AUDIO for WICKED - STRANGE COMPRESSION PROBLEM?

[Allan Barnes]

I just listened to the opening 5 minutes of 5.1 audio playback for WICKED in one of our cinemas. The pre-show NS music is fine and the various trailers are clear & wonderful (and too loud) BUT Wicked seems to be missing the high ends or is acting like it is under COMPRESSION. I am currently loading different versions of WICKED..... 7.1 / ATMOS / OPEN CAPTIONS to test playback on Monday..... I also asked Universal to send a new DCP.

HAS THIS HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE? WHAT WAS YOUR SOLUTION?

[James Gardiner]

There was a projectionist letter saying it needs to be played at 7 otherwise the audio will be compromised, or similar description.
It has been mixed on a low side when I did a quick check.

[Jim Cassedy]

The e-mail from Deluxe said:

Dear Theatre Operator,

The feature “Wicked” is mixed to be presented at a specific sound level. If your audio processor’s
volume adjustment is in numerical increments from 0 to 10, the correct fader setting for this movie
is 7. Similarly, if your sound processor’s volume adjustment is measured in db increments (such as
-20db to +10db), the correct fader setting for this movie is 0.0 These settings represent the 85db
sound pressure level (aka: “Reference Level”) against which the mix was created by the filmmaker.
If the volume is any lower than this, it can make the dialogue difficult to hear against the music and
effects in the surround channels.

Please ensure your audio processor is set to Reference Level for optimal presentation.


[ FYI: So, based on experience and the general acoustics of that auditorium, we were playing it
at a slightly reduced level. - - and, literally less than 3 minutes after cheating the volume slowly
up to 'reference' level- - the staff & management got multiple complaints about the movie being
"way too loud" and insisted I put the volume back to where it was originally]

[Steve Guttag]

The flaw in their logic was...if you raise the volume to 7 (0dB) for the dialog...well...you've also raised the music and effects so their relationship remains unchanged. I've been toying with making a special type of fader from within Q-SYS such that as you lower the volume below reference, Left and Right go down at a faster rate than center or the surrounds (or even the subwoofer) so it gets a little more dialog centric.

One of the "tricks" I've used in mixed-use venues, where the acoustics are not as cinema-friendly (too live) is to duck Left/Right by about 3dB relative to center...that and paying attention to the midrange to get the dialog to not get lost in the acoustical buildup a movie soundtrack can create.

Now, in theatres with good acoustics and with good speakers, I'm not having an issue with theatres playing at or very near reference. It is pretty stark when I'm in a multiplex where I, personally, tuned all of the rooms with the same test equipment (D2) and the rooms that have the better equipment and better acoustical treatments always can play louder, without complaints. It's not just the level coming from the speaker...it's harshness that a theatre can do to it. A volume control with a single number measurement, like SPL dBc just does not provide enough information about the sound in the room.

[Allan Barnes]

Thanks for the advice.

[Harold Hallikainen]

The flaw in their logic was...if you raise the volume to 7 (0dB) for the dialog...well...you've also raised the music and effects so their relationship remains unchanged. I've been toying with making a special type of fader from within Q-SYS such that as you lower the volume below reference, Left and Right go down at a faster rate than center or the surrounds (or even the subwoofer) so it gets a little more dialog centric.

One of the "tricks" I've used in mixed-use venues, where the acoustics are not as cinema-friendly (too live) is to duck Left/Right by about 3dB relative to center...that and paying attention to the midrange to get the dialog to not get lost in the acoustical buildup a movie soundtrack can create.

Now, in theatres with good acoustics and with good speakers, I'm not having an issue with theatres playing at or very near reference. It is pretty stark when I'm in a multiplex where I, personally, tuned all of the rooms with the same test equipment (D2) and the rooms that have the better equipment and better acoustical treatments always can play louder, without complaints. It's not just the level coming from the speaker...it's harshness that a theatre can do to it. A volume control with a single number measurement, like SPL dBc just does not provide enough information about the sound in the room.

Some interesting ideas. As I recall, equalization is supposed to be "direct sound," not including the room acoustics (short window in capturing the impulse response). I think reference level, however, is averaged over a longer period of time, so it would include the room acoustics, including "build up." Does, perhaps, this measurement technique compensate for variations in room acoustics? Why can we play the content louder in a nonreverberant room?

The idea of turning up the center channel to increase the dialog level without bringing up music and effects is interesting. Does that work?

[Steve Guttag]

It does work. I've NEVER had a paying customer complain that the music and effects are not loud enough. I've had studio screenings where they complain that everything isn't loud enough (different people). Another concept I'm toying with in the Q-SYS world is to have it record the Leq levels of each piece of content that plays, build a table and then on subsequent plays, provide an offset based on the customer's preference for volume. So, the first pass you'll get the theatre's default Ads, Trailers, Feature volumes...subsequent shows will get offsets based on the Leq levels to guide an offset for loud/quiet content.

I know that some people will use compressors on content above a set threshold. The old SMART Afterburner applied a 2:1 compressor above the threshold (which they suggested to be when the SPL in the room reached 85dBc...be that from a single channel or the summation of multiple). I've always been of the mind...build the rooms right and use good equipment. However, I have been in theatres where the demising walls were so bad you can hear people talking through the wall.

As for tuning/EQ...as it currently stands, for cinema, S202 uses pink noise in a steady-state. This does take into account the room's reverberant characteristics. However, just like dBc presumes that the signal being measured is "flat" within the "C-weighting" the whole pink noise and "X-Curve" response presumes that the theatre has particular RT-60 characteristics too. Too many people want to lock on to one part of one spec and not look at them all, holistically.

Now, there are people that believe in tuning via short burst and there is validity to that. However, it isn't representative of the space you listening. It tries to achieve what an anechoic chamber response would be. Which, isn't really what you would want in a cinema, even if you could achieve it. You'd have only directional sound.

I really think that what Tom Holman tried to achieve with the THX program had the right ideas with respect to getting the room right, use good equipment, finish with tuning...which should be minimal. Honestly, if I get my wishes on the room treatment, if I use a QSC SC-424 screen channels, I don't really have to tune. They are pretty much "flat out of the box" (to within the ISO 2969). Even older speakers like the JBL 4675, if the room is half-way decent, it is going to tune up with minimal effort.

[Carsten Kurz]

As our AP20 allows easy touch-screen access to it's output level settings, I sometimes increase center level or decrease L/R for certain features that we play for a longer run. I do it regularly when we play foreign language movies, as increased center/dialog level helps in understanding the foreign language, especially for movies with a lot of music or audio turmoil. Chris Nolans movies come to mind.

[Pete Naples]

One, or three Trinnov Ovations I service, have presets on them entitled 'The Sound of Mucus'. A ear in the room setup to make a badly transferred to DTS version of 'The Sound of Music' intelligible. I *think* the 70mm mag had been captured with SR engaged, whatever they did to it, it was not right.

Like Steve above, I've a few venues with the centre set 3dB or so hot.

[Mike Babb]

The Trinnov Ov1 and Ov2 can have a Profile for variations of the same thing, like a DCP 5.1 without the 3db C boost and one with, triggered by automation if needed. Can also do an eq variation as we did in Pete's example above. And as I always say in training, be careful what you name the preset because it will be displayed on the front panel, like The Sound of Mucus

[Harold Hallikainen]

Prior to this thread, I had never thought of boosting the center channel to improve dialog intelligibility. The USL/QSC JSD-60 can also do this since the gain between each input and each output is configurable on a format by format basis (there is a gain matrix that is loaded when a format is selected).

[Dudley Marshall]

How would I go about increasing the Center volume and/or decreasing left/right, when the DCP audio is direct into our Dolby CP650? We have a Q-SYS but our Kinotons and the Doremi Server are NOT being routed to it currently. It would probably be better to just get the Doremi connected to the Q-SYS. Originally, before the Q-SYS, we had Peavey Media Matrix and everything was routed through that, including 35mm. Is this ideal? Thanks!

[Paul Finn]

The Dolby CP650 has individual channel level adjustments in the "setup" process steps. See the installation manual.

Paul Finn

[Steve Guttag]

Dudley,

You DEFINITELY want to route everything through Q-SYS. Then, the sky is the limit on what you can do as well as how well you can integrate things.

Imagine having your very own CP650 remote control within Q-SYS?

Screen Shot 2024-12-04 at 3.58.21 PM.png

There is also an IMS3000 plugin out that should work with most Doremi based servers, though not all functions as it is only tested on the IMS3000. But, since the TMSes out there will treat everything from the DCP2000 through the IMS3000 as the same thing, they share a lot of the same API.

[Antti Näyhä]

For what it’s worth, I watched an hour or so of Wicked at Amsterdam’s Pathé De Munt 1 (a Dolby Cinema room) and the dialogue and lead vocals definitely had a highly compressed sound to my ear. Enough to be distracting for me, but nothing that an average moviegoer would notice (like, let’s say, the old Cat. 790 robosound bug).

Despite sounding harsh, I did feel that the dialogue and lyrics were cutting through the mix better than usual even when there was a lof of stuff going on.