Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS test disk

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Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 06-12-2013, 09:23 PM:

Does anyone know where to get the DTS test disk to set levels on a DTS6 or 6D processor?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-12-2013, 09:37 PM:

I have a disk image of the Empirical Test Disk with C-3PO and R2-D2.

If you want it, I can send you a link to it from YouSendIt and you can burn it to a CD.

It's only about 73 MB.

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 06-12-2013, 09:42 PM:

Randy, that would be great. Thank you.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-12-2013, 10:11 PM:

Sent an e-mail.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-12-2013, 10:29 PM:

The discs are here in the warehouse.

Link to software

Posted by Jock Blakley (Member # 6552) on 06-13-2013, 02:29 AM:

It's the Empirical Test Disc that will allow you to play sound from any feature disc, isn't it?

Ours went missing years ago - is it covered by one of the downloads in the software section, or if not, Randy would you mind sending me the download link as well?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-13-2013, 07:39 AM:

That stopped working with Lord of the Rings 3 if I recall.

Posted by Jock Blakley (Member # 6552) on 06-13-2013, 08:43 AM:

Oh, I didn't know that. Not a huge problem in any case as we have a lot of older discs to match our repertory programming. Just a nice feature to have up one's sleeve.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-13-2013, 01:37 PM:

I'm confused. What good is it if you can get the disc to play? Are you going to try and play it alongside a print? You will never maintain sync. One missing frame and you're shot. The dts player will only play one reel, then you're shot. One frame off on the start and you're shot.

Surely you have some other goal here.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-13-2013, 02:31 PM:

Did they make the changes on the movie discs or revisions to the Empirical Test Disc? If I recall (and it's been a looong time so correct me if I'm wrong) you load up a movie disc into slot A and then put the test disc into slot B. Slot A starts playing. To me this seems like an unintentional bug in the test disc. I guess a theatrical disc could have some sort of weird-ass program on it that says "Don't play if such-and-such a disc is in one of the other drives".

But why? Who cares? There's no reason to prevent this. I'm sure it was someone from a studio that decided this and demanded that DTS make the change. I bet they feel that they saved their company millions of dollars somehow. I liked using it to sound check auditoriums with known material.

Posted by Jock Blakley (Member # 6552) on 06-14-2013, 02:23 AM:

I understand very well the limitations. Like Joe says, it's an easy way of checking the system with known material - and that includes checking the DTS player itself, even if D-Cinema can provide the known material for the rest of the system.

We have a nice set of test materials for optical, SR-D, and mag, so it's nice to complement it with something for DTS, especially if it means we don't have to drag a reel from the 70mm of THE MASTER upstairs.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-14-2013, 12:05 PM:

But a self-playing dts disc does not in any way verify the timecode reader is working properly, so it's a false sense of security.