Quad Teck Digital turns old Hollywood on its ear with studio 5 DVD-audio room

Emedia Professional, Oct, 1998 by Marla Misek

Through many say the "Golden Era" of Hollywood cinema has come and gone, some refuse to let its legacy fade into the sunset. While Technicolor made headlines this summer for its dramatic restoration of the colors in Gone with the Wind, another champion of quality entertainment has been diligently revitalizing cinematic sound for the past three decades, and recently applied that expertise to DVD.

Hank Waring, Founder and President of Los Angeles, California-based Quad Teck Digital, says his company's mission has always been "bringing out an audio sample's original quality." Now in its 34th year, Quad Teck Digital is a full-service audio mastering facility specializing in forensic audio, music mastering, and vinyl restoration and mastering. Waring's all-digital hardware systems--enabled to handle 96KHz, 24-bit audio since 1993--allow Quad Teck's engineers to translate both stereo and mono movie soundtracks into discrete 5.1-channel DVD surround sound, in turn giving the listener what Waring calls "the best of both the digital and analog world."

Central to Quad Teck's reputation as a leading mastering studio--without any direct competitors in DVD-Audio functionality, says Waring--is his proprietary Full Dimensional Sound (FDS) process, which removes dynamics such as pumping and breathing and residual noise without losing high-end frequencies. FDS also features phase correction, which helps clarify the range of sounds typical to a movie soundtrack. "With our system," he explains, "the listener can leave the remote control alone. The lowest levels of dialogue can be heard at the same volume setting as the loudest special effects," a feature which is intended to make the listening and viewing experience more enjoyable. "When prospective clients hear our system," he boasts, "it sells itself."

The addition of DVD-Audio mastering to the mix of Quad Teck's capabilities came two years ago, Waring says, when the company recognized that FDS "could be used in unique applications that other studios were not able to offer the industry." Specifically, Quad Teck embraced DVD in an effort to "tackle sound problems other facilities had not addressed and to rectify problems better and more completely."

The process of restoring and converting audio to 5.1-channel DVD surround sound begins with the cleanup of the original audio using FDS, explains Jeff Kirk, one of Quad Teck's engineers. The mono signal is translated into discrete six-channel audio using a surround sound decoder, which decodes the original signal using phase relationships within the signal--in effect putting the listener in the center of the action. Quad Teck then isolates the dialogue to the center channel and configures the rear ambiance in true stereo, rather than a matrix signal. Once complete, the audio is compatible for playback with Dolby Digital and DTS, MPEG-2, Dolby Pro Logic, two-channel stereo, and mono sound systems.

These advances have proven particularly useful in the vintage film industry, where time has most dramatically taken its toll on sound quality. This summer, Quad Teck announced the completion of its first DVD audio room, known as Studio 5, and the commencement of work on a second room. These rooms--which specialize in the restoration and conversion to DVD of motion picture soundtracks from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s--are located within Quad Teck's current facility and are now available for a host of audio conversion applications.

In the months since the first studio opened, Quad Teck has created demos of DVD-enhanced audio segments within vintage classics like 1931s Frankenstein, Shirley Temple's The Little Princess, Jimmy Stewart's Pot O'Gold, and Laurel and Hardy's The Flying Deuces. Music cues and sound effects from modern films such as Star Wars, Days of Thunder, and The Last of the Mohicans have also been cleaned up and converted to 5.1-channel DVD surround sound using Waring's all-digital system. Future restoration projects include additional work with Morgan Creek Pictures and a possible collaboration with Universal on several of its films.

As for the controversy surrounding DVD-Audio standards, Waring is hardly concerned, noting that the situation most likely will be resolved by the people who'll use it. Comparing the situation to "what happened with Beta and VHS," he argues that "the majority will decide the standard." Regardless of how the drama plays itself out, though, Waring insists that resolution must come soon. "The industry needs standards everyone can live with and the customer can afford."

And if anyone is entitled to an opinion about the current state of audio, it's Waring. An innovator in audio technology for nearly 25 years, Waring began experimenting in digital audio in 1973, introduced a digital-clarified mastering system for vinyl in 1982, and unveiled a digital system for noise removal in 1984. Twelve years ago, he achieved 24-bit resolution for CD sound in the 16-bit format, and today boasts systems with 32- and 64-bit resolution capabilities.