I'm THAT Jerk
I saw The Spiderwick Chronicles again today while my muffler was being fixed, and I made probably the silliest, dorkiest complaint to management possible.
I complained about a slight buzzing and overall weakness in the analog sound during the trailers before the feature, and suggested that "upping the LED voltage" was probably the solution. Allow me to explain:
The film was presented in DTS sound, which is the highest quality possible in theatres. However, since DTS equipment is expensive, theatres equipped with DTS systems probably do not have a backup Dolby Digital system (the OTHER common digital theatre sound system, other than SDDS, but that never works), and so, if the digital signal drops out, the sound system will automatically revert to the optical Analog soundtrack on the film (technology that's been relatively unchanged since 1987.)
Since DTS soundtracks are stored on CD-ROM synced to picture via a timecode track on the film print itself (unlike Dolby Digital and SDDS, DTS soundtracks are too big to be stored on the film itself), most trailers do not come with their own DTS soundtrack discs, and thus will be forced into analog playback (if you've ever noticed a big difference in sound quality and volume between trailers and the feature, this is probably why.)
This is great for us dorks, because we get to hear how well the theatre in question keeps up their old analog systems (which, in most modern theatres, is pretty bad.) One easy way to boost the level and crisp reception of the analog signal is to boost the voltage level of the LED reader that scans the optical soundtrack (until about five or so years ago, most theatres used white light to scan the optical soundtracks on films, which worked well since optical soundtracks were made of a thin layer of silver embedded in the film, and were the only part of modern mylar-based film stock that was not environmentally friendly. Now, film prints are starting to use a biodegradable cyan dye soundtracks, which will not work in white light systems. So now, they use red LED's to scan the film soundtracks.)
Now how many assholes in the world are gonna say THAT?
:-)
I complained about a slight buzzing and overall weakness in the analog sound during the trailers before the feature, and suggested that "upping the LED voltage" was probably the solution. Allow me to explain:
The film was presented in DTS sound, which is the highest quality possible in theatres. However, since DTS equipment is expensive, theatres equipped with DTS systems probably do not have a backup Dolby Digital system (the OTHER common digital theatre sound system, other than SDDS, but that never works), and so, if the digital signal drops out, the sound system will automatically revert to the optical Analog soundtrack on the film (technology that's been relatively unchanged since 1987.)
Since DTS soundtracks are stored on CD-ROM synced to picture via a timecode track on the film print itself (unlike Dolby Digital and SDDS, DTS soundtracks are too big to be stored on the film itself), most trailers do not come with their own DTS soundtrack discs, and thus will be forced into analog playback (if you've ever noticed a big difference in sound quality and volume between trailers and the feature, this is probably why.)
This is great for us dorks, because we get to hear how well the theatre in question keeps up their old analog systems (which, in most modern theatres, is pretty bad.) One easy way to boost the level and crisp reception of the analog signal is to boost the voltage level of the LED reader that scans the optical soundtrack (until about five or so years ago, most theatres used white light to scan the optical soundtracks on films, which worked well since optical soundtracks were made of a thin layer of silver embedded in the film, and were the only part of modern mylar-based film stock that was not environmentally friendly. Now, film prints are starting to use a biodegradable cyan dye soundtracks, which will not work in white light systems. So now, they use red LED's to scan the film soundtracks.)
Now how many assholes in the world are gonna say THAT?
:-)
posted by Rich at
4:30 PM
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