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Author Topic: LED readers Donny Miner Film Handler Posts: 10 From: Fortuna CA, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 02-21-2003 03:56 AM                        I attended the Dolby Digital Workshop in San francisco on febuary 11th and they said by this time next year that almost every studio will be sending out 100% cyan prints. And that you must have a LED reader to read the prints and that the (white) lamps will not do. Has everyone changed or will be changing over to the LED's in the near future? ...Or do you think that the change will take a little longer than expected...Like maybe a few more years down the road? We have NO LED readers at 6-screen theatre, but might be up-grading to the LED's in the near future. I think it might be a wise thing to do just in case they do the 100% cyan changeover and you won't be caught with a print that you can't play 'cause you dont have a LED reader. I hear that the LED's have less noise than the (white) lamps and that the sound is even better...So why not do the changeover anyways? Does it cost a lot to buy/install the LED readers? Or is it something else? I guess that the studios been warning about the change for years now and that everyone should be or just about done switching over to the LED's. Whats your thought on the 100% cyan changeover???  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 02-21-2003 07:41 AM                    Welcome, Donny. The alleged cyan conversion has been the subject of much debate here and if you use the search feature to look for "cyan tracks" you can find much of it. Note that the improvement in separation and S/N you speak of is something you get with a reverse scan reader which many are installing, not because the light source is red LED. Indeed the early modern reverse scanners used infra-red LED's which would not be cyan compatible but happen to be longer lived. ("Modern" because reverse scan has been around in other forms for many years.) You will not get this improvement just by converting to a red LED light source but keeping the other components the same (there are some conversion devices that do this.) The cyan track is acknowledged even by its proponents to be poorer sound quality and they advise compensating with Dolby SR NR, which of course one would use anyway so it's a rather moot point. It also happens to be the fastest fading dye layer on the print. The advantages of the cyan track over the traditional silver applicated track lay entirely with the labs which can skip a somewhat awkward step in processing which cannot be done carelessly without spoiling prints and they also get a bit more silver to recover from the processing chemistry.  |  IP: Logged Ken Layton Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1452 From: Olympia, Wash. USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 02-21-2003 08:29 AM                     And don't forget that you have the right to reject the cyan print as "unplayable" and tell the distributor to send a normal print. All you have to do is complain-complain-complain to the distributor if they stick you with one of those crappy cyan track prints.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-21-2003 09:42 AM                        With regard to the "just use SR" comment: as I understand things, SR will improve the s/n ratio by a specific amount, regardless of the original s/n ratio. In other words, if the s/n ratio of a dye track without SR is (for example) 10dB worse than a print with a silver track, then the s/n ratio with SR would be higher, but would still be 10dB worse than an equivalent SR print with a silver track. Am I misunderstanding something here? Also, what will happen with reprints of older titles with mono or Dolby A tracks? Will these have silver tracks, or will the labs make new soundtrack negatives with SR noise reductions? Or will they take the cheap way out and just make worse-sounding prints? And what about theatres without SR playback capability? There are still plenty of mono and Dolby-A houses out there.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-21-2003 12:07 PM                     Ken that reject a print as unplayable probably will not work as they will be advising ahead of time of the change and this has been on the books for several years.  |  IP: Logged Dave Macaulay Film God Posts: 2321 From: Toronto, Canada Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-21-2003 03:21 PM                     Once the labs "change over" to cyan tracks, silver or high-magenta tracks would be a special order, and probably silver track equipment will be retired and scrapped some day and that won't be an option. The silver track system requires recoating, exposing, and developing the sound track area after the picture area is done. I'm not sure whether high-magenta requires these extra steps - or why it's being phased out in favour of cyan. I think HM gives passable sound quality using red or white light, and cyan is better with red light although quite bad with white light... but once it's exposed it is developed along with the picture so no redevelopment is needed. The sound negative does not have to change, only the processing and final appearance of the release print. On a big re-release a new sound negative would likely be produced as some audio processing changes are helpful to accomodate the cyan track reproduction characteristics. On a small volume re-release for rep houses or whatever, I doubt if the cost of the new neg would be justifiable.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-21-2003 09:31 PM                     High Magenta requires reprosessing Alro the Sound track negative for Cyan requires different density to control the cross mod distortion  |  IP: Logged Dave Macaulay Film God Posts: 2321 From: Toronto, Canada Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-22-2003 07:22 AM                     Thanks Gord. Is the cross-mod problem so bad that if someone wanted a few new prints (the "singalong" Sound of Music thing comes to mind) that a new sound negative would be required?  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 02-22-2003 09:26 AM                        Some links: http://www.dyetracks.org http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/sstLabGuide.shtml http://www.agfa.com/motionpictures/pdf/dyetrac_jpeghigh.pdf  |  IP: Logged Christopher Seo Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 530 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-22-2003 10:34 AM                     Scott, That is my understanding of SR as well: both SR and A-type have fixed noise-reducing characteristics. I believe the specs on A-type are 10 dB of noise reduction, increasing to 15 dB at high frequencies. SR provides 16 dB of noise reduction increasing to 24 dB at high frequencies. Presumably, then, it is possible to create a recording medium or transmission channel with such poor s/n that even SR cannot totally eliminate (audible) noise. Of course SR would still attenuate the noise by the 16-24 dB figure.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-22-2003 11:24 AM                     A new sound neg would be advisable  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-23-2003 05:01 PM                     Cyan tracks have got to be one of the stupidest things to come down the pike in years. It is a downgrade in every respect. The proponents of it are manufacturers that have $$$ to gain. For instance, Dolby just so happens to be the chief suppliers of red LEDs for OEM manufacturers. Kodak is supporting it in the name of reduction of print waste due to redeveloper splash (thereby keeping a film based industry alive a little longer by keeping film related processing costs down). Labs want it to avoid the cost of redevelopment of the soundtrack. However, the labs, the ones that will gain the most, are offering nothing to the people that are paying for the red reader conversion. So all this alledged cost savings will stay with them. The studios claim they will not convert to cyan until at least 85% of the industry is red-reader compatible (and we are not even close to that yet). Dolby uses inflated numbers on their red reader infultration claims by including ALL LEDs SOLD...thus any new or replacement LEDs whether they are for analog or digital readers (including in Dolby's Cat. 701 or 702 series readers) are added into the alledged red-reader acceptance figures. I have found that digital replacement LEDs are about 10:1...that is, 10 replacement LEDs to every new installation sold. Next time someone from Dolby tells you about the industry conversion...ask them if they are willing to wager, in writing on it. ShoWest is coming up...do it there where gambling is legal. Steve  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 02-23-2003 05:20 PM                        quote: Kodak is supporting it in the name of reduction of print waste due to redeveloper splash (thereby keeping a film based industry alive a little longer by keeping film related processing costs down). If you go to the http://www.dyetracks.org site, you will see that Kodak is one of MANY companies supporting the conversion to the cyan dye tracks. Eliminating soundtrack redevelopment not only reduces waste, it eliminates the use of a caustic developer containing hydroquinone, and the large volumes of water required to wash that viscous developer off billions of feet of film annually. Almost all of the silver left in a color print is in the analog soundtrack, requiring extra steps to recover in an environmental way. Good decisions are based on weighing many factors, both positive and negative. Don't fixate on the few negative ones, when the positive ones are so great.  |  IP: Logged Michael Rourke Expert Film Handler Posts: 159 From: San Luis Obispo, Central Coast of CA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-23-2003 06:00 PM                     With red light readers would magenta dye getting on the soundtrack or on the optics mean that you no longer have sound? Do labs still use film "mutilators" to rescue the silver from soundtracks or is that no longer done?  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-23-2003 09:55 PM                        But Steve, if the conversion is driven by economic gain for the vested interest groups as you claim -- the labs and the hardware manufacturers -- rather than being driven by a demonstrable technical improvement in sound quality as the advocates have been claiming, why would NATO be on board with this? Seems like NATO theatre members are footing a rather large bill for the conversion, yet they benefit the least, economically. Obviously they must see some advantage. I thought the downgrade in S/N was only a slight degradation. Is it really the 10db that Scott says? Frank  |  IP: Logged

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