Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: WARNING for prints of "RV"

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-27-2006, 08:54 PM:

Looks like someone at Deluxe forgot all about the SRD track on reel 1 of RV. If the print in front of me is missing it, odds are there are many others out there without it.

Everyone, check your prints. (Do note that just because there are dark squares in between the sprockets, that does not mean it is an SRD track.) Below is a picture of a few frames from my reel 1 without the SRD track.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 04-27-2006, 09:22 PM:

AND they printed it upside down!

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 04-27-2006, 09:28 PM:

This is not a fluke. In order to cut the cost of print film stock, Kodak has stopped coating the emulsion between the sprocket holes.

I'm sure John will comment on this...

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-27-2006, 09:30 PM:

Really strange [Eek!]

--- the density between the perfs shows the soundhead printing light for the Dolby Digital area was on, so the sound negative must have just been clear in the Dolby Digital area. If so, all prints of that reel are affected.

As Phil well knows, Kodak only leaves the emulsion off between the perfs on the side OPPOSITE the Dolby Digital track. [Wink]

(Actually, film is sensitized as "wide rolls" about 54 inches across, from which 38 35mm strips are slit.)

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-27-2006, 09:32 PM:

D-Cinema would never have this problem because digital is perfect. [beer]

Wait - A digital soundtrack is missing??!! Error! Error! This can't be happening! [Eek!]

Posted by Markus Lemm (Member # 3456) on 04-27-2006, 10:57 PM:

Thats funny.

I've never seen a print like that before but I remember the prints of 'Crash' that we played had DTS discs but no DTS timecode on the prints. Not sure if it is a Canadian print issue but I personally handled 3 different prints and they all had DTS discs but no timecode.

Posted by Chad M Calpito (Member # 3736) on 04-27-2006, 11:10 PM:

Thanks for the information, Brad [Smile]

I'll make sure that my other projectionists know about it as well.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-28-2006, 04:05 AM:

Well, if there was a whole run of these Dolby D-less prints, then chances are it might be a bit of a stretch to think Technicolor can round up a slew of replacement reels overnight. This is a good reason why that SR part of the Dolby SR-D system is tweaked out working to the very best it can be, unless you just want to cancel until you can get a good R1.

No reason why the SR analog shouldn't sound nearly as good as the digital track -- most people won't tell the difference, and besides, by the time they sit through 5 other digital reels playing correctly, they won't even remember that it was only analog for the first 18 minutes. Never be afraid of the analog track. [thumbsup]

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 04-28-2006, 02:39 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
Never be afraid of the analog track

Unless you use Cat. 222 SR/A cards, IMHO.

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 04-28-2006, 05:12 PM:

Remember when the distributors would only put a certain digital track on a certain feature? I seem to remember someone put DD on the first few reels of 'Air Force One' before it was realized it wasn't wanted.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-29-2006, 08:06 AM:

So are replacement reels being issued? [Confused]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 04-29-2006, 03:22 PM:

Got mine Friday afternoon. I wonder if the studio didn't already know this was a problem and had prints on standby.

I'm going to laugh at the theaters with multiple sound formats (screened in dts and then later moved to srd to this wonderful surprise). [Razz]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-30-2006, 01:12 AM:

No problem here, other than that they shorted me my DTS disk. Spent a few minutes, listening to the ETS guy in California telling me that it was UPS's fault (??).

I'll call the local depot on monday... glad that screen has Dolby. Otherwise, I'd have had to feed lesser-quality SR into my FM transmitter, then to the consistent quality of my discerning customers' FM radios (Sorry, Frank!) [evil]

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 05-02-2006, 05:46 PM:

Is that scope?

This must be Barry Sonnenfeld's first scope movie.

Posted by Martin Ubilluz (Member # 3769) on 05-03-2006, 11:35 PM:

I think that was just your print. Im Head of projection at my theater and our print was fine and the prints our 6 other theaters got were fine all cyan and digital

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 05-03-2006, 11:48 PM:

They probably just did that to see if Brad would notice. Just tick with SDDS, then you don't have these problems.

Posted by Alexander Smith (Member # 1769) on 06-08-2006, 03:49 AM:

Here in the UK Columbia have taken the el-cheapo option of
re-using prints, so we have copy USA0207 which has the full
set of SRD/DTS/SDDS sound formats.

I watched it last night, because there's some minor damage to
the analogue part of the soundtrack. It didn't affect the sound
playback though. I've recommended that this is reported to our
film booker, just so no-one further down the line can blame us
for damaging the print.

Alex.

Posted by Thomas King (Member # 2745) on 06-08-2006, 10:20 AM:

We had an ads tag once where there was a printed SRD soundtrack, but it was mute. The projectionist on the night was new; and reacted well; he put it into SR. Which worked fine for two seconds, before the dolby box automatically switched back up to SRD.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 06-09-2006, 03:17 AM:

we've gotten a few trailers like that. interestingly, there's a blinking "_" on the error readout on the da20 when that happens, so it seems it knows there's something up but it doesn't switch to sr on its own.

if you're set for auto digital then you just have to turn off the light on the srd reader. otherwise you can put cues at the start and end of the trailer to switch sound formats, which is a pain but you only have to do it once.