It’s actually quite simple meanwhile thanks to a Foobar plugin available here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/dvdadecoder/files/foo_input_apt-x100/
So the big challenge isn’t to decode it but to get one’s hands on those DTS CDs in the first place. 😉
Great find indeed and “classic” as well worth being preserved.
That weird UK censorship is really beyond ridiculousness, instead of messing around with dozens of altered releases worldwide, these morons should better concentrate on releasing it in a decent way once.
Unfortunately I just saw this thread so could I still somehow sign up for the ride and get a copy? Financial contribution as a matter of course.
However, another thing I see here all the time:
If already taking all the effort to preserve that kind of stuff - why the hell the limitation to some at least ten year old media such as BD-25? I mean who burns Blu-rays these days?
25GB might be halfway decent considering the runtime just for the main movie but I don’t see any rational reason to limit the bitrate that way if we could easily bump it up to 40 GB.
If there’s anything cheap these days, then it’s internet traffic and storage space.
Yes, but at least for project usage, this shouldn’t be a major drawback as the English cast could easily be taken from the US Blu-ray then.
However, I’d just take it as it is, I wouldn’t mind. Sometimes German Blu-rays have a German video master as well but as long as I get the best quality, it’s not a major turn off for me.
Deleted the first part as I made a mistake by assuming the seller I contacted offered Titanic as well but it’s a different one, sorry.
Anyway, I’d also be interested and willing to financial contribute to a project here.
Thanks for that supplement. Forgive me my sarcasm but hurray, after about a decade we’re back where we started. I mean, neither did the first US release have the stupid filtering and while they managed it to get it slightly sharper and propably more efficiently compressed thanks to H.264, it’s hardly a huge difference:
http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=5918&d2=2552&c=262
Absolutely pathetic in my eyes, considering they had 10 years to properly re-release it.
Back to True Lies:
Since that seller obviously resides in America and is as keen on as most sellers from America to ship internationally, I wonder if anyone would be interested in getting a project running.
While I’d be actually interested to buy it, unfortunately I have neither the equipment nor the expertise to properly scan a 35mm film at 2K or even 4K (although I doubt that the original’s details go up that far anyway).
So many we could join our forces.
Damn you, now you made me wanting this baby. 😉
I’m actually really considering it but of course wonder if the price is halfway decent.
If I really should end up buying it, of course I would also intend to make a project out of it thus releasing it properly scanned with the original Cinema DTS.
True Lies in decent at least 2K resolution without any stupid filtering or smearing, oh boy, that would be something.
Having said that, it remains a mystery to me how a director can make such a cool movie (T2 would be another example) and then not giving any an about a good release. I mean how often was T2 released on Blu-ray now? And all made from the same shitty outdated and postprocessed master. Shame on him and all the other idiots who make such decisions!
Were you already able to get it running in the meantime? Unfortunately I don’t even have a PC at hand now, otherwise I’d test it myself.
In order to hook up with Mjvmovieman:
Since it was mentioned that the Cinema DTS has been archived here as well - is there any significant difference to the DTS, the US LaserDisc provides?
While I’m all with you when it comes to your subjective perception about the different appearance, I only wanted to point out that these differences essentially don’t lie in the fact that one information is analog on film and the other one is digital but that the differences are caused by other things. The sensors in electronic cameras have quite a different characteristic compared to film chemics, I certainly give you that. But that has nothing to do with the digitalisation process itself.
And yes, the DNA consists of 4 bases which perfectly fits the definition of being digital as long as we’re talking about discreet values. Digital doesn’t necessarily mean binary, another very common misconception - it’s just the most prominent variant.
Other digital sets are:
English alphabet (26 values)
ISDN: (3 values)
Chinese: (several thousand)
Doesn’t matter, by definition any limited character set can be losslessly converted to any other base, hence it can be mathematically proven that digital data doesn’t have to be binary.
To summarise that: your observation in practise is correct but you’re drawing the wrong conclusion about what causes it as digitalising something while sticking to the rules of Nyquist/Shannon certainly doesn’t take any “life” out of anything.
That’s all.
The variables of digital are entirely different and will never reproduce the beauty of an organic/analog medium. This is why most digitally graded movies look fake, even those that are shot on actual celluloid film. The digital grading never feels “natural” to my eyes. It feels “tacked on.” Digital footages in addition to digital grading has robbed the life from films. Both give an image a very synthetic, sterile and flat look. It does not feel lively or natural. because it is “not” natural.
You can get close, but that’s it.
While I totally understand your faible for film material, this statement luckily neither holds true technically nor mathematically, especially not in that generalisation which quite sound like the praise of vinyl to me whose alledged superiority to decent PCM doesn’t withstand any serious scientific comparison either.
A common misconception amongst most people is that something being digital means harm per se while in fact interpreting information digitally doesn’t make it better or worse - it’s just a different way of expression.
Another one is the false assumption that any analog signal would be perfect compared to the oh so evil digital ones. Digitalisation and reconstruction introduce errors and thus digital systems aren’t perfect considering the limited sample rate and word lengths by definition - but neither are analog systems to start with.
There are certain proven (but sadly mostly misunderstood) facts about how to digitalise analog signals and how to reconstruct them, the errors involved and the limitations depending on the desired noise floor or bandwidth.
Having written that, it doesn’t mean that even nowadays electronic cameras or digital based postproduction tools don’t have flaws but this is not due to the fact that digital data is processed as it could be theoretically infinitely precise depending on the effort one wants to take. And if an electronic camera looks “digital”, it’s because something within the analog parts like the CCD went wrong from the start. Digitalising stuff “only” limits two parameters: bandwidth and SNR according to Nyquist and Shannon.
And speaking about naturalism: the human DNA can be considered to be digital as well, so in fact something being digital is counterintuitively very natural.
I think you underestimate the love and respect people here have for Jurassic Park. Actually having a print with cinema DTS to synch it to says a lot about how we feel. Since the slightly distorted dialog is present in more than one format I would conclude that it was there because it is probably supposed to be there.
While I definitely understand that, I myself am not only seeking for authenticity but also the best quality possible. And I think that Jurassic Park because of its uniqueness deserves the differences to be investigated and having cleaner dialogs on the Blu-ray is at least worth not only to be mentioned but followed up in my option.
As for passion, I keep the preserved cinema DTS audio as well as the DTS audio I diligently captured myself from the LD I aquired on eBay, on three hard disk drives with CRCs in the file names in order to never lose them or get them currupted without noticing.
How’s that for love and respect towards the original mix? 😉
Judging by my own experience so far, there are at least two “mix sources”, while the newer one might have been derived from the old one by cleaning it up. Without any offical inside information, it’s difficult to say, though.
Former LDs and DVDs seem to share the same mix source with differences in mastering though:
http://www.videophile.info/Graphs/JP/JP_01.htm
The slight distortions on the dialogs, I mentioned several times here and which for reasons unknown, virtually no ones seems to care, are shared by at least the AC3 and DTS LDs and the Cinema DTS of Jurassic Park. Hence, slightly distored dialogs or not, this is most probably how Jurassic Park was simply meant to sound back in 1993.
The 5.1 LDs (whether AC3 or DTS) are nonetheless considered to sound superb despite that there is some debate whether the DTS LD has the correct mixing levels now or not.
On the first Blu-release and its 7.1 mix, the dialogs sound a lot cleaner to me but the mix and the placement of several effects (most easily to recognize during the first raptor scene) is definitely different which makes me wonder why “Disclord” in his review came to the conclusion that they essentially left the mix as it is and only seperated the back channels.
Still more than 23 years later, there seem to be still mysteries unsolved about Jurassic Park.
Regarding Jurassic Park showing up on eBay: patience! Got two copies of it myself at a surprisingly reasonable price (at least compared to highly collectables like “Fight Club”). 😉
“The soundtrack was remastered from the original tapes and sequenced for the first time in the order Fiedel originally intended.”
Despite the undeniable coolness and haptic advantage, from a technical standpoint, it’s as stupid as it can get to release anything still on vinyl these days.
I’d prefer the original tapes simply recorded at 44.1 kHz / 16-Bit and that’s it. Good old audio-cd. No fancy remastering, no annoying dynamic range compression, no gimmicks, thanks.
Would you all agree that they now have NO EXCUSE for not being able to give us a proper remastered original mono mix?
I’d say it’s virtually never the question of ability but stupidity. Of course they can, but often enough they don’t want, for whatever dull reason.
Today, I watched the result which I had synchronized and the following may be noted:
The 5.1 DTS audio is a big upgrade from the 2.0 DTS one provided by the offical Blu-ray-release, including the end title score “Grand Central Station” (one of my favorites) which heavily makes use of the surround channels as well.
The Stereo-Mix (or maybe ProLogic at best) naturally not just lacks that, but also the dynamic range which is considerably higher on the Cinema DTS. Hence shame on Shout!Factory that they let themselves be fobbed off with some lame downmix for this movie.
However, despite all the praise of the Cinema DTS, Hackers acoustically despite the fun it makes in general, is far from being perfect:
The dialog suffers from some kind of slight distortion throughout the entire movie (on all versions so I assume it’s in the mix), which for me is quite typical for undubbed US-movies. I don’t know why, but no matter what efforts they take nowadays to create some super-duper 7.1 and DTS-HD MA and Atmos and what not, the dialogs often enough still sound like they had been recorded with mikes from the 50s.
Besides that, unfortunately, the Cinema DTS isn’t totally flawless itself either. At 01:33:54 realtime (24fps, original 44.1 kHz of the source), there are two slight crackling sounds on both surround channels (SL, SR). Easy to fix with any audio editor (the sequence is essentially containing nothing but almost silence so it can be easily replaced with about 800ms which came before) but a bit disappointing nonetheless.
I also took the chance to compare the 5.1 AC3 mix, I already had from some obscure WEB-DL version, and as far as I can tell on a quick check, the mix is essential the same except for the stronger bass from the AC3 version (minus the crackling error). I was already tempting to use the famous term “ironically” here but I don’t know which version is the correct one. The AC3 one might be “cooked” or maybe the foobar APT-X 100 plugin is not the best decoder to use, I’m not sure.
I doubt it but I can’t rule out that the crackling is caused by the decoder either though it would be weird because the rest is flawless, but one never knows until we checked either an official APT-X 100 hardware decoder or the Winamp plugin at least.
I’m aware that some suggest the former 5.1 versions to be nothing but weird upmixes from the stereo source but at least the AC3 file I have sounds too good for me to be just that. Rather that someone already took the cinema source and put it into an AC3 encoder.
Anyway, good news is that the synchronization part is rather easy. The AC3 file, which might have been officially released through a DVD version already, only requires a simple offset. Same is true for the Cinema DTS although here one has to fiddle with the overlapping parts of course.
For the latter, I decided to take the BD video, treat it as 24fps instead of 24/1.001fps and let it run with the Cinema DTS at the unaltered sample rate of 44.1 kHz. This might not be BD-video compatible, but should work flawlessly on most network players or HTPCs.
Just finished syncing the Cinema DTS audio to the official Blu-ray release.
Since I don’t have any experience yet when it comes to visual syncing, I used the DTS 2.0 audio, which is provided by the Blu-ray instead as reference and speeded it up to 24 fps with eac3to so it nominally matches the speed of the Cinema DTS files.
It’s very interesting that the different parts of the soundtrack (AUD) are actually overlapping with some announcement on one channel that the reel is going to be switched.
I decoded the AUD files with foobar and an ATP-X100 decoder which compared to the Winamp plugin, has the advantage to provide 5.1 “out of the box”, thus it apparently generates the LFE channel and hopefully also applies the proper level adjustments according to the DTS standard.
I haven’t compared this decoder’s output with that of Winamp yet but it sounds fine so far.
It’s quite nutty that Hackers comes in stereo only on LaserDisc and the recent Blu-ray, having such a movie predestined for a 5.1 release.
Very nice project for the cult film of the 90s, YES. Awesomely quotable and featuring a very cool soundtrack, hence despite the “cheese”, it’s still one of my favourites in terms of computer-related movies.
Recently, I already saw an ongoing discussion about the new Blu-ray release and the odd decision to include Stereo only:
https://www.shoutfactory.com/film/film-crime/hackers-20th-anniversary-edition1
Whereas the distributor claims that 2.0 would be the original mix and all others inaccurate upmixes, this is a contradiction to the fact that a few lucky people apparently got their hands on the DTS discs, allegedly containing superb 5.1 audio.
Besides that, interestingly, some obscure WEB-DL release (ahem) contains a 5.1 mix as well, which - for me - sounds way better than the Stereo-track provided by the official Blu-ray, which is why I synced it to the BD-video which worked pretty flawless. I’m not sure what it was derived from or if it has been artificially upmixed, but if so, they did a damn good job.
There were some theories about the surround channels simply delayed a bit to create the impression of surround sound, but in this case, I highly doubt it, as it’s simply too good for that.
In terms of Hackers on LaserDisc, for the sake of comparison, I even took the effort to import the Japanese version. The great as usual nice cover left aside, it turned out to be a disappointment. While the audio is decent (but comparable to the 2.0 mix from the Blu-ray), it unfortunately even contains a short crackling noise in the scene where they are sitting in front of Acid Burn’s “super-duper” laptop (with a PCI bus, not to forget 😉). Since it occurs on both tracks, analog and PCM, I assume it’s a mastering error. Sadly, not everyone gives movies such a careful treatment like we do. 😦
Although I can’t answer your question regarding the authenticity of this Mortal Combat release, I want to note that you should verify the mix and it’s quality on priority. Whether the track is full-rate or half-rate DTS is secondary from a technical point of view since the difference in “transparency” (ability to distinguish it from a PCM source) will be minor to non-existent for sure compared to the difference which can occur due to different mixes they might have used (or screwed up). Just so you keep that in mind while hunting for the nominally best source.
The behavior of your recorder is interesting. I’m not totally sure but I doubt that usual LD-Players even flag the 14-bit DTS as such via S/PDIF. Af far as I’m aware, every LD-Player capable of outputting PCM is able to playback DTS indirectly as well since it’s encapsulated in regular PCM anyway. So neither should the recording device care, weird.
In general, if you have a desktop PC, I can recommend a cheap PCI soundcard with the CMI8738 or CMI8768 chipset. In conjunction with the custom driver by “D0gbert”, you can capture PCM, DTS and AC3 “bitperfectly” for less than 20 dollars which is quite nice.
Finally had the chance to rip the audio of the Japanese LaserDisc and compare it to the 5.1 mix of the DVD. Since I wanted to be “fair”, I took the 5.1 DTS track of the Japanese DVD (the AC3 tracks seems to have been encoded from the same master and hence is virtually indistinguishable from the DTS encode), put it through eac3to and decoded to a Dolby Surround Pro Logic Downmix - one time with mixing the LFE in and the other without.
I did this because it seems that’s roughly the only major difference between the mixes of the DVD and LD. If you look closely, you’ll see two peaks around minute 14 and 15 - this is the “more” of bass from the LFE at least in certain scenes which the LD version somehow lacks. Otherwise, there is nothing wrong with it - a nice and dynamic mix.
Although I have to admit that the explosions rock a little bit more on the new 7.1 mix provided by all the Blu-ray versions out there, their weird tinny acoustics totally ruins it for me.
All in all, I tend to believe that the 5.1 mix provided by the Japanese DVD and LD is probably the closest to the cinematic one whereas the 7.1 mix and especially the Dolby Atmos version has been reedited, pumped up and remixed to death.
Hence the 5.1 and 2.0 mixes are well worth preserving. I haven’t synced it so far but judging by the waveform, there are worse candidates and a few edits should do it.
http://www.bilder-upload.eu/show.php?file=35bef2-1451426290.jpg
Recently I took my Japanese version of The Terminator on LaserDisc and ripped it myself - and was totally disappointed. If anyone required confirmation that a soundtrack being on LaserDisc doesn’t necessarily mean that it has been flawlessly sourced, then this is the ultimate proof unfortunately: low volume, low dynamic range and overly shitty quality. The movies indeed sounds another 10 years older that it is. 😦
I’d really love to know the story behind such stupidity - maybe it goes like that:
Two Japanese guys:
A: “hey, this movie is great. Let’s get the fresh US master, it’s way better than what we aired years ago on TV”
B: “how long does that take?”
A: “maybe two weeks to arrive and it will cost. But trust me, it has better dynamics since not adjusted for broadcasting”
B: “hell no, dump the shit we already have, most people neither care nor ever notice!”
http://www.bilder-upload.eu/show.php?file=57ba3f-1451422490.jpg
When in need, I’m happy to contribute with the PCM, AC3 or DTS tracks as I bought the LaserDiscs of both versions.
What I don’t get: why in heaven’s name can’t they include the damn original mix once and for all in addition? Shall they remix the thing a thousand times and announce 22.5 Ultra-HD-Spectral-Bat-compatible audio in 384 kHz and 64 bit as long as they simply include what was obviously good enough to be presented in the cinema at that respective time. Is that so difficult? sigh
Since the main reason I started this thread was the unsatisfying overblown Blu-ray image, I’m very pleased with the current release, even if it might not be perfect either. In total definitely a major upgrade compared to the former DVD and BD releases.
The 96-kHz-release for me is suspicious alone by the fact that it’s very unlikely that this movie was ever recorded at such a sample rate, hence probably just an upsampling for marketing purposes. Besides that, considering the recording qualify (slight distortions) especially of Jean Reno’s voice, I would say that even 44.1 kHz/16 bit is pure waste.
If enough here are interested, I could contribute some soundtracks to be muxed together with the nice 4K-sourced picture.
I got:
2.0 AC3 from the US DVD
5.1 AC3 from the US DVD
5.1 AC3 from the JP DVD
5.1 DTS from the JP DVD
2.0 PCM from the JP LD
This thread might me dated, but it seems I have a good reason to bump it up again: 😄
A few days ago, I searched around at caps-a-holic.com once again and wondered if yet another release of “Léon” had been issued on Blu-ray, probably taken from the same master as usual.
As it turns out, not only there is yet another release, but this time, one where they finally got the job done right (maybe, they hired a professional 😉). When comparing the shots, one can really see how crappy the previous master was. Overblown and even suffering from aliasing, take a look at the wires!
On few “window-scenes”, the DVD still shows slightly more detail. However, the new Blu-ray makes up for it having scenes where the DVD was actually already clipping (white sky instead of a blue one).
So all in all I would say, contrast-wise it’s a draw at least and of course, the new BD features way higher resolution so it’s quite easy what to choose now.
As for this particular shot, I actually tend to prefer the color-timing of the former Blu-ray. However, on the US DVD, Léon’s face was similarly reddish, so … kk650 - your turn now! 😉
More tricky is and probably stays the audio part. Taking the new Dolby Atmos Gizmo aside, unfortunately, the 7.1 track of the new Blu-ray features the same tinny acoustics, clearly hearable in the now for me infamous “Ring Trick” - scene. Whereas the fire after the detonation sounds like burning flames on the old DVD and LaserDisc (presented in matrixed Dolby Surround here), on the newer remixes, it sounds like they converted and recoded the audio multiple times like played through a barrel.
By the way, the “uncut international version” (US RC1 DVD) says “Newly Created English 5.1 (Dolby Digital)” on the back cover, next to the “English 2-Channel (Dolby Surround)”, which makes me wonder what the original source is.
However, and this is where one has to choose one’s poison here - the former mix isn’t flawless either. In Léon’s sentence “Better make it quick, or else you will be here all day listening to his crap”, the “crap” slightly distorts* whereas on the new mix, it surprisingly doesn’t. Also the average level of dialog seems to be higher in general on the LaserDisc, so maybe they mixed that one hotter than it was good, but this is pure speculation.
*the same slight distortions occur on the older mix of Jurassic Park (refer to the corresponding thread if interested) whereas they are gone on the newer mixes they used for the Blu-rays. The question remains if the original recording was clean and messed up before or recorded slightly distorted in the first place and cleaned up later on recent remixes. Without any insider information it will remain a mystery I’m afraid.
A quick update regarding the distortions:
After I finally had the chance to listen to the DTS release of the Jurassic Park LaserDisc, I can confirm that the dialogs are slightly distorted as well during the meeting scene.
Unfortunately, but hardly any surprise. After all, it’s quite likely that all home video releases had been created from the same mix at that time.
_,,,^..^,,,_ said:
I also thought to add the Cinema DTS track, plus the analog english track from the laserdisc; foreign languages are from the HD-DVD Dolby Digital Plus track; they lack the .1 subwoofer track, so it's taken from the Cinema DTS, and is re-encoded to DD 640kbps.
Without any attempt to doubt your technical expertise but out of interest, how did you know for sure that the bass from the apparently silent LFE channel wasn't remixed into the others, at least partially but was in fact just left out by mistake?
After all, the standalone LFE is technically obsolete since ages.
