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Author Topic: SDDS and EX??? Roy Martinez Film Handler Posts: 8 From: Miami, FL, USA Registered: Apr 2004 posted 05-20-2004 12:44 AM                        Hello everyone, I have been reading your posts and I never really started a new thread but it feels great, thanks for having me be a part of this! At my theatre we have several auditoriums with sony sdds processors (DFP-3000's) and we also have installed into the sound racks SA10's. I found this to be quite interesting . Does the Sony SDDS sound processor support EX prints? I know its a on-going struggle when it comes to EX and ES on the forum and I would hate to beat a dead horse but I wanted to know. Also, I have a couple of solely DTS houses with SA10's installed. I figure thats a complete waste; am I right? Thanks for the help!  |  IP: Logged Aaron Sisemore Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day! Posts: 3061 From: Rockwall TX USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 05-20-2004 03:28 AM                     Both DTS and SDDS will support EX (ES in the case of DTS) if the LS and RS outputs are properly wired into the SA10. Now, if they would just make more EX encoded films... -Aaron  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-20-2004 03:32 AM                     For final clarification, "ES" does the same thing that "EX" does. DTS just decided to call it "ES" to confuse people and annoy others. (There was also probably a trademark issue, but it's still annoying.)  |  IP: Logged Roy Martinez Film Handler Posts: 8 From: Miami, FL, USA Registered: Apr 2004 posted 05-20-2004 09:16 AM                        My original question refers to the idea of the SA10 being operational with the dfp3000. Q1: In other words if an EX print is released (whenever that happens) and I run it in the SDDS house will the EX unit function as it would with a dolby processor (CP500)? Q2: Or will the SA10 only work with dolby processors? Q3: And will the SA10 work with a CP500 that doese not have SRD installed but does have external connection to DTS? Thanks for the help!!  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-20-2004 02:34 PM                     Manually yes, automatically no. Still, it's no big deal to play your entire presentation in EX, even if only the feature is EX.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-20-2004 02:41 PM                        Except that the optical Dolby track played in EX will have all the surround information playing through the back speakers only. This is a nonissue if your entire show is 5.1 digital, but many of us prefer to play trailers in analog. In that case, ideally, the EX decoder shouldn't be engaged until the (digital) feature starts. I believe that the CP650 has some sort of "auto EX" feature which works with newer films.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-20-2004 03:21 PM                  EX is going the way of SDDS... >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-20-2004 05:21 PM                        Scott, Since the majority of all trailers come with all three digital soundtracks why would you and many others prefer to run them in alalogue? The only exception is a trailer in DTS if the disc you are running during a DTS feature presentation does not have the soundtrack encoded on the disc. In this case, the trailer should automatically play in analogue. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 05-20-2004 06:10 PM                        There is also an SDDS technote about DFD-D3000+SA-10("satan") which you might want to check for detailed info. It is available for download for free (!) from sdds.com or this very film-tech.com website.  |  IP: Logged Roy Martinez Film Handler Posts: 8 From: Miami, FL, USA Registered: Apr 2004 posted 05-21-2004 01:03 AM                        Thank you all for your posts! I was informed that the way our Sony DFP3000's are actually reading EX is by a special adapter created by our friends at Oddyssey that allows the Sony processors to decode EX soundtracks. I will supply you guys with a picture of it very soon because we thought it may be interesting for you guys to see it... its quite cool! Once again thank you so much!  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 05-21-2004 01:45 AM                        No, no. That adapter allows the DFP-D3000 to switch the SA-10 into EX mode. The DFP itself does no EX-decoding whatsoever. The way it works is that the back surround channel is mixed into the left and right surround channels. The DFP (or Dolby Digital or DTS processors) outputs those two channels as if nothing had happened. The SA-10 then looks at the two surround channels and if it sees signal components that are the same in both channels, extracts them and routes the resultant signal to the back surround. If you don`t have a surround EX or ES adapter, it doesn`t matter because the back surround is in the left and right channels, so you can also play these two channels on a regular installation without losing the back components. The reason there has to be an automation interface between main processor and SA-10 is that you do not necessary play digital all the time. The analog soundtrack however only contains a mono surround channel. That means the output signal for left and right surround is exactly the same. The SA-10 would assume this is a back surround situation and would route the signal to the back surround. So you would have the surround channel in analog coming from the back only all the time instead of from both sides. Therefore the SA-10 has to be engaged when a digital format is played, and disengaged when analog playback occurs.  |  IP: Logged Roy Martinez Film Handler Posts: 8 From: Miami, FL, USA Registered: Apr 2004 posted 05-21-2004 01:47 AM                        your right! But can I still take a picture of it... please!? j/k To be honest with you, I dont know about everyone else, but analogue sound is kind of "emergency use only" sort of thing, being that basically everything that is put on film will have some sort of digital track; not everything but basically everything.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 05-21-2004 02:29 AM                        Maybe, but it shouldn`t sound like an emergency when the system reverts to analog. A well aligned and maintained analog system can sound almost as good as a digital system in most of the typical program material. When your system drops out, there should be no noticeable dialog level difference. Don`t make the mistake of looking at the analog system as old stuff that is only there for redundancy.  |  IP: Logged Roy Martinez Film Handler Posts: 8 From: Miami, FL, USA Registered: Apr 2004 posted 05-21-2004 02:59 AM                        If that was the case for analog why invent digital??  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 05-21-2004 03:06 AM                        Because it can give you that extra dynamic headroom for sonically very active movies, split surrounds and a separate subwoofer channel for one of the most important elements in movies these days - explosions! Plus it is less maintenance intensive (not that maintaining an analog system is intensive work, but most of the systems don`t get maintained at all). But for a lot of the more moderate content, it doesn`t make that big a difference. And of course, unless people damage the tracks or CDs, it doesn`t degrade with multiple showings. A lot of people think digital necessarily sounds much better because they had been treated to bad analog systems for a long time. On the other hand, many digital systems have simply been added to older installations - now we have digital! - without taking into account that the digital formats have 10dB more headroom which is simply too much for a lot of systems which were dimensioned for analog. So the amplifiers go into clipping, the speakers into distortion and eventually components start blowing up. Plus when you have speakers with a high frequency response just good enough for 70s analog tracks, you lose the theoretical full frequency range of the digital format.  |  IP: Logged

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