RE: OT: THX

["Phil Harris" <phillip.harris1@xxxxxxx>]

> Most of George Lucas' films use it as his first ever film to be
released
> was THX1138.

THX stands for Tom Hollins eXperiment according to Mr Lucas ... the link
between the naming of the THX standard and THX1138 has not been proven.

THX is only a minimum set of standards bolted onto the Dolby ProLogic
framework to try to ensure that cinemas met a minimum spec - and more
importantly allow dear old Mr. Lucas to extract money from the cinemas by
effectively forcing them to upgrade kit so that the public could see a new
logo and hence feel good. He pushed the idea that Star Wars should be seen
in a THX theatre and by implication if a theatre wasn't THX certified then
the public felt it wasn't up to scratch and hence stayed away. The theatres
therefore were pushed into upgrading kit or die.

If you'll pardon my French the THX logo means absolutely squat! It means
that a piece of kit has been designed to meet a minimum technical spec and
-
as anyone with half an ear can tell you - specs mean absolutely Jack when
it
comes to sound quality. I've heard THX amps and speakers that sound gash as
well as THX amps and speakers that sound great.

The THX specs also keep getting expanded as dear uncle George looks for
more
ways to extract money out of the manufacturers for certifying their kit -
take for example the recent introduction of "two tier" THX - THX
Ultra (the
old THX) and THX Select (for lower end kit that basically wouldn't stand a
cat in hells chance of passing the old THX grade).

> So I assume Epsiode 1 will have it, as I seem to remember
> that is was problems with encoding the THX soundtrack onto the DVD
that
> delayed it's release, which is one of the reasons it was only
available
> on VHS until recently.

Nope ... Episode 1 on Laserdisc has had the THX soundtrack since its
release. The only reason George Lucas is releasing Ep1 on DVD is that there
are so many p*ssed off Star Wars fans buying the Japanese DVD bootleg! GL
was quoted as stating that he would only release Star Wars on DVD once all
six movies had been made and then they would be released in the correct
order.

> BTW all the Star Wars episodes 4,5,6 are in THX but on VHS only.

Wrong again ... I have two copies of the Star Wars Trilogy on LD - the
original version and the Special Edition (cleaned up and remastered) and
*BOTH* have THX soundtracks. The Special Edition is in Dolby Digital which
makes far more of a difference than THX certification does anyway.

*DO NOT* get hung up on "THX is better" ... if you've seen the
original THX
approved release of Highlander you'll know that the quality of the disc
sucked! THX is mainly just a George Lucas money making excercise - I was
listening to a Sony 9000ES AV processor the other week which isn't in any
way THX certified and it sounded better than almost any THX processor I've
ever tried!

Phil