SENSURROUND on DVD!
ster...@aol.com
DVD release of ROLLERCOASTER? It's in SENSURROUND, which is the first time
Sensurround have been available on home video. MCA encoded it in Dolby
Digital 1.1, with the main, mono soundtrack being sent to the mono CF channel
and the discrete SENSURROUND rumble into the .1 LFE channel. Unfortunately,
they didn't run it through a SENSURROUND Control Box, which would have
allowed them to derive surround-sound info from the print and encode it into
the back channels. Still, it sounds great! Hopefully, at some future date,
the other SENSURROUND titles will be re-released on DVD in thier proper sound
format... I can dream anyway!
One nice thing about the DVD is in the production notes, they mention that
ROLLERCOASTER was the first film to use "real" sounds for the Sensurround
instead of electronically generated rumble... It's too bad MCA didn't utilize
the Sensurround version of the theatrical trailer...the trailer they used
dosen't mention Sensurround at all...still, the back of the box DOES have the
Sensurround logo and states: "Rollercoaster-Ride it in SENSURROUND"
On a slightly unrelated topic... does anyone know if any home video's have
ever been released with the Perspecta pilot tones still present on the
soundtrack?
Cheers!
Ty C. :-)
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Al Lutz
> On a slightly unrelated topic... does anyone
> know if any home video's have ever been
> released with the Perspecta pilot tones still
> present on the soundtrack?
This isn't Perspecta, but I can hear the pilot tone in Lawrence of Arabia's
rear channels, especially in the plane flyover. Drives me crazy. :)
Al
--
Al Lutz - [alweho...@aol.com] - FDC & TDC "Deluxe" Chrome Buzz Lightyear
Author of Disneyland Information Guide [D-I-G] http://members.aol.com/alweho
PROMOTE PAUL PRESSLER! - http://members.aol.com/alweho/pressler/pressler.htm
- "Strange how potent cheap music can be." (Noel Coward's "Private Lives") -
Jayson Ca
Goodtimes or Image than MCA/Universal? How about the old letterbox lasers--are
the in SENSURROUND?
Jayson
Jays...@aol.com
"Ladies and Gentlemen - This is CINERAMA!"
Wide Gauge
In article <19981107003926...@ng154.aol.com>, jays...@aol.com
(Jayson Ca) writes:
>So the DVD's of MIDWAY and EARTHQUAKE are not in SENSURROUND?
Sorry to get into semantics again, but it depends on what you mean by
Sensurround. To the best of my knowledge, Earthquake and Midway had their
rumble tracks faked for the DVD. They did not use the sensurround information
from the film (at least not for Earthquake).
Sensurround was an EXHIBITION system designed to make powerful low frequency
tactile rumbles at theatrical performances of Earthquake. Since no one I know
of has a Sensurround system in their home, it's false advertising to claim any
DVD is "in Sensurround."
Scott Marshall
Wide Gauge Film and Video Monthly
http://members.aol.com/widegauge/
Peter Preuss
how did Sensurround work on traditional film?
Being old enough to remember some original presentations in movie theatres,
even as a kid I noticed quite a difference between 70 mm and 35 mm sound
playback.
In the 70 mm version of "Earthquake" all the effects were splendidly
embedded into the multi-channel mag soundtrack. The 35 mm versions of
"Rollercoaster" and "Battlestar Galactica" sounded very odd, because of the
tonal differences between mono optical and (stereo?) LFE enhanced surround.
At least from "Galactica" I also remember some time lag in switching between
the two sound formats: the sensurround effects always started one or two
seconds later than they actually should have in relation to the image on the
screen.
Can anyone explain where the "Sensurround" effects track was located on the
film strip? Was it mag or optical? Differences between 70 mm and 35 mm film
formats? Was there a special reader mounted to the projection equipment? Did
the movie theater need special processing equipment or was the effects
signal just sent to some powerful amplifiers?
Thanks
- Peter
Scott and Heather Strang
>
>Sensurround was an EXHIBITION system designed to make powerful low frequency
>tactile rumbles at theatrical performances of Earthquake. Since no one I know
>of has a Sensurround system in their home, it's false advertising to claim any
>DVD is "in Sensurround."
Wouldn't having true Sensurround sound in your home complete with mammoth
Cerwin Vega's be bad for the structure of your home?
Just a thought
Scott
All work and no play is good for you; helps build character.
Scott and Heather Strang
>"Rollercoaster" and "Battlestar Galactica" sounded very odd, because of the
>tonal differences between mono optical and (stereo?) LFE enhanced surround.
>At least from "Galactica" I also remember some time lag in switching between
>the two sound formats: the sensurround effects always started one or two
>seconds later than they actually should have in relation to the image on the
>screen.
That reminds me; the Battlestar Galactica movie I bought on tape (MCA) is in
vhs hifi but not stereo. Is there a stereo version available?
Martin Hart
says...
> That reminds me; the Battlestar Galactica movie I bought on tape (MCA) is in
> vhs hifi but not stereo. Is there a stereo version available?
>
"Earthquake" was the only Sensurround film with a 4-track stereo
soundtrack. As a matter of fact, the Sensurround system used for that
film had little or no similarity to the other films that used optical
mono tracks.
Ty Chamberlain can provide significant details on the system.
Marty
--
Visit The American WideScreen Museum
Relive the panoramic past
http://www.simplecom.net/widefilm
Wide Gauge
In article <72b1ba$ldh$2...@news1.iamerica.net>, shst...@iamerica.net (Scott and
Heather Strang) writes:
>Wouldn't having true Sensurround sound in your home complete with mammoth
>Cerwin Vega's be bad for the structure of your home?
Yes.
ster...@aol.com
>>Wouldn't having true Sensurround sound in your home complete with mammoth
Cerwin Vega's be bad for the structure of your home?<<
Depends on what you consider "damage"... if you mean pictures knocked off of
walls, bric-a-brac broken, etc, then yes, but if you mean actual structural
damage, then no, Sensurround would not be dangerous. This is because buildings
have a natural resonance around 5-10Hz, and the Sensurround system put out no
energy below 16Hz, so structural damage could not occur.
ster...@aol.com
>>In the 70 mm version of "Earthquake" all the effects were splendidly
embedded into the multi-channel mag soundtrack. <<
For EARTHQUAKE, the 35mm magnetic, 70mm mag and 35mm optical formats all used
Sensurround in the same way. For 70mm, the control tones were on the
baby-boom tracks, for 35mm mag, the tones were on the optical back-up track,
and the 35mm optical mono prints contained a composite soundtrack with the
control tones and the program combined. The rumble was generated in the
theater by a psudo-random noise generator that was designed to produce the
same waveform as the 1972 Sylmar quake. Thus, no "quake-rumble" sounds were
recorded onto the soundtrack itself for Earthquake.
Later, for MIDWAY, ROLLERCOASTER and GALATICA, MOD II SENSURROUND was
developed which used only optical mono prints with DBX Type I noise reduction
and contained the program, the rumbles and control tones onto the single
optical track. The control tones moved the rumble and select program sounds
between the front and rear Sensurround horns as well as turning them off and
on and controling thier volume.
ROLLERCOASTER also sounded "different" from the other films because none of
the "rumble" was synthetically generated-- it was all "real" rollercoaster
sounds recorded with a special microphone. Because of this, it had more
"definition" to the effects than the other films and was more realistic.
As for the "delay" between the Sensurround effect and the images on the
screen, this would be due to poor set up or the theater acoustics. Because of
the wavelengths of the low-frequency sounds, the mixers for the Sensurround
films had a difficult time matching the rumble to the image and getting it to
stop precisely on scene changes...with the larger theaters, the sound could
"hang over" in the theater for as long as two seconds. Thus, careful setup
was mandatory... having seen both Rollercoaster and Galactica in a
smaller-size theater, I can say that the effects matched the on-screen action
perfectly and actually sounded better than Earthquake due to the extremely
high-fidelity of the Sensurround print...optical Sensurround tracks had a
wider frequency response and greater S/N and dynamic range than the mag
tracks of EARTHQUAKE.
ster...@aol.com
>>Can anyone explain where the "Sensurround" effects track was located on the
film strip? Was it mag or optical? Differences between 70 mm and 35 mm film
formats? Was there a special reader mounted to the projection equipment? Did
the movie theater need special processing equipment or was the effects
signal just sent to some powerful amplifiers?<<
Do a Dejanews search of my screen name and Sensurround and you will find a
post where I provided a complete explanation of Sensurround...it's pretty
recent, I think I posted it about 2 weeks ago.
ster...@aol.com
questions about it, please let me know.
SENSURROUND (later called SENSURROUND-Special Effects System) was an Academy
Award winning process in which bass rumble sounds were fed to Cerwin-Vega sub-
woofer horns in select theaters. Actually, that's a very simplified
explanation. There were two versions of SENSURROUND (three really, but I can't
find much info about MOD III) The first version of SENSURROUND was used on the
1974 film EARTHQUAKE. SENSURROUND was developed by Waldon O. Watson of MCA
Systems and RCA did the installations in theaters. Cerwin-Vega helped
manufacture the sub-horn drivers, but MCA designed and built the units.
On the film print itself were two low-frequency pilot tones at 25Hz and 35Hz.
These were recorded on the normally redundant optical track with 35mm
Magnetic sound prints or as a "composite" track on optical only prints. (on
70m 6-track prints, the pilot tones were placed on the two baby-boom L-extra
and R-extra tracks) The pilot tones were fed to the SENSURROUND control unit
which also had connected to it a special low-frequency psudorandom noise
generator. This low- frequency generator produced a "rumble" sound which was
programmed to duplicate the waveform of the 1972 Sylmar earthquake in CA.
From there, the control box was directed to the theater amps and speakers and
to the high-powered SENSURROUND amp's and SENSURROUND sub's that had been
placed around the theater, usually in the back of the theater where seats had
been removed and in the front under the screen. When the control unit
detected the pilot tones, it would turn on the noise generator and feed that
signal to the sub's while at the same time controling thier volume and the
volume of the theater speakers. It could also direct some of the main program
signal into the SENSURROUND horns to create a surround-sound effect. The
rumble itself was from 16Hz to 120Hz and played at a level of AT LEAST 120db.
This created an acoustic shock-wave in the audience the made them feel as if
they were actually experiencing an earthquake. In some theaters, special nets
had to be installed on the ceiling to catch parts of molding, etc, that were
shaken loose during the effects sequences...many theaters suffered structural
damage.
After EARTHQUAKE, MIDWAY and ROLLERCOASTER were released in SENSURROUND, but
at this time (for MIDWAY) the process was modified somewhat. In order to
better explain it, I'll quote directly from an article about SENSURROUND:
"The first feature to utilize Sensurround was "EARTHQUAKE" and the second was
"MIDWAY". At that time we did a fairly extensive modification of the
Sensurround system in that we changed our control system so that we could
have the transducers that are up in front of the screen operating, and/or the
ones at the rear of the theater - but separately from each other. This made
possible a front-only Sensurround. This was quite important to us, because
there were times, during dialogue sequences, when we wanted to have the
Sensurround running, but did not want to have dialogue coming from the rear
of the theater, because that is quite distracting. So we modified the
equipment to maintain the perspective of sound at the front of the theater.
At the same time, we incorporated a noise reduction system as part of the
Sensurround equipment. All of the prints of "MIDWAY" and "ROLLERCOASTER"
include the noise reduction system, which gives us a much larger dynamic
range on the print. For "EARTHQUAKE" we had a noise generator which was part
of our control electronics in the theater, and that noise generator produced
the large rumbling sound of the earthquake. At the time, that was the only
way we could get a much louder sound that we required, but now we are able,
on the optical track itself, to combine the normal sound track, the control
frequencies (to control the frequent turning on and off of the Sensurround)
and also have a dynamic range that allows us to put additional signals on
which comprise the sound track that you hear, but expanded signals when
played back, and many times louder than the normal sound track. We've
increased our headroom (or our added loudness) by about 20 db and, at the
same time, we've picked up about 15 to 20 db margin to our noise floor, so
that our track is much quieter. In both "MIDWAY" and "ROLLERCOASTER" there
are some portions where, for an optical track, it's very, very quiet. Another
good aspect of using this noise reduction system is that we are less bothered
by scratches and film abrasions that occur on release prints. We don't hear
as many of the scratches and ticks of the kind you usually hear on an optical
sound track. As a result of that, we have been able to remove the traditional
Academy Roll-off Filter (dating from the Research Council days), which is
used as a standard roll-off on all optical reproduction systems. As a result,
we've increased the frequency range of these optical tracks, producing an
optical track that sounds more like a magnetic recording. We have a much
better high-frequency response... ...It (dbx) gave us nearly a doubling
effect of our dynamic range, so that instead of having the typical 45 to 50
db dynamic range (which you have on an optical track, if it is really a good
one), we wind up with about 65 to 80 db - a considerable improvement."
The MOD II Sensurround system produced a frequency response, from an optical
print, of 16Hz to 16kHz and a dynamic range of 80db. This was outstanding for
the time and unmatched by anything else except magnetic.
For the film ZOOT SUIT, SENSURROUND+PLUS was introduced which was simply
Sensurround with the noise reduction, but WITHOUT the rumble or special
Sensurround horns in the theater. The idea of SENSURROUND+PLUS was simply an
extremely high-fidelity soundtrack. MCA wanted SENSURROUND+PLUS to be adopted
by the industry as a new "standard" for making optical release prints, but by
that time, Dolby Stereo had gained a foothold. ZOOT SUIT also incorporated
something called LightSurround which was an in-auditorium synched-light cueing
system, much like DTS did with the LOST WORLD trailer and strobe lights a year
or so ago. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, LightSurround was never
implemented... the premere at the Cinerama Dome did not utilize it and the
Sensurround control boxes were never modified for the new system. Why they
didn't use it is a mystery.
MOD III SENSURROUND was used for the film BATTLESTAR GALATICA, but I have no
idea what it incorporated... I saw the film theatrically, and it "seemed" to
be the same type of effect I had heard in the other films...I have a
SENSURROUND control box that says MOD III on it, but I can't figure out how
it differs from MOD II boxes.
The SENSURROUND Horns that produced the rumble were specially designed...they
incorporated 18-inch Cerwin-Vega drivers in a special horn loaded enclosure
that measured 4-feet high...they could be stacked in corners in multiples or
placed side-by side on the floor or against a wall...for floor or wall
installations, a special "Mouth extender" was produced to help increase the
coupling with the theater space. The horns could produce flat bass down to
16Hz at 120db. The driver used was the model 189E and is still available from
Cerwin- Vega as the Junior-Earthquake sub for pro-use...it dosen't have the
same spec's as the theatrical units, but is a killer sub!
Anyway, I realise this post is very long, but descriptions of SENSURROUND tend
to be over-simplified and the system is not given due justice that it
deserves...SENSURROUND was truly unique and todays audiences have never heard
bass as powerful as SENSURROUND produced...believe me, even todays best sub-
equipped theaters with DTS, Dolby and SDDS PALE in their bass performance
compared to SENSURROUND!