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Topic: "Kung Fu Hustle" - DTS or No DTS

Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 04-20-2005 10:04 PM

Well, we got our print today... and it came with DTS discs... but alas, there's no time code on the print! What gives? Are all the prints like that? If so, why even bother sending the CDs?

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Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 04-20-2005 10:07 PM

Reels 2, 3 and 4 of my print did not have dts timecode. Sucks to be a dts owner!

(Actually it sucks to be a SDDS owner too because the reel I looked at had an obviously misprinted SDDS track...but I'll be running in SRD anyway so no biggie.)

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 04-20-2005 11:12 PM

..just hope that the SRD track ain't messed up as well due to the printing errors. - Monte

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 04-21-2005 11:24 AM

quote: Brad Miller
Reels 2, 3 and 4 of my print did not have dts timecode.

Does that mean that 1 and 5 did? That's interesting, because I don't think any of mine did. I think the attached trailer had the timecode (but didn't have an SDDS track).

I should probably go check it again and report back later.

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 04-21-2005 01:45 PM

When 'Air force One' came out, it had an SR-D track on (some) R1's only. Turns out someone didn't license the soundtrack for SR-D, but by accident the lab left it 'turned on' when printing. They caught the mistake, and didn't print the track on any other reels. I wonder if something like that happened here?

Fun movie, BTW.

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Christian Volpi
Master Film Handler

Posts: 349
From: Arlington, NE
Registered: Apr 2004

posted 04-21-2005 03:03 PM

Just received this email from ETS.

quote:

Attention Projectionist:

Due to an encoding problem, you may find that some of your reels of

KUNG FU HUSTLE

Do not have the complete encoding for your DTS disks to play properly. The other three sound types, Dolby, Dolby SRD and SDDS are all fully functional and can be used.

You can determine if your print has this issue by checking the head of each reel for the SOUND marking just before the start of the countdown leader. There will be a frame with a red circle with IN and a number on it. On the edge of the frame below it will be the sound that the reel is encoded with. If it reads SDDS/SRD/SR then the print in not encoded with DTS. Please do not use the DTS disks with this print or it will cause sound issues.

If all 5 reels are marked SDDS/SRD/SR/DTS then your print is ready to play in DTS.

There is no resolution for this issue if you do not have a fully encoded DTS print and you must play your film in one of the other sound formats.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 04-21-2005 06:17 PM

Reel 1 of Men In Black had Dolby Digital on it, but not the rest of it- it was left off for some 'political' reason.
DTS- is THAT still around?? [Wink]

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Alexander Smith
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 128
From: Walney Island, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Registered: Jun 2003

posted 04-21-2005 06:45 PM

It always makes me smirk when I read:

quote:
... Dolby, Dolby SRD ...

I was told, a long time ago when I started work as a projectionist that the term "Dolby SRD" is sufficient to specify that sound format (not "SR/SRD"), irrespective of the particulars of the equipment playing it back. Of course, DTS and SDDS don't have a 'back-up' system for when the digital part of the system fails, by definition they can't.

It seems to be comparable to using two different web-browsers to view the same site. One of the browsers might understand CSS, and the other (older?) browser does not. The website will still be viewable in the non-CSS browser but won't look as pretty.

Alex.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-21-2005 07:03 PM

"Dolby" is referring to the analog track. Dolby SRD is the Dolby digital track.

I'm surprised DTS isn't making a big stink out of this and demanding restruck prints.

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John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 04-21-2005 08:31 PM

It's not a DTS issue .. they only provide the disks and the timecode 'information.' If the lab forgets to put it on - oh well.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-21-2005 08:41 PM

Well, not exactly...DTS is in the business of making DTS work for theatres. They can't sell readers if movies don't have DTS, and one of the ways to make sure movies have DTS is to contract with studios to release movies in DTS, and provide incentives for them to do so (while still charging). Even if DTS isn't the lab's customer, the studio is the lab's customer, and DTS is the studio's customer (and vice-versa).

DTS is in a position to put pressure on the studios to put pressure on the labs in a case like this. How strong is that pressure? Well, that's hard to say without inside knowledge.

--jhawk

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Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 04-21-2005 09:08 PM

The costs to reprint what could be tens of thousands of replacement reels is pretty high, plus there is the time constraint issue. There comes a point when you have to just let an occasional goof slide.

Please report on this thread which reels in your print have dts timecode. This could be interesting to see how much it varies from print to print as well as see if it would be feasible for ETS to assemble complete dts prints to save for repertory use.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-21-2005 09:34 PM

This "Kung Fu Hustle" thing reminds me of a few other odd DTS abnormalities.

Remember the Fox movie, "The Edge"? If you wanted to play it in digital sound you needed Dolby Digital. But the damned print also had DTS time code. No discs though.

In the years leading up to Disney finally releasing a movie with DTS on it ("Con Air") they would tease DTS fans by releasing movie trailers featuring DTS time code on them. I remember seeing one such trailer for "Nixon." I'm not aware that anyone ever got to play that trailer back in DTS Digital Sound.

quote: Jesse Skeen
Reel 1 of Men In Black had Dolby Digital on it, but not the rest of it- it was left off for some 'political' reason.

That was during a short phase when Sony was putting out prints in SR/SDDS/DTS (and no Dolby Digital). "The American President," "Starship Troopers," "Jerry Maguire" and "Men In Black" were among those DTS-SDDS releases.

"Men In Black" was pretty much guaranteed to have DTS on it anyway since Steven Spielberg (a significant shareholder in DTS) was involved in the film's production.

quote: John Walsh
When 'Air force One' came out, it had an SR-D track on (some) R1's only. Turns out someone didn't license the soundtrack for SR-D, but by accident the lab left it 'turned on' when printing.

That's pretty strange. The print I saw of "Air Force One" was a quad format print.

Sony was kind of hit and miss on which movies it chose to do quad format or SDDS-SRD, SDDS-DTS, SDDS-only or even SRD-only (in some SPC and Castle Rock releases) during the late 1990's. Some time after the release of "Godzilla" Sony finally got pretty dependable on releasing quad format prints on Columbia and Tri-Star branded features.

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Kevin Owens
Film Handler

Posts: 2
From: Rainbow City, Alabama, USA
Registered: Apr 2005

posted 04-21-2005 09:46 PM

Reels 1 and 2 of my print had the DTS timecode.

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Mike Spaeth
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1129
From: Marietta, GA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 04-21-2005 09:57 PM

I had timecode on Reel 2 only.

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