This is topic DTS discs on ebay in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 10-13-2002, 07:37 PM:
I am not familiar with DTS yet, but I thought that these were just sound no pictures? Please correct me if I am wrong.
Item # 1570496535 It was just posted today.
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-13-2002, 08:36 PM:
The dts discs only contain sound and can only be played back by a theatrical dts player. No player on the consumer market can play the discs contrary to what is stated in the item description. The seller probably doesn`t understand that himself. Some Star Wars fan out there will still buy them because it says Star Wars on the discs and then probably spend weeks trying to get them to play until, searching the internet for help, he will end up here and be confronted with the cold truth.
Slightly off topic, but what species is the animal in your picture?
Michael
Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 10-13-2002, 08:43 PM:
Michael
Thanks for clearing up that for me. Now your turn, his name is Mr. Ma-Goo he is a 4 1/2 year old Chinese Shar-Pei. He does have a pretty big head even for a Shar-Pei. I have 4 total.
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-13-2002, 09:11 PM:
I was just curious since in your profile, it says you liked dogs and horses, and I couldn`t figure out which of the two species is in the picture 
Michael
Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 10-13-2002, 11:48 PM:
Just sent an e-mail to the seller:
quote:
Hi! I work at a movie theatre and thought i should clear up a few things for you about the Star Wars DTS disks you are selling on ebay. Only a Theatrical DTS player can playback the disks. No consumer DVD players, even ones with DTS and MP3 decoding can play the disks. I assume that you are aware that the disks only contain the soundtrack for the movie. Unless someone owns a DTS cinema processor, a DTS timecode reader, a 35mm projector, and a 35mm print of Ep:2, these are absolutely useless. In any case, it's all a mute point. As soon as DTS, Fox, or Lucasfilm finds this auction, they'll shoot it down anyway, as the disk is their property to begin with. (Even though the guy at the movie theatre gave them to you, they were not his to begin with. The disks are the property of the studio that realeses the films, and are LOANED out to the theatres for use.)just thought you might want to know.
Mike
P.S. - I think a rare hard to find DTS timecode generator would work in place of the projector and 35mm print, but youll still need a theatrical DTS decoder. And a 6 chanel amp. And speakers.
Think that was too mean?
Now i just need to find Lucasfilms email address. 
Posted by Aldo Baez (Member # 790) on 10-13-2002, 11:54 PM:
LOL!! $99 ??? This guy is either nuts or simply stupid. I pick the latter by the use of his grammar.
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-14-2002, 03:56 AM:
I've never looked at a DTS disc, if you put one in a normal pc with a CD-Rom drive can you see files on it? If so, would it not be at least theoretically possible for someone to obtain the specification of the DTS coding scheme, and write a decoder for it in software, either to work in real time, or to convert to some other format which could then be played with more conventional software?I know that the theatrical version of DTS is not the same as the home version used on Laserdiscs and DVDs, but what is the difference, why, and which, if either, is better in terms of sound quality?
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-14-2002, 04:06 AM:
quote:
(Even though the guy at the movie theatre gave them to you, they were not his to begin with. The disks are the property of the studio that realeses the films, and are LOANED out to the theatres for use.)
And he obvouusly doesn't care that whoever gets the print after him may want to run it in DTS. Nobody would think it was ok to just give away the print, so why should it be different with dhe discs? Surely they should be regarded as part of the print.
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-14-2002, 04:07 AM:
A dts disc contains a file called dts.exe and a directory with files for each of the reels and for the sound trailers. There was a lengthy discussion here about the subject maybe 4-5 months ago. Mr Marcheselli came up with a playful solution to make the decoder play the discs with an AT-keyboard. You can also make the decoder play back the discs without a print running if you have the Empirical Test Disc.
The home dts codec is supposed to be more advanced because it has been continually improved during the last years. It includes the option for different compression rates. There was an interesting duel between Dolby and dts some time ago when each company tested the other`s codec. I think you can find their statements on their corporate websites.
Michael
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-14-2002, 04:28 AM:
Surely the solution to DTS disc supply is for there to be an FTP site containing images of every disc released, and for cinemas to simply download the ones they need and then burn them onto CDs. This would solve the problem of prints being shipped without discs.If security is an issue the site could be protected, with only the IP addresses of specific, registered computers in cinemas being able to gain access. But I can't see there being a copyright problem because as everyone has pointed out, these discs simply cannot be played on consumer equipment.
Eventually you could eliminate the offline part altogether, and have hard discs in the processors which would automatically download and save the sound data for each new film.
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 10-14-2002, 04:54 AM:
quote:
Surely the solution to DTS disc supply is for there to be an FTP site containing images of every disc released, and for cinemas to simply download the ones they need and then burn them onto CDs. This would solve the problem of prints being shipped without discs.
You don't work for LC Concepts by any chance do you Leo?
It's not a bad idea though.
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-14-2002, 06:19 AM:
If I remember correctly, Mr Hultgren of dts once wrote that the distributors were strictly opposed to the concept of offering the discs for download. You would probably find it easier to fly to Mars than to explain to distributors why this could be safe solution.
Michael
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-14-2002, 09:44 AM:
I suppose there is always the risk that someone will produce and distribute software that would enable the audio to be played off a DTS disc. But even if this did happen, who would want to sit through two hours of movie sound without any picture?It seems to me that the main selling point of DTS is lower compression than Dolby or Sony, which is made possible by the sound data not being stored on the same film as the picture. There has to be a more efficient way of achieving that than using offline carriers which routinely get lost/damaged/nicked or sometimes just not shipped with the prints. When DTS was launched in 1992, CD-ROMs were probably the only viable way of distributing that volume of digital data, so there was no alternative but to live with the shipping issues. But technology has moved on a lot since then.
Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 10-14-2002, 10:06 AM:
I called Technicolor and they gave me a phone number to call. They ETS (I think) were very interested in this item. General consenses "what an idiot". They are passing the info on to the studio.
Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 10-14-2002, 11:06 AM:
But didn't anyone read the description? These aren't just ordinary DTS discs, they are the special "Digital Cinema Movie" discs. They won't play in a regular DVD player, only ones you can buy at WAL-MART. After all, his friend who gave them to him said they worked fine in the theater, which also apparently gets its DVD players from Wal-Mart to play their Digital Cinema Movies on... Someone needs to smack this person.
=TMP=
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-14-2002, 12:31 PM:
I don't think that guy has enough sense to come in out of the rain....
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-14-2002, 03:40 PM:
A lot of people will just believe anything. I am thinking about offering an actual working light saber on ebay, just to see how many bids I get 
Well, somebody probably did it already...
Michael
Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 10-14-2002, 05:10 PM:
You actually only need the dts processor to play the discs, and a keyboard of course. You can override the need for timecode reading or a print.But who the hell wants the movie soundtrack without the movie? What is this? Books on tape?
Dave
Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 10-14-2002, 06:49 PM:
Relax everyone. Although there is five days to go on the auction, no one has bid yet. Besides, why would anyone buy it? They can buy the DVD for $18 on Amazon and get sound and picture.
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-14-2002, 08:53 PM:
Several years ago, despite the caveats, I removed one of the earliest DTS disks from its clear casket and inserted it into the CD drive on my Dell computer. Didn't play, and what's worse, it rendered the "auto-detect" function useless for most disks. Now when I insert a proper CD or DVD, I have to open an accessory player to play it.
Before, auto-detect would open the designated player automatically.
I've not been able to correct the damage I've done through stupid curiosity.
Words to the wise...
Gerard
Posted by Kara J. McVay (Member # 1285) on 10-14-2002, 11:29 PM:
Amazing but true, the bidding has closed on DTS "special movie discs". I wonder who got to him first?????
Posted by Richard Miller (Member # 1405) on 10-15-2002, 01:19 AM:
I was just wondering who else got DTS discs for Star Wars. A few of the local theaters that got the movie played it without digital sound at all because of their lack of DTS processors. I watched it on Monday night and was not very happy to be one of the unlucky people that didn't know about it. Many customers came to our theater to complain so it affected us as well. I'll never figure out why people complain to us and not them.
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-15-2002, 04:55 AM:
Gerard, I do not understand how inserting a dts disc should affect your computer in this way, but have you tried this: insert an audio cd, right-click an audio file and if the context menu gives you an option "open with..." then you have to point to the desired playback program.
Michael
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-15-2002, 10:51 AM:
Michael,
Thanks for your attempted help. I can play a CD by clicking on an icon of any CD player except Creative Player, which is the one I used when I inserted the DTS disk. That one opens the player, but with message "No Disk" and "Cannot locate disk." MS Windows Media Player,
and other players, operate properly, but do not open automatically
via Auto Detect. I went to Settings\Auto Detect, and tried listing various players as "Default" Player, but still, none will open when I insert a CD. No big deal, merely a loss of convenience, and of the use of Creative Player, though the sound enhancement functions of the
Creative Player still work with the other players.
Following your advice allows me to open players in a less direct way, but does not restore Auto Detect. [Running Windows 98, 2nd Ed.]
Gerard
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-15-2002, 10:52 AM:
Michael,
I tried re-installing Creative Player, but there is no change.
Gerard
Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 10-15-2002, 02:01 PM:
Leo wrote: "I suppose there is always the risk that someone will produce and distribute software that would enable the audio to be played off a DTS disc. But even if this did happen, who would want to sit through two hours of movie sound without any picture?"
One argument why someone might want to have this would be bootleggers. A bad as the picture on these videos look, the sound is usually worse. So if someone was able to play the audio off of the DTS disk and them encode that into the bootlegg DVD, than even though the picture would still suck, the sound quality would be perfect.
Posted by Mike Williams (Member # 1140) on 10-15-2002, 02:25 PM:
Unless... somebody is going to have a special showing for a theater full of blind people! Then those discs will be usefull!
Posted by Daniel Boisson (Member # 1027) on 10-15-2002, 03:47 PM:
Just a thought....computers can read the DTS discs, so isn't it posible that some nerd somewhere could simply make a program to play it? I know it's still pretty useless without picture.....------------------
3% Body Fat. 1% Brain Activity.
...A projectionist without a theatre...
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 10-15-2002, 03:59 PM:
Daniel:I don't think so unless they had the firmware, sound card, and the special chips DTS uses. I orginally heard the older DTS units were modified 386 or 486 computers. The Nerds would be better off fooling around with a DTS unit obtained from a barnyard sale.
The keyword is "MODIFIED"
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 10-15-2002, 05:14 PM:
I did a search on eBay for DTS, and it listed 1684 items, many by reputable makers of DTS players. Some mention home theatre. Is there a separate version of DTS for home use? If so, how can it be a "Digital THEATRE System?" Home theatre, like home office?
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 10-15-2002, 05:22 PM:
>>Is there a separate version of DTS for home use?<<Yes, there is a version of DTS (and Dolby Digital for that matter) for home theatre. Neither is compatible with its cinema counterpart.
-Aaron
Posted by Bob Brown (Member # 1205) on 10-15-2002, 05:49 PM:
I sent the seller a little message about the sale and this is the responce I recieved from her"I am sorry but i did not know. I was given the discs and did not realize,and have pulled them from the listing. Sorry, but did not mean to offend anyone."
Brandy Morrison
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-15-2002, 07:53 PM:
The compression algorhythm used in theatrical dts is apt-x100, not a dts invention, but licenced from some other manufacturer. Some computer wizard with access to the specifications could probably write a program to decompress the dts-files, but then he would have to find out how the 6 channels (or rather 5, since the subwoofer channel is stored in the surround channels) are interleavened and write code which would downmix it to two channels or route it to the appropriate outputs of a multichannel soundcard. But what would all this be good for? As is well known, if you absolutely wanted to listen to the soundtrack without watching the film, all you need is to gain access to a dts player, and they are everywhere.
Is there anybody out there who can explain what happened to Gerard`s computer? Probably some corrupt registry entry?
Michael
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 10-15-2002, 08:09 PM:
I can't explain what happened to Gerard's computer. The disc is nothing more than a data CD-ROM. I stick 'em in PCs all the time to find out what trailers are contained on them.(Edit) Come to think of it, the DTS audio files end with a .aud extension (IIRC). Maybe the software he was using recognizes that file as something else and tried to open it. When it didn't work, it disassociated itself with that file type. However, re-installing the software should have reset that.
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-15-2002, 08:41 PM:
Good point, but I still don`t understand it. The computer should have seen the discs as a pure data disc since the .aud files are in a subdirectory. The autoplay feature should have tried to run the dts.exe file in the main directory which should have resulted in nothing worse than an MS-DOS window...
Michael
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-15-2002, 09:16 PM:
The autorun "feature" in windows is set by a registry entry. It's fairly easy to turn this on or off by editing the registry; a google search for terms like "autorun" and "windows" and "registry" should probably find the instructions. Personally, I usually disable this "feature" on Windows machines for security reasons (I don't want untrusted software to run just because I inserted the CD).As to the other points that are being made in this thread: sure, it would be possible to reverse-engineer the DTS compression/encoding algorithm and write software to play back the disks, but I really can't imagine why anyone would bother. It seems like an inordinate amount of effort to put into what is an essentially useless endeavor (why would anyone what to listen to movie soundtracks without the picture?). It might be an interesting project, but the practical value is so low that I doubt that anyone would bother. It certainly couldn't be used in a commercial product without licensing the technology from DTS, anyway.
Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-15-2002, 09:29 PM:
This article supposedly explains how to turn CD Autorun off (or on) through Control Panel. This applies to Win98 and maybe ME, and not NT/2000/XP. Win98 CD Autorun Microsoft Knowledge Base article on how to do the registry trick to control CD Autorun in NT or 2000: NT/2000 CD Autorun
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 10-15-2002, 10:38 PM:
quote:
sure, it would be possible to reverse-engineer the DTS compression/encoding algorithm and write software to play back the disks, but I really can't imagine why anyone would bother.
Because it's there. The same reason for hacking and virus writing.
quote:
The computer should have seen the discs as a pure data disc since the .aud files are in a subdirectory.
We're talking a Microsoft product here. 
My XP-Pro machine will search the entire directory structure of the CD-ROM looking for something it can autorun. Luckily, I have most autoruns set for "no action". It still searches the disc, so eventually, I'll need to figure out how to turn autorun completely off. (I realize that Gerard has 98SE, which I didn't even know had an autorun feature. I thought that's what the autorun file in the root directory of the CD-ROM was for.)
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-15-2002, 10:52 PM:
The cd autorun feature and how to turn it on/off is a well-known feature of Windows. But I wasn`t referring to that. Gerard`s machine was set up to start this Creative player to play audio discs once inserted, and I just can`t figure out why inserting a dts disc would cripple it.
Michael
Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-15-2002, 10:52 PM:
Scott said:
>It seems like an inordinate amount of effort to put into what
>is an essentially useless endeavorNot useless at all. DTS playback on every screen for $500 or so plus the cost of the TC reader (not that those couldn't be 2nd sourced). Files via Kazaa if disks distribution becomes restricted. I'm not sayingt this would be a good thing or right or fair not to mention the implications for DTS' business model but it is hypothetically possible.