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Topic: surround EX

Chad Souder
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 962
From: Waterloo, IA, USA
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 02-11-2000 11:53 PM

Does anyone know of a good way of knowing when a film is encoded for surround-EX? dolby.com has a listing, but I'm not sure if its accurate.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 02-12-2000 02:51 AM

The only sure-fire way I know of is to look on the DTS discs that come with the movie. Look near the bottom at the "serial number". If the number has an "ES" after it, like "10245-ES", then the movie is in EX surround.

Dolby promised that every EX feature would be clearly labeled, even on the cans. They sure wimped out on this. Now you're lucky to even get a memo with the film saying that it is in EX. I was playing Fight Club for an entire weekend before I learned that it was in EX and began playing that way. I would like to give Dolby a public "Shame on You!" for not following through with this. Perhaps Dolby doesn't really care enough about EX. Anyone from Dolby care to comment?

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Michael Barry
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 584
From: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 02-12-2000 10:51 AM

I discovered the ES suffix code on the DTS discs trick recently! That's a good way to tell. The other possibility is to hope that the end credits on the film are accurate and have the 'Dolby EX surround' decal present. Most of them do, I think. Therefore, you could check when making up the print, or watch the credits the first time you run the movie through.

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Paul Powers
Film Handler

Posts: 14
From: Marin, CA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 02-13-2000 04:08 AM

I was also curious about how many trailers come out with EX. I remeber them testing the EX unit when they put it in with a couple trailers but I can not remeber which ones. I think The Haunting was one.

Take it easy!!

-=|Paul

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 02-13-2000 08:43 PM

I don't have a list of trailers that are in EX, and they are not labelled as being in EX, but if you have a DTS unit hooked up to a DTS-ES decoder, many trailers will automatically play in EX. Any Given Sunday was one, even though the movie didn't use EX. 007 was another. Basically there are a whole bunch of 'em!

The latest THX Broadway trailers play in EX and sound great! Broadway 2000 plays in EX as well, but who cares? Unfortunately the new DTS Sonic Landscape does not use it. But on some of the recent Dolby Digital trailers, you can hear a bell in the back surrounds at the end if you play them in EX. You have to listen really hard as the sound mixing on most (not all) Dolby Digital trailers is very wimpy. That's the only word I can use to describe it. Wimpy. The "City" packs a whallop and the (original) Train is my favorite!

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John Wilson
Film God

Posts: 5438
From: Sydney, Australia.
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-13-2000 09:12 PM

Best not to trust the credits, I think. Just yesterday, I was watching the credits of the flat feature "House On Haunted Hill" (ick) when up rolls 'Filmed In Panavision'.

Going back a few years, all the prints of "Top Secret" had a 'dolby stereo' logo in the credits. I never came across anything but mono prints.

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Greg Mueller
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1687
From: Port Gamble, WA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-14-2000 09:05 AM

I was wondering what you all thought of this idea...
In my screening room, before acquiring a Dolby processor, I used a surround sound generator manufactured by NEC. It produce center channel and stereo surrounds, derived from Left and Right front channels. I still have that processor and was wondering how well it might work to hook it up to left and right surrounds on a DTS unit and let it produce a derived center surround channel. It really worked quite well when I had it hooked up the way it was intended to be used and was just wondering if it would work like I want it to hooked up "backwards". What do you think?

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-14-2000 10:32 AM

The NEc unit uses the same Sanyo chipset as the cat 150e board
The centre out will be the ex channel and left and right front is the left and right walls respecavly
I did the smae thing with the Shure decoder and it worked very well

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-14-2000 02:44 PM

Gordon's right. I have tested this myself and it does work quite nicely. The only problem is when you are playing a film with a mono surround track or one that is not EX encoded. At that point, you have lost your side surrounds unless you rig some form of switch up.

Be forewarned, make sure your surrounds are perfectly balanced and the eq on your CP65 for the surround channels are set exactly alike.

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