Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS dubbed track solution

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Posted by Christopher Woollard (Member # 2455) on 09-11-2019, 08:18 AM:

Hello Everyone,
Recently I had the task of preparing a 35mm print of World Trade Center for screening at one of the London Universities.
The print appeared to be excellent, practically brand new.
The test screening showed this to actually be an Italian dubbed version in both SR and SRD. The print was not identified as such on the leaders. Fortunately the DTS files were obtained via the internet and Brad Miller's excellent directions for making a DTS disk followed precisely. These are available in the tips section, "DTS - how to fit …". We did make one DVD rather than two CD's but as our players have DVD drives that was not a problem. The film now screens properly for an English audience. The player software was updated to the latest version available here in a similar manner.

By the way, if anyone knows where the DTS files for Rob Roy (1995) are to be found, we would very much appreciate a copy.

Many thanks Brad for your assistance with this film.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-11-2019, 08:46 AM:

At least it was the whole print, so you found about about it pretty quickly.

Back in the '90s I received a print of Dante's Peak, too late to test screen it before the first public show. The distributor had previously asked if we had DTS capability, to which we replied that we didn't. I thought this a bit odd at the time, because no-one had asked us that before.

About three quarters of the way through the first show, I was walking through the lobby after a restroom break, when one of the ushers ran out of the screen in question, very agitated: "Leo, Leo, something's gone wrong! Everyone in the movie has suddenly started talking in German!"

It turned out that reel 5 had the German dub on the "DTS Stereo" knockoff SR (there was no SR-D or SDDS, because this was in the mid 1990s when Universal had an exclusive deal with DTS and put no other audio on their prints). The question as to whether we had DTS was because distributor only had a limited number of English language prints of reel 5, and wanted to prioritize those for places that had no DTS. They made a mistake with us, and sent us one of the German prints.

Thankfully, the movie was almost as much of a disaster at the box office as the one it depicted, and we didn't suffer too much from lost ticket sales in the day and a half it took them to get us a replacement reel. The only digital format we were equipped to play was SR-D, so that screen had to stay dark until the new reel arrived.

Posted by Michael Zarits (Member # 10747) on 09-11-2019, 03:19 PM:

Let me know if you can't find the original DTS of Rob Roy.