Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Garden State- no DTS discs

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Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 08-26-2004, 08:04 AM:

Steve Scott posted in the Feature Info & Trailer Attachments Forum that his print of Garden State came without DTS discs.

I have been told by our local ETS depot that Fox Searchlight does not release their prints in DTS. While the print may have the timecode on it, it is not a release in DTS.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 08-26-2004, 09:32 AM:

we had the same issue with Without a Paddle...

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 08-26-2004, 09:55 AM:

Fox Searchlight does that with some titles. They have released the same titles in Canada with DTS discs.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 08-26-2004, 09:56 AM:

Do they just not release the disks, or do they never actually print them. Is trying to order them out of the question?

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 08-26-2004, 10:00 AM:

They strike the discs, but they only make them available in different markets than the US. It sounds strange but thats what they have done on a few titles in the past. If Fox did not send them to ETS. And ETS does not have them then they are not available in this region.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 08-26-2004, 10:04 AM:

that's odd...especially if we have to run it on a screen that has only SDDS and DTS; you'd think we'd be safe, but I guess not anymore.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 08-26-2004, 10:11 AM:

We have seen odder things come out of the studios. The original studio prints that I have screened of "Garden State", had no DTS timecode on them. But I've been screening this picture since earlier this year. They cut the picture in our building here in NY.

Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 08-26-2004, 11:49 AM:

Perhaps they didn't want to spend the money for the english language discs, but they did want an easy option for dubbed non-english versions and for DTS electronic subtitling.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-26-2004, 12:01 PM:

quote: Bill Gabel
We have seen odder things come out of the studios.

All though I can't recall the title, I do remember seeing a letter in the can which said that eventhough there was an SDDS track on the print, it admonished you NOT to play the SDDS track: "due to contractual reasons, the SDDS track may not be played when exhibiting this picture." I though, yeah, like the guy who just spent $9,000 on his SDDS playback equipment isn't going to play the SDDS digital track.

Is Fox saying that ONLY the DTS discs should be used for sound playback in Canada? That might make sense if there are some unusual rights arrangements, for example if some music cuts were only licensed for the USA and so the non-USA release required a different sound mix; using DTS would be an ideal fix rather than having to strike non-USA print inventories. But of course that could only be the reason if Fox was insisting that ONLY the DTS discs be use for the soundtrack up there.

----------

Damn, Joe beat me to it.

Posted by Daniel Schulz (Member # 1881) on 08-26-2004, 02:43 PM:

Garden State was not licensed by Searchlight as a DTS release. Without A Paddle was a DTS show, however. Dean, can you tell me which ETS depot advised you discs were not available?

Thanks.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 08-26-2004, 10:45 PM:

they just weren't sent with our prints....both of them actually, and one we've had for well over a month from a screening. Very rare for us....we ALWAYS get the disks

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 08-27-2004, 04:19 AM:

Our theater uses almost exclusively DTS, with the exception of two screens equipped with DD. This means when companies decide not to release prints with DTS discs (like Garden State), our presentation is forced to play in analog sound if we cannot play them in our DD screens.

I actually used to be a big fan of DTS, but now I think DD is the way to go.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 08-27-2004, 09:17 AM:

Many of the films we run for Miramax, Fox Searchlight, Focus and other studios, use mainly SRD as their digital soundtrack. These prints are from countries from all over world. When I do media screenings we almost never use DTS. Because I get prints, months before release. About 99% of the time the media reviews films with a SRD track or SR only. That leave DTS [sleep]

at the gate. I handle many of the New York media screenings for all the major networks and news paper print media.
But I've been told DTS discs are not locked in till much later and that's why they are not available till almost the release date of the picture. [sleep]

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-27-2004, 03:17 PM:

But Bill, the only thing that really matters to the theatre owner in terms of the viability of the DTS format, is that the DTS discs are ready by the release date. Quite frankly, if a bunch of media press guys who are first plyed with wine and cheese & finger sandwiches only get to see the press screening with SRD, or even SR (I'll bet your screening room sounds pretty damn impressive even in SR, right?), hey, then who cares? These guys are getting to see it for free anyway. [Wink]

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 09-02-2004, 07:59 PM:

Like I said, it had timecode, but no discs. Or maybe I left that out... [uhoh]

Anyway, the copyright date on the feature is 2003, I assume that's the completion & first release date, where ever it was. So, maybe Fox Searchlight was holding over, waiting to see how big the film would get, and just like Fahrenheit 9/11, open up the soundtrack capabilities based on how big the movie got. Since it's not getting that big in its scope of release, they've decided to just stick with what they had to begin with, leaving us only a timecode track to show what might have been?

That's my storybook version of the issue [Big Grin]

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 09-02-2004, 08:24 PM:

My situtation is similar to Bill's. I used to play DTS if I got the disks just to do something different from the almost constant use of SR•D but I havent bothered in a long time. DTS where there is no SR•D is all but nonexistent.