Toy Story 3 to debut Dolby Surround 7.1

This happens now once every ten years to but bums on cinema seats. No pun DOLBY but really 7.1 has been around since SDDS8 which uses the inner-left and inner-right like it did with 70mm magnetic only it brings the five-screen full spectrum discrete along with common stereo surrounds and LFE.1 full-circle.

Back around 1999 Star Wars episode 1 was released with matrix encoding with quick off the shelf modification of DOLBY CP45 cinema processor which is an upgrade over the CP50 that could only do optical analogue DOLBY STEREO soundtracks.

I was running a practical centre back surround in the home nearly a full year before DOLBY-EX was published to the public. I used a domestic Yamaha DSR-70Pro DOLBY Surround Pro-Logic decoder attached to the Millennium dts 6,4,2 decoder via its surrounds as I was aware the surrounds had this centre phantom image sound that was disorienting when listening in cinema with 70mm with split-surrounds with “Indiana Jones and the last crusade” (1989).  

Now 7.1 has been used in the home in the poorest way of preserving classic 70mm films for the domestic home cinema market, only provides four discrete surround channels to sale AVR/AVP processors where the user will benefit from a better sound field.

So what bright idea brought this on to fool most cinema goes with DOLBY 7.1 I mean its like the reverse of SDDS8 where you can encoded the extra channels only (re-plug the inner-left and inner-right to the rear surrounds).

7.1 seems a bit redundant and it needs to go further than this.    

So I guess you can use the four or two pair discrete if they are stereo and encode using a few DOLBY SA10 decoders and create 11.1 easy.

I even quizzed DOLBY New York on the phone for 20 minutes to see if this would be possible. I didn’t have the dts decoder at the time and this was for the laserdisc player. I didn’t fancy sending my Pioneer off for modification to have an DOLBY AC-3 fearing it might damage the player. Off the shelf DOLBY AC-3 laserdisc players at the time was costly!

So I took an alternative cheaper route over the competition.

I have no doubt the person I was talking to Kris Kristofferson no not the Vampire slayer actor singer maybe it was pronounced (Chris) not Kris. Well he seemed interested if not too interested and I have no doubt this information was passed on because if anyone between DOLBY and Skywalker sound had half the brain, they would have come out with this idea for 70mm DOLBY STEREO long before I started thinking about it. And this was before I even had pc or even knew about the internet.

The only resource of information was magazines where the article is weeks old before publishing.

Yes I’m implying DOLBY ripped off my idea because when I saw the news around 1999 in magazine I was stunned if not laughing at how easy it seemed. By around 1999 I was checking out information at cyber cafés at £1.00 pound an hour. I didn’t get my first pc till around late 2001 from a friend that no longer wanted it because it was old, well not that old just dated enough for him, but for me it was, educational learning tool.

When I got the dts decoder a few months later after the long distance telephone call where I used strangely 5 speakers located on the back wall and two on each sidewall.

Even the guy at New York was puzzled about 5 on the back wall as its usual 6. (I was aware of this fact having worked in a few cinemas myself in the past).

The reason for 5 is so that the centre seat would be lined-up for the (same signal sound information) the other seats placed side by side in the very tiny small living room had the rear centre back spaced out evenly so that the centre back has this overall whole sound presence at near seated height as the surrounds where located just inches above the seating.

The sound was balanced using and SPL db metre I have an RTA but can’t remember using it along with the dts CD calibration music and set-up disc that had wideband pink noise.

I just set the levels so that the left and right would be at the same equal level as the centre back even thou the levels maybe lower on the centre back.

The first laserdisc I tried was Goldenye (1995) THX dts laserdisc which I still have.

The Yamaha DSR-70Pro decoder did exactly what I predicted it would do. It freed the centre phantom image that lingers on left and right surrounds and placed a new whole listening experience for a well mixed film.

If the stereo surrounds are lousily mixed than the decoder is going to have hard time sorting it out.    

I must have tried few other dts laserdiscs from “Daylight” (1996) THX laserdisc which performed magically with centre back surround it had me looking along the sidewalls and looking right over my shoulder during the tunnel explosion.

Anyway the whole point of this is why DOLBY 7.1 when its been in use for years in the home only with few titles re-mixed from their original theatrical mix now lost in this bluray **-up!

I can’t understand why discrete overhead surround wasn’t used and mixed with effects that only sound from above and rain (in the opening doesn’t sound from above, it only sounds when landing on the ground or the roof of house or car)!

Maybe bottom surround should have been used for rain drops landing all around and defused defocused in fact rain is complex sound effect to mix with picture (if one notes and pays attention to real life rain effects its very complex to mix correctly).

I don’t think I’m going to rush out to see Toy Story in 3D at the Empire or anywhere else because I see it only being used as gimmick to put bums on seats for film that hasn’t been in the cinema since 1999 Toy Story 2 and that was DOLBY-EX if I recall and the cinema I saw it at, didn’t have the DOLBY SA10 maybe they should have rewired the old DOLBY CP50 to the DOLBY CP500 if they where thinking?

 Wow, nice. Can't wait for this.