Sound on the remastered dvd of the original series

[meekatharra]

I would like to know what everyone thinks of the redone sound on the recently released DVD of the original series.

I know it say it has been put into surround sound but I personally don't think it makes particularly interesting use of the rear speakers.

All thoughts welcome

THanks
James T

[GoldCylon]

James I just received this email the other day. It gave me insight on the Galactica Sensurround system I wasn't aware of in the past. Hope it helps.

I've never seen a Model-W or Model-C Sensurround horn for sale anywhere on the net - Model-M horns appear on eBay from time to time for a few hundred dollars - for some unknown reason, many refer to the Model-M horns as Model-E horns, which is flat-out wrong because MCA never called them that. The Model-C (Corner) horns were not widely used during Earthquake's run due to less-than-optimal performance and were no longer available after that. The Model-W bass bins were so heavy and large and difficult to ship, that even though they were employed again for Midway, they weren't used in too many theaters. The Model-M (Modular) horn had no such drawbacks because it could be stacked as needed and have corner bat-wings or mouth-extenders added to duplicate the geometry and performance of the Model-W horn, so MCA concentrated on supplying only that model after Midway's run.

By the end of Midway's theatrical engagement, MCA/Universal was shipping the Model-M horns in an unassembled form - and for Roller coaster, MCA started shipping only the 18-inch Model 189E Cerwin-Vega raw drivers to theaters, along with instructions on the type of wood to buy and how to construct the horn enclosure. Since the Sensurround system sold outright to theaters by then, it was up to each individual theater to store or disassemble the speakers when the performance ended. Sadly, I have NEVER come across the blueprints or instructions for building these 'from scratch' versions of the Model-M horn. And don't think I haven't looked! My dream has always been to have a fully functional Sensurround system in my home theater, complete with horns in the front AND back of the room. And I want it to be "authentic" - no Velodyne or Hsu subs will do it for me - I want the 'real' Sensurround horns - or "electro acoustic transducers" as MCA called them in technical documents. Doesn't 'Electro acoustic Transducers' sound so much more impressive and imposing than "Speakers" or "Horns"? I think it does!

I'm proud to say I have a working Sensurround Model-III Control Box for Battlestar... It still even has the dbx Type-II Noise Reduction card in it as well as the Pesudorandom Rumble Generator, which was used to create the actual rumble in Earthquake, but for the Mod-II Midway upgrade, was used for checking installation and the one-hour theater 'shake down' test. All I'm missing is the custom wiring harness that interfaces between the projector sound reader and the Sensurround control box and the theater sound systems main fader... Unfortunately, I don't have the install manual for it - I only have the install manual for the Earthquake version of Sensurround - but, it has the install/operating instructions for the 70mm version, which was used only in Europe!

For some odd reason, MCA/Universal never supplied any information about the re-engineering of the system that went into Mod-III Sensurround. For Rollercoaster and Midway, they had all kinds of magazine articles and technical papers. It's kind of sad because I'd like to know exactly what they did - the Sensurround special effects in Battlestar... were absolutely incredible and far beyond anything done on the earlier Sensurround films. The feeling of wind and 'pressure' on the body when the bridge of the Atlantia is exploding was simply unforgettable! And the sensation of being thrust forward during Viper launches - amazing. Not to mention the use of completely inaudible infrasonic waves to impart a feeling of fear and dread when showing a Cylon Base Star. Plus the 'surround-sound' effect of the system which was so intense and loud that it seemed to engulf the theater in the action. What showmanship! Can you tell Sensurround made an impression on me???

BTW, did you ever get to see Battlestar... theatrically in Sensurround? I saw it theatrically in Albuquerque, New Mexico (I grew up there) at the Eastdale Dollar Theater. They had an absolutely first-class Sensurround installation for Battlestar... and had removed the back three rows of seats to make room for the horns - and both back corners of the theater had huge bat-wings installed to extend the horn - the mouths of the horns were so large the theater had put chicken-wire over them so people couldn't walk inside! There was also a row of Sensurround horns (4-wide) in front on the floor, below the center of the screen and they had the big mouth-extenders on them... the front two rows of seats had yellow tape across them so patrons couldn't sit there - dad asked a manager "why" couldn't we sit there? The manager replied that the rows were blocked off to prevent us from being blased and Albuquerque's safety inspector required it to protect our hearing. So, in total, the Eastdale lost 5 complete rows of seats! Can you imagine a theater allowing that now days? I don't think so! I also saw the other three earlier films in Sensurround (in different theaters in both Albuquerque and Los Angeles), but was younger and I don't remember much about the installations... I do find it incredible that a dollar theater went to all the trouble for a first-rate Battlestar... Sensurround experience. Of course, the long lines outside for each showing probably made it quite profitable for them.

One bummer on the Sensurround films is the DVD's - Universal has botched every DVD release of the Sensurround films. From listening to them it's clear that the mastering engineers for the DVD's had no clue how Sensurround worked - they think it was ONLY a rumble effect. And while, yes, the films (except for Earthquake) were mono, they still had a surround-sound effect that was an integral part of Sensurround. And Earthquake gets the surround sound wrong too! The Universal DVD engineers used the surround track from the 4-channel mag master, porting it directly over to the surround channel on the DVD - WRONG! Earthquake's Sensurround installs did NOT use the Surround track on the film! That was completely disconnected and unused in Sensurround theaters. The surround channel on the film was ONLY for NON-Sensurround showings. For Sensurround (when 4-track mag Earthquake prints were used), the Center Channel was re-directed into the Sensurround horns when needed with its volume and mixing controlled by the 25Hz control tone. On the later films, only mono optical tracks were employed and the entire composite mono track was used as the 'surround'. Plus, for certain scenes, there was no rumble - the Sensurround effect consisted only of a surround-type effect, with the level of the front or back horns being controlled, again, by the control tones. On the DVD's, these sequences have the control tones clearly audible - but there's no surround effect since they were all encoded in Dolby Digital MONO. The engineers clearly thought the audible tones WERE the effect! Plus, according to Dolby Labs (who I've talked to about it), Universal was worried that the low-frequency extension of 16Hz was too low and might damage home equipment if someone were to play it too loud - so they filtered the Sensurround rumble on EVERY title to 20 or 25 Hz! That's completely gutting the effect! When Sensurround was being developed, MCA tried using only 20Hz and found that it wasn't low enough to produce the correct effect! I've written to Universal several times and talked to one of their DVD mixers, letting them know that I have all the documentation they might need to correctly present these films on home video... hopefully, any future High-Def releases on Blu-ray will make correct use of Sensurround. It would be so easy to do, and since Sensurround Control Boxes are still widely available - and Dolby has two of them in great condtion too - they just need to feed the audio through the Sensurround box and then to the Dolby Digital or DTS encoder and be done with it. Then they could also provide a non-Sensurround encoded mix for those viewers that don't have a system capable of handling the low bass or surround sound. It's a total no-brainer!

Universal has a huge number of Sensurround demo films, test reels and 'exhibitor' reels meant to sell the system to theaters and explain the system to the public - plus films showing installation, viewer reactions, etc... all of those need to be made available on each DVD as part of the special features. I really don't think I'm asking too much, you know?

Did you get to sit down and talk with Battlestar's sound mixer? If so, was it an 'interview' for the web or anything like that? I'd like to have a transcript if you have it. Are you still in contact with him? I'd like to put together some questions for him if you are. I've read from other mixers that worked on Sensurround films what you stated to me - that the rumble was so loud and intense mixers couldn't work for too long on Sensurround sequences without getting a headache, dizziness or suffering severe fatigue. Sensurround was also nerve wracking and time-consuming to work with because each theater was a different size and had different low end reverb characteristics - which meant that the low bass of the system could persist for as long as 3 seconds after being shut off - so it could take great amounts of time and extreme care to get scene cuts and the audio switching on and off to work 'correctly' for every theater and every viewer in the audience. One thing I've noted is that all the sound mixers thought it was a super technology and really enjoyed working with it. One guy I got to talk to one time, who did the sound for Rollercoaster, said he was disapointed that MCA wasn't able to make it a success as a general high-fidelity sound system like Dolby did with Dolby Stereo. He said they (MCA) spent a lot of money marketing it to other studio's and setting up dubbing theaters for Sensurround mixing and monitoring - both Fox and MGM had full Sensurround capability but never chose to employ it for a film. And MCA was willing to, initially, wave all license and patent fees for its use in order to get it established. Even the name-change to Sensurround+Plus and a de-emphasis on the "special effects" (rumble) aspect of the system didn't help them - although advertised on the one-sheet for Zoot Suit, the Lightsurround In-Auditorium Synched Light Cueing system was never installed, nor can I find ANY documents or references to the system being re-engineered to control lights in a theater. (notice, however, that dts and MCA did the same thing for certain engagements of Jurassic Park-II: The Lost World - they didn't want that idea to get away!)

I think the failure in selling Sensurround as a general-purpose high-fidelity sound system is why MCA jumped on (and bought into) dts Digital Sound so quickly and aggressively - they didn't want to lose an opportunity like that again - and especially not to Dolby. It's just too bad MCA didn't require huge horn-loaded sub woofers to be installed along with the dts-6 theatrical sound systems - can you imagine how cool Jurassic Park would have been in Sensurround? And MCA could have 're-introduced' it as "Super Sensurround" or "Digital Sensurround"!

Although not directly Battlestar... related, I have a number of Sensurround articles on mixing, engineering, etc... that I'd be happy to email to you if interested. Let me know if you'd like them and I'll email them to you right away. Anything you have about Sensurround, especially as it relates to Battlestar..., I'd love to have copies of, please.

From reading forums and talking to others, I've noticed (with dismay) that people now days simply can't understand how deeply impressive Sensurround was... and even the very best, top-of-the-line IMAX and THX Equipped theaters can't hold a candle to the low bass performance and power of the Sensurround system. It's not just nostalgia on my part either - Sensurround generated 16Hz frequencies at 110-120db - bass in theaters now days is simply a pale imitation of what Sensurround could do, which I don't think most people believe. A 'modern' version of Sensurround would have people lining up in droves at theaters to experience it - especially if it accompanied some wonderful, blockbuster film. People just don't realize how visceral that kind of deep bass really is.

Oh, one thing - and you probably already know this but I thought I'd mention it just in case - when looking for a 35mm print of Battlestar..., you must confirm if it is Sensurround or not. For Earthquake, all prints were compatible and could be run either with or without Sensurround, but after the Midway re-engineering of the system, Sensurround was non-compatible and both Sensurround and Non-Sensurround prints were made. Because Mod-II and Mod-III Sensurround used the dbx Type-II Noise Reduction System, prints cannot be played without decoding... the audible result of non-decoded dbx playback is simply unlistenable.

[goldcylon1]

James I just received this email the other day. It gave me insight on the Galactica Sensurround system I wasn't aware of in the past. Hope it helps.

I've never seen a Model-W or Model-C Sensurround horn for sale anywhere on the net - Model-M horns appear on eBay from time to time for a few hundred dollars - for some unknown reason, many refer to the Model-M horns as Model-E horns, which is flat-out wrong because MCA never called them that. The Model-C (Corner) horns were not widely used during Earthquake's run due to less-than-optimal performance and were no longer available after that. The Model-W bass bins were so heavy and large and difficult to ship, that even though they were employed again for Midway, they weren't used in too many theaters. The Model-M (Modular) horn had no such drawbacks because it could be stacked as needed and have corner bat-wings or mouth-extenders added to duplicate the geometry and performance of the Model-W horn, so MCA concentrated on supplying only that model after Midway's run.

By the end of Midway's theatrical engagement, MCA/Universal was shipping the Model-M horns in an unassembled form - and for Roller coaster, MCA started shipping only the 18-inch Model 189E Cerwin-Vega raw drivers to theaters, along with instructions on the type of wood to buy and how to construct the horn enclosure. Since the Sensurround system sold outright to theaters by then, it was up to each individual theater to store or disassemble the speakers when the performance ended. Sadly, I have NEVER come across the blueprints or instructions for building these 'from scratch' versions of the Model-M horn. And don't think I haven't looked! My dream has always been to have a fully functional Sensurround system in my home theater, complete with horns in the front AND back of the room. And I want it to be "authentic" - no Velodyne or Hsu subs will do it for me - I want the 'real' Sensurround horns - or "electro acoustic transducers" as MCA called them in technical documents. Doesn't 'Electro acoustic Transducers' sound so much more impressive and imposing than "Speakers" or "Horns"? I think it does!

I'm proud to say I have a working Sensurround Model-III Control Box for Battlestar... It still even has the dbx Type-II Noise Reduction card in it as well as the Pesudorandom Rumble Generator, which was used to create the actual rumble in Earthquake, but for the Mod-II Midway upgrade, was used for checking installation and the one-hour theater 'shake down' test. All I'm missing is the custom wiring harness that interfaces between the projector sound reader and the Sensurround control box and the theater sound systems main fader... Unfortunately, I don't have the install manual for it - I only have the install manual for the Earthquake version of Sensurround - but, it has the install/operating instructions for the 70mm version, which was used only in Europe!

For some odd reason, MCA/Universal never supplied any information about the re-engineering of the system that went into Mod-III Sensurround. For Rollercoaster and Midway, they had all kinds of magazine articles and technical papers. It's kind of sad because I'd like to know exactly what they did - the Sensurround special effects in Battlestar... were absolutely incredible and far beyond anything done on the earlier Sensurround films. The feeling of wind and 'pressure' on the body when the bridge of the Atlantia is exploding was simply unforgettable! And the sensation of being thrust forward during Viper launches - amazing. Not to mention the use of completely inaudible infrasonic waves to impart a feeling of fear and dread when showing a Cylon Base Star. Plus the 'surround-sound' effect of the system which was so intense and loud that it seemed to engulf the theater in the action. What showmanship! Can you tell Sensurround made an impression on me???

BTW, did you ever get to see Battlestar... theatrically in Sensurround? I saw it theatrically in Albuquerque, New Mexico (I grew up there) at the Eastdale Dollar Theater. They had an absolutely first-class Sensurround installation for Battlestar... and had removed the back three rows of seats to make room for the horns - and both back corners of the theater had huge bat-wings installed to extend the horn - the mouths of the horns were so large the theater had put chicken-wire over them so people couldn't walk inside! There was also a row of Sensurround horns (4-wide) in front on the floor, below the center of the screen and they had the big mouth-extenders on them... the front two rows of seats had yellow tape across them so patrons couldn't sit there - dad asked a manager "why" couldn't we sit there? The manager replied that the rows were blocked off to prevent us from being blased and Albuquerque's safety inspector required it to protect our hearing. So, in total, the Eastdale lost 5 complete rows of seats! Can you imagine a theater allowing that now days? I don't think so! I also saw the other three earlier films in Sensurround (in different theaters in both Albuquerque and Los Angeles), but was younger and I don't remember much about the installations... I do find it incredible that a dollar theater went to all the trouble for a first-rate Battlestar... Sensurround experience. Of course, the long lines outside for each showing probably made it quite profitable for them.

One bummer on the Sensurround films is the DVD's - Universal has botched every DVD release of the Sensurround films. From listening to them it's clear that the mastering engineers for the DVD's had no clue how Sensurround worked - they think it was ONLY a rumble effect. And while, yes, the films (except for Earthquake) were mono, they still had a surround-sound effect that was an integral part of Sensurround. And Earthquake gets the surround sound wrong too! The Universal DVD engineers used the surround track from the 4-channel mag master, porting it directly over to the surround channel on the DVD - WRONG! Earthquake's Sensurround installs did NOT use the Surround track on the film! That was completely disconnected and unused in Sensurround theaters. The surround channel on the film was ONLY for NON-Sensurround showings. For Sensurround (when 4-track mag Earthquake prints were used), the Center Channel was re-directed into the Sensurround horns when needed with its volume and mixing controlled by the 25Hz control tone. On the later films, only mono optical tracks were employed and the entire composite mono track was used as the 'surround'. Plus, for certain scenes, there was no rumble - the Sensurround effect consisted only of a surround-type effect, with the level of the front or back horns being controlled, again, by the control tones. On the DVD's, these sequences have the control tones clearly audible - but there's no surround effect since they were all encoded in Dolby Digital MONO. The engineers clearly thought the audible tones WERE the effect! Plus, according to Dolby Labs (who I've talked to about it), Universal was worried that the low-frequency extension of 16Hz was too low and might damage home equipment if someone were to play it too loud - so they filtered the Sensurround rumble on EVERY title to 20 or 25 Hz! That's completely gutting the effect! When Sensurround was being developed, MCA tried using only 20Hz and found that it wasn't low enough to produce the correct effect! I've written to Universal several times and talked to one of their DVD mixers, letting them know that I have all the documentation they might need to correctly present these films on home video... hopefully, any future High-Def releases on Blu-ray will make correct use of Sensurround. It would be so easy to do, and since Sensurround Control Boxes are still widely available - and Dolby has two of them in great condtion too - they just need to feed the audio through the Sensurround box and then to the Dolby Digital or DTS encoder and be done with it. Then they could also provide a non-Sensurround encoded mix for those viewers that don't have a system capable of handling the low bass or surround sound. It's a total no-brainer!

Universal has a huge number of Sensurround demo films, test reels and 'exhibitor' reels meant to sell the system to theaters and explain the system to the public - plus films showing installation, viewer reactions, etc... all of those need to be made available on each DVD as part of the special features. I really don't think I'm asking too much, you know?

Did you get to sit down and talk with Battlestar's sound mixer? If so, was it an 'interview' for the web or anything like that? I'd like to have a transcript if you have it. Are you still in contact with him? I'd like to put together some questions for him if you are. I've read from other mixers that worked on Sensurround films what you stated to me - that the rumble was so loud and intense mixers couldn't work for too long on Sensurround sequences without getting a headache, dizziness or suffering severe fatigue. Sensurround was also nerve wracking and time-consuming to work with because each theater was a different size and had different low end reverb characteristics - which meant that the low bass of the system could persist for as long as 3 seconds after being shut off - so it could take great amounts of time and extreme care to get scene cuts and the audio switching on and off to work 'correctly' for every theater and every viewer in the audience. One thing I've noted is that all the sound mixers thought it was a super technology and really enjoyed working with it. One guy I got to talk to one time, who did the sound for Rollercoaster, said he was disapointed that MCA wasn't able to make it a success as a general high-fidelity sound system like Dolby did with Dolby Stereo. He said they (MCA) spent a lot of money marketing it to other studio's and setting up dubbing theaters for Sensurround mixing and monitoring - both Fox and MGM had full Sensurround capability but never chose to employ it for a film. And MCA was willing to, initially, wave all license and patent fees for its use in order to get it established. Even the name-change to Sensurround+Plus and a de-emphasis on the "special effects" (rumble) aspect of the system didn't help them - although advertised on the one-sheet for Zoot Suit, the Lightsurround In-Auditorium Synched Light Cueing system was never installed, nor can I find ANY documents or references to the system being re-engineered to control lights in a theater. (notice, however, that dts and MCA did the same thing for certain engagements of Jurassic Park-II: The Lost World - they didn't want that idea to get away!)

I think the failure in selling Sensurround as a general-purpose high-fidelity sound system is why MCA jumped on (and bought into) dts Digital Sound so quickly and aggressively - they didn't want to lose an opportunity like that again - and especially not to Dolby. It's just too bad MCA didn't require huge horn-loaded sub woofers to be installed along with the dts-6 theatrical sound systems - can you imagine how cool Jurassic Park would have been in Sensurround? And MCA could have 're-introduced' it as "Super Sensurround" or "Digital Sensurround"!

Although not directly Battlestar... related, I have a number of Sensurround articles on mixing, engineering, etc... that I'd be happy to email to you if interested. Let me know if you'd like them and I'll email them to you right away. Anything you have about Sensurround, especially as it relates to Battlestar..., I'd love to have copies of, please.

From reading forums and talking to others, I've noticed (with dismay) that people now days simply can't understand how deeply impressive Sensurround was... and even the very best, top-of-the-line IMAX and THX Equipped theaters can't hold a candle to the low bass performance and power of the Sensurround system. It's not just nostalgia on my part either - Sensurround generated 16Hz frequencies at 110-120db - bass in theaters now days is simply a pale imitation of what Sensurround could do, which I don't think most people believe. A 'modern' version of Sensurround would have people lining up in droves at theaters to experience it - especially if it accompanied some wonderful, blockbuster film. People just don't realize how visceral that kind of deep bass really is.

Oh, one thing - and you probably already know this but I thought I'd mention it just in case - when looking for a 35mm print of Battlestar..., you must confirm if it is Sensurround or not. For Earthquake, all prints were compatible and could be run either with or without Sensurround, but after the Midway re-engineering of the system, Sensurround was non-compatible and both Sensurround and Non-Sensurround prints were made. Because Mod-II and Mod-III Sensurround used the dbx Type-II Noise Reduction System, prints cannot be played without decoding... the audible result of non-decoded dbx playback is simply unlistenable.

Wow talk about a detailed response!