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BURBANK, Calif., March 22, 2004, PR Newswire—Starting this fall, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution will begin issuing 35mm prints of Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures releases with environmentally friendly pure-dye cyan soundtracks, it was announced today (3/22/04) by Chuck Viane, president of Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, and Jeff Miller, executive vice president, Worldwide Post Production and Operations for The Walt Disney Studios. This new soundtrack technology represents a significant environmental advance for the motion pictures industry, and eliminates the use of traditional silver- applicated tracks and the caustic chemicals involved in that process. Buena Vista plans to switch entirely to cyan soundtracks on all of its worldwide release prints by January, 2005.

To accomplish this goal, the Disney distribution arm is working closely with Dolby, Kodak, Technicolor and NATO to perfect the technology and encourage theater owners to install RED LED soundtrack readers on their projectors. RED LED readers, which are now standard in all US manufactured projectors, are currently installed in the vast majority of projectors in use in this country. MGM has also announced that they will be issuing pure-dye cyan soundtracks on all release prints beginning this May.

Commenting on the announcement, Viane said, "Our industry is striving to eliminate sources of environmental harm, improve lab productivity and theatrical efficiency, and Buena Vista is proud to be taking a cutting edge position in this worthy effort. Most theater projectors are now equipped with the RED LED readers and we expect the others to convert to this technology by 2005. I'm sure that other distributors will soon be supporting this movement to cyan soundtracks and that together we can all do our part to make this a cleaner planet."

Jeff Miller added, "Dolby, Kodak, Technicolor, NATO, and our Studio have been working hard to perfect the new cyan soundtrack technology so that audiences will enjoy the sound reproduction for analog tracks on RED LED readers as the filmmakers intended. Buena Vista will release one of its major fall titles with this type of soundtrack as we move forward with our plans for complete conversion by January, 2005. This is a major advance for our industry and something we can all be very proud of."

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The Disney film shipper insert is also on the Dyetracks.org website:

http://www.dyetracks.org/BV-DisneyCanFlyer_July%202004.pdf
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-16-2004, 03:59 PM:
 
I'd say by alerting the booker to the fact that you haven't upgraded so you can be sent a regular print, since to date no one has done 100% cyan on a major release. (Yes that's right, that Woody Allen film doesn't count. )
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-17-2004, 08:32 AM:
 
And unless the film industry has decided to write off the entire Third World market, there will be cyan tracks and white tracks living for every release for years to come. The foreign market represents a huge amount of profit that would be lost if the distribs went 100% cyan. As altruistic a persona Disney would like to portray for itself, when it comes to making profit or protecting the environment, we all know which one corporate America is going to choose.
 

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Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 07-17-2004, 09:50 AM:
 
The Third world is more advanced than you know and besides there is always E-cinema
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-17-2004, 10:39 AM:
 
Richard is correct!
At the SMPTE meeting at Showest they mentioned something like 80% conversion to Red Readers already for third world countries(excluding China and Russia). Europe is at a slightly higher rate than the U.S. which is around 85% right now. ALL but one of our customers have converted over to red so we're running 99.5% in the Rocky Mountain States. Not to worry!

Mark @ CLACO
 

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Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 07-17-2004, 05:31 PM:
 
We still have all white readers. When we got our Cyan print of Soul Plane, it wasn't marked as Cyan in any way --- not on the cans, not on the leaders (well, except for the obvious cyan track itself). So if we called for a replacement, how would they know at the depot which one is a "regular" white-light compatible print? They're sure as hell not going to pop open every can until they stumble upon one. Especially for second run.

I never got to see how Soul Plane performed in our mono house since the powers-that-be decided it would be easier to drop the film than to drive their butt over with the red reader they supposedly bought months ago.

=TMP=
 

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Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 07-17-2004, 05:53 PM:
 
So they have that "one red reader" locked up at the home office...do you have to sign for it when your location is using it
 

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Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 07-18-2004, 01:36 AM:
 
OK, maybe I'm just speaking from ignorance and sincerely appologize if that's the case but it's not like we're asking everyone to replace their entire projection system here. If people can't commit to a small upgrade like this every say, 50 years!!!, then there's a real problem. If this is inaccurate then please correct me. From my limited experience it might just take a major push to get all those slow pokes rear ends in gear. Anyone that's not willing to make and investment into the future of their business should ask themselves why they are in business.
 

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Posted by Mike Perju (Member # 1482) on 07-18-2004, 02:13 AM:
 
Greg, the only people saving money are the distribution companies. There is no advantage to red LED readers for the exhibitors. Also, red LED readers are way more costly to buy and operate versus exiter lamps and solar cells. Most exhibitors are willing to invest in the "future" of their business, and they already have to carry the burden of buying every thing from xenon bulbs to ticket paper. Adding little costs like a $90 LED every 6000 hours or so per screen, (when the same job could be accomplished by a $5 exiter lamp) will really add up in the end.
 

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Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 07-18-2004, 03:07 AM:
 
I'm no "tree hugger" by any means, infact one of my favorite passtimes is to snooze infront of a wood burning fireplace. It's high time we start to take responsibility for the environment and if this is the theatre industries contribution then I believe John Pytlak said it best when he said, (and I'm paraphrasing) lets all raise a toast with a nice clean glass of water to the new era of cyan sound tracks. The distributors and the labratories have already decided that this is the future so lets stop draging our feet about it and move on. Besides, I think they (cyan tracks) look really cool.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-18-2004, 05:13 AM:
 
With all due respect here:...

I don't know what the percentage is here of owners versus operators and other interested people. As a technically-inclined owner, I admit to not having the depth of knowledge on this subject that John has. However, I do know that by monitoring LED current per Component Engineering's suggestions, I have put well over 6,000 hours on my readers. As for how they're doing, I judge that simply by how the Dolby tone alignment looks when I run my loops periodically through the machines. Aside from the benefits that may accrue to the studios and labs, I find the red readers MUCH more consistent in their performance than any exciter system I've ever been around. One such system has been in service for over 6 years. I looped it last year, found the alignment right on the nose and didn't touch it. It's set exactly where it started, over 6 years ago. Try that with your $5 exciter lamp.

The overall long-term performance of red readers with cyan tracks may not be proven yet. However, my own personal time savings and consistency of operation has resulted in a dollar value to me and consistency of quality for my customers that I think far exceeds the so-called $90 for a replacement array that I have yet to buy, or the $400 I spent on the reader. At this point, I am faced with the periodic expense for xenon bulbs far more often than anything that relates to what's in my sound heads.

This argument, while intriguing on this board, is an issue that is fast heading toward management's doorstep. It's really their problem... not the projectionist's, so why stress so much over it? Load the film and run the darn stuff. If the owner is too cheap to upgrade his machines, it'll get his attention soon enough.

... and these are the people who are eventually expected to shell out kiloBucks for DLP?

HA!
 

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Posted by Greg Routenburg (Member # 1742) on 07-18-2004, 07:35 AM:
 
Bravo!
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-18-2004, 08:55 AM:
 
What Mike said.

There are two issues here. Issue #1 is that theatre owners are being asked to subsidize a cost-saving effort which will benefit the film distributors. As one might imagine, this does not sit well with many theatre owners. Sure, there may be some minor benefits to the theatres (see Jack's post), but there are also downsides (see any of Steve Guttag's rants on the subject). While it may be fairly easy to justify the expense of the conversion in a theatrical venue which runs film every day, it becomes far more difficult to justify the conversion in a venue which may run film only a few times per year. And many such venues aren't getting the information about the conversion through mailings (they don't get them) and probably don't subscribe to Boxoffice, read Film-Tech, etc. This issue #1 would be a nonissue if the conversion costs were covered by the film distributors in some way, but that isn't going to happen.

Issue #2 is that conversion kits are not available for all soundheads. Sure, if you have Century, Simplex, RCA, or some other common brand of soundhead, it's not a big deal (assuming that the theatre owner can cough up ~$1000 per soundhead for the conversion), but what about theatres with older or unusual equipment? Most will have to come up with some sort of homebuilt system which sound bad and/or is not reliable.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-18-2004, 10:56 AM:
 
Except for one instance I have not had a call regarding an emergancy A chain issue since almost all the theatres I service are LED now where as before I was constantly getting calls re solar cells that had been damaged by a splice or a pile up or a excitor with a misaligned filament
The LED technology is an improvement and is more cost effective in the longrun if one adds the service call issue into the equation
Also to my knowledge there is no soundhead that cannot be converted to some form of red light
Also in the scheme to things 1000.00 is not to much of an investment in this day and age. When cinemascope was introduced one had no choice but to buy anamorphic lens to show the product
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-18-2004, 10:58 AM:
 
Gordon--how would you convert a Western Electric Universal Base to LED? What about MP-30 portables? I'll shut up about the lack of conversion kits as soon as I find out how these two types of soundheads can be converted, as those are the ones that I have used which, to my knowledge, don't have conversion kits readily available.
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 07-18-2004, 11:13 AM:
 
That's the downside when you make a change that obsoletes a line of equipment going back three quarters of a century.

JP: Why is it necessary that the dye-only track be recorded in cyan only? Why can't it be in all three? Seems to me the red light will only be modulated in the cyan layer anyway so there ought not be any detriment by giving full 3 layer coverage. Except maybe that by giving full spectrum modulation the white light modulation would be down far less than 12dB than white light + IR and make the need of conversion less decisive.
 

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Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 07-18-2004, 11:22 AM:
 
Everyone's comparing this like it's a "new innovation" that will improve the theater experience. CinemaScope was an improvement that the audience noticed -- a wider screen. This drew customers to the theater and helped pay for the technology. The audience notices digital sound, too, which draws people to your theater as opposed to the analog-only house down the street. Even investments in seating an aesthetics can draw customers, which help pay for the improvement.

I fail to see how Cyan Tracks improve anything presentation-wise. Or at least improve things enough to where customers will say, "No! Let's go to Theater B because they have red-LED readers!" So the theater owners will simply be forced to "eat the cost" for the benefit of the studios.

As for the environmental issue, companies like Kodak have been served with MANY various environmental infractions and fines in the past, and the fact that they suddenly care about saving water -- which, to my understanding is reclaimable through treatment -- makes me skeptical. Corporations care about the bottom line before they think about the environment. They are designed by law to think that way. So when they say they are "saving our water" as a resource, what they're really saying is they're "saving THEIR water BILL."

It's all a sham. Theater owners are paying Kodak and other labs' and processors' water bills through the conversion.

Now, wait until they start hollering about how film stock itself is harmful to the environment and announce they will only release titles in DLP for this fact.

=TMP=
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-18-2004, 11:41 AM:
 
The Carmike theater in my town is in the process to converting over to LED readers. So far two of their eight Simplex projectors have those Dolby BACP RSTR 2000 readers installed. But the theater has been receiving a lot of cyan track prints well before the conversion started. Needless to say, it is a good thing they have DTS on every screen!
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 07-18-2004, 12:22 PM:
 
Money spent on changing anything in film technology is money pissed away. The R & D and technology expenditures should be spent on making digital cinema more acceptable and more affordable if it is to displace film in the relatively near future. Red light readers are another change of doubious value that has been successfully foisted off on the industry as an improvement and at the expense of the theaters which will see no significant benefit.

Alternately, why not eliminate the analog track altogether and use the space for a larger image? Think of the number of aperture plates, etc. that could be sold. The total conversion to digital sound would make more sense than this cyan analog track crap.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-18-2004, 12:59 PM:
 
Jax lights and Lasers will fit the Universal Base and the MP30
 

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Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 07-18-2004, 01:10 PM:
 
I Agree with Gordon regarding total operating cost of exciters vs. LED/Laser. An average exciter has 400 hours of good life and it is constantly changing during the life of the bulb....that is if the cinema owner is willing to pay for the maintinance. Exciters where acceptable for Dolby type A since the response was rarely was above 12.5KHZ....with reverse scan kits or laser and a good recorded print, 16KHZ is possible which Dolby SR type tracks can deliver.
Kits can be made for virtually any decent cinema and portable projector in use today.......but I think the sprocket flutter from the Universal "antique" soundhead would be more pronounced if upgraded to "red light" set up.... they should try to get a tax write off from a museum for a relic in operating condition
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-18-2004, 01:14 PM:
 

quote: Bill Enos

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Money spent on changing anything in film technology is money pissed away.

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quote: Bill Enos

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Alternately, why not eliminate the analog track altogether and use the space for a larger image? Think of the number of aperture plates, etc. that could be sold. The total conversion to digital sound would make more sense than this cyan analog track crap.

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quote: Steve Kraus

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User interface is trivial since you can sticker the reels as well as print in large lettering in the leader's soundtrack area.

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quote: Scott Norwood

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What about 16mm prints made from color reversal originals (no intermediate elements)? Aren't those dye tracks, too?

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quote: Thomas Procyk

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Theater owners are paying Kodak and other labs' and processors' water bills through the conversion.

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The raw stock print film remains the same for cyan dye track prints. Because cyan dye tracks will reduce print waste, film manufacturers will actually sell LESS print film, probably tens of millions of feet less. Kodak FPC Film Salvage will have LESS silver to recover from scrapped prints being recycled.

A significant majority of theatres already have reverse scan red LED readers, and are already taking advantage of the benfits Jack and others mentioned.

As Mr. Fowler notes, overseas installations of modern red LED readers are excellent, even in some "developing" countries.

Cyan dye tracks benefit the environment -- it's that simple.
 

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Posted by Ted Costas (Member # 473) on 07-22-2004, 07:16 PM:
 
Where did anyone ever say that the studios save money by going cyan? If this was the case, the conversion would have happenned long ago. No.

"Mr. 3000" will be 100% Cyan. There will be no back-up prints for theatres that are not red light ready. Disney will release all it's films this way as of 2005. MGM has been successfully releasing in Cyan with a 50/50 method (half Cyan, half silver-applicated) since "Soul Plane."

Two more studios will be soon jumping on the bandwagon. We hope to have an announcement by ShowEast. That's four out of ten studios in 2004. By mid-way through next year, we'll have the other six, knock on wood. No studio is against it. The international territories have been stepping up their conversion efforts. Cyan releases have been successful to date, and even though Brad thinks the Woody Allen film doesn't count... it was the first fish in the pond, I don't believe I need to say "Anything Else," do I?

If you still are not red light ready, what are you waiting for? Hug that tree and let's get on with our lives.

I hate to say it, but, it is a done deal. The fat lady has sung. The rest is elementary, my dear Watson.

Yours, Ted
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-22-2004, 07:53 PM:
 

quote: Brad Miller

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to date no one has done 100% cyan on a major release. (Yes that's right, that Woody Allen film doesn't count.)

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quote: Bill Gabel

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My first print was High-Magenta. I have three High-Magenta prints and one Cyan print in my booth now.

We handle screenings for Woody Allen here in NYC.

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quote: Ed Inman

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when the last mainstream 35mm projector shuts down about all I will probably be able to say is that it's the end of an era

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... but by then, you'll be so old your eyesight won't be good enough to tell the difference...
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-29-2004, 02:41 AM:
 
Yeah, I'll just be happy to be alive.

Somebody remind me to start pirating DCinema satellite transmissions when I get some free time.
 

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Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-29-2004, 03:10 AM:
 
I think you guys are not looking at other "media", & what the big theatre chains are looking at. Astronomically increased equipment costs have not really been a detterent to moving to digital in TV & radio; but consolidation, distribution, less hands-on tech (including production) at the local level, tighter corporate control, adding non-traditional revenue, & flexibility in technically adapting programming to sales structures are what's driving it. TV & radio don't move stuff around much on reels & cassettes as much any more; radio almost none at all: Production houses are e-mailing spots as mp3's, music is stored on hard drives. Digital artifacts & other quality issues which compare VERY negatively to analog formats have not mattered at all in implementation.

I think that projection video in theatres is going to ramp up in the next decade. It already has outside the USA. Image quality is certainly not high on the list anymore for corporate, & apparently not for what they'll submit to an audience.

The independents & smaller chains can take a look at the red reader impositon to see that the smaller pieces get bitten off first. Doubtless for projection it will be when mandates, incentives or exclusives are given to theatres running video to save on distribution costs, even if it's discs over reels. That's what killed reel-to-reels in radio. In exhibition, this will matter a great deal as the product is heavily tied to the economics of a widespread distribution medium - they can't just decide to play CD's like independent, non-networked radio stations.
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 07-29-2004, 07:37 AM:
 
I still question why they won't help these guys out by putting it in both cyan and magenta (yellow having been ruled out as too crappy) which would double whatever signal there is (might need a scrap of IR filter over the cell).

They say 12dB down, right? If 6dB is half, does 12dB mean cut it half and then cut it in half again? And if so does that mean two layer dye-only would be down only 6dB? If that were true then cranking the bulbs and the pre-amp and it would be playable if noisy.

I ask not for myself as my place has had red LED (basement readers) for 5 or 6 years.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-29-2004, 05:28 PM:
 
I don't think using more dye layers would have anywhere near that much effect, if any, since solar cells are way more sensitive to IR than visible light.

Have you never tried playing an un-applicated conventional or high-magenta track? It sounds like absolute crap. No audience would pay to watch (well listen to) something like that, let alone ever return to your theatre.
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 07-29-2004, 11:42 PM:
 
And the downside to them doing cyan + magenta would be...?

Hypothetically two layers doubles the signal level. In reality it's not that much because an incandescent bulb is stronger in visible red than in green. (IR is not a factor and could be filtered if the strong DC bias off the cell is a problem--might vary with processor).

I am not advocating incorrect playback where people are being charged admission. I'm interested in backward compatibility and whether they are deliberately making it so many more dB incompatible for reasons that are political, not technical.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-30-2004, 08:23 PM:
 
Kitchen physics....

Thing of 10dB as a magic number...if something is said to be 10dB quieter it also means that it will sound 10-TIMES quieter too. So take what you are listening to, turn it down so it is seems like it is 10-times quieter...then turn it down just a smidge more (but enough so you notice the change)...that would be about 12-dB down.

Steve
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 07-30-2004, 11:02 PM:
 
Yeah but I have no way to conceptualize what 10 times quieter means.
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 08-02-2004, 10:26 PM:
 
Well, most stereo volume knobs are calibrated in log scale, because that's how the human ear scales volume (perceptual acoustics, etc.). So set your stereo on 10, and then turn it down to 1, and that's 10 times louder/softer. Or if you want to hear 12 dB, well, instead of a "this one goes to eleven," grab a 12dB stereo . Or turn it down to 0.8{3}.

--jhawk

p.s.: Hmm, the stereo in here goes to 21. Whopee!
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 08-02-2004, 10:29 PM:
 

quote: John Hawkinson

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So set your stereo on 10, and then turn it down to 1, and that's 10 times louder/softer.

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quote: Steve Kraus

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I will take the silence of Ted, John, and other proponents on the issue of two layer dye tracks as implicit acknowledgement that such a track would not be detrimental in any way to red light playback of the cyan layer...

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I was not silent. I already answered that playing a cyan+magenta dye track with a white light reader would give very unacceptable results, with ample experience from when a conventional track accidently had no soundtrack developer applied, or was applicated on the wrong side. I also noted that the yellow dye layer would be too unsharp and grainy.
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 08-03-2004, 10:44 PM:
 
There's still no downside to doing so.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 08-04-2004, 11:34 AM:
 
"There's still no downside to doing so." and there is still no advantage Also I think there may be so loss of sharpness ocusing on more than one layer. But Steve after your brothel comment I thought you would be encamped in the "Red Light District"
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 08-04-2004, 11:46 AM:
 
They don't call you the poet of Film-Tech for nothing!

We've only been focusing on two layers for half a century (since the advent of the applicated color positive print).
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 08-04-2004, 12:01 PM:
 
Some time ago I raised concerns along with several others over the poor HF response of the cat 69P test films
One of the local lab engineers here said that a dye + silver track will have poor HF response than a black and white silver track or a single dye layer due to light scatter
So in theory a cyan only track should exhibit better HF response than a two layer + silver one does
 

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