Are movies with non English optical track the same in digital?

[Frank Raia]

If a movie has non english optical tracks, are the SR-D and SDDS tracks in the same non english? I have seen prints for sale that say English DTS.

Might sound dumb but I have never encountered any movie with non english optical tracks.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Per specification, the audio on the SR-D and optical tracks must be from the same source, the optical tracks are considered a backup when running SR-D. I'm not sure if SDDS put this into their specifications, but the number of "dubbed" SDDS tracks I've encountered is pretty limited.

SDDS considered analog audio as a backup too, so I guess it will be hard to find a print with other language optical v.s. SDDS.

So, I'm pretty sure DTS is an outlier in this and it was often used for dubbed presentations where no dubbed print was available. Germany always was and still is a big consumer of dubbed movies, they also had SDDS on many of their dubbed movies. Over here in the Dutch market, the dubbed movies were usually reserved for movies targeted at children. I remember Toy Story 2 in Dutch having SDDS. Pixar used to be an outlier though: they also re-synced many of their characters to better match the dubbed version.

[David Ferguson]

A non-English print will have the analog, SRD (Dolby Digital) and SDDS in the non-English language. Playing any of those will get you non-English audio.

A DTS track doesn’t have audio data, it is just a timecode that syncs to a disc in the DTS processor. In theory, if you have a matching disc for any language, you can play that back in your chosen language.

However this relies on a few things:

1. The print must actually have a DTS timecode track. Sounds obvious, but DTS tracks are much rarer in Europe. I have prints from Ukraine, Estonia, Germany and France that do not have DTS tracks, while US and British prints of the same title did.
2. You must use the DTS discs of the title. Also seems obvious, but finding some discs today is quite hard.
3. Most important: the English discs must match the foreign print. Some movies were cut differently in another language, or have different logos at the start. Some even have an entirely different serial number for foreign prints. For example, my German copy of Iron Man is 15 seconds shorter than the English version cut. Some of the Estonian films have different distributor logos that are longer or shorter than the English prints. Some DTS discs account for this and have “alternative” reels for the different versions, however not all do. You can go and edit the audio and make your own discs, but I’d only recommend this for enthusiasts like myself who enjoy film projection because of the technology - not for anyone else.

[Michael Zarits]

David said it all. When some sellers write “English DTS” they usually mean that the English DTS disc for their foreign-dubbed print is available.

[Josh Jones]

Your luck is likely better if the film originated in your region. For example, American movies dubbed into French for the Canadian market will usually work with English disks. To be sure though, you'll need to try them and verify the serial numbers match.

[Stefan Scholz]

The only important factor on a non English print is, it should have a DTS time code. This makes it easy to either use the English language files (disks) or create a file that can be controlled by the timecode on the movie. Other systems for synchronization do not really work stable. You may start counting at a referenced image element, and create a timecode from the projector, but the moment a film breaks or the projector is stopped, sync is lost and has to be tracked manually.

[Frank Raia]

Your luck is likely better if the film originated in your region. For example, American movies dubbed into French for the Canadian market will usually work with English disks. To be sure though, you'll need to try them and verify the serial numbers match.

Josh, how do you check he serial numbers on a print? I know the serial number is printed on the DTS disk, but what if you have the DTS disk burned from files?

[Michael Zarits]

Either run the print:

• with an XD10, the serial number is shown on the front display.
• with a 6/6D equipped with a graphics card, the serial number is shown on a monitor connected to the unit.

or do it manually:
DTS-30FND.png

• The print's head in the example is facing right
• 0000 or 1111 = start/stop
• 00 or 11 = binary 0
• 01 or 10 = binary 1

1. Identify a block in which the data range 0x4–0x11 evaluates to 0₁₀ (reel number zero).
2. Decode the bitstream from 0x12 through 0x43 into a decimal value corresponding to the print serial number.

Feel free to use my tool to convert binary streams to decimal data: dtsblock.zip
Type only zeros and ones from 0x43 to 0x4 (reserved, heads left / the way the stream runs into the D600 reader, no stop/start bits).

[Michael Zarits]

Josh, how do you check he serial numbers on a print? I know the serial number is printed on the DTS disk, but what if you have the DTS disk burned from files?

Btw: A matching serial number alone does not guarantee synchronization between an English disc and a foreign print.