Technical Info

The Warrina Cineplex is a multi sceen cinema with many technical innovations to increase your movie going experience. One of our cinemas, The Picture Palace, has an 8 channel Sony Dynamic Digital Sound System. We are also fully equiped with DTS Digital Sound and Dolby Digital Sound. For more about Digital Sound at Warrina carry on reading below.

 

 

Digital Sound

Since the advent of sound in the movies in 1927, the way we listen to those movies has been in a constant state of improvement and development. Advances in speakers, amplifiers and other associated equipment have been enourmous. But it wasn't until the 1980's that a real advance was made - 35 mm optical Stereo sound. (Magnetic stripe strero sound had been available for some time on limited 35 mm releases and all 70 mm big budget epics and musicals. Warrina installed 35 mm optical stereo sound in 1983.

And now in the 1990's, Digital technology has come to the movies with the advent of Cinema Digital Sound. Digital sound enhances the movie going experience by bringing a new dimension of crispness and clarity previously unavailable. Sound reproduction is superior as it eliminates all unnecessary background noises. Digital systems also enable the left and right surrounds to be split in to their own unique channels so you can really hear diferent sounds coming at you from different parts of the theatre. Because of the importance of Digital Sond to movies, 3 different and seperate systems have been developed: 1. The DTS system, developed by Digital Systems Inc of California, USA 2. The SDDS system (Sony Dynamic Digital Sond) developed by the Sony Corporation 3. Dolby SR Digital developed by Dolby Labs of the USA

THE DTS SYSTEM

DTS was developed to be widely used commercially in the market place as it ws developed in time to enhance the release of what was to become the third biggest grossing movie of all time - Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. (E.T. is still currently the box office number 2, with, of course, "Titanic", being the current champion).

The USA and Australia received DTS at the same time. The DTS system is a dual system in that the Digital soundtrack of the film is not printed on the film stock itself, but on high quality CD ROM's. A time code is then printed on the film which the DTS system reads in order to sychronise the sound and the picture. The time code is printed on the film between the picture frame edge and the optical stereo soundtrack, which is retained as a backup and for those cinemas not utilising DTS

THE SDDS SYSTEM

Sony Dynamic Digital Sound was developed in the United States and first test marketed there in only two cinemas (one in New York, one in Los Angeles) which were showing "The Last Action Hero". Further limited test marketing was done with the release of "In The Line Of Fire". It wasn't until the release of "Wolf" in 1994 that the SDDS system became more widely used. SDDS was first introduced into Australia in September 1994 with the release of "Wolf".

The SDDS system prints its Digital soundtrack on the stock between the sprocket hole and the outer edge of the film. And it does this on both sides of the film, making for a dual Digital soundtrack. The Digital header then scans both as the film passes through it and automatically chooses the best one to use. This is in case one side of the film stock gets damaged, rendereing the soundtrack on that side unusable. As with the DTS ststem, the optical Stereo soundtrack is retained.

THE DOLBY STEREO DIGITAL SYSTEM

This system was developed at about the same time as the other two. It was first used commercially in the USA in a few selected cinemas with the release of Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" in 1992. It received wider use in 1993 with the release of Walt Disney's "Aladdin".

Dolby Digital was first used in Australai in a limited form with the release of "Aladdin". It is now more widely available. It is not uncommon to see some Dolby Digital releases also have a DTS system employed as well. This is purely at the discretion of the producers who wish to see as many cinemas as possible using a Digital format for their movie.

The Dolby Digital system prints its Digital soundtrack on the film stock in the space between the sprocket holes, but on one side only, the side on which the optical Stereo sondtrack is retained.

A Digital reader then picks up the information as the film passes through it.

 

The Warrina Cineplex believes Digital Sound enhances any movie on which it has been properly utilised, and is the way the future of sound in the movies is going.

Warrina installed DTS Digital sound for its season of "Jurassic Park" which commenced on October 28, 1993.

SDDS was installed in readiness for the release of "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" which commenced its season on December 27 1994.

Dolby Stereo Digital was installed on 5th September, 1995. The first films shown commercially in this format were "Batman Forever" and "Under Seige 2".

And because of our committment to the best speakers , processors and amplifiers, even movies produced in optical Stereo have a fuller, richer sound at Warrina.

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