DTS' distribution list at the very least (along with the booking department in your own circuit knowing you have the DTS equipment, thus putting you down to receive the discs as well).

Those issues would weigh pretty heavily on whether a theater should even try to hack out a cheap PC to play theatrical DTS. I would still expect some laws to be broken (perhaps patent violations) from using a such a setup. Advertising a show as being in DTS, but being played from a jerry-rigged PC setup may construe trademark violations. Realistically, it would be highly doubtful a single theater would get sued over such a setup. But if you had a number of theaters putting together their own PC-based DTS theatrical players, whoever came up with that WinAMP APT X100 plug-in would turn into a larger target.

quote:
Put in a DTS 2 channel disc and it will not play.

There's 2 channel theatrical DTS discs? Hmm. Come to think of it, I do remember a Woody Allen movie released by Dreamworks (was it "Small Time Crooks"?) that was Quad Format, but I think mono on all the tracks. Still haven't seen any DVDs with DTS 2-channel, even though the DTS encoders make it possible (at two different bitrates no less, 508kb/s & 377kb/s).

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 04-07-2004, 11:07 AM:

The DTS distribution list only concerns trailer discs.

Any theatre, whether or not they are capable of reproducing any sort of sound, receives discs. In fact, there are very very few times I receive a DTS print with no dics, regardless of the theatre. Apparently some theatres in the US aren't as fortunate though.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 04-07-2004, 05:03 PM:

Look around for a used DTS6D. By the time you buy a PC, add the software, find a way to get 5 channels out of the PC, BUILD a time code reader to read the time code on the film, find a way to input the time code to the PC, find a way to have the PC sync the audio to the time code, somehow get the PC to output the control signals that your processor needs to switch to DTS, and find a way to get this all to work under windows, you could buy a used DTS player, and save money.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-07-2004, 05:27 PM:

Bobby, back in the day DTS couldn't make enough 6 channel units for everyone due to a drive shortage. So they started making 2 channel stereo players that would only require one drive. Many theaters actually showed Jurassic Park like this and advertised digital sound. You could only get the 6 track version at good theaters. They kept making stereo and 6 track versions of each movie fo' a long time. Perhaps more than a year. Then they dropped the stereo format and the stereo players could be upgraded to 6 track players. I think stereo DTS was probably one of the most retarded things to ever happen on the planet.[av=n]

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 04-07-2004, 05:36 PM:

Were the tracks on those DTS 2 channel discs just like a PCM track on Laserdisc, and played out of two speakers, or was it basically separated by some sort of Pro Logic method? If it was just some LPCM, I'm sure it sounded fairly good.

AJG

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-07-2004, 06:12 PM:

They were compressed and then run through the Pro Logic type matrix of the cinema processor.[av=n]

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-07-2004, 07:48 PM:

Joe it wasn't a shortage of drive but the idea was to penetrate the market with a low cost version with the two channel version
We had to upgrade all of them shortly after Jurasic Park

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 04-07-2004, 09:59 PM:

I believe the story was that they were surprised at how poorly the 2:4 version fared in the market which was why it was dropped fairly quickly.

The two channel version is sent into the CP via the solar cell inputs since a more logical entry point (post NR but pre 2:4 channel decoding) may not be available on some processors without backplane mods. So the output from the 2 channel DTS unit must be NR encoded since it will be passing through NR cards AND must be adjusted to match the slit loss correction of the pre-amp card and that's going to vary from installation to installation.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-07-2004, 10:10 PM:

Yup. Like I said, retarded idea.[av=n]

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 04-07-2004, 11:20 PM:

Thanks for the clarification Joe. The whole thing does sound like it'd suck! [puke]

AJG

Posted by Matt Zeiner (Member # 1914) on 04-08-2004, 07:41 AM:

This could be easily accomplished with the winamp plugin, a 5.1 channel capable soundcard, some version of multitrack software (cubase SL is cheap and has SMPTE capability) and whole LOT of TIME. Decode each channel through the winamp plug out via s/pdif and into cubase via s/pdif one at a time. If you begin each pass at the same position, they will be in sync with each other. set up a send on each surround channel to an aux track with a low pass filter on it, and hi pass the surround channels. Output LCR to the appropriate channels, surrounds to the appropriate channels, and the filtered aux track to the sub. Sync can be accomplished with biphase (with the appropriate biphase to MIDI converter or a TC reader (with the appropriate SMPTE to MIDI converter). Probably would take oh, I don't know...12 hours of work to prepare for each show... [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-08-2004, 09:33 AM:

Actually the DTS two track was suprisingly good results when properly set up the big problem was the latter was rarely done

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 04-08-2004, 09:51 AM:

If memory serves the DTS units that we had when Jurrasic Park opened could play either the 2 channel stereo discs or the 6 channels discs. It just depended on how you set it up. The back of the unit had outputs for both types.

Luckly the theater I worked at that opened Jurrasic Park must have been one of the good ones because we played it in 6 channel sound and was one of only 11 or 12 locations in the region of the company, which was a much broader reagion at the time, to open it in DTS.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-08-2004, 08:41 PM:

The first time I saw a movie in DTS was "Jurassic Park" at Northpark #1 in Dallas. Definitely a DTS-6 show. My trips to Dallas would be more frequent if that movie theater was still standing.

I forgot all about those early 2-channel DTS players! Brain fart.

Those things were definitely a cost cutting measure so theaters with Pro-Logic style stereo could get "digital" on the marquee. When "Jurassic Park" hit theaters, the DTS-6 machines carried a $3500 price tag while the "DTS-S" machines cost $2500. The later upgrade to convert a DTS-S player to DTS-6 cost $1000.

Posted by Nic Margherio (Member # 273) on 01-12-2005, 10:57 PM:

....picking up topic several months late.

I recently downloaded the APT-X100 (v1.0) plugin for WinAmp and found a very serious problem with it; all but two of the channel designations are not assigned properly.
-

You'll notice the "Play Single Channel" options on the decoder are assigned 0=L, 1=R, 2=C, 3=LS, 4=RS. Anyone who has ever balanced levels on a dts 6D would know that dts assigns their channels differently: 0=L, 1=LS, 2=C, 3=RS, 4=R. Thus, the decoder only gets two out of the five channels right: 0=L and 2=C, out of pure luck it would seem since their L,R,C,LS,RS sequence is not standard on any cinema (Dolby or Sony) equipment or even any home theater gear either for that matter. On most equipment the sequence is L,C,R,LS,RS.

Not only does this yeild the wrong channel assignments in 5.1, but the downmix option is completely useless since you will be matrixing the L and R channels together (Rt) and the C and the LS channels (Lt). Obviously this will not produce a proper 2:4 decode.

Interesting...I wonder if version 1.1 is on the way.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-13-2005, 10:59 AM:

I get a lot of skips and clicks when I play something with mine. Especially noticeable during music sequences.

Also, I'm curious... the most recent DTS update CD said something along the lines of "software changes to accomodate new anti piracy encoding measures" (paraphrasing). I wonder if the plugin will break soon. [Confused]

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 07-26-2007, 06:38 PM:

It has been 924 days since the last post.

Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 07-26-2007, 06:38 PM:

I think this would be the most appropriate thread to bump for my question. Is there a way to force a DTS6 processor to just play audio without running timecode into it for testing purposes?

Posted by Dennis M Dow Jr (Member # 1970) on 07-27-2007, 08:15 AM:

The only discs you can play without time code are the setup disc and the empirical test disc.

Posted by Markus Lemm (Member # 3456) on 07-27-2007, 03:18 PM:

Just copy the DTS test disc to your computer and replace the R1T5.AUD R2T5.AUD and so on files from the DTS disc you want to play to the DTS directory on your computer and burn a copy. Insert the disc and it plays like magic. Plus you can skip to different reels with the index switch.

Posted by Bastiaan Fleerkate (Member # 3826) on 07-30-2007, 05:58 AM:

Hook up an monitor (ISA graphics card required if you're using an 2 drawer DTS player) and an keyboard. Look in the main menu and see if you can play the files separately.
The new discs (with the new decoding style) won't play if you copy the setup disc and replace the files. Any *.AUD file will play but the new extention (i don't remember the extension) won't.
The trailers discs DTS supply are in the *.AUD format, so they can be used for test purposes, but you will have to copy an old DTS.exe to the disc for them to play...(if you use a monitor and keyboard)

Also look in other threads concerning playing DTS without the need of playing the movie...