I was specifically referring to film mixing engineers here! I know them, I work with them, and I know the consistency of the mixes that come from the stages in Hollywood. In the film industry, everybody needs to be on the same page and in sync with each other, otherwise money gets wasted, and the career of an engineer who's mixes don't hold up in the real world of theaters would not have a job very long. The mixing engineers on the various top stages work pretty much exclusively on their "home" stage. They have teams that they always work with, and they know what to expect. It simply can't be otherwise when release dates are looming, sometimes only days from when the film is finishing it's mix. Films from the various studios that are mixed in the same general era (the 1970s, 1980s, the 1990s etc) sound remarkably alike in their balances. If you are getting "wildly differing" sound from films from the same era, something is wrong in your system.

Multi-channel audio discs are something else. The music recording industry is by comparison extremely unstructured in it's practices when compared to the "factory" like workflow in the film industry. There are no particular requirements or qualifications necessary for music recording engineers, and they don't have to answer to anybody in particular if their mixes don't hold up on real-world systems. There is no "standard" formatting for the use of the various channels: the use (or non-use) and purpose of the LFE channel is still a matter of individual intrepretation, depending on who is doing the mixing. Also, the whole multi-channel music industry is very young compared to the film industry (which has had around 80 years to evolve) , and there is a learning curve.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited April 06, 2003).]