A customer of ours was running a mini festival that, as it turns out, included an older film with a magenta Variable Density track....guess what...no sound! Red on red apparently still gives you red.

Leave it to modern technology to promote an inferior system and then force it onto the industry. Yes I said inferior. Compare the quality of the infrared led reverse scan system using the traditional doped track over the Red LED system on ANY track. Or if you prefer, staying with a filament based lamp (tungsten or halogen) also using reverse scan on a traditional doped track...

This red LED business is not all it is cracked up to be, technically or otherwise. Just who is behind this? And remember the EPA is NOT regulating the doped based track out of exisitence, someone/something else is.

Steve

I didn't think the EPA was behind the LED thing- I just thought it would cost labs less to make non silver soundtracks. Not a bad reason, especially when current processors and amps used today can increase the slight lost volumne without too much noise added, and the industry is moving to digital tracks. I just wish the studios would be as interested in helping theaters as they are in helping themselves.

The seperation alone kicks the stuffings out of any exciter/solar cell configuration I have ever seen.

What film are you having problems with? It may be a problem isolated to special venue or "art" films.

Theatres wanting to play older or otherwise non-compliant films should simply retain their original sound head optics.

Heck, we have a whole pile of exciter lamps, lenses and power supplies sitting in a room waiting for someone to muster the effort to cart them to the dumpster.

Maybe we should try to get them to the special venue theatres that need them instead? Someone should really coordinate this effort as the industry IS currently switching to LED reverse scan and allot of equipment is becoming obsolete to them.

Seriously, there is a bunch of equipment being thrown away across the country every day. We donate allot of stuff to a theatre that is now owned by WV State College. They host film festivals and events there that would not be possible without outside help.

That theatre was also recently re-seated with the Irwin Citations that were removed from the Park Place when it was retro-fitted to stadium seating. The same crew that installed our new Mobileros did double duty re-installing the Citations for WVSC (eliminating the crew's travel costs for the college).

We also offered a couple of old lamphouses and xenon power supplies, but they have a local dealer who keeps their Peerless carbon arcs running smoothly. The old Kniesley power supplies are quite literally being used as door stops in one of our older theatres, but they work.

Anyway, special venue theatres are an important part of our history. Changing technology is making it increasingly more difficult for classics to be shown in main stream theatres.

To provide others with the ability to present them is the least we can do. It doesn't cost us anything. It might even reduce the dumpster bill!

Russ

Was this a dye-transfer print? Do you know the title of the movie or the year the print was made?

Pay particular attention to the sections on Machine Design and Optical Sound Processing, and the chemical formula for the soundtrack developer.

By converting to cyan dye-only soundtracks, the soundtrack redeveloper step can be eliminated. This step involves coating a thin bead of a viscous, caustic developer solution on the wet film as it is being transported at hundreds of metres per minute through the machine. If the bead isn't coated evenly, you get noise and "pops" in the analog soundtrack. If it bleeds or splashes into the picture area, you get ugly "blotches" of silver. These problems are a significant source of waste for the labs, and occasionally find their way into theatres (see the threads on "Mission Impossible 2" print "blotches" or "Erin Brockovich" sound "thumps"). So eliminating silver soundtracks will improve overall print quality.

Converting to cyan dye-only analog tracks will allow simplification of the process. A simplified process could eliminate the first fixer, first fixer wash, soundtrack developer, and soundtrack wash-off. This will reduce the use of chemicals, and greatly reduce the use of water by the laboratories --- significant environmental advantages.

Film laboratories already recover almost all of the silver in the raw stock film, EXCEPT for the silver left in the soundtrack. Most used prints are recycled or burned for fuel, with the silver recovered. But some still find their ways into landfills or unsupervised incineration. Eliminating silver from prints is environmentally the RIGHT thing to do.

The invention of efficient red LED light sources for sound readers has enabled the long-desired conversion to dye-only tracks. Almost ALL new analog sound readers installed today use red LED sources, with a majority of theatres already converted. The conversion to cyan-dye only tracks is scheduled to begin in January 2001 (with cyan dye prints sent only to theatres equipped with red LED readers at first), and scale up quickly once about 85% of theatres are equipped with red LED readers. Theatres with tungsten "white light" readers or infrared LED readers will NOT be able to play cyan-dye only soundtracks. Red LED readers are backwards compatible with most older prints, including black-and-white.

Information on Silverless Cyan Dye-Only soundtracks is on the Kodak website at:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/sound/index.shtml

Dolby Laboratories' information is at:
http://www.dolby.com/press/m.pr.0005.CyanDye.html

The UltraStereo Lab (maker of the Jaxlight) site is:
http://www.uslinc.com

Component Engineering's (Bill Purdy's) site is:
http://www.componentengineering.com

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

The cyan track...no matter how you cut it is an INFERIOR track. That is, it will yield more noise and distortion than the applicated track.

There is not question that the reverse scan optics are a big improvement to the traditional forward scan system used in the recent past but please don't confuse reverse scan with RED leds...and don't confuse RED LEDs with infrared LEDs.

The infrared LEDs were much more stable (don't need current adjustment over thousands of hours) and yielded a superior quality sound from the traditional applicated track than either traditional exciter lamps on the same track or the RED led on ANY track.

For those not familiar, the Variable Density track came in a couple variants...the best and most popular was B/W but some were done on the magenta layer and it is this one that turned up.

As far as backward compatibility, this industry has been based on that concept, the SMPE was founded on the concept of standardizing criteria so things would be compatible.

I don't question that the Cyan track has benefits from a cost standpoint but it is a cost over all else solution. This at a very mature time in the motion picture industry where most exhibitors are wondering when Digital Cinema will be something they WILL have to deal with.

Furthermore the system for playing back cyan tracks just isn't roubust enough yet. Those LEDs are expensive and have a comparatively short life and need constant tuning to maintain proper level.

This is being rushed and has the feel of an agenda rather than good engineering practice.

That being said, I encourage the development of the cyan track and the continued testing but to scare exhibitors with a bogus January 2001 date (and some of these articles seem like they can be read as a scare to exhibitors) is just plain wrong.

John, do any of those articles state that the cyan/red led system will be less noisy and less distortion (or just the same)? What does a cyan track sound like after say pad rollers scuff it a little?

Respectfully,

Steve

I would need authorization to release the items, but I don't get the impression that anyone wants them.

Unfortunately, it is all from Ballantyne sound heads.

The lenses are also of the "white" line variety and not the "red" line narrow slit design.

Not much in the way of resolution, but they can read silver tracks.

So confident are you on the SR's ability on this one.

I too am amazed by how good SR can be but...It does (particularly the Cat. 222 SR/A) have a problem with the current LED light source on a scuffed print...you will get a frying bacon sound that exaggerated by the SR...the customer had to switch to "A" to calm it down to the point of usability.

I cetainly agree that the LED or just red light technology will improve and that the problems I am finding today will be resolved but that day hasn't come yet. I don't know about you, but we get scared calls by independants about this cyan track thing. Everytime USL or Dolby issues an advertisment or statement on it they get nervous and add up the cost of impementing a process that just lets them hold their own...it is a lot of money.

As I said in a previous post...I encourage the continued development of the process but I don't like the rushed feel of it and the scare tactics being used against exhibitors to make it happen by a premature date. The SMPTE is waffling on it as well...first it was when 80% of theatres had converted, then they will implement the cyan track...since exhibition didn't rush out and convert, they are now rattling their red leds at them. If the EPA had legislated the change, then the exhibitors could then have their enemy and know why the change is necessary but at the moment, it seems agenda driven.

And don't forget...everything I have read/heard is that the cyan track will be higher noise and higher distortion than existing tracks...lowering the quality of the analog sound just doesn't sound like a good solution at the moment.

Steve

The cost benefits of the cyan track are so minimal that it won't affect ticket prices one cent. So why should exhibitors spend the money on every screen just to stay where they are? For the benefit of getting an inferior soundtrack?

For the exhibitor and the film going community, where are the benefits?

Steve