Drexler Suing Disney, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Dolby ... [etc]
Craig Lloyd
Steph
DTS jumping up and down with joy if this one goes the distance!
Though, having said that, I guess most of dolby's revenue comes from
licenses for NR and DS/DPL nowadays....
SJFBeckwith wrote in message <35c72292...@news.cirra.com>...
> The lawsuit also seeks an injunction that the defendants cease
>operation, installation, and manufacture of Dolby-Digital-Sound based
>motion picture films and theatre sound systems and asks for an
>accounting of and compensation for damages.
>
Matt Cox
I just bought a DD decoder!
In the words of Father.Ted "arse!"
m...@NOSPAM.linux.compd.com --> delete NOSPAM.
SJFBeckwith wrote in message <35c72292...@news.cirra.com>...
>Just spotted this on Business Wire (www.businesswire.com) - I feel it
>may be interesting to watch how this lawsuit develops...
>
{snip}
Richard Hopkins
>Just spotted this on Business Wire (www.businesswire.com) - I feel it
>may be interesting to watch how this lawsuit develops...
Interesting, but in terms of home theatre, totally irrelevant.
This suit refers only to the optical coding technique used to master the
Dolby Digital soundtrack onto celluloid film, it is nothing to do with the
home DD format.
Either the combined might of Dolby and the film companies will crush
Drexler's suit, or Drexler will become richer through some out of court
settlement.
Either way, there will be no publicly noticeable effect, not in the cinema
and certainly not in the home.
Richard Hopkins,
(replace .nospam with .com in reply address)
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Send all my spam to: tony...@labore.org.uk
Richard Hopkins
>This bit is particularly entertaining. I have images of the head honchos at
>DTS jumping up and down with joy if this one goes the distance!
As I've mentioned in another post, this will have no effect on home Dolby
Digital at all.
This law suit concerns a very small part of the theatrical DD system - it
will not kill the format as a whole. I would imagine that in a worst case
scenario, Dolby could simply change the encoding technique on the release
prints, having to modify the optical readers on the projectors as a result.
If due to a less efficient optical coding system they couldn't fit the data
into one line of sprocket holes as now, they always have the option to use
the other side as well.
It sounds more than anything else like Drexler chancing their arm in the
hope they might just get lucky. In the notoriously litigious USA, actions
like this are two a penny.
Steph
Richard Hopkins wrote in message <6q8gt1$6q3$3...@plug.news.pipex.net>...
>This law suit concerns a very small part of the theatrical DD system - it
>will not kill the format as a whole. I would imagine that in a worst case
>scenario, Dolby could simply change the encoding technique on the release
>prints, having to modify the optical readers on the projectors as a result.
>If due to a less efficient optical coding system they couldn't fit the data
>into one line of sprocket holes as now, they always have the option to use
>the other side as well.
The point I was making is that this could turn out to be a big headache for
dolby. Like you say, worst case scenario is thqat they have to change the
encoding technique, then they have to arrange to have every projector
changed. Then, finally, what would they do about backwards compatability?
what if me local muliplex wants to show the star wars trilogy again?
All the time the DTS people are saying, well, we havew no such problems with
our delivery format
Richard Hopkins
Steph wrote in message <6q9avd$64d$1...@mendelevium.btinternet.com>...
>The point I was making is that this could turn out to be a big headache for
>dolby. Like you say, worst case scenario is thqat they have to change the
>encoding technique, then they have to arrange to have every projector
>changed.
It's not that big a deal. The optical reader that fits in the film path of
each projector is little more than a small box with a couple of LED's and
some photocells in it. In most projectors it's fitted as a bolt-on optional
extra, so changing it wouldn't be too difficult. The theatrical DD
processors are modular in construction, very much like expansion cards in a
PC, so changing the optical decoder on those is simply a case of removing
one circuit board and slotting in another.
It would be expensive when you consider the number of theatres we're talking
about, but far preferable to abandoning the system completely.
Then, finally, what would they do about backwards compatability?
>what if me local muliplex wants to show the star wars trilogy again?
Legacy prints could pose a problem, although one would imagine films like
the SW trilogy are treated very much like Disney films, and put in
moratorium after their official release window closes. If Fox wanted to
re-release them at some point in the future, new prints may need to be
struck.
In any case, don't forget we're thinking 'worst case scenario' here. By far
the likeliest outcome is an out of court settlement with Dolby and
co-defendants coughing up some money to shut Drexler's up. That said, one
would imagine Dolby's legal people coming up with a pretty good defence. It
is far from impossible they could shake it off completely.
>All the time the DTS people are saying, well, we havew no such problems
with
>our delivery format
<g> No, they may not have any legal problems with it, but theatrical DTS is
plagued by a whole load of reliability issues that don't affect theatrical
DD. Just try finding someone who listened to a DTS copy of 'Titanic'...
Steph
SJFBeckwith wrote in message <35c95328...@news.cirra.com>...
>On Wed, 5 Aug 1998 13:22:08 +0100, "Richard Hopkins"
><ri...@dial.pipex.nospam> wrote:
>
>>DD. Just try finding someone who listened to a DTS copy of 'Titanic'...
>
>What were the problems then...?
Phil Brown
--
Steph <step...@btinternet.com> wrote in article
<6q9m60$en3$1...@uranium.btinternet.com>...
I don't know about Titanic, but Jurrasic Park: The Lost World had big
problems with DTS. On All three prints that we had at my cinema, the DTS
Timecode on the print was very week and the reader couldn't keep the signal
strong enough to keep it playing, so it kept dropping out to Dolby SR.
Also, on of the sets of DTS discs that we had was faulty, and at the same
point in the film (every time) it rebooted the DTS processor! (For those
that don't know, a Theatrical DTS processor is basically a 386 or 486 with
two SCSI CD ROMS and a APT-X100 audio decompression card, very simple but
they still set you back about 4000 quid!, and you need to buy a timecode
reader as well!). I have yet to experience home DTS, but working in a
cinema, I do not like theatrical DTS. It has many reliability problems and
doesn't sound as good as Dolby Digital. The only good thing is the ability
to play the DTS discs without actually having the film print (great if you
want to hear the THX logos or a good piece of music in a film).
On Old DTS films you have the problem of getting the DTS discs for the film
- we Dolby Digital there is no such problem. I played a print of "The
Fugitive" in Dolby Digital about a year ago and it played perfectly all the
way through and it sounded great!
Cheers
Phil
--
Phil Brown
Sheffield, UK
Richard Hopkins
>Just problems with sync'ing the CDRom when changing reels of film?
Nope. Quick cinema tech brush-up here...
All of the better cinemas nowadays join the separate reels together when the
print first arrives. It is then placed on a horizontal 'platter' (think big
record turntable) and fed into one projector as a single run. Saves labour
intensive projector swaps during the programme. Most multiplexes only have
two or three projection staff on duty at one time for this reason.
>SJFBeckwith wrote in message <35c95328...@news.cirra.com>...
>>What were the problems then...?
As Phil has already mentioned with regard to The Lost World, the timecode on
DTS prints of 'Titanic' was virtually impossible to read, the processors at
my local UCI were unable to lock onto it for more than a few seconds at a
time and the film was never exhibited here in anything other than Dolby
Digital.
Supposedly *every* DTS print of the film was so affflicted due to a
production fault - the DTS timecode is apparently very difficult to master
and produce in quantity.
Phil's explained the format's other shortcomings very well, so I won't waste
bandwidth doing it again...
Richard Hopkins
<01bdc08d$ec5a3b20$Loca...@cimarron.demon.co.uk>...
>Also, on of the sets of DTS discs that we had was faulty, and at the same
>point in the film (every time) it rebooted the DTS processor!
Nice to know some things never change... The newer three disc DTS processors
do that all the time as well...:-(
>I have yet to experience home DTS, but working in a
>cinema, I do not like theatrical DTS. It has many reliability problems and
>doesn't sound as good as Dolby Digital.
Funny isn't it how home DTS is being pitched as 'superior to DD', but
there's virtually none of that going on with the theatrical system. Whenever
I've seen any DTS blurb that compares the two formats, they only ever seem
to hark on about how much more robust, reliable (yeah, I know...) and
consistent it is. Any mention of supposedly superior sound quality comes
well down the list...
Steph
Richard Hopkins wrote in message <6qaq4v$k2n$1...@plug.news.pipex.net>...
>Nope. Quick cinema tech brush-up here...
Cheers for clearing this up Richard,I seem to remember seeing something like
this (it looked a mess!) at the museum of the moving image (?) on the south
bank-near the NFT.
Liam McCauley
Is MOMI still going? For some reason I was under the impression it was closed,
but I could have been thinking of somewhere else.
I'll be visiting London next week for a couple of days, and I'd quite like
to go. For some reason, I never went to MOMI during the 5 years I actually
lived in London!
Cheers,
Liam
--
Liam.M...@NOSPAM.Syntegra.bt.co.uk
Please remove the "NOSPAM" from my address before replying
Steph
Liam McCauley wrote in message <35CA24...@NOSPAM.Syntegra.BT.co.uk>...
>Steph wrote:
>
>Is MOMI still going? For some reason I was under the impression it was
closed,
>but I could have been thinking of somewhere else.
It was open this time lasr year (I think) but I haven't been to the spouth
bank recently
Jay
wrote:
>Just problems with sync'ing the CDRom when changing reels of film?
Sounds like a poorly installed DTS system, DTS is very reliable in
theaters both 35mm and 70mm.
For that matter so is DD, with only SDDS having problems with print
wear.
Jay
Phil Brown
Steph <step...@btinternet.com> wrote in article
<6qb17e$9gv$1...@mendelevium.btinternet.com>...
>
> Richard Hopkins wrote in message <6qaq4v$k2n$1...@plug.news.pipex.net>...
>
> >Nope. Quick cinema tech brush-up here...
>
>
> Cheers for clearing this up Richard,I seem to remember seeing something
like
> this (it looked a mess!) at the museum of the moving image (?) on the
south
> bank-near the NFT.
Ah! The one that you saw looking a "mess" is an endless platter. The
system works in such a way that one hour or so of film can play in a
continuous loop - messes up the prints though :-( Normal multiplex
platters hold about 4.5 hours of film. The film is taken from the middle
of the platter, fed throught the projector and back onto the middle of an
empty platter. The big advantage here is that you don't need to rewind
15,000 ft of film when it has finished!