We got a print of Almost Famous on Thursday. The DTS holder was in the can...complete with busted-in-half clear plastic retainer... but no disks.

I called Technicolor. They said "When that print was shipped, we did not have any in stock, and we are still out of stock today."

Figuring that was their way of saying I was screwed, I called DTS. They said they had disks, but couldn't ship them out without a direct word from Dreamworks. (This must be fairly new...I've called them a couple of times previous, and they've shipped disks with no question.)

So I called my booker, who called Dreamworks, and they called DTS, and the word came back from my booker that the disks would be overnighted.

So yesterday afternoon, I got the disks... FROM TECHNICOLOR.

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We have sold many DTS units to our customers only to have to repair all of them, upgrade drives, and other problems all at the customers expense.

Indeed if that print did not come straight from Technicolor and was routed from another theater it was then not Technicolors fault, it was the previous theaters fault. The seperate disk is the one major drawback of the DTS system for the average theater owner and a huge drawback for the move over/second run theater. While it may support multi language that has little or no meaning in most places with the exception of large format, and even there with limited use. There is not a large format theater around here that runs multi language.
Indeed DTS has made the readers more reliable but only with many upgrades and modifications. All at the customers expense. That is what has made it a secondary format.
Mark

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Gord, Its odd that you are the only one here hat does NOT have any DTS woes and the ONLY one that does have Dolby woes........perhaps your customers never use their units.
Mark

We have two DTS units. I find them to be very reliable, but have had a few problems with them over the past three years (to me, a "problem" is when you must run a show in analog because the digital unit won't work.)

On the other hand, our three SR-D units (over three years) have never failed.

I know that's not very many for a sampling, but....

Also, I'm sorry to say, people at the theater I work at seem to make it their mission in life to forget to include the DTS disks on ship-out night. At least once a month, I find disks for films that were returned. So, while I really like DTS for techinal reasons, missing disks does seem to be a real problem.

To me, not getting DTS disks is just like not getting a reel of film. Film exchanges do not say; "We are still out of stock of reel one today. Sorry." I'm paying the film exchange to deliver my print -complete-, including disks. It's bad enough they don't want to inspect prints (to verify the disks are there,) but don't give me this, "disks are not my problem," garbage.

Of course, the film exchange should then go back and fine the theater that forgot the disks in the first place.

We are an off-the-break theatre (usually) and we have played hundreds of DTS movies since getting the system in '94.

Only twice have I been totally unable to get disks at all, and only a handful of times (less than ten, I reckon) have I had to call Tech, ETS or whoever to get disks.

The reason I bought DTS had nothing to do with anything but the price. At the time, Dolby was on some movies, DTS was on others, and Sony was just coming out. It was a choice between spending $5500 (which I had) and $12,000 (which I didn't).

Finally, after over six years of use, I have had zero repairs on this DTS unit. I've had the occasional goofup (sound dropping out, etc.) but it's so rare that it's not a problem. Would I buy DTS again? Yes, but only if they give me a free jacket!

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As far as the other argument about which system is more reliable, DTS or SRD. DTS is more reliable, and here is why I think so. DTS had some harware problems yes, but get the upgrade and the problem is solved. When DTS is operating correctly, it is flawless. SRD, while not having hardware problems, that I am aware of, has serious soundtrack problems. That's something that you can't just fix, it is ever persistant. Your soundtracks will occasionally go bad and there is no fix for that. I would rather have a system that doesn't have sound dropouts, and when the system isn't working just make sure your analog is working properly. There is nothing wrong with running a movie in analog, it can and should sound amazing as well.

I personally don't think that every movie that comes out actually benifits from a digital soundtrack. Huge special effects movies and action films, yes. But not everything NEEDS to be in digital anyway.