What Listening Mode is Best For The TN1 restore?

Pardon if this sounds like an ignorant question, but it seems so many are focusing so much on the visual aspect of TN1’s endeavor, that I have yet to hear a suggestion as to how to listen to it. Correct me if Im wrong, but the 35mm print had a MONO soundtrack with a Stereo movie track. The TN1 restore was released with a 2ch audio track. So what listening mode should we listen to it in? Stereo? All channel stereo? Pro-Logic? Im not entirely sure how a theater was setup back in 77’. Im guessing, for SW, they had a speaker behind the screen far left and far right, Then a side or rear left/right “psuedo surround” set of speakers and finally a sub. If that is correct, or close to it, that would make me lean towards an all-channel stereo setting. But I could be wrong. Any thoughts?
BTW, in researching this, I found a really good article that relates to this:
http://www.tested.com/starwars/460476-star-wars-and-explosion-dolby-stereo/

I can’t help with the setup stuff, since I’m pretty clueless when it comes to audio gear (and certainly when it comes to actual theater equipment). But in case you don’t know, the current release uses the laserdisc audio (which isn’t entirely accurate to 1977), but the next release will have mono and stereo soundtracks derived directly from prints.

Thanks for the info. I didnt know that. Im pretty new to this fan preservation thing and Im still reading posts and gathering intel on the subject. Im guessing they didnt use the 35mm audio because its from a Spanish version. Also, what format is the LD audio track?

BobaJett said:

Thanks for the info. I didnt know that. Im pretty new to this fan preservation thing and Im still reading posts and gathering intel on the subject. Im guessing they didnt use the 35mm audio because its from a Spanish version. Also, what format is the LD audio track?

I believe it’s ac3 in this release. I’m just speculating, but yes, since it’s a Spanish print, and not GOUT synced, their film sourced audio would have needed to be re-synced, which is a bit of work.

BobaJett said:

Also, what format is the LD audio track?

The channel format of the 1993 AC-3 track is Dolby Surround, so it’s designed to be decoded via Prologic (L, R, C, S). This will be something like the experience of a newly equipped Dolby theatre in 1977, but the main issue (as mentioned above) is that it’s not the original track, rather a laserdisc-era remix.

The upcoming releases with original Dolby Stereo and mono will be a lot more faithful in this respect, and if they end up syncing with other projects (as seems to be suggested) you’ll also be able to try out hairy hen’s 5.1 recreation of the first run Dolby 6-track mix.

Assuming the final release has the original Dolby Stereo soundtrack, you should still be able to decode it to surround with a Pro Logic decoder, as Dolby Surround (which is the format that Pro Logic decodes) is the same as Dolby Stereo (which was actually a surround format)

For other soundtracks, I’d rather see other soundtracks synced to SSE than for SSE 2.0 to end up being GOUT synced. To GOUT sync SSE, you’d have to insert tons of dummy frames at various points, which would kill the viewing experience.

Darth Mallwalker said:

towne32 said:

I believe it’s ac3 in this release. I’m just speculating, but yes, since it’s a Spanish print, and not GOUT synced, their film sourced audio would have needed to be re-synced, which is a bit of work.

Rhetorical question:
More work than de-sync’ing the GOUT audio to match their release (which didn’t match their print) ?

Regular answer ignoring rhetorical status:

Maybe. It depends on whether they have a synchronized video source with that audio to get everything matched up (as the non-Spanish film-sourced audio is not from the same print of course). If so, then it’s about equally difficult as the GOUT, depending on how much cleanup the audio needs. If not, it’s a lot more work.

There were two different reels in 1977, a mono reel and a stereo reel. The mono reel had the same sound sent to all of the speakers in the room. The stereo sent the left track to the left of the room, and the right track to the right of the room. These tracks were different. The mono version is only available on the rare 16mm reel from 1977. The stereo track is available on all Betamax, VHS, Videodisc (CED,) and Laserdisc copies from 1982 and 1983. The Laserdisc track came out in 1993, and is the stereo with mono bits mixed in. It’s on the Definitive Laserdiscs, the 1995 “last chance to own the original” releases, and the 2006 bonus discs. There was another track in 1984, and it was all copies made from 1984 to 1992. Then the Definitive track took over. If you want the mono track, look for Puggo JarJar’s Yoda on the forum. He did a preservation of the 16mm reel.

^yes

I remember the FIRST time I saw Star Wars…at a drive-in theater. Hard to fathom for you youngsters that we would just hang a single speaker on your drivers or passenger window and watch the movie but that’s how it was back then. That was pretty much the norm back then. Strange to think that 16mm prints are harder to find, but I guess that is because they were beat up pretty badly and projectors/operators were not really good. I remember lots of times where a film would break or stop/melt during the show. God I’m old…kill me now…