quote: John Hawkinson was the last to post

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Simple test, see if the rear of the theater has speakers on the walls. If so you had SDDS-8 and DTS-ES should be using those rear speakers.

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Uh, no. Speakers on the wall has nothing to do with SDDS 8. As the second post says, SDDS has 5 behind the screen. The only person who likes 5 behind the screen is Steve Guttag. So it is likely that all of his SDDS houses are setup for 5.1.
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 04-24-2007, 09:01 PM:
 
Umm, Joe, notice I was quoting (and refuting) Dominic.

--jhawk
 

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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 04-24-2007, 09:07 PM:
 
The board software automatically reads back and inserts "xxx was the last to post" when you use the quote function ... Which you'd know if you ever cared to properly quote something.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-25-2007, 12:48 AM:
 
Lets back up the bus
sdds install by itself doesn't dictate any specific surround array
It can be configured to mono surround as weel
It is best to get your service engineer to make the choice if something is going to be changes

also steve is not the only person on this forum who likes 5 screen channels
 

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-25-2007, 06:27 AM:
 
I like 5 screen channels, too!

The correct way to determine if EX is wired is to see how many amplifier channels are used for the surrounds. There have to be 4 channels. Although that in itself doesn't *necessarily* mean they are wired in an EX fashion. But many system designers like to split up the surrounds into L, R, Lback, and R back and then use several speakers in parallel to bring the overall impedance down and gain more power from the amps. So, if there are only 2 channels (as in one stereo amplifier), you can forget that then and there. If there are more, you have to figure out how they are wired to the speakers. You will typically also find a J-box on the wall with terminal strips where the speaker wires are landed and connected to the ones coming from the amp. That usually tells you a lot.
If you have a J-box in which all the wires are landed but there are only 2 channels wired inside, you can still add one amp and rewire there.

Although I personally don't think it's really worth it. The EX thing was more a gag. When you have well set up and tuned stereo surrounds, you get a very similarly spacious effect, at least in central seats.
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 04-28-2007, 08:53 PM:
 
So, I was reading EG18-1999 yesterday, and apparently it recommends 5 screen channels, switching L/R between the outer two (for scope) and the next-in pair (for flat). Does anyone actually do that (perhaps people who have SDDS-8 anyhow?)?

--jhawk
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-28-2007, 08:59 PM:
 
That was an option on the cp200 that in all our THX installations way back when was mandatory
 

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-28-2007, 09:30 PM:
 
We did that in Berlin in a few screens which had 8-channel SDDS. Just because we had the speakers there anyway and we could. But with reasonably acoustically transparent masking, it really makes hardly a difference.
We also fed some of the LF information from the attached DTS-6D to the LE and RE channels, in "baby boom" fashion, that was really nice, too, it added a little richness to the bass, but again, it was more for shits and giggles than a really drastic and generally noticeable improvement.
Just like EX, you can do these things, but you don't have to. A nicely configured and set up "standard system" is really just as good and satisfying.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-28-2007, 10:51 PM:
 
Virtually all of my 5-screen channel theatres use LC/RC for 1.85 and narrower ratios. If you can't hear the difference, either your hearing sucks or your tuning does.

More recent examples of our installations with 5-screen channels that switch narrow down for smaller ratios include the AFI/Silver in theatres #1 and #2, the NCTA theatre where Video is the primary format and the screen full open is 16:9. LC/RC are in use there for 4:3 videos...especially if the video was mixed for just Left and Right...having speakers substantially beyond the picture area creates a very disjointed sound field and a noticable void in the center.

I have made a "Kit F" board for use with CP200 installations that put the L/Le R/Re switch as the signal feeds JM21 so all digital formats may also be switched instead of the factory way that performed the switch in the Processing Unit before the signal left JM11.

Steve
 

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Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 04-30-2007, 02:19 PM:
 

quote: Steve Guttag

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Virtually all of my 5-screen channel theatres use LC/RC for 1.85 and narrower ratios. If you can't hear the difference, either your hearing sucks or your tuning does.

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