Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: CYAN Finally breaking through

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Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 06-13-2005, 02:14 AM:

Is it just in my country or is CYAN soundtracks finally making the breakthrough that was going on for the past years? So far in Cyprus counting - Winie The Pooh (latest) , The Pacifier, War Of The Worlds (not out yet but as per company's information), Batman Begins (not out yet but as per company's information). Anyone else spoted any titles that are completely Cyan? I have arranged to convert almost any cinema in Cyprus with the best of results thanks to a certain company's Basement Readers which are absolutely amazing.
D

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-13-2005, 01:16 PM:

Our Madagascar print is cyan. I thought Dreamworks had converted 100%. Not true?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-13-2005, 01:33 PM:

Most recent word from Dreamworks:

http://www.dyetracks.org/DreamWorksCanFlyer.pdf

The can flyer sent with Dreamworks "Surviving Christmas" noted the majority of prints produced were cyan tracks, but there were still some silver+dye tracks included "at random". The flyer noted this would continue from October 22nd 2004 onward.

(Note that "Mixed Inventory" is being used by some distributors so that after the first run, the silver+dye prints can be culled and sent to territories that still have a high percentage of old tungsten "white light" readers.)

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 06-14-2005, 01:40 AM:

It has been my experience that DW is 100% Cyan recently. We did not play Surviving Christmas, but for The Ring 2 and Madagascar each of my prints (2 of each) were cyan.

Buena Vista & Miramax appear to be 100% Cyan as well ... The Pacifier, Sin City, Hostage, Darkness were all cyan.

Posted by Ted Costas (Member # 473) on 06-30-2005, 07:28 PM:

Disney, DreamWorks and Miramax are 100% cyan ("Madagascar" was DreamWorks first 100% cyan pic, but thay have been big supporters of the program since day 1 with "Anything Else". Sony is going to continue with MGM's titles being cyan, even though they are releaseing them from here on out. New Line has a title they are considering in the next few months, and there are three other major studios that may do a test release before declaring an all out change as well.

Hopefully, by ShowEast we'll have some significant news on cyan adoption... but it's moving forward.

Yours, Ted

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-30-2005, 07:30 PM:

Yes, mine.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-30-2005, 07:49 PM:

I had a good laugh yesterday when I was calling to make appointments for my next service round.... that starts after the 4th..... only to find that a Drive Inn owner up north who has procrastinated way too long and has found out that he has a cyan print comming in tommrrow and no way in hell will I give up my 4th of July weekend.

Mark

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-01-2005, 03:03 AM:

LOL...I just got a BACP analogue reader installed at a drive-in just in time in my area before I hit the holiday wknd.

Course, they "paid the piper" with bad sound last week with a Dreamworks feature with cyan soundtrack running through an exciter lamp setup - yukky noisy sound..

-Monte

Posted by Paer Hoegberg (Member # 3133) on 07-01-2005, 04:59 AM:

OK, here in Sweden.

The Pacifier was first Cyan we received, Sin City 2nd.
- A Black and White movie with cyan track [Wink]

(War of the Worlds was not cyan).

Pär

Posted by Steph. Gadroy (Member # 3070) on 07-01-2005, 09:04 AM:

The firsts movies in France:
"Pooh's heffalamp movie", "The bridge of San luis Rey", "The Pacifier", "Madagascar" and recently some "Mr & Mrs Smith" trailers.

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 07-01-2005, 11:29 PM:

Hi Folks:

You mean the projectors don't use the traditional exciter lamps anymore? Just before I left the theatre industy it 1998 they had just come out with a red laser devise that duplicates what the old exciter lamps did. I guess I've been away too long.

Mike

Posted by Donny Miner (Member # 1590) on 07-02-2005, 12:52 AM:

Has anyone else received BEWITCHED with the 1st reel only being CYAN? I thought it was kind of odd... Why would they have both cyan and magenta?

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 07-03-2005, 06:57 PM:

Hey Donnie-

I had two prints of Bewitched, and one of them had the 5th reel cyan, the rest magenta.

Now, where are the rest of these cyan reels? [Big Grin]

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-04-2005, 06:08 PM:

I just installed the Wassman Reverse Scan kit on the eurokino35/70 machine in Elora Ontario that was caught delaying converting to red led. Interesting was that it used a conventional 3.5mm diameter LED as the light source not the standard array from Dolby
The unit worked well with lower film dirt noise than other units

Posted by Ted Costas (Member # 473) on 07-05-2005, 12:59 PM:

That was a test by Sony. They decided to do a small batch, approximately 500 prints, of the Bewitched release in cyan. I didn't know that prints would be mixed...? That is very interesting.

If this test went well, and I'm meeting with them this month to discuss the results, we may see another major studio geting behind this evironmentally-friendly, new technology.

Yours, Ted

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-05-2005, 01:28 PM:

quote: Ted Costas
I didn't know that prints would be mixed...?

Betcha Sony didn't know there would be mixed reels either. This sounds like a real screw-up at either the lab or the exchange.

Does SMPTE have any recommendation as to labeling the leader (although the track seems to be visual proof enough unless the projectionist is color blind)? At least during the transition period, one would think that cyan prints would be clearly and boldly marked, especially where there is a mixed inventory, so that the exchanges don't wind up mixing reels.

It would be interesting to hear the difference in sound quality in a print that has both reapplicated and cyan tracks. If there is no perceivable difference, that would pretty much put an end to the debate about the sound quality of cyan as opposed to silver.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-06-2005, 12:16 AM:

Only if both were optimized for red readers. Then it's a ringer for "no difference". Remember:

quote: John Pytlak

The optimum density for traditional (cyan + magenta + silver) tracks was different for white light (tungsten) readers and red LED readers, meaning that a print optimized for one, would have some distortion on the other. Cross-modulation distortion may cause voice passages to contain an excessive amount of sibilant distortion. That is, many of the sibilant speech sounds (s, sh, ch, z, etc.) and some of the voiced and voiceless stop sounds (B, P, and T) will be distorted and spitty.

It's another summer of film series running silver tracks on red readers, & the musicals (which are what put butts in the seats) are affected most - they sound like crap in the upper freqs. The assumption is made & sometimes even announced that "old movies just sound that way", & it's more attendance dropoff for summer movies. You first run guys think you're having a tough year; three theaters running classic films on amazing! new! high-tech! install-them-or-go-dark! red readers are having a second-summer slump of about 1/2 attendance. And yes, I heard audience comments about the sound in the lobbies last year.

Now that mandated red readers have made film in classic venues sound so much crappier, it looks like the only way to bring presentation back up is installing a (Dolby-partnered surely! Or Kodak!) digital projector. What an interesting progression.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-06-2005, 05:29 AM:

I know plenty of venues which are still happily running white-light exciters....

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-06-2005, 06:08 AM:

I have always installed the Kelmar-branded red reader.

I have never, ever installed one (versus tungsten) that there was not a significant improvement in distortion and high frequency response. Yes, the original was optimized. This was even noticed by every manager and non-technical person involved.

The most common response was: "Oh, you've installed Digital."

Since I am not there, I must assume that something is not optimum if you are not satisfied.

As regards mixed prints the RED LED is supposed to play all prints, old, new, cyan, magenta very well. Data is on www.dye-tracks.com.

Louis

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-06-2005, 06:50 AM:

Louis,

Kelmar or anyone elses red light reader will sound inferior on traditional sound tracks. It is a fact...it has to do with cross mod distortion. Yes, the reverse scan reader will have superior HF response and less/no cross talk so decoding the 2:4 matrix will be improved...but the spittiness and down right "clipped" sounding distortion is unavoidable.

Red light readers work on High Magenta and cyan tracks...not so well on tranditional cyan+magenta+silver tracks.

Cyan tracks seem to also be a bit inconsistant...some sound okay...some a bit noisy and thin. But then again, cyan was never about quality.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-06-2005, 07:10 AM:

quote: Steve Guttag
Cyan tracks seem to also be a bit inconsistant...some sound okay...some a bit noisy and thin. But then again, cyan was never about quality.

Inconsistant how? From title to title, print to print, reel to reel, or within a reel?

Still haven't seen a single frame of cyan film, but after a gap of three months I'm doing a couple of projection shifts this Friday and Saturday, and two of the films are recent, mainstream ones, so maybe one of them will have it.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-06-2005, 08:55 AM:

Having not sat through an entire film while listening to just the analog sound...I can't claim for sure...but certainly on a reel by reel basis there can be issues.

Even those that are still running white light readers have some prints that play (by increasing the volume) while some that does not work so well. If all was consistent, the results should have been consistent, regardless.

I would suspect that some labs are doing a better job than others. With cyan it just seems to show up more dramatically.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-06-2005, 09:27 AM:

I thought that cyan was supposed to _improve_ the consistency of soundtrack printing. [Confused]

Posted by Dieter Depypere (Member # 3184) on 07-06-2005, 09:36 AM:

I am not happy with this visible red light. The analog soung of projector #2 is a lot louder than the analog sound of projector #1 (changeover operation!).

While with the traditional exciter lamp an adjustment can be made by simply turning the lamp, the new readers can't be adjusted at all!?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-06-2005, 12:41 PM:

Dieter...that is not true. The sound system should have the ability to balance both projectors precisely. Furthermore, most, if not all LED based reader systems I've worked with give the ability to vary the LED intensity.

Scott, nothing about cyan is about improving (except the envirnoment in a minisule way)...the rest of it is simply a lowering of quality. Fortunately, for most systems, reverse scan readers have come along for the ride so there are improvements in frequency repsponse and descreteness...but these have nothing to do with red light or cyan tracks.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-07-2005, 12:32 AM:

Hence, in all the booths I work, we'll keep the white readers until the cyan comes home. In the one venue that I work that HAS red excitement, the sound unfortunately can't be locked down as it is in a booth -- it's an outdoor venue and the cinema processor outputs to the sound guy and his massive system. And what does he say EVERY sound check we do for EVERY old beat vintage prints? "Damn Frankie, that sounds like ka-ka." And he is one of the best; he can make anything sound awesome -- except, he reminds me, "essy" sibilence. It's tempting enough to pull them and put in the old unrevered, unscrewed- screwed-around-with white exciters.

Next show we have -- THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Probably get between 3,000, 4,000 people. Just makes me sad they are all going to have to listen to. "The hillssssss are alive with the sssssound of mussssssic." [Mad]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-07-2005, 12:58 AM:

A carefully eq'd (around 3-6kHz) compressor side-chain, with the compressor set for a fairly fast attack and moderate release time, a hard knee and about 6:1 compression (resulting in 3 to 6 dB of compression to the sibilance), should take care of the majority of any sibilance.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-07-2005, 01:26 AM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
As regards mixed prints the RED LED is supposed to play all prints, old, new, cyan, magenta very well. Data is on www.dye-tracks.com.

The problem was identified very early, & the incompatibility being insurmountable, was actively not furthermore discussed or publicized by the Cyan Track Committee, the purpose of which was to get cyan tracks & red readers universally adopted.

"Following a show of Red Alert, Andrew Wales presented some examples of variable density
analogue tracks printed normally, with high magenta, and cyan dye. For each track type there
were three examples at slightly different densities. The subject matter was Moulin Rouge
dating from the early 50s and the tests were played using a red light reader. As expected
the normal tracks sounded particularly poor, with very quiet, distorted, and spitty sound"
-- from http://www.dyetracks.org/reports/minutes/2001/TechnicolorFilmService.meeting.min.0301.html

The problem is distracting with sibilants in speech, but in music with complex harmonics & waveforms at those frequencies, it's grating. Violins, cymbal crashes, upper end of the piano - distortion that leads to fatigue. As far as summer classic movies go, it's musicals that put butts in the seats, they attract a predominantly female demo (who consent or bring dates, families, etc.), & females were shown by Bell Labs to be most sensitive to distortion in upper frequencies & developing 'listener fatigue'.

The Cyan Tracks Committee were always fast to make global statements such as 'this will be an improvement across the board as theaters must now replace tungsten readers with improved reverse-scan technology'; but the response to the XM distortion question is only that soundtracks must be optimized, evading the statement that theaters running library titles with silver tracks on red readers will have degraded sound quality, distorted in music & speech sibilants. First run venues, install or die! Classic films venues, kiss off!

The topic was beat to death here in the this thread, this thread, & elsewhere.

For first-run & theaters that don't also show rep/library titles, the transition was made less noticeable with high-magenta.

quote:
While with the traditional exciter lamp an adjustment can be made by simply turning the lamp, the new readers can't be adjusted at all!?

This sounds more like a problem in adjustment at the sound processor or the A-chain generally than red readers particularly, unless there's a red reader on projector 1 & tungsten forward-scan reader on projector 2, in which case the difference in response may make one sound 'louder' than the other.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-08-2005, 06:55 AM:

quote: Daryl C. W. O'Shea
A carefully eq'd (around 3-6kHz) compressor side-chain, with the compressor set for a fairly fast attack and moderate release time, a hard knee and about 6:1 compression (resulting in 3 to 6 dB of compression to the sibilance), should take care of the majority of any sibilance.

Daryl, compression might lessen the level of the errant frequency, but louder than normal "SSSS" sounds are not only louder than normal in this situation, but they are also distorted. No amount of compression will fix that. I know that distorted ess sound; it's teeth-grindingly unpleasant.

I am still trying to find out from whence this print of SOUND OF MUSIC is coming from that they booked. If it is a print that has been struck recently, then hopefully it should be optimized properly for red and standard SRD tracks. Thing is, I haven't heard of any new SOM prints remixed with optical stereo sound, be it any of the sound letters: A, SR, SRD, DTS, SDDS. My biggest nightmare is that our audience will be treated not only to distorted esses, but to MONO sound as well.

The last time I ran this title it was in the late 80s and all that was left were battered mono prints with horribly distorted soundtracks -- prints that I am sure were lab reject that Fox gave to Films Inc. In fact, the sound was so badly distorted that I assumed it had to be our system, until I looked really close at the soundtrack. In the church/marriage sequence, with the church organ bellowing out the instrumental organ version of "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria," under a loupe you could see that the soundtrack hills were actually flat -- square-waved off, while the valleys were completely disconnected, i.e., the zero point of each wave was not connected to the one before or after it. Gee, maybe if I am lucky I'll get one of THOSE prints. Then I won't have any choice but to jump out of the tower. Or, perhaps try something equally as ludicrous -- try to sync the DVD sound to the film. [Eek!]

Anyone know off hand of a DVD player that allows you to change the speed but not the pitch of the playback?....wouldn't THAT be a bitch!

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-08-2005, 07:55 AM:

quote: Daryl C. W. O'Shea
A carefully eq'd (around 3-6kHz) compressor side-chain, with the compressor set for a fairly fast attack and moderate release time, a hard knee and about 6:1 compression (resulting in 3 to 6 dB of compression to the sibilance), should take care of the majority of any sibilance.

The problem isn't sibilance; it's distortion in the frequency range of the sibilants. You can't eq that out. "The Hilllsschh are alive with the tschound of muszhik..."

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-08-2005, 08:57 AM:

Maybe I should make a 2 channel optical penthouse equipped with digital delay?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-08-2005, 09:08 AM:

William wrote "The Hilllsschh are alive with the tschound of muszhik"
Actually at the premier of the film Plummer discovered for the first time they had redubbed his singing and said it should be called the sound of mucus

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-08-2005, 12:20 PM:

Louis, that concept has already been broached (And even done to some degree by BACP and Kinoton).

However, many venues that want the ability to play older titles also are 2-projector (or more)...as such one would need up to 4-projectors minimum of preamp (with level and changeover control). Remember too, that both sets of soundheads would need full 2:4 decoding with A or SR noise reduction.

I'm not saying it can't be done (easier with some systems than others) but that it isn't just a matter of a penthouse optical reader on a delay to overcome the problem.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 07-08-2005, 05:37 PM:

Hey, Steve, what about Dolby Field Bulletin #186: "CP65 Modification for Four Projectors"?

Wouldn't that do the trick? [Big Grin]

--jhawk

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-08-2005, 05:44 PM:

Hey the complete CP200 can handle 4 projectors right out of the box and a CP100 cpould be configured to do it too

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-08-2005, 11:11 PM:

Hey John, I said this could be done easier with some units than others.

Gordy...so at the AFI...a place that one would expect to run older traditional films...they have four projectors on their CP200 already...so even the mighty CP200 has enough inputs to handle this debacle. We will probably set up two machines with IR and two with visible red. The other two theatres also run classic films but do not have either CP200s or CP65s...they are Panastereo CSP1200/CSP4600 and pretty well loaded.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-09-2005, 08:36 AM:

Simple solution get one of those old teccon preamp trays with there optical preamp card and wiret to the mag b input [Smile]

sorry steve just pulling your chain

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-09-2005, 05:37 PM:

Actually Gord...Mag B is so full of sources already...that there is a Pana MP64 with line cards in it to allow multiple sources.

Posted by Marin Zorica (Member # 1716) on 07-10-2005, 07:40 AM:

I.ve already installed home-made red led readers in mine projectors and everything is ok, sound is same like with magenta, i watch already couple of film in cyan and i can tell you there are no difference.

What do you think about that home-made red led?? with luxeon elements?

Posted by Miguel Garcia (Member # 2443) on 07-11-2005, 05:17 AM:

To Gordon McLeod.

Dear Gordon, in reference to your post about the Wassman Reverse Scan kit, I have to agree with you, and make clear that the kit is not from Wassman but from SAX, a cinema projection manufacture company from Spain.

you can find them at: www.cinematografiasax.com

best wishes

Miguel Garcia

Posted by Dieter Depypere (Member # 3184) on 07-11-2005, 05:46 AM:

quote: William Hooper
This sounds more like a problem in adjustment at the sound processor or the A-chain generally than red readers particularly, unless there's a red reader on projector 1 & tungsten forward-scan reader on projector 2, in which case the difference in response may make one sound 'louder' than the other.

Both projectors are FP6 (Philips) with Siemens Klangfilm analog sound readers. The guy who modified the sound readers simply removed the exciter lamps with the optic systems and replaced it with laser thingys (both the same as in that pic:).

The "Processor" is a Siemens Klangfilm tube preamp which seems not to have been modified.
There is no manual here and I even don't have an idea where the power source is (as it has changed).

Any ideas?

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 07-11-2005, 08:40 AM:

That is a Swiss ACL laser retrofit and generally is powered by a "wall wart" plug in transformer.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-11-2005, 09:33 AM:

I am told that there were a few SR prints of TSOM struck and if we are lucky, we will get one. So the specter of distorted high frequencies thanks to the one flaw in the red/cyan system won't apply here, or will it?

There can still be a question of what kind of soundtrack will be on the print....one optimized for red or one for white? Is it not possible that a SR print could still have been made early enough so that it was optimized for red exciters or is this problem only with prints that go back to the Dolby A era. Or does it only apply to Academy Mono tracks?

Whatever the case, again I say that when they changed the characteristics of the soundtrack so it would play properly with red exciters, KNOWING that there would then be soundtracks out there that will NOT play properly with those red exciters, from that point on, the prints with the new characteristics should have been plainly marked, and it should have been publicized extensively.

From what I see, what they did instead, was to ignore this significant difference and make it sound like ALL types of soundtracks were completely compatible with both red/reversed and white/forward exciters. And we know they are not. So, without any kind of specific identification on the print itself, projectionists are left to guess, will this soundtrack sound like crap or not. Not making it clear how a soundtrack is optimized, IMHO, is the equivalent of not indicating if a track is encoded A or SR -- just let the booth guy guess. It's completely irresponsible.

It is conceivable that in special situations like ours where each engagement is treated and publicized as an "CinEvent" where we are presenting the film to large audiences, we would indeed swap out the red readers for white and do an alignment for such and engagement so that a print with a "white" soundtrack would play back properly. I am sure many venues would welcome this information so they could choose to go that extra step so that classic titles could be properly enjoyed by their audiences. Or does the industry just hawk those "100 greatest films of all time" lists, not because they want new generations to experience our film heritage or is it just to sell DVDs?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-11-2005, 09:58 PM:

Miguel Garcia The manual from wassman was labled Elementos de Diseno pura el Espectaculo SL

Posted by Miguel Garcia (Member # 2443) on 07-12-2005, 04:56 AM:

Dear Mr.Gordon, Wassman is a branch of the company “Elementos de Diseño para el Espectáculo”.
“SAX”, cinematographic machinery, was the old factory for “Hispania”, that used to make cinema projectors. In the present time this company does not make projectors, its industrial activity corresponds to the manufacture, under order, of components of precision for cinema projectors of any mark.
“SAX”, cinematographic machinery, makes the Kit “revers scan” for Eurokino Wassman, by express request of the company “Elementos de Diseño para el Espectáculo”.
The technical and mechanical project of this Kit was developed by Mr. Pacual Leal (mechanical Technician for SAX).
The optical and electronic project of that same Kit, was developed by Mr. Mieczylaw Jakimow (electronic Technician for SAX).

Warm greetings.
Miguel García.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-12-2005, 07:20 AM:

Very interesting
The wassman eurokino in itself is an interesting machine and one that has stood up over here very well

Posted by Miguel Garcia (Member # 2443) on 07-13-2005, 05:57 AM:

Dear Gordon,

Certain, the Eurokino 35/70 Wassman, is an interesting projector, and its original design corresponds to the classic factory Ernemann. The remanufacturación of this projector in Spain corresponded to the Wassman company.

There is another version of this same projector made in the old Czech Republic, the difference in the Czech version is that this projector is of smaller luminosity due to differences in time of exposure.

When the optical tower is of star, we can have problems with objectives of short focal length.

The reverse scan Kit for cyan made in Spain is very simple and practical, the LED diode of conventional type, is very easy to change.

regards.
Miguel Garcia

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-13-2005, 10:33 PM:

" I was told that Wassman worked for ernaman at one point and was licensed to the design
In the late sixtys when Zies Ikon had problems get the favorite 35/70 from Prevost they shipped over here wassmans instead

Posted by Miguel Garcia (Member # 2443) on 07-15-2005, 06:21 AM:

Gordon,

I do not know the reasons by which Eurokinos 70, instead of Favorit 70, were sent to Canada. I suppose that it would be a purely economic question of valuation in those dates of the cost in Italian liras or Spanish pesetas.

On the subject you comment on which Wassman worked during a time with Ernemann, indeed it is certain, Wassman settled down in Spain like Ernemann technical service in 1906, becoming a independent manufacturer of spare parts for projectors of Ernemann cinema in the years of World War I since the spare parts coming from Germany were scarce.

These same circumstances happened during the second world war, and later by when part of the Zeiss Ikon facilities were behind the soviet territories. It is for that reason that the Wassman company felt like victim when Zeiss Ikon ordered its projector Favorit 70 to the Prevost company, which meant a rupture of relations between Wassman and Zeiss Ikon.

When Zeiss Ikon definitively left its interests in Ernemann, Wassman has returned to be collaborating and distributing Ernemann products.

Anyway, with or without collaboration of Ernemann, Wassman has been and is providing supplies of Ernemann, made in Spain during for almost 100 years.

Kindest regards

Miguel Garcia

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-19-2005, 05:22 PM:

Was 'Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy' cyan in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter? I'm doing a short projection shift on Friday evening, just the last two films of the day, and this will be one of them. If it is, then it will be the first cyan print I've seen.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-19-2005, 05:36 PM:

Based on the "REEL ID" forum...Hitchhiker's Guide was cyan on some prints, if not all.

Posted by Alexander Smith (Member # 1769) on 07-20-2005, 08:08 AM:

FWIW the print of HHGTTG we ran was cyan. Sorry I
don't have the copy number to hand.

Alex.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-23-2005, 05:19 AM:

Well, I ran my first cyan print last night; no problems, sounded fine. In a spare few minutes between shows I ran the trailer, which had a conventional track, and I couldn't hear any difference. Only one print, on one type of reader, but so far, so good.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 07-23-2005, 11:09 AM:

Surprisingly enough - my print of The Island was not cyan.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 07-23-2005, 11:29 AM:

My print of the Island wasn't cyan either... I though Dreamworks was 100% cyan now?

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-24-2005, 02:37 AM:

100% cyan only means that 100% of the reels they decide to be cyan will be cyan. It doesn't mean all the prints will have cyan tracks, heck it doesn't even mean all of the reels in a print will be cyan (not common but it has happened more than a few times to people).

I've yet to see a cyan print of War of the Worlds.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 07-24-2005, 02:40 AM:

War Of The Worlds is Paramount, at least in the US

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-24-2005, 02:57 AM:

Yeah, Paramount is only distributing it in the US. DreamWorks has the worldwide distribution (along with UIP).

Now that I think of it, I may some how have one print that is half a US print and half a Canadian print... possibly with reels from both Technicolor and Deluxe.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-25-2005, 03:26 AM:

quote: Stephen Furley
Well, I ran my first cyan print last night; no problems, sounded fine. In a spare few minutes between shows I ran the trailer, which had a conventional track, and I couldn't hear any difference. Only one print, on one type of reader, but so far, so good.

Obviously, you ran it on a red reader, or the cyan track would have sounded awful.

The current trailer with a 'conventional track' is not the same as a pre-1997 'conventional track' because it was printed with a high-magenta track, which was/is a compromised silver applicated track created for the 'transition period' to cyan so that the audio quality would be equally degraded on white-light/IR readers & on red readers, as the sound quality of conventional silver tracks would have been unacceptably degraded on the red readers being sold during the transition period (which is still going on, not the least as defined by the fact that conventional tracks continue to be printed in high-magenta now).

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-25-2005, 07:05 AM:

Yes, read readers. Not sure what type, they're not reverse scan and not Jaxlights, the light source is in the original Kinoton exciter lamp housing, Possibly some sort of laser? I'll have to have a better look sometime. When I look through the adverts and trailers reel now it's a long way from being all high magenta, but probably more than half. I thought the HGTTG trailer was conventional, i.e. not high magenta, but I may be mistaken, I fished it out of the pile of previous trailers and ran it very quickly in the few minutes before the audience came in for the next show.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 08-13-2005, 02:40 PM:

Is there any information out there about when (if) any of the other major studios will be adopting cyan?

After all the wailing and knashing over this (and we made sure we were ready well before the first one came out), it sure seems strange that the studios are moving so slowly.

Will this be something the exhibs will remember, when the next technological gee-whiz comes along?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-14-2005, 07:18 PM:

quote: Jack Ondracek
Is there any information out there about when (if) any of the other major studios will be adopting cyan?

Ted Costas of Dolby is probably most aware of the studio plans for conversion to cyan dye analog tracks. I see Sony is on board with "Bewitched".

Posted by Thomas Dieter (Member # 2507) on 11-18-2005, 12:01 PM:

I was wanting to know if anyone has had ever noticed, or had a problem with the Cyan track being larger than your traditional silver dye tracks. It seems to me that all our prints we get end up having a cyan tint on the left hand side of the screen. Not noticable in dark scenes, but it is in lighter scenes.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 11-18-2005, 12:26 PM:

quote: Thomas Dieter
I was wanting to know if anyone has had ever noticed, or had a problem with the Cyan track being larger than your traditional silver dye tracks. It seems to me that all our prints we get end up having a cyan tint on the left hand side of the screen. Not noticable in dark scenes, but it is in lighter scenes.

Check your projected image area with the SMPTE 35-PA test film (RP 40).

The actual printed area for the cyan track is identical to the old dye+silver track -- it's done on the same printers from a sound negative exposed on the same equipment, so the position did not change. But since silver is not being developed in that area, the analog track is cyan rather than dark magenta or blue. So if you are accidently showing the track area, it is more obvious. If anything, the old silver application sometimes intruded into the picture area if the soundtrack developer spread into the wrong area.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 11-19-2005, 06:58 AM:

I previewed an old Greek Film from the 70's, one of the first coloured greek films in a friends cinema where I converted it to a BACP Reverse scan and it sounded perfect. Crisp and crystal clear with no distortion. I am not really sure why some say that it creates a problem with old/classic films.
D

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-19-2005, 09:33 AM:

Demetris,

You clearly have not run that many conventional sound tracks with red readers for if you did you WOULD have heard the nasty clipping like distortion that is the hallmark of crossmod distortion. It can be so bad that shows are cancelled (though I haven't found it to be that bad I have had some pretty strong complaints...so strong, we have converted the room to IR LEDs to avoid the problem...in fact they universally claim that all films now sound better).

If you have an original DTS Buzz and Bill film (ours is from the 1993 era so I don't know if they have updated for high-magenta or cyan) then that film can really show the cross mod distortion...just run it in plain old "A" NR as it was recorded and listen...very harsh....then play it with either white light or IR and give it a listen...very clean.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 07-25-2006, 03:18 PM:

We just played House of Wax 3D. The sound on our red readers was very screechy until we put a blue gel in the light path. Sounded normal with the gel...had to bump the volume from 6 to
8.5 to compensate though.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-25-2006, 03:45 PM:

quote: Bill Enos
We just played House of Wax 3D. The sound on our red readers was very screechy until we put a blue gel in the light path. Sounded normal with the gel...had to bump the volume from 6 to 8.5 to compensate though.

If you have red LED readers, all that a blue gel will do is attenuate the light level. The red LEDs used in name brand readers have a relatively narrow output spectrum, centered near 660 nm with little light outside the 600-700 nanometer range. So I'm a bit surprised that a blue gel would affect image-spread related distortion. Do you use a name-brand red LED reader, or is it "home brew"?