I see some LDs and a few DVDs are recorded in Ultra Stereo. At first I thought this was a gimmick, but according to Wikipedia Ultra Stereo is a competitor to Dolby Surround that was formed by former Dolby employees. Does anybody know any more about Ultra Stereo? How does one decode it? Using Pro Logic or Pro Logic II?

All matrix techniques can be decoded pretty much the same way.

What publius said. Ultra Stereo and DTS Stereo can be decoded with Dolby Pro Logic.

I can only think of few films I seen in the past on VHS and at the cinema
Cobra (1986) on VHS I noticed the Ultra-Stereo logo on the end credits

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090859/ Also there were 70mm 6track prints made the 35mm print was only Ultra-Stereo

The Blob (1989) I noticed the Ultra-Stereo logo on the end credits at the cinema the 35mm print was only Ultra-Stereo http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094761/

I know I have seen a few more I think at home, maybe few odd more at the cinema, but then they were passed though a DOLBY CP200 at the local ABC screen 1.

The company makes some nice affordable processors to this day http://uslinc.com/about_us.html
You might see some second-hand items showing up on ebay once in while.

felix the cat: the movie was recorded in ultra stereo.

Guncrazy (1992) [ID2408AC] is in Ultra Stereo. The movie is pretty awful, though.

I think the halloween 6 ld has ultra stereo

While looking at post made by mikeystoyz on his, Humanoids I looked around and noticed two titles one being from 1980 in mono the other being from 1997 recoded in Ultra*Stereo. I looked around some more and noticed Ultra*Stereo logos attached to the database on some titles.

Humanoids from the Deep (1997) [ID4113NH]

The Blob (remake 1988) doesn't have the Ultra*Stereo logo attached
Blob, The (1988) [ID6270TS]

One pressing of Cobra (1986) has Ultra*Stereo logo attached
Cobra (1986) [NJL-11594]
Make that two
Cobra (1986) [RL-11594]

Ultra*Stereo list
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?sound_ ... tra_stereo

Last night I watched Interceptor (1992) [LDCVM5510]
The first disc I've played with an Ultra Stereo track, I must say it was enjoyable, quiet a bit of low end along with other surround material, I think more then the average Dolby Stereo, would be interested to hear some other Ultra Stereo titles.

I recently plowed through a cheap Mill Creak compilation of all 12 of Andy Sidaris’s cheesecake spy movies and most if not all of them had an Ultra Stereo logo in the credits. These movies started in 1985 and end in 1998 and are extremely low budget so the idea of it being a cheap alternative to Dolby is totally believable.

I haven’t checked to see if any of these moves are on LD.

Made a quick update to the "advanced search" to add soundtrack (mono/stereo/surround/etc.) on top of sound encoding (Digital/CX/DTS/AC3/etc).

Because soundtrack internal IDs do not match between Digital/Analog, it's limited to LDs with a digital soundtrack for now.

Here are the results:

Ultra Stereo (553 titles)

As well as:

DTS Stereo (22 titles)
Chace Stereo (30 titles)
Roland Sound Space (11 titles)

Julien

Julien, that's why we love the database and its admin. Bravo.

Recent titles I played in Ultra*Stereo

Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989) [31036]

Fist of the North Star: The Movie (1995) [ID3679BM]

Repossessed (1990) [ID7378IV]
This needs to be corrected as it states Dolby on LDDB and IMDB and the end credits on the film states Ultra*Stereo. End credits on the laserdisc pressing below.

Back cover also shows "Ultra Stereo".

Updated, thanks!

Julien

I see it now looks better.

I just watched a really bad movie in Ultra Stereo called Fist Fighter (1989) [ID6812IV]. I paid $2 for it and it was in mint condition.

I immediately noticed more low frequency and bass compared to many movies in plain ol' Dolby, but didn't Get a good sense of the compatible Dolby decoding (no surround, dialog didn't seem to be in the center speaker).

I noticed Ultra Stereo entries don't have any graphical indication of stereo or matrixed surround. Is that because the image is only used for Dolby Surround?

The audio had zero surround effects can the center channel audio, if present, wasn't the greatest. The dialog was very had to understand and hear during much of the film. It's a low budget flick, for sure.

The movie was pretty bad, btw.