If dts or Buena Vista is listening, will there be a recall of some sort to distribute corrected discs? Many theaters are still running with the older 2 drive players and many of the newer units have one of the drives dead, so this is very important to THX certified theaters.

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Sorry about the confusion and thanks for pointing it out!

(Egads! I've just crossed the 2000 posting threshold and become a "Film God". I must have died and gone to heaven. Being a good Catholic, I'll settle for a small "g" in god. )

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

We never vary the compression rate. It is always 4:1. The decision was made upon mastering and I know it is disapointing for theaters, but we'll just have to live with it for these two features.

Forgot to answer the other part of your question:

The maximum really has more to do with the size of the files (reels). But, in general, the maximum amount of time for a two-disc feature is 3 hours 20 minutes. As mentioned, it depends on the length of the reels. If some reels are over 20 minutes, then we have to move reels around on the discs to make them fit. (One disc can hold 90 minutes). Each reel has it's own file and is never "cut-up". It has to remain whole. So, sometimes, a reel simply doesn't fit and we have to move (for example) a long reel one to the "B" disc. It's ever trickier if more reels are over 20 minutes or we have to include alternate reels for foreign distribuation.

Usually, one half the feature is on one disc and the other half on the second. In the case of PEARL HARBOR and SWORDFISH, it was decided to shave off trailers to make all the reels fit on the "standard" number of master discs. Otherwise, PEARL HARBOR would have gone to 3 discs. I do not know why SWORDFISH was not increased to two discs.

I can always tell when my DTS player changes disks because the sound drops to analog for about 1/2 second when it happens. Every now and then, I notice this more than once in a movie and always wondered about the reason for it....but Karen's post above explains why this can happen. If Reels 1,2,4 and 6 are on one disk, and 3,5 and 7 on another (due to reel length) the machine would have to switch back and forth twice.

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Karen, has there ever been a resolution to that quick instant of silence between reels? Perhaps a new timecode chip? I've seen it on ver 1.29 and 1.46 and it only affects some movies.

If my memory serves me right, 'Titanic' which at 3:15 runs ten minutes LONGER than 'Pearl Harbor' managed to fit onto TWO disks, INCLUDING all the requisite trailers and THX snipes... (The only three-disk title that I know of is GWTW)...

Yes, Titanic had the THX trailers. Probably reels were easier to "fit" in the disks rather than pealr harbor.

Mike,
I never saw my DTS player drop out of digital at disk change. Sometimes I can note a brief moment of silence (just a moment, I'm the one in the auditorium that can note it!). But I think that in these cases the problem is on the soundtrack rather than in the player because if I remember correctly I had a movie with a continuous sound between disk change and the sound had no interruption.
I agree with Brad, I know that when you have SR drop at reel change the readers offset could be higher than 70.

I know. I read about the "70 offset" on DTS troubleshooting manual.
I have 55 and I have noted, sometimes, that at disk change (usually changeover in my system) there is a very small blip of silence. But I don't know if I heard it with every dts encoded film I've projected. I will check.

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It looks like there might not have been room for the THX soundtrack. (Aren't these on the trailer disks, anyway?) Disk A contains sound for R1, R3, R4, R5, R7; disk B contains sound for R2, R6, R8, and R9.