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A Conversation With The President Of DTS®
Terry Beard is the leading force behind what is being billed as "The Digital Experience" or DTS in theatrical exhibition. He is one of the highly respected architects of and advocates for digital sound at the movies. His company, Digital Theater Systems, has forged a successful partnership with filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Universal Studios to bring to all theatres the promise of discrete digital sound. Editor/Publisher Gary Reber visits with Mr. Beard at the Todd AO/Glen Glenn Sound Studios in Hollywood to discuss digital sound at the movies and the development of the DTS system, and the impact digital sound will have on home theatre.
Gary Reber, WSR Reber: What is your background?
Terry Beard, DTS: I graduated from Cal Tech with an Electrical Engineering degree in 1967. I then worked for six years at Hughes Research Laboratories on gravitational research, optical data processing systems, holographic data storage methods and liquid crystal values. I returned to graduate school at Cal Tech and started my own company, Nuoptix, making special electronics systems for mixing consoles and for recording optical motion picture soundtracks. The systems used new noise reduction circuitry and digital delays to prevent signal clipping. This was at the time Dolby Laboratories was making significant improvements in motion picture optical soundtracks. Our electronics are used throughout the world to record optical soundtracks. This is still a major part of the Nuoptix business. We also design and build various solid state digital audio systems used by Sony Transcom for aircraft communications, and high quality multi-channel digital audio systems that are used in Disney theme parks.
WSR Reber: What was the impetus to develop the DTS system?
Terry Beard: It came out of frustration with the kind of quality we could get from optical soundtracks and the limitations of optical soundtracks. We sell optical soundtrack recorders and know well the limitations of that technology. The improvements that Dolby made in optical soundtracks are remarkable. Before Dolby, mono optical soundtracks with the old Academy rolloff were the standard. At first Dolby met an awful lot of resistance but Ioan Allen and his team hung tough and did a fantastic job. They were very helpful to us and we helped them by providing the equipment to do the optical recordings.
At the same time I see problems everyday with the limitations of optical soundtracks. Although mixers will mix a movie soundtrack to magnetic film they must always be aware of the limitations of the optical medium. It is always a compromise because it is not a discrete channel format and because there are limitations in the dynamic range and the noise floor. It is never what they really want to mix. If you give the soundtrack to a mixer and say, ëhere mix it the way you want,í he will want to mix to discrete six-track magnetic and he will push the faders to where he wants the levels to be. You can't do that with optical. When you make an optical soundtrack you make a transfer from a two-track mag print master which is printed optically at the lab. You cross your fingers. You listen to it and you hope that it is good enough. Compromises are made in recording for the stereo optical release whether it's Dolby A-type or SR because it's an analog optical soundtrack. The limitations and restrictions are annoying. The directors are always complaining. They want more or itís not right. It's grief for the mixers and the filmmakers.
I did a study for Todd-AO Studios back in 1975 and looked into the feasibility of putting digital audio on the film using various methods including holographic data storage. Putting the digital information on the film is technically feasible but I felt that given what my experience had been with laboratory and field use that it would be difficult to make a reliable product. It was one of those things that were feasible but not practical.
In 1976, my company began looking seriously at methods to upgrade to digital sound for theatres with a system that would be practical and reliable. At that time an appropriate medium for digital data storage was not generally available. But by 1987 DAT tapes were available and we started doing experimentation. By 1987 we had effectively already designed a system and had talked to pretty much everybody on the planet about the basic idea of running a dual system. We were still waiting for the advent of an economically viable and reliable digital source. I was convinced and I am still convinced that although the idea of putting the digital information on the film sounds like a good idea, when you get right down to it if somebody was asked to make a general digital release format it is not going to happen that way. The practical problems of putting it through a laboratory and have it reliably work in every theatre will be a nightmare.
In addition, there are some advantages that we knew were going to come along with a dual system. One of the concerns that people have about dual systems is that they are complex like those used in mixing studios, which use sprocketed magnetic film. With microprocessor technology digital dual systems are simple and reliable.
By 1989, it became clear that the hardware was going to be there to allow us to implement a dual system with CD-ROM. Again we wanted developed hardware that was reliable, was simple, and economically reasonable. It's one thing to have an idea that will cost $20,000 for a theatre to implement but we felt that there was a break point probably around $4,000 or $5,000 where the economics would be very attractive to the theatre owners.
There is another problem that we saw with trying to put the digital information on the film. You need a high level of error correction to compensate for dirt and scratches and bad printing. Digital systems can tolerate errors up to a point with no effect whatsoever on the final signal, but if the errors get beyond a certain point, the system falls apart ungracefully. In order to get the necessary amount of data correction in the kind of environment that it's going to be played in, there is going to be a compromise on the digital audio quality. If you preempted the analog optical soundtrack, with some minor compromises you could probably make it, but the film would not have an analog optical soundtrack and there are political problems with trying to do that.
I know now that there is a demand for very high quality motion picture sound and the way to get to that is with digital. No matter what kind of kind of analog noise reduction you use whether Dolby A-type or SR or anything else you are not going to get there because it is always going to have the printing problems, dirt, noise and scratches, and problems with frequency response.
WSR Reber: What exactly is DTS? What does the DTS system consists of? How does DTS electronics interface with the theatreís sound system?
Terry Beard: DTS means Digital Theater Systems, the name of our company. It is a privately held corporation with about a dozen stockholders. We have a joint venture relationship with Steven Spielberg and Universal Studios who are minority shareholders with small pieces of the company.
The product is a CD-ROM-based dual system. The digital audio information is stored on the CD-ROM in a DOS file format, which runs under the DOS operating system. Because it uses the CD-ROM data format, the data is extremely reliable. DTS prints have a 24-bit time code track consisting of 20 bit data and 4 bits of sync, and includes reel and frame number. It is 30 frames per second code and is recorded on the optical soundtrack negative at the same time that the stereo optical analog soundtrack is being recorded. We designed it so that it can be printed in any laboratory in the world with no changes to their printers. So there are no retrofitting or modifications or special requirements. It is a gigantic code that is very easily recorded and read. You can hold it up and see it with your eye. In the theatre, the code is read by a head that mounts on top of the projector so it knows about a second and a half to two seconds before the film gets to the projection aperture what sound it is going to have to play. It takes that sound and loads it, and when the picture gets there it plays it. So it will handle any kind of edits, or reel jumps, or you can start anywhere in the picture and it will play instantly. The disc access time is 300 mS.
The CD-ROM discs that have the motion picture soundtrack on them also have the DTS operating system, so it is very simple to upgrade the system. The motherboard's primary function is moving data. A time code card has a phase locked loop master clock that keeps the system synced up to the film and that in turn provides clock to the output cards. The CD-ROM SCSI system is controlled through the computer, which moves the data from the CD-ROMs onto the D/A playback converters, which convert the digital data to standard analog audio. It's an integrated system. If you take one of our CD-ROMs and put it into a CD player it won't do anything at all. It uses a special format and is encoded using the APT100 compression process. The output levels are typical line level outputs that are designed to interface the converted digital to analog output to a Dolby CP200 or CP65, Ultra Stereo, Kintek or Smart, or any of the processors out there that can handle the 5.1 format.
The output is in the 5.1 format, left, center and right with split surrounds and a subwoofer boom channel. The split surrounds are discrete and full range channels. Our policy has been to provide full range split surrounds but because theatre surround systems usually do not have good low frequency response we send the low frequency energy of the surrounds to the subwoofer output. As you are aware, a very effective way to use surrounds amongst the people who are now mixing for the format is to provide an ambience that puts the audience into an environment. Whether it is in a rain forest, or in an automobile, or in a bathroom or on a basketball court there is a sound feeling for the scene. These ambient channels really can do that. And the same thing is true for real subwoofer. The subwoofer that we use in our system is 50 Hz and down. We restrict it to very low frequencies because it is meant to be a non-directional effects channel. The information on a surround channel can be directional but not something that you would attend to. If you're watching a movie and you hear somebody talk out of a surround channel your attention can be drawn from the screen. Surround channels should set the ambience, set the environment, and the same thing is true of the subwoofer channel. Of course the left, center, and right screen channels are full bandwidth reproduction channels, which ideally should go down to 25 Hz. The 80 Hz and down subwoofer is picked off of the split surround channels. The subwoofer frequencies are taken out of the full bandwidth surround channels for theatrical because theatre surround loudspeakers just won't handle the low frequencies. Theatre surround loudspeakers are not designed to go much further down than 80 Hz or 50 Hz because these are not large low frequency capable loudspeakers. So the subwoofer information which is on both of those surrounds channels are directed to the dedicated subwoofer channel. The ideal situation would be to in fact have that bass energy there on the surround channels. IF you want the bottom line the ultimate would be to have that energy there and have the entire room move with it.
WSR Reber: Now you're describing an equal powered full bandwidth symmetrical system. Our position is that such an arrangement is the ideal. Because within that left front, left back, right front, right back full bandwidth 360 degree symmetrical equal powered configuration a true three dimensional holographic sonic environment can be created on a scene by scene basis as you have just described. But what you also described is a compromised arrangement necessary to conform the ideal system to the limitations of a movie theatre, particularly the surround loudspeaker deficiencies in the low frequencies.
Terry Beard: We do put energy into the surround channels down to 20 Hz but they play the low frequencies with a separate loudspeaker subwoofer system.
WSR Reber: Are you saying that in the surround loudspeaker area of the theatre they augment the surrounds with a dedicated subwoofer for DTS presentations?
Terry Beard: No. The subwoofer is a super low frequency effects channel. Real subwoofer should be and is in fact non-directional information, which rings up room modes. The wavelengths are on the order of the room size. How much bass you hear will depend on where youíre sitting. You may be at an anti-node or a node in the room, so there can be large difference in the amount of low frequency energy that you hear. But it is not directional. The room pressure is going up and down, and how much it is going up and down in a given area is dependent upon whether you're in a node or an anti-node. The room is like a giant resonant cavity that is being rung up. That begins to happen around 40 Hz to 50 Hz. It is very natural to have that dealt with as a separate commodity for effects. All five channels, left, center, right, left surround and right surround, are absolutely independent discrete full bandwidth channels 20 Hz to 20 kHz. That's the way we record them. The energy that is on the split surrounds is not the effects in the usual sense like effects on the screen that you consciously attend to, something that you look at it and hear. A telephone ringing off screen or a bird calls off screen can be distracting. The mixers who are in the know and most directors have come to realize that putting discrete sounds in the surround that you attend to is not a good thing to do. You're watching the movie, you're focused on the movie and you should not be attending to the sound other than sound that is connected with something you're looking at on the screen. The rest of it sets up an ambience. And the things happening off the screen should always be happening at a subliminal level. You shouldn't be listening to it. For movies there is a recognition that split surround loudspeakers or surround loudspeakers in general set an ambience. They set an environment. You feel that you are some place. If you walk into a room you can acoustically feel the room. If you're in a car, you're in a car. If you're in a bathroom, you're in a bathroom. If you're out in an open field you feel the energy of the field. Those things have a sound to them. But it is not a sound that you hear by listening to particular things like a cricket going hear or something. That may be integrated within the sound but it's an ambient sound.
WSR Reber: I think the phase 'integrated within the ambient sound' describes our position as well. The magazine's philosophy is to support the idea of totally three-dimensional holographic sound field creation. I hear what you are saying and I think that we are saying the same thing. We want to hear discretely in a three-dimensional sense to dial in on the ambience or the environment of the particular scene but we want to do it tastefully and in a manner which does not detract from the focus of the story on the screen. It must be artistically integrated into the experience that supports the suspension of disbelief. The sound field can be aggressive sonically as long as it fits the experience created for the scene. I look at it that every scene should have a sound bed signature, which sets up our belief system so that we feel the ambience of the scene's environment. We become a participant sonically. We are now in each scene of the movie, sonically.
Terry Beard: In a motion picture every sound that you hear has been selected. The effects cutters cut into the soundtrack every sound that you hear. Motion pictures do not portray reality in the usual sense. There is a way of telling a story that is done to focus your attention on something. The fact is that in the real environment there may be a horn honk off in the distance, but you just don't put anything off the screen that you would attend to and direct your attention away from the screen.
WSR Reber: Yes, that's an aesthetic call with how aggressive or how far that you go with off screen sound. I thought with Jurassic Park the split surround ambient mix was very aggressive and it effectively complemented the scenes and heightened the excitement and realism. It was not distracting. It was integrated. It worked.
Terry Beard: In real life you hear all kinds of sounds all the time that you are not consciously aware of but your consciousness is focused on what youíre looking at. I mean that all the stuff that is going on in this room you are not consciously aware of because you are looking at me and listening to me speak. Your consciousness is focused on my voice and me. Artists who make movies direct your consciousness. They want to take your consciousness and move it around. Itís amazing how effectively they can manipulate what you see. Iíve often thought about how remarkable it would be to see the eye movement on a hundred people watching a movie to see where their eyes are directed. Good directors know how important sound is. They know how to direct your attention and how to set your mood, and they do it subconsciously. If they do it well they can play you like a fiddle. They know how to make their stories work. Most of the public doesn't appreciate what directors are doing with their images and their sounds. They are artists. The guys who are very good donít do the whiz-bang stuff. The sound is very seldom something that they want you to focus on.
WSR Reber: Of course, one of the irritating things is the Ping-Pong effect where all the sound is directed to the screen then suddenly the surrounds are on. Then it's back to the screen, and then again later another hit in the surrounds. There is no sense of a true sound field that provides a coherent sound bed ambience on a scene by scene basis. The way most filmmakers use sound today has a lot to be desired. They are not using the system format capability to support the visuals with true three-dimensional coherent ambient sound fields.
Terry Beard: Itís very frustrating. I see this frustration when mixers canít get what they want. Our objective is to try and give them the best we can so they are not restricted in the sound images they create.
WSR Reber: Part of the systemís discrete surround format capability is the ability to build these three-dimensional holographic sound fields.
Terry Beard: Yes. What you are doing with WSR Reber is interesting in your use of the terminology holographic coherent sound fields. In a typical movie theatre you sit in what is called the far field. Youíre so far away that the coherent interaction of sound from different loudspeakers doesnít occur. What you hear in those large environments is controlled by the Haas effect in which first sounds dominate and you localize with that. The direct sound versus the reflected sound ratios is usually pretty low. Now the things that you can do in a home system are incredible and way beyond what can be done in a movie theatre. In the home environment the distance between speakers and the distance from the speakers to the listener are relatively short, on the order of the wavelength of the sound and the energy from the speakers is coherent. Your terminology is usually used in holography because it means these signals are capable of interfering with one another. So that means that they are on the order of wavelengths or coherence times of the signals. This allows one to create real three-dimensional sound fields. You canít do that in big theatres because they are not near field.
WSR Reber: That is want we are saying in the magazine.
Terry Beard: Well youíre right.
WSR Reber: I believe that soon the film community will produce special soundtrack mixes designed to realize the full potential of the near field home environment that will be superior to the cinema experience. These will be special edition director approved LaserDisc releases which will fully utilized the 5.1 systemís technology to create an optimized holographic three-dimensional coherent sound field.
Terry Beard: Youíre absolutely right. Iím glad you brought this up so that I can talk about the technology and the ideas that are involved here. I want to tell you something about some of the methods that are used for digital compression of soundtracks. The algorithms that have been developed for doing this are based on work that was originally done at Bell Laboratories for reducing data bandwidth for telephone communications. Data rates translate directly into dollars. You buy a satellite and youíve got so many bits per second that you can pump through this thing. If you can put twice the phone conversations through it, itís like doubling the value of this gadget youíve built. So they are very much aware of how you take audio data that is digitized and then compress the digital information.
There are a number of methods that people use to do that. These methods make use of the acoustic masking properties of human hearing where signals of a given frequency mask or conceal signals near that frequency. This masking allows one to dramatically reduce the amount of digital information that is necessary to represent an audio signal. You can take an audio signal, listen to it, and then compress it and compare it to the original. You can compress it 10 to 1 or even 12 to 1 with some of the slick wave transform methods, and you wonít hear a difference. At 6 to 1 it is very, very good. But there is a problem. To illustrate the problem, take a signal and perform a Hilbert transform on it by shifting the phase of all the spectral components by 90 degrees. (Something like a Hilbert transformer is used to do the encoding matrix for Dolby Stereo.) When you listen to those signals transformed or not transformed they sound the same. On the other hand if you put one of them in one speaker and you put the Hilbert transform in the other speaker it puts you into hyperspace. The phase coherence in the near field is critically important. The problem is that some of the transform compression methods compromise inter-channel phase coherence and dramatically compromise the quality of any kind of really discrete sound field presentation. Some spectral compressors do not retain inter channel phase coherence. In a far field environment like a theatre this is less significant. It is not something that you are going to hear. But if you get into a near field environment like your living room what you hear results from the coherent interference of the signals from all the speakers and this is important. If you listen to a good stereo system you can localized between the speakers and hear depth, but the ability to that is seriously compromised with some compression methods. How we localize sounds is absolutely remarkable. We hear things with our two ears and before the information from our two ears get together it has gone through several synapses and yet we can resolve differential wave form arrivals as low as 50 micro seconds. There must be real time waveform information available in the localization of sound. You shift something by a few microseconds of relative time arrival to the two ears and it causes image shift. It is clearly discernible. In a multi-channel system you must maintain inter channel coherence to achieve the kinds of coherent three-dimensional sound fields that you are talking about.
WSR Reber: How well does the DTS system achieve inter-channel phase coherence?
Terry Beard: Weíre using waveform coding. With waveform coding you cannot digitally compress the signal nearly as much as you can if you go to transform coders or wavelet coders or coders where youíre not so interested in maintaining phase coherence. You can maintain phase coherence in spectral coders but generally it is not done because again if you listen to the signal and A/B the signal to itself you can't hear the difference. But when you have five channels like we are talking about and you start doing that kind of stuff it goes all over the place. Let me just say that the technology to do this for real audiophile performance is an interesting problem and some of these questions need to be addressed very seriously because otherwise we can get stuck with ëstandardsí that arenít going to be really very good. A lot of people donít want to hear that. A lot of people are selling hardware and selling systems that donít address this.
WSR Reber: Are you saying between the lines that the other 5.1 systems by Dolby and Sony that are competing with DTS are using compression systems that are not as coherent in inter channel performance as they should be?
Terry Beard: Let me just say that Iíve heard the Dolby system and the Sony system and I think they sound excellent in large theatres. I don't think there is anything wrong with the quality of those systems. Weíre talking about something else as it translates to the home near field listening environment.
WSR Reber: How does DTS differ from Dolby Stereo Digital and Sony SDDS in sound performance and application?
Terry Beard: Our objective is to get the best quality sound possible into all theatres. If you're going to pay $7.00 or more to see a movie you deserve to see it with the best quality projection and best quality sound possible. There has been a weak link in sound quality that has been insurmountable and that is analog tracks, the Dolby A-type or Dolby SR tracks. Theyíre matrixed two-track audio that is not even as good as you can get in a good home theatre system. My home system and your home system performance I guarantee you is better than anything that you can get in any theatre playing stereo optical. Right now there is a philosophy that says that stereo optical is good enough for most theatres, and that perhaps a few hundred special presentation houses will have digital sound. I donít agree with that position. I think that if movie theatres are going to survive they are going to require the best presentation possible. A few years back Dolby Stereo was always the best, particularly if you went to a 70mm six-track presentation. That was really good sound. Then theatre owners bought into the story that theatres made their money selling popcorn and to hell with the quality of the presentation. But that is very counterproductive and I think that theatre owners now understand that. Now weíre at a point that we know that the quality of the soundtrack that weíre putting into the theatres is going to be consistently extremely good. There is a lot of criticism about digital soundtracks but one of the things they donít have a problem with is consistency. You get one CD and another CD, and they are all identical. We are now delivering DTS to theatres in Bakersfield and Dubuque with exactly the soundtrack that the mixers mixed. Itís the very best. I was not willing to compromise on the quality of the sound for any reason. So in principal they can have the very best sound purely dependent on how good they want to make their loudspeakers and amplifiers. And it is not big a deal. Itís a few thousand dollars to make it very good. And we made the price of DTS equipment something that is economically reasonable.
There is now a backlash here because we made our equipment inexpensive. There is a presumption that says ëthis is crap...how can they sell it for thirty-five hundred dollars?í I think you know after last night that this is the very best equipment. We came on line and built the DTS system when we knew that we could make equipment that was the very best. And I think that weíve proved that with DTS. Weíve put DTS out into over a thousand theatres in a very short period of time and made 3,000 prints on Jurassic Park and probably by now, an additional 6,000 to 7,000 prints through standard laboratory processes, and every print has been a good print. Weíve shown that we can do this and that we can deliver. We know that people are going to have problems out there. They are not going to hook our equipment up right. Equipment is not flawless. People are going to have problems. But we are going to sit on top of these things so that everybody gets a very comfortable feeling that this is a practical and economical way to get great sound into all theatres for all movies, not just for the Jurassic Parkís or the Demolition Man's but for every movie.
There is no reason that we should deliver a second quality analog track and that has been our focus on this thing. I think that maybe the other philosophy would have held and I think in fact that the Dolby organization still says that the SR analog track is going to be the way that most theatres are going to be playing sound, and that a select number of theatres are going to be playing SRïD Dolby Stereo Digital. If we hadnít done this that probably would have been the case. I donít think that is a good way to go. I think that we have tried to show whether we do it or Dolby does it that digital is the way to go. Dolby has a great organization with terrific engineers. Obviously you have just got to look at whatís happened. They were better suited in terms of market recognition. They would have been ideally suited to do digital sound for theatres. And yet we come along. Nobody has heard of our company before, and our system goes into a thousand or so theatres. So you've got to wonder how did these guys to it. It is not because we are more bright or super engineers or anything like that. It is that we took a path that really will work, that will really deliver affordable digital sound to all the theatres. And I think that we are making this available and people now know that this is available.
WSR Reber: Is DTS audio performance any better than the Dolby or Sony systems?
Terry Beard: I think that we could say yes, based on A/B tests. The other guys won't do A/B tests like you heard.
WSR Reber: I am going to invite them to do that.
Terry Beard: I think that would be very, very interesting. You should definitely do that. Look, what we are doing is easier than what they are doing. I mean to make the perfect match that you heard to the masters we can do very easily. Frankly the engineering difficulty in what they are doing is far more difficult. They have put an awful lot of money and engineering time in the design of their systems. They have terrific engineers and Sony has provided unlimited financial backing. Dolby engineers are the best and super guys. I know these people and they are doing something that is very, very difficult to do and you should give them an opportunity to A/B. Let me just say that I have heard the Dolby digital system and I think that it sounds just fine in a theatre. Iíve heard the Sony SDDS system and I think that it sounds just fine in a theatre. I havenít heard them do an A/B test. I can tell you that it is not possible for any system to sound better than our system because our system replicates the master exactly. You canít do better than that. I will confidently say that there is no possibility that any digital system out there will sound better than the DTS system. And after what you heard last night you obviously should know that too. Obviously everybody thinks that they are doing the right thing. I am sure the Dolby people and the Sony people believe that the approach that they are taking is the right way and they might be right. Who knows?
WSR Reber: What data compression algorithm does DTS utilize? What is the significance of data reduction as it relates to sound performance?
Terry Beard: We use the APT compression algorithm with a 16 bit 44.1 kHz sample rate. At our Nuoptixís company we designed our own algorithms which we have used in various applications. We researched this area thoroughly. We looked at and listened to and tested pretty much every algorithm in known space with methods of testing that really make sense. There is a lot of misconception about how you determine whether or not an algorithm is a good algorithm, whether or not it works properly. The usual method is you measure distortion, signal-to-noise ratios and the like. Some of this can be misleading in these systems. Let me give you an example. I saw one proposed that required total harmonic distortion be down at least 60 dB. A transform coder can do that in a snap because it tends to suppress low level harmonics. The question that should be asked is, ëwould you hear it? If you had an original signal that in fact had a harmonic component that was 60 dB down then would you want that to be reproduced?í The answer is yes. Then shouldnít you test these to find out that if you have something that is actually 60 dB down that it will come through? The idea is that you take some of these coders and you have a fundamental and a harmonic that is 60 dB down that is lost completely. It sort of combs out signals you shouldn't be losing. A lot of the things that you hear and donít hear are not very well understood. There is a tremendous amount of work that has been done on masking and so. Ultimately one of the very best tests is to do hard A/B comparisons on very good sound systems, both far field and near field, and see if you can hear any kinds of differences. The APT algorithms that we use are straightforward. They are not as exotic as some of the other algorithms that are out there but the quality of the compression is betterópaid for with a lower compression ratio.
WSR Reber: What is the compression ratio of the DTS system?
Terry Beard: Four to one (4:1).
WSR Reber: What is the data reduction extent of the Dolby Stereo Digital and Sony SDDS systems?
Terry Beard: You should ask them.
WSR Reber: In terms of outright sonic performance including SPL, dynamic range and headroom how does DTS differ with Dolby Stereo optical and Dolby SR?
Terry Beard: A lot of the material that you were hearing last night was very difficult material to deal with digitally. One of the characteristics of digital sound that often creates a problem is the way it deals with decaying transients as it fades away. That often happens at very low levels where digital often gets into trouble. Making loud sounds is not a problem with digital. Everybody basically goes to a 20 dB headroom level over headtone level. You have 20 dB above the 85 dB SPL level. We get up to levels of 112 dB for subwoof peaks. If you get 112 dB SPL at 2 kHz you are going to deafen people but you can have 112 dB in the room at 25 Hz to 40 Hz and itís nice, itís effective. We handle all the dynamic range any dubbing stage or theatre can handle.
WSR Reber: In terms of practicality, reliability and performance how does DTS compare to the other digital systems?
Terry Beard: We think that it is the very best in all these regards. The components that we use include the very best CD-ROM drives that you can buy. These are Toshiba CD3401 industrial grade metal case enclosed drives. They have 50,000 hours MPBF that translates into typically twelve to fifteen years of theatre operation. They are very expensive and difficult to get. They are double speed drives with very fast access. We treat the drives very nicely because they are not used for random access but tend to access and move continuously through the program. The rest of the system components are multi-layer-tested boards. Every system that we build goes through a 48-hour burn-in in a hot room. We do a full check before they go into the room and a full check after they come out of the room. We knew that everybody was going to be looking at us with a very jealous eye and wondering how we were going to put in a thousand systems in a couple of weeks and make this thing work.
WSR Reber: How were you able to impact the theatre exhibition market so extensively in such a short period of time?
Terry Beard: We made a system that was intrinsically simple and reliable. It is a system that the people who are currently installing theatre systems can understand and make-work. Basically it was important that we design a system that the average theatre maintenance person can understand and make work, and that you donít have to have a Ph.D. in electronics to understand. Jurassic Park was a demonstration that we could get the CD-ROMs out on time to a thousand theatres and have it work extremely well. So anybody who thinks about this objectively says that these guys must be on to something. Every one of those theatres got their CD-ROM soundtrack and every one of those theatres played it. We did something that is intrinsically simple and reliable.
WSR Reber: Why did you choose to cause such confusion for moviegoers with two DTS systems and marketing that did not differentiate between the two at the 1,000 or so theatre installations across the country? This situation continues to persist in newspaper theatre advertisements.
Terry Beard: Weíre not the sharpest marketing company on the planet. Our objective from the very beginning was to have a discrete 5.1 release format and every one of the DTS two-track systems are designed to be upgraded. We make a kit available to those theatres that want to upgrade to the discrete format. Our belief was that it would be difficult to get the theatres to go to discrete systems. When we released Jurassic Park we had a constrained dynamic range digital stereo version of the mix that had a 12 dB dynamic range above reference. The six-track 5.1 discrete version was just slamming to the walls dynamic range with 20 dB of headroom above the standard optical track. Our feeling was that the stereo version was the conservative version that we knew would play without creating a lot of problems in current stereo optical theatres. And one of the things that we wanted to avoid was having theatres with a lot of blown-out speakers and people complaining. These theatres are going to upgrade we think when they realize that they can get the same discrete track performance as the very best theatres in Los Angeles. Any theatre in the country can have that performance. They can achieve that by just plugging in this extra card and CD-ROM drive. What we found is that the theatres wanted to install six-track versions immediately. They said that ëyou mean youíre selling these things for $3,500 for the full discrete 5.1 channel system? We want them.í We sold every one of those right off. In addition we converted 150 in-house that we thought would go out as digital two-track stereo versions to the 5.1 discrete version. It was just the press of getting these things out. We have another 150 theatres that at this time have ordered upgrade kits. And now we are building all 5.1 discrete channel units.
We had a number of PR problems because we are just inexperienced. We are an engineering company and we had no PR people. Every one of the 3,000 prints of Jurassic Park was the same. Every one of those prints could have been played as a digital print. They were all time coded. They all had the DTS swirling logo on the front end of the print. The understanding was that if a theatre was not a DTS theatre they were to cut the front-end logo off. And we found that some theatres didnít. There were theatres around the country that were playing stereo optical and didnít have a DTS system that left the logo on the front of the print. I had friends call me up and tell me that they saw Jurassic Park and it sounded like a regular optical track. This happened in at least three cases that I checked up on. I mean this was even worst than what you were talking about (see ìSound Wars At A Theatre Near Youî Issue 4, July/ August 1993). People were playing optical soundtracks and because they were playing the DTS logo there was the assumption that it was DTS. The DTS logos that were supposed to be used for the ad billings and the billboards were a DTS-S and a DTS-6 to define the difference between the two. There was a communication problem and that wasnít done. Thereís just a huge difference between stereo matrix and discrete tracks. We know that as you know it. Our objective was and is to have all theatres playing discrete, and again all the systems were made to be upgraded to that. Even if they are not splitting the surrounds they can play with mono surrounds. The discrete system was designed to accommodate that as well. Many theatres are equipped to play split surrounds. But even with four-track discrete with mono surrounds plus a subwoofer it is far better than matrixed standard optical.
WSR Reber: How many 5.1 discrete DTS systems are out in the field now?
Terry Beard: We originally built 200 six-track and 800 stereo units. By the time we started going to market we had another 150 six-track units for a total of 350 discrete systems. Thereís probably about 1,200 total DTS systems now in the field. At the time of the opening of Jurassic Park three were 860 systems. We held about 160 systems back because we had the policy that anybody out there who had any problem would be Fed Exed a replacement unit to plug in. The kinds of things that we usually had was turning the units upside-down and popping cards out. I think there were one half of one percent that had actually some kind of failure like a PC board failure. We didnít have any CD-ROM failures. By now we have probably 500 discrete six-track systems and the balance are stereo. By December of this year we hope to have over 2,000 six-track discrete systems in place. All the new systems that we are building are discrete 5.1 systems. We are encouraging the theatres with stereo DTS systems to upgrade. We thought originally when we started out that the people who would go discrete would be the 70mm theatres who were set up to handle the dynamic range. So we figured that would be about 200 theatres that would be playing Jurassic Park, and the rest of the theatres would opt for the $2,500 digital stereo system. But the other theatres wanted the discrete DTS system as well.
WSR Reber: What are your plans to rectify the advertising situation that does not distinguish between DTS-S and DTS-6 equipped theatres? This situation continues to persist.
Terry Beard: All the systems that we now sell are strictly the DTS-6 system. The way we rectify the current situation is to say to the theatres that you are suppose to advertise in the newspapers DTS-S if you have a stereo two-track system or DTS-6 if you have the six-track discrete system. We donít get complete cooperation, as you know with regard to the business of cutting the front-end trailer DTS logo for those theatres not equipped with DTS.
WSR Reber: Perhaps theatre owners who bought into the DTS-S system donít want the public to know that ëtheir DTS systemí is inferior to other theatre DTS systems?
Terry Beard: Well I wouldnít say that. I think that the theatre owners are getting a really bad rap. These guys are doing a good job. They are asking us to upgrade them to DTS-6 as quickly as possible. Effectively this is going to be a non-issue very soon. This is happening very, very quickly. It is all going to be DTS-6.
WSR Reber: Why is there so little education for theatre employees? Within that industry I have found that theatre managers, ushers, and attendants know virtually nothing about the technical aesthetics of the various projection and soundtrack formats, and their own theatreís sound system. Most theatre personnel donít have a clue as to what the technology is all about or how the presentations work, and therefore draw a blank when quality conscious, caring moviegoers ask questions about presentation formats.
Terry Beard: Itís an education problem. One of the things about the Dolby organization and THX is that they both have been effective at letting people know about sound quality or at least become aware of sound quality in theatres. THX does an admirable service in improving theatre sound systems. And obviously Dolby is very much aware of maintaining good sound quality in theatres. Theyíve taken a very aggressive position in terms of dictating to theatres that their installations must be of this standard in order to advertise the particular Dolby soundtrack presentation format. In some ways thatís admirable, but in the end I think that it is counterproductive. I think that the theatre owners ultimately have to make the decision that their very livelihood depends on the them having good systems and understanding whatís available. Weíre cooperating with theatre owners and will give them any help that we can. Weíre working with THX and helping to promote the THX concept. Weíre putting their sound logo trailer in DTS digital so that in those theatres with a THX Sound System it will play in DTS digital.
WSR Reber: How do you see DTSí future?
Terry Beard: Weíre trying to eliminate one problem, the problem of the stereo optical medium, by getting away from the optical soundtracks in movies. That is the fundamental problem, the fact that it is matrix two-track stereo optical and the problems that go along with that format. Many of the limitations youíd never see because the limitations are imposed during the mix on the directors and mixers. Itís not what they want to do. They have to live with the medium.
So whether itís DTS or Sony or Dolby, I think that in the end itís going to have to be a digital format to replace stereo optical. Weíre going to try to that. Obviously we will cooperate with the other equipment manufacturers out thereóthe Ultra Stereoís, the Kintekís, the Smartís, and Dolby, and Sony as well. I honestly believe that DTS is a way that the industry can do that. Trying to make a general release format with the other approaches (Dolby and Sony) that are being tried, I donít think are going to work. I think that the practical difficulties of doing that in the real world, of getting 2,000 prints and having 20,000 theatres in the United States equipped to play digital soundtracks, given the other methods that are involved, is just not going to work.
WSR Reber: Do you see dual or multiple systems for theatres using DTS, Dolby, and Sony digital systems?
Terry Beard: No. In the long run probably not. Right now there is a competition going on and understandably the theatre owners and people like you are looking at the confusion and at the best way to do this. I can speak about our company, what our policies are and what our philosophy is, but realistically weíre the little guys. Yet weíre the guys that already have a huge number of theatres. Organizations like Sony have lots of money, lots of determination, and great engineering talent, as well as Dolby. If youíre out there looking at whatís going on here youíve got to wonder, ëwell why is it not going to be Dolby, or it could be Sony?í You donít want to buy a system before you know whatís going to work out. There is still a good deal of confusion. I donít know at what point that is going to be resolved.
I think that in the end hard physics is going to work this thing out. Weíre saying that DTS is the right approach. Itís reliable, itís simple, itís economical, and itís a way that we can deliver the very best digital that we can get into every theatre. We can make that happen at the prices that we are selling our system. I am sure that the other companies have their own very good reasons for the approaches they are taking. We just have different philosophies about what we are trying to achieve.
WSR Reber: Both the Dolby and Sony systems embrace the philosophy of having the digital soundtrack data optically printed on the actual film print. They criticize the DTS system for being a dual system. Would you comment on their criticism of the dual system approach?
Terry Beard: There is this suggestion that with a dual system the digital audio is not going to get there, it is going to get lost, and there is going to be confusion about it. Right now motion pictures go out in five or six reels typically. Those 2,000-foot reels are labeled as Reel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and look just alike. One of each of those reels goes into whatís called a Goldberg can and those cans get shipped out routinely to theatres. You have to ask how often is it that they screw that up. Well the answer is not very often. What we did is we took the CD-ROM and we put it into a plastic carrier that is exactly the size of a movie reel and it becomes the sixth or seventh reel of the movie and it slides right into the Goldberg case just like one of the movie reels. We shipped out a thousand of these to theatres. Every one of them got there. The film exchanges do this every day. They know how to do that.
WSR Reber: Now obviously with everything that you have said you see the DTS system becoming the motion picture production an exhibition standard.
Terry Beard: Yes. We hope that is what is going to happen.
WSR Reber: I am sure that your joint venture partners, Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures, believe that DTS will become the standard.
Terry Beard: Yes, of course they believe that. Absolutely.
WSR Reber: What are your plans to replace the analog Dolby Stereo format with your own proprietary analog format on 35mm releases? How does your matrix system differ from Dolby Stereo? What are the benefits to the filmmakers, distributors and exhibitors?
Terry Beard: One of the things that we want to happen when filmmakers start mixing movies for release in this 5.1 discrete digital format is to have them mix the movie without watching little red lights which indicate that they are crashing the Dolby Stereo matrix. As you know when people now mix a Dolby show they must often compromise. They manage the levels so that it will work for an optical release. They monitor through the 4-2-4 matrix while they are doing the mix. They mix this way because that is the way that movies are released in the optical format. But with the format change to digital discrete release, the pictures are going to be mixed primarily for discrete digital playback. For the new format the prime mix has almost no dynamic range restrictions. We developed and are providing equipment to the studios that will take the multi-channel discrete digital mix and push it down in a very agreeable way to fit the dynamic range restrictions of stereo optical. It uses multiband limiters to compress the dynamic range. This piece of equipment does this in a very elegant way that is easy for the studios to use.
Motion pictures are mixed now into the six-track release format initially in a four-track discrete format (left, center, right and mono surround). This four-track mix is spread to six tracks by splitting the surrounds and some additional effects and subwoofer. The 35mm stereo optical is made by putting a dynamic range restricted master of the four-track discrete through a 4-2-4 box which encodes the four tracks down to two tracks which is decoded by the theatreís matrix decoder back to four tracks. Thatís the way things are normally done. Whatís going to happen is if they know that they are going to go to a 5.1 discrete release they will mix to that initially. Thatís what they did for Jurassic Park. Afterwards they crunched it down to get it into the Dolby Stereo optical format. Universal Pictures had already licensed the Dolby logo to be used on Jurassic Park and the optical mix was matrixed through the Dolby matrix.
Our objective was to recognize that people are going to go to discrete mixes for all movies and we wanted to have an integrated system that would allow them to do that without worrying about the levels, and have a way to generate their stereo optical soundtrack in a straightforward transfer process instead of having to remix the show. Our piece of equipment allows them to toggle between listening to the discrete mix or the optical soundtrack on the spot. Thereís an optical simulator that allows them to hear exactly what the optical will sound like as they are making the discrete tracks.
WSR Reber: What mixes were entailed in making the Jurassic Park soundtrack?
Terry Beard: With Jurassic Park they made the master discrete mix with 20 dB of headroom over the 85 dB SPL standard for DTS-6 presentations. Then they made a two-track matrixed digital stereo mix through our 4-2-4 matrix encoder box with 12 dB of headroom for DTS-S presentations. And then they made a standard Dolby Stereo optical with about 6 dB of headroom.
WSR Reber: What you are saying is that future DTS films are going to use your own 4-2-4 stereo matrix system for the optical soundtrack on the 35mm film print instead of the Dolby Stereo matrix. Therefore those films will not carry the Dolby Stereo logo on the film.
Terry Beard: Yes, thatí right. The film will carry the DTS logo only. If we can establish a DTS standard every print will be a DTS print. Every print will be the same with a DTS optical matrix stereo soundtrack and a timecode track that will allow the print to be played with the DTS digital system. There will be the ëDTS In Selected Theatresí logo at the end of the credits. If the film is playing at a DTS theatre in digital the film will have the opening swirling DTS ëThe Digital Experienceí logo.
WSR Reber: How will you control those non-DTS equipped theatres that wonít want to cut off the opening DTS trailer?
Terry Beard: Weíve got a trick. On the DTS logo trailer there will be no optical soundtrack. So if a theatre is not equipped with DTS they will put it up and play it only to hear deafening silence.
WSR Reber: How does your encode matrix differ with the Dolby Stereo matrix?
Terry Beard: We have our own matrix to encode the 4-2-4 matrix optical soundtrack. It is designed to play compatibly through the Dolby Stereo matrix. But the encoding matrix is ours. It is designed to be totally compatible with Dolby playback equipment or Ultra Stereo, Kintek or Smart cinema processors. The Dolby Stereo logo will not appear on our films because the films are not encoded with the Dolby 4-2-4 encode matrix The credit is tied to the encoding matrix, not to the playback decoder equipment manufacturer. Also integrated into our 4-2-4 system is the multi-frequency band limiter that translates the wide dynamic range discrete digital tracks to the optical soundtrack. Itís all part of that process of matrix encoding.
Our company, Nuoptix, as I mentioned early on builds all the optical recorders used to make optical soundtracks. Thereís a way that you can record with our optical cameras that actually reverse-biases the light value during recording to give a couple dB of extra headroom. So we actually have about 8 dB of headroom on the DTS optical soundtracks. Thatís a significant difference, particularly at loud levels. So the track has more headroom than a Dolby optical soundtrack. Dolby has a standard that they have set for how their optical soundtracks are supposed to be recorded and that standard provides for 6 dB of headroom. Hereís how it works. There is a 10-mil septum between the left and right channels. The soundtrack is 76 mill wide and 66 mils are used for recording the standard Dolby Stereo track. Our equipment can be set up to make an absolutely standard Dolby Stereo optical soundtrack. But there is a way to record these tracks that provides more headroom. What it does is it allows the track to expand out to the 82 or 84 mill width scan on the projector without clipping in the middle. For making our DTS tracks we specify that the optical recorders be set up in that way and our limiter-compressor is designed to make the track fit within that format. So effectively we have about 2 dB of extra headroom that you can use if you set the recorder up to do that. The guys at Dolby are kind of schizophrenic about this. Weíve taken Dolby tracks and put them on our recorders set up for reverse-bias and they sound better because of the increased headroom. It makes a difference. Thereís more dynamic range and the effects are louder. I tell people that you can do this but youíre not gong to be making a standard Dolby Stereo optical soundtrack. With our DTS tracks weíve designed our matrix and the specification for the recorders to take advantage of the extra headroom capability. The fact of the matter is there is a large number of our recorders that are doing Dolby Stereo optical soundtracks around the world that have been tweaked to give the extra headroom and theyíre not doing standard Dolby tracks. What happens is that all the way up to 100 percent of the track width it is exactly like a Dolby track then it sort of kicks into overdrive and allows the headroom to go up and you get tracks that go out to 82 or 84 mills. That only occurs on the big explosions and stuff. So it helps. And thatís the difference in our system.
WSR Reber: What are the benefits to the filmmakers, distributors, and exhibitors of the DTS system?
Terry Beard: Starting with the filmmakers, the directors and mixers can now mix the soundtrack exactly as they want it and we will get that exact mix into every theatre in principal on the planet. There are no longer any compromises. You mix it this way and thatís what you are going to get.
Some of the advantages for the distributors are that this kind of system would allow them, when theyíre comfortable with the reliability of it, to have a single print and that print could be played in English, French, Japanese, Swahili or whatever. In order to play it in other languages all they have to do is get another disc, which is an inexpensive proposition as compared to a $1,200 new print. And as you know they open pictures here and they move them around after they finish here in the States. They could play those same prints elsewhere and play them with the soundtrack for those countries. There is no compromise in the quality of the sound using the music and effects tracks with new dialog. It would be the same wonderful 5.1 sound with all music and effects nicely spread. The dialog of course would remain front and center. So DTS would generate a very, very good end product for them.
The exhibitors using DTS can have the same quality soundtrack in their theatres that the filmmakers have on the mixing stage. Ultimately the primary beneficiaries are the people going to see the movies because if weíre successful with this weíre going to be able to put the very best sound possible in every theatre. We can deliver exactly what was mixed to every theatre. Itís economical enough at $3,500 for the system and for most theatres it will take probably another $5,000 or $6,000 in addition to have a sound system that would be very, very good. Itís now something thatís economically reasonable for every theatre. Large numbers of theatres are going to do this. Theatre owners are going to benefit because this is going to improve the quality of their presentation and bring people back to the theatres.
WSR Reber: Do you see Dolby and Sony competing with the price of the DTS system?
Terry Beard: They havenít yet.
WSR Reber: Do you think theatre exhibitors will invest to upgrade their sound systems to deliver all the performance capability of the DTS digital format?
Terry Beard: Yes. I think most theatres will.
WSR Reber: What has been the response of filmmakers and soundtrack mixers to DTS as a production tool?
Terry Beard: It has been very positive. Youíve talked to Andy Nelson (Stephen Spielbergís Hook) last night, and Gary Summers and Gary Rydstrom who mixed Jurassic Park and their response has been uniformly positive. Everybody who has had an experience with DTS is most enthusiastic. As you noted last night this is their dream. They no longer have to compromise on their mixes. The filmmakers are the people who really drive this business. They want the best soundtrack possible and this is the way to deliver it. Filmmakers who always wanted the best sound in the past released in 70mm. Now we have a way to release their movie with that sound into lots of theatres without the expense of 70mm prints. Thatís the most encouraging thing.
WSR Reber: What discouragement have you had with trying to accomplish your objective?
Terry Beard: The most difficult thing or what we have had the most problems with is the entrenched bureaucracy about not wanting to make changes and understandably the resistance to believe that this small company, DTS, is going to compete with Sony and Dolby. The technical community asks ëhow can this be any good? Itís too cheap.í So this preconceived notion has been our primary problem to overcome.
Our biggest weakness is in public relations. This conversation that I am having with you is the first interview I have done. We have no PR flyers or glossy brochures. There is a presumption on the part of the people in the industry that itís got to be Dolby or itís got to be Sony. And it is understandable. Somehow we have to get the story out that this is for real and this is going to happen. Weíre the only guys taking the approach that is going to make digital sound happen for all movies and for all theatres. That is our philosophy and we are the only guys carrying this philosophy. It may be the wrong philosophy and maybe people may not believe it. But thatís a difference. The people at Dolby I know are making the point that the analog Dolby Stereo SR soundtrack is the way it is going to go into the future with only a few selected premiere-type theatres playing in digital.
WSR Reber: The Dolby Stereo SR soundtrack can be excellent but filmmakers will still be limited by dynamic range and mono surround in a matrix format and they will never be able to recreate true holographic imaging for a wider audience to experience. It is the three-dimensional sound field capability that is the promise of digital.
Terry Beard: Yes there are the limitations on dynamic range, noise, discrete tracks and the ambient holographic imaging as you call it. Weíre all guilty of justifying the approach that we are taking. Obviously I do that when I say that having discrete channels and so on is important. They have very sound logic for their approach. I donít want to toot their horn but they believe that it is very important that the digital information be on the film. I believe that their adherence to that idea has caused a major problem for them and it has taken them off onto the wrong track. And I think that the same thing has happened with Sony. Having gone down that path I think they are getting themselves into a corner. They are making all kinds of compromises in quality and reliability, and it is more expensive and complicated. They have answers for this. But basically the thing that drives them is that they believe that it is essential that the digital information be on the film. My opinion is that the reason for believing that, when it is looked at very closely, is not persuasive. I think that the idea that the disc wonít get their is a red herring. I donít think that is true. We have just demonstrated that. Or the idea that DTS wonít be reliable. Our systems are intrinsically the most reliable. There is no doubt about that if you look at exactly what is going on with our systems and what they do. And with the failure modes involved I will say that DTS is the most reliable. You should ask these other folks how would they feel if somebody said, ëwell you guys have to make 2,000 prints and all of them have got to work and theyíre going out to 1,000 theatres and play for two or three hundred plays.í I think that they would blanch white. If they are doing it in a premiere theatre situation it is, granted, less of a problem.
WSR Reber: What do motion picture studios and producers see as the benefits of the DTS system?
Terry Beard: The sound quality of 70mm in thousands of theatres at a fraction of the cost of 70mm.
WSR Reber: What is the commitment of Universal Pictures and other studios to DTS?
Terry Beard: Theyíre our partners and they have invested some money in the company. They really believe in the process and they are releasing all their movies in DTS digital. We are releasing pictures for Warner Brothers and Paramount.
WSR Reber: I noticed with Universalís Heart And Souls that it was obviously a movie that was mixed prior to the six-track availability and it was again a very traditional Ping-Pong front to mono surround mix.
Terry Beard: All the movies to date with the exception of Jurassic Park were mixed prior to their knowing they would be released in DTS digital. Those pictures have the Dolby logo along with our DTS logo at the end of the credit line. The reason is that the license fees to Dolby already had been paid and those movies were already in the loop, and they anticipated that they were going to release in Dolby Stereo. As you know we can come in even after a movie has been mixed and if they have a good discrete four-track mix they can sweeten that to six-track and use it. Thatís kind of the mode weíre in right now. Itís a transition mode. Universal is using now only one kind of print as an economical way to distribute prints in quantity. In terms of commitment they are only using DTS. The other studios also are going to use the system. Itís kind of a no brainier. Thereís no reason not to. Thereís going to be 2,000 to 3,000 DTS theatres out there in the very near future and studios would be foolish not to put their pictures out in digital.
WSR Reber: Do you see Warner Brothers and Disney, both thus far releasing in Dolby Stereo Digital, switching to DTS?
Terry Beard: Warner Brothersí Demolition Man is a picture that we are working on. And we're doing Flesh And Bones, a Paramount Picture right now as well. These companies have had and still have a good relationship with Dolby. Dolby is a top-notch organization and they give great service. The studios have come to rely on them. It is kind of the safe way to go and they are still in that mode. Whatís going to happen is that they are going to very carefully check DTS out and make sure that they are not going to get burned; that is it going to work right. Thatís where we are right now. I expect that we will be doing pictures for all of them by yearís end. Obviously for Warner Brothers and Paramount that is already happening, and ultimately for Disney who weíre talked with about it. Itís kind of a no brainier. Itís not something that is a big deal. They just do a standard six-track discrete mix which they know how to do already and we can drop it in. We did that with our demonstration reel. We took movies that had already been mixed and drooped them into the DTS system. We think to take best advantage of the DTS system they should mix it from the very beginning knowing that it is going out in digital.
WSR Reber: What films have been mixed in the DTS six-track discrete format from the very beginning thus far?
Terry Beard: Jurassic Park is the only one.
WSR Reber: How about Hard Target? That film seemed to have a very aggressive split surround presence.
Terry Beard: Iím sure that when they started Hard Target and they licensed with Dolby they didnít even think about DTS. Weíve only been here for three or four months, so weíre brand new. We can take any picture and put it into the process but I am sure that when they started off they werenít anticipating that.
WSR Reber: Will Steven Spielberg's Schindlerís List be one of the next major releases in DTS digital?
Terry Beard: Absolutely. That will be done from scratch. Andy Nelson is the mixer. That will be a great 5.1 discrete mix.
WSR Reber: Have you talked to James Cameron?
Terry Beard: Actually, weíre talking to his people. He knows about sound. His kind of movies are really sound movies, as you know. Obviously we want to do his movies and some of his people have already come over and talked to us about it. I expect that we will be doing the sound for him because itís kind of a natural.
WSR Reber: What is the situation with Columbia/TriStar Pictures? Francis Ford Coppolaís Bram Stokerís Dracula was released in Dolby Stereo Digital and demoed at the recent NATO ShoWest theatre exhibitors conference in Sonyís SDDS. What is the politics for future Columbia/TriStar Pictures releases?
Terry Beard: We would very much like to accommodate Sony and any of the other studios. I think that it is presumptuous of us to say they shouldnít continue working on the format that they believe is the right way to go. But if they want to release in DTS as well as their own or the Dolby Stereo Digital format we would be happy to do it. Our objective is to make DTS available to everybody. If thereís a filmmaker that is making a picture for release by anybody that wants to release in DTS weíre prepared to do it with them.
There is a critical mass that is going to be hit. Whatís going to happen if weíre successful is that at some point everybody who is sitting on the sidelines is going to move with the one system. I don't think that it is going to work with three different systems. If itís to be Dolby then letís go with it, or if itís to be Sony letís go with it, or if itís to be DTS then letís go with it. That situation is going to resolve itself. I hope if we are able to continue on our path that question will be answered in people minds maybe by the end of the year.
WSR Reber: You already have 1,200 cinemas equipped. That compares to some 250 cinemas for Dolby and 6 for Sony. Are your DTS systems bought and paid for?
Terry Beard: Our systems are sold outright to theatres. All the theatres own them.
WSR Reber: Based on what the stakes are if I were Dolby or Sony and the dollars were there I would put the systems into every theatre and charge a licensing fee on a per picture basis or whatever just to obtain maximum market penetration for their systems.
Terry Beard: I tell you it is a more difficult problem for them than that. The problem is not a marketing problem. Ultimately it is a physics problem, a problem of what you can do and what really is going to work. I mean can you make 2,000 systems and put them into 2,000 average theatres, or 3,000, or 4,000, or 5,000 cinemas? Weíre talking about installing 10,000 theatres and having a system thatís simple and reliable enough to work in all those theatres day after day for ten years. Thatís really what it boils down to. As much as we all blow our own horns that we know what we are doing, in the end mother nature is going to decide. This is not going to be a BS thing that you can talk your way through. I mean if you have those theatres out there and they are ultimately not working and you canít get prints through laboratories or they are screwing up repeatedly, thatís going to come out. No matter how persuasive you are talking about stuff, thatís whatís really going to decide. Weíre all subject to that. We are and so is Sony and Dolby.
WSR Reber: Are you saying that the optical printing of the digital information on film is a greater challenge than just the traditional optical printing of the film itself or the analog soundtrack?
Terry Beard: Absolutely. The normal optical soundtrack fails gracefully when you donít have good printer contact for example. Look, I am a little uncomfortable talking about this. You should talk to the guys at Dolby. They believe, I guess, that they can get good consistent prints. I think that it is not an easy thing to do consistently. Weíve had enough experience with optical soundtracks where printer contact is a killer and the resolution of the prints is degraded. I think that they have done a good job getting the prints that they have got. I donít know what the whole story is and what they are doing. It is my conclusion that it would be very difficult to make that a standard process that you could get 1,000 prints off and all the prints would work. And now we have a situation that if youíre putting the digital information on the film, if it screws up you can get prints that simply donít work; they have to play as opticals. You can get optical soundtrack prints off that are screwed up and you can still understand the dialog and all. Maybe the high frequencies may not quite be there and there might be a little bit of cross modulation distortion in it but you can play it and understand what they are saying. At some point if you had that same level of problem on a digital print youíll get nothing, no sound at all and thatís the problem. Look, my prejudging this and not thinking they are going to do this is not fair. I mean they are working through this right now whether or not they are going to be able to get good prints, whether or not they are going to be able to build systems that are going to be reliable in the field, and whether or not the damage that occurs on film will kill the digital soundtrack. All of us should be very much aware that we donít want to fool ourselves.
One of the things that concerns me very, very much is that some of our competitors took delight at what happened to the Kodak/ORC (Optical Radiation Corporation) Cinema Digital Sound (CDS) System. Their system put the digital information on the film but without an optical soundtrack backup. The negative publicity just destroyed them. Dolby responded to what they were doing to try to shut off digital all together and said that they were going to have a digital system a year and half before they even had anything. Their whole purpose was to stop ORC. And ORC had problems in the theatres with their system. It didnít work because the prints werenít always good prints and it is kind of a tweaky thing to get the digital information on and off the film. It just is. They didnít have a stereo optical soundtrack for it to back up to. There was some great glee taken by some. And I think that is terrible not only from a personal point of view but anytime any of us has problems with our digital soundtracks it hurts. If Dolby has a problem with their digital SRïD soundtrack I literally cringe because the public goes to it expecting digital and it doesnít work. When Sony has a problem with their SDDS thatís bad for the whole proposition of digital sound because people get the idea that digital is not reliable or sounds funky. You know, youíve gone to theatres in which you heard things that didnít sound very good. Every time something bad happens with digital sound no matter what system it is, it damages us all. The process of getting digital sound to the theatres must be intrinsically solid, intrinsically reliable. We can do that. We can make 1,000 CD-ROMs and the data on them is exactly the same, and we can get that data off and we can put it out on wires connected to sound systems, and we can do that reliably. The problem is that when systems fail whether itís Sony or ours, or Dolbyís, in the publicís mind and in the mind of the technical people digital sound is screwed up. And thatís unfortunate. Digital sound for motion pictures can be done and can be done very well. One thing that I donít want to do is to start hammering on the processes the other guys are using. Perhaps if the systems that they are working on can be made to be reliable I would say, ëgreat letís do it.í I would buy into the other processes if they can turn out to be economical and reliable. I wouldnít have a problem with that. Right now we are just trying to see how thatís going to work out. I know that we can do this with DTS and build DTS systems, and make them reliable.
WSR Reber: How do you see this all translating to the home theatre market?
Terry Beard: It is going to have an important impact. Let me tell you why. Movies are now all mixed for stereo optical. When weíre successful all movies are going to be mixed for discrete 5.1-track release. With every movie those masters will be there with unrestrained dynamic range, balls to the wall mixes. There is no way to put that out into home systems now. There is going to be a system to do that. There is going to be a system that you will have in your home that will you allow you to get that same mix and itís a slam dunk to do it. And itís going to be audiophile quality. And the thing that is going to help drive that home system is the fact that movies are all going to be mixed for that format.
WSR Reber: What are your plans to introduce a DTS home theatre system? Dolby already is rushing to introduce their Dolby Surround Digital home theatre version to market. And Sony, who has not said anything publicly about their plans for a home version of SDDS, is sure to not let their stature as the digital leader in digital sound fail in the home theatre market. How do to see DTS as a consumer system?
Terry Beard: Without commenting on our approach let me just say this. The digital bandwidth available on standard LaserDiscs and on CDs is more than adequate. It is possible to put on the existing digital data channels on regular LaserDiscs and on regular CDs uncompromised discrete digital, not with the kinds of compromises made with the compression algorithms used for Sonyís MiniDiscs and Dolbyís AC-3. You can make a 20-bit equivalent audiophile 5.1 track on those directly in a very straightforward and simple way. And that is the way it is going to happen. With some of the other formats that people are talking about using, they have focused on maximum compression because there is a market for putting video on the small 5-inch CD discs. You can compressed the hell out of it to get 70 minutes or so of video on these discs, or you can squeeze video and audio over cable so you can put 500 channels on currently 50 channel systems and link via satellite and such. Theyíre using 6, 8, 10 and 12 to 1 compression ratios. That is an approach that has put a premium on these high compression ratios. The MiniDisc sounds good but it doesn't sound good enough. They are not the best digital audio. They are not the best audio by any measure. It is not a criticism. I think it is remarkable whatís done with the data bit rates they use as is AC-3. But they are not as good as even linear 16 bit let alone linear 18 bit or linear 20 bit. Not only that, one of the things that is also going to happen with the LaserDisc format is that video quality will be dramatically improved.
There is this mind set thatís going on about maximum video and audio compression that says itís good enough. I think that there is a market for the very best. And what you do is you take this technology and make it the very best. As you know I have been restrained on making any kind of announcements about a consumer DTS system. Our philosophy with our DTS theatre process is not to compromise on quality. It has got to be the very best. And I think that there is a consumer market for it. It is not the huge market that others are aiming for. People at some of these other operations with their MPEG standards and all see gigantic worldwide standards for people that are carrying things around on Walkman-type gadgets and they see it as a multi-billion dollar industry. My interest and I think the thing that is going to lead all this technology is going to be the very best quality. You donít compromise in quality; you use the technology to improve the quality. Instead of two channels of matrix encoded sound you have 5.1 channels of the best audiophile quality. That really is the market and where it is going to go.
WSR Reber: How soon do you see this happening for LaserDiscs?
Terry Beard: Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if something couldn't happen by January.
WSR Reber: How will a DTS Home Theatre unit be executed and marketed? Will your method for DTS on LaserDisc be backward compatible with the current two-channel digital and analog tracks?
Terry Beard: No comment.
WSR Reber: Will Jurassic Park be the first DTS Home Theatre release?
Terry Beard: No comment.
WSR Reber: I see the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as a very pivotal show that will launch the transition from the matrixed two-track format to the 5.1 discrete digital format for home theatre. It is there were the education for manufacturers and retailers will begin to take shape.
Terry Beard: We were talking about what happens in the motion picture business, about how all this is so politically driven and how there are preconceived notions about things. I have to tell you that it has been very disappointing seeing that the technical people are just as susceptible as everybody else to the ëkings new clothesí syndrome. I mean there is this assumption that if itís IBM itís got to be good. You canít go wrong buying IBM. Thatís been a problem that has been very discouraging to me. There is this presumption that the MPEG standards or Sonyís or whatever these guys are going to call it may have the right idea but then they may not. Look, there are a lot of smart guys out there that know about technology. All you have to do is to step back and think about this stuff on your own. People need to use a little bit of independent analysis and not rely so much on reputation. We have been very fortunate because we have a very good reputation in the motion picture business, which has been very helpful, and critical to our being able to do what weíve done in the community within which we operate. The larger perceptions can be very confused. Also itís a judgment call. Itís not that the folks, who are going in this direction Gary, are wrong, they have a different idea. Itís like Dolbyís approach to digital sound for motion pictures is a different idea; itís not that itís a wrong idea. They have a different marketing concept and approach, and itís valid. They have very good people to try and pull that off. Different people have different ideas about how things can work or should work.
I hope that our story gets out so people will know what we are trying to do and understand it. It has been a major frustration to get this information out to the studios because they are so conservative. They just donít get it. Itís tough. You know itís interesting, your philosophy and ideas about this are very much along the lines of my feelings about where it is all going which is quality, quality, quality. That market will always lead the others. The politics are so thick that it is frustrating.
WSR Reber: How do you manage to get through the politics to do what you have done?
Terry Beard: I come along with this idea wanting to do digital sound for movies and the only way this happened was Buzz Knudson (Todd AO) and I talked with Steven Spielberg and he was excited about it and if it hadnít had been for him it would never have gotten through the Universal bureaucracy to actually do it. Look they are very good people and they have been supportive, but these organizations are intrinsically conservative. When the idea first came up originally we were going to do 1,500 theatres, and Steven said, ëLetís do it.í And he asked Universal Pictures what they had to do to do it. And the response from Universal was, ëyouíve got to be crazy. This is an $80 million movie and if this screws up...I mean the profits for Universal Pictures...This is the biggest release of the year and you want us to take a chance on a system that is totally unproved and hasnít been out in any theatres or used on any movie, and youíre asking us to do this...Youíve got to be nuts.í So we went out and did field tests on the system and cranked the hell out of it and everything worked. And they kept coming back acknowledging that everything worked perfectly. ëBut 1,500 theatres? Why donít we do 200 theatres?í Finally I said, ëSteven why donít we do 1,000 because I know 1,000 is a slam dunk on the number of stereo theatres out there.í So the edict finally came down and Steven said look, ëI want a 1,000 and just do it.í These people donít like to take risks, but basically it was Steven Spielberg who made the call on that.
WSR Reber: How did you get the theatres to buy the units?
Terry Beard: Steven Spielberg wrote a letter to all the exhibitors and he said that he had heard the DTS system and he knew that it was going to work. Universal made an agreement with us and underwrote the 1,000 systems. They then went out to the theatres and placed them. As it turned out it was a slam-dunk because the theatres were clamoring to get the units. They were saying, ëwow for thirty-five hundred dollars we can have digital sound.í We probably should have made the price more because people were saying that this couldnít be right. We did the NATO ShoWest convention and played the system for exhibitors and the demonstration was very effective. Bill Varney who heads the sound department at Universal Studios did a tremendous job. He did the sound for the logo and edited the three pieces of film for the demonstration. Once Universal decided they were going to do it. Dan Slusser decreed ëweíre going to do it right.í Thatís to their credit. One thing that youíve got to know about these kinds of organizations is that they may be very conservative and not want to do something, and fight it to the bloody end, but when they make a decision to do it, they do it. And thatís exactly what happened. It was a huge risk not because it was the two or three million dollars that they were putting up for the equipment that we were building, but the fact that it was their reputation and that they weíre risking this gigantic movie.
WSR Reber: The DTS swirling trailer logo is really good. Audiences applaud and yell and stomp. Its use of aggressive split surrounds and sound movement is very exciting.
Terry Beard: Bill Varney and Universal designed and produced the logo.
WSR Reber: Now Universal has announced that all their films will be released in DTS digital.
Terry Beard: Oh sure. It works and they know it works. This helps box office. This sells tickets. It gives a competitive advantage. One of the understandings that we had going into this was that DTS would be available to all studios. It is available to anybody who is making movies on exactly the same basis.
WSR Reber: Do you sell special units for soundtrack production directly to the studios?
Terry Beard: Yes. The equipment that is installed in the studios, what are called the towers and the mastering equipment, allows the studios to actually cut one-off versions of the CD-ROM disc and play them in a player on the scene. They have the box that we talked about that monitors the optical playback simulation and the digital version, and the six-track mastering equipment is all available to the studios. We are providing that now as part of the start-up but they will probably own that equipment in-house with no licensing fees at all. The licensing fee we charge now is $7,500 per film, the same as it is for Dolby Stereo.
WSR Reber: No matter what 5.1 format system ends us as the home theatre consumer system, the movies will be there to support the 5.1 discrete format.
Terry Beard: There are some variations in the theme depending on how compromised the digital audio may be to get it to fit within certain consumer software formats. Let me just say and I said this earlier that there are some fundamental unappreciated problems with some of the compression algorithms that are used in terms of imaging in these multi-channel systems when we listen through near field home type systems.
WSR Reber: Thus far the consumer press has not had an opportunity to evaluate how these various digital 5.1 systems would sound in a home theatre environment.
Terry Beard: The DTS home version will be different. It will be even higher quality. The kind of home theatre environments that can be created with home systems can be far more critical listening environments. You can do acoustical things in those environments that you can't do in a large theatre.
WSR Reber: Do you think that the 5.1 discrete format will have an impact on the Home THX specification for dipole surround loudspeaker arrangements that call for mechanically diffused dispersion rather than a point source loudspeaker placement for optimal 5.1 formatted soundtrack reproduction? This assumes a symmetrical, equal powered 5.1 format loudspeaker arrangement with the imaging capability between each point source to reconstruct a three-dimensional holographic sound field.
Terry Beard: Yes. I understand the argument. THX is very much aware of the capability of the system to create discrete ambience field effects. There are some philosophical and aesthetic calls that have to do with the way you use non-screen ambient stuff.
WSR Reber: They have chosen to process those signals mechanically in the surrounds no matter what was envisioned by the mixers. With their arrangement you will always hear a diffuse effect. You can never create a soundfield discreteness with that type of dipole arrangement if such a mix was present on the soundtrack.
Terry Beard: Thatís right. It is inevitable that such mixes will happen. The sound that you can get in large theatres is different than what you can do with sound in a smaller environment like in a home. And the kinds of things that you can do in a home and the kind of listening environment that you can have there, you just canít really get that kind of quality and those kinds of effects in large theatres. And theyíre dramatic. Theyíre incredible. Iíve personally done a lot of experimenting and work in this area and you can establish a whole new standard for sound. I mean really this can happen. It is a tough uphill battle. There are so many entrenched kinds of things, with different people with different interests.
Dolby is an interesting example. Ray Dolby with his inventions has done more to improve sound than any other person I would say in this century. He caused a dramatic improvement in sound with his analog noise reduction systems. Thatís changing now for all kinds of reasons. Weíre in a transition phase. As you know when digital sound first came out there were a lot of problems. And there were reasons why there were those problems that weren't understood. There is a transition taking place and sound is going to be carried around in digital form for a lot of reasons. The era of analog sound is going to go away. I mean Dolby SR is an incredibly ingenious and fantastic design. It has taken analog sound to the limit. It works wonderfully and sounds extremely good. But thatís going to go away because it will not compete in the long run. It is the ultimate in analog sound but analog sound is going to go away. Itís kind of a tough break for companies that have vested interests like Dolby in analog sound. I am ambivalent at seeing this happen but I think that they must recognize too that in the long run analog is not going to be the way audio is moved around.
WSR Reber: Do you think filmmakers and soundtrack mixers will now begin to create holographic three-dimensional true sound field mixes using the capability of the discrete quintaphonic channel assignments? What is DTS doing to lead in this direction?
Terry Beard: Yes. We are providing the theatrical playback means to make this practical.
WSR Reber: What do you think is the cause for the variation from poor to excellent sound performance with the digital systems in actual public cinemas, including those equipped with pre-tested and certified performance-assured THX Sound Systems? Is the blame with the filmmakers and soundtrack mixers or with the performance of theatre sound systems? Is digital pushing these systems into a state of ëshock?í In actual use are there any differences in equalization and SPL levels being set with recording soundtracks for DTS release? Do you think that perhaps the fidelity differences are the result of an industry going through an initial learning phase with using the digital systems? Are filmmakers really listening to their soundtracks reproduced digitally in public cinemas? Do you think it will get rectified?
Terry Beard: Itís all part of the transition. The reason I wanted you to be able to A/B our system with the soundtrack master is so you would know that the most difficult problems have really been solved in getting good sound out to the theatres. In the past there was variability because the optical soundtracks have been an intrinsic limitation. But that no longer is the case. And maybe the mixes are the not best mixes in the world. There are a lot of reasons why they may not be. But now we have eliminated a major bottleneck. And I am confident digital will work out. I know that it is possible for all the theatres to have great sound. It may not happen soon. It may take a little while. But itís possible now. And that's what we have provided. You know you can try and do this by saying that we are setting the standard and everybody has got to adhere to it. Maybe that would be a good idea. I donít know. I think that in terms of self preservation the theatre owners are going to have to see to that their sound systems are good, and the mixers who are mixing the shows are going to learn that what they are mixing is really what will get out to the theatres. They are not going to feel the restrictions and limitations; they are going to become more sensitive to some of these problems that you are hearing.
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The guys who did the mix on Jurassic Park are top-notch mixers. They probably will get an Academy Award nomination for the mixes that they did on that film. These guys did a lot of new things with sound effects and taking advantage of the system. And as you said they were very aggressive in their mix. They are innovators.
I think that the end result is that we are trying to supply one part of the formula but it is not the whole deal at all. THX is helping to improve theatre sound systems and John Allen with his HPS-4000 sound system and other people are also out there helping to improve theatre sound systems. There are all kinds of people that are necessary to make this happen and we are doing one part of it, but I think that itís a part that allows that same sound that they have in the studio to get out to all the theatres. Ultimately we see 8,000 to 10,000 systems installed in the United States and an equal number overseas. Once we get to that point I think that it can lead this quality revolution in the theatres and hopefully you wonít be going to the theatres and coming out saying ëthat sounded terribleí or ëthat wasnít too good.í When they do screenings here at Todd AO/Glen Glenn Sound they tune the rooms up and tweak them so that the presentations are super good. The tweaking isnít necessary with the boxes that we build. That all goes away. The units are consistent. You plug the CD-ROM disc in and it is perfectly level matched and equalized to the master.
WSR Reber: I hope that is will get better but it will have to get better. I am more convinced that the problems that are causing the bad sound experiences that Iíve heard are either in the mix ahead of your translation or in the B Chain of the theatreís sound system.
Terry Beard: Yeah, but those are both things that can be easily taken care of.
WSR Reber: I suppose so but at the same time there is no excuse for the inferior sound performances that Iíve heard at THX-certified theatres such as the General Cinema AVCO Theatre or the Mann National, or the Mann Village or Mann Chinese theatres or Pacific Crest, or Pacific El Capitan. These are the premiere-type theatres that are supposed to get it right on a consistent basis.
Terry Beard: I donít know why. Those are very good theatre chains and I think they are very much aware of high quality and they have good people working for them. Very often you donít know what is causing a problem. You donít know what the soundtrack is supposed to sound like. Now I think it is possible that if they listen to what they know is a very good mix and it sounds like crap well then they will think that they do have a problem with their B Chain because we can guarantee that what we are delivering to them is consistently high quality tracks. I think that the mixes are getting better and better and the equipment in studios is getting better and better, and itís only a matter of time when all this is going to come together.
WSR Reber: If I were you I would go out to the premiere theatres in at least Westwood with a technical crew and tweak each theatreís sound system to ensure the very best possible presentation can occur.
Terry Beard: Tweak them up. One of the reasons that weíre working with THX is that they have some 250 engineers around the country that are THX-qualified engineers who are capable of checking the theatres and ascertaining whether or not they sound good. We are providing THX with standardized material on CD-ROM that we know sounds good so they can really dial-in each theatre's sound system. The disc that we are making for THX has their logo trailer on it but it also has some other test stuff. One of the things is a very critical soundtrack in which the dialog is not biting or harsh and that when itís put up their engineers will know what it ought to sound like. The disc will play automatically. It doesnít need film to play. With it they can listen and determine how the theatre sounds. Is it good? Is it bad? Itís a bit of a subjective call but the stuff that is really bad they will be able to tell so they will know if the B Chain of the theatre is right. Then again the way mixes are done is part of the craft. Once the theatres are dialed-in, then they will mix the way they want it to sound. Again itís that business of about what you do with surrounds, how you deal with ambience and low frequencies, and how you place stuff. Thatís the art.
WSR Reber: What are your immediate plans for DTS?
Terry Beard: Our immediate plan is to equip as many theatres as possible with DTS. The near term is to get all the studios using the DTS system. We have a half dozen very good pictures in the process; two or three are big pictures, which will be released in November and December. Then we are going to be working for a long time during which people are going to be improving their theatres and learning how to mix and take proper advantage of the system. It will be a long period of fine-tuning.
WSR Reber: What do you see as the future for DTS in the theatrical market?
Terry Beard: As you know there are dramatic changes happening and really dramatic opportunities in entertainment communications. This is a technology that is impacting all kinds of areas. For DTS to do this successfully we need people out there who believe in this system and understand it, and are available to talk to the Gary Reberís of this world and give the talks at the AES and SMPTE shows.
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