adding LFE to GOUT (Released) — Page 4

I was just looking in at a.b.starwars the other day and found that there was dts 5.1 upmixes to ESB and ROTJ.  Is there for IV also? I didn't see anything

budwhite said:

I was just looking in at a.b.starwars the other day and found that there was dts 5.1 upmixes to ESB and ROTJ.  Is there for IV also? I didn't see anything

They are all there,that is where I got them from,Satanika upped them all.

yeh but I can only find the AC3 for IV... I will have to have another look

The links for the files I uploaded earlier are still valid, so if anyone wants to download them who hasn't yet, do so.  :)  If they do expire, feel free to PM me to see about getting them uploaded again.

Click here for the links to the 2.1 channel AC3 files: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/adding-LFE-to-GOUT/post/365334/#post365334

Click here for the links to the PCM tracks and LFE-only files in FLAC format: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/adding-LFE-to-GOUT/post/366008/#post366008

A coupla questions:

1. What is the highest bitrate for 2.0 stereo (surround) Dolby Digital on DVD?

2. What is the highest bitrate with 2.0 stereo (surround) PCM on DVD?

The new PCM tracks on dark jedi's DVD was a huge improment on the gout DVDs. But I'm just a little curious why the bitrate wasn't higher?

Moth3r said:

 

2. How's your maths? 48kHz (1000 samples per second) x 16 bits per sample x 2 channels = 1536kbps. I suppose you could use 96kHz/24 bit if you really wanted to...

 Not very good heh heh. But that's what I thought anyway.

Although I thought I read somewhere before that it was a bit difficult to put a 1536 pcm 2.0 to a dvd, because of the high bitrate... or I am dreaming?  If not, why wasn't the full lossless rip included(or ½ bitrate pcm)? There was atleast 1gb free space on each discs...

(Sorry if this have been discussed before)

skyjedi2005 said:

As far as i know the video qualiy has to suffer from a bitrate starvation and look like shit to fit a full PCM track on it, supposedly even if you strip out all the extras and other audios already on the dvd it still won't mux right, from what i've heard anyway.

 

 I think it was something like that I read before yes.

I have plenty of concert dvds with PCM 2.0, don't know what bitrate but I guess you can do a hell lot more if you're Sony Columbia... ;)

Putting PCM tracks on dvd's isn't really practical unless your video has a fairly short run time and you don't need your peak video bitrate to go all that high.  With the audio at 1536 kbps your video would have to be encoded so that it doesn't go over 8.3 mbps or something like that.  For some things that won't be a problem, but for the Star Wars films it may not work all that well because they are over 2 hours and have lots of fast-moving action scenes.  It could be done, but using an AC3 track at 448 kbps will give you more breathing room and there won't be too much of a drop in sound quality compared to the source.

A bitrate of 448 for stereo is quite a lot compared to using 448 for 5.1, since the same bandwidth has to be spread out over more channels.  I've noticed at hifi stores, where the sound quality is greater than what I have at home, that playing 5.1 AC3, while quite good, isn't really that much of an improvement over my own system in terms of fidelity (although dynamics are another matter due to more robust amplification).  But playing music with uncompressed PCM is another matter, whether it's Vivaldi or the Alien soundtrack cd or whatever.  The benefits of higher bitrates become more apparent as the quality of your equipment improves.

So I suppose I would say that using the highest practical bitrate is always advisable, but not necessarily the highest possible in all cases.  If your player can swing AC3 at 640 kbps (out of dvd spec but I think some can do it), then that, of course, would be the best compromise between quality and bitrate; but that won't always be possible.

On another note: since this is the LFE thread--I was wondering if anyone who downloaded them, either in stereo or 5.1, would care to comment on their experiences with those soundtracks.  How well did the bass integrate into the movie--did it enhance the movie, or detract from it, or not call particular attention to itself?  How was the surround sound if you have it?  I'm interested to hear folks' impressions, whether general or specific.

hairy_hen said:

On another note: since this is the LFE thread--I was wondering if anyone who downloaded them, either in stereo or 5.1, would care to comment on their experiences with those soundtracks.  How well did the bass integrate into the movie--did it enhance the movie, or detract from it, or not call particular attention to itself?  How was the surround sound if you have it?  I'm interested to hear folks' impressions, whether general or specific.

First of all, thanks to you and satanika for putting these together.

I was just working on my first try on ANH with g-force's script and I listened to the first 10 minutes (audio only without video) on my system to try to compare satanika's 5.1 upmix of your track to Belbecus' DC48 that I encoded with Aften at 448. Let me preface my impressions by saying that I'm much more of a video/visual guy (and sensitive to that) than an audio guy and I have a very low-end receiver and speakers in an acoustically poor room.

Your 5.1 mix seemed nice and clean and definitely discrete and the low end rumble did add to the experience (more theater-like or modern home video sounding). In comparison to your 5.1 and modern 5.1 mixes in general, the DC48 mix decoded with Prologic seemed a tiny bit muffled and a bit muddy (for lack of a better word) in terms of channels overlapping(?) between speakers with the old fashioned Prologic surround. In other words, the DC48 sounded like Prologic has always sounded to me since the time it was state of the art in home theater. There was another general, overall quality that I felt was different between the two mixes, but I couldn't really pin it down or put it into words.

Apologies to you and satanika, but for a number of reasons, I decided to do my first full mux of the (g-force script processed) movie with the Belbecus mix. First and foremost is that the video is essentially the 1993 version, so creating a disc that was faithful to the 1993 LD presentation felt right to me, as a trade off from having a more modern "discrete" mix with more prominent bass. The retro Prologic sound just sounded right. For similar reasons, I also wanted to have a version that kept the original '93 edit, without the minor edits you mentioned.

Again as I said, I admittedly don't have the best ear or the best setup, so I may have have chosen the other track more for sentimental reasons than anything technical.

Of course, I am hanging on to your 5.1 mixes, so I can always do another mux with my newly encoded video. I did have a few questions that I was meaning to ask.

I was originally under the mistaken impression that you recorded your LFE track in Sound Studio, but now re-reading the thread, I see that you have since switched to an all digital method to demux and split the channels to extract the LFE track. Can I ask what software you used for that? Was it Tranzcode, BeLight/BeSweet, HeadAC3he or something else?

Will your LFE track work with Belbecus' DC48 unedited mix (without your other custom edits)?

 For satanika:

I see you used ATSurround active matrix to do the upmix. That seems to be a plugin for foobar2000 or Winamp. Did you pipe the audio through one of those or use some other method? Or is there another version of ATSurround? Can you explain your process exactly? What settings and setup did you use for the relevant applications? Did you use any of the files from the wav_to_5_1_upmixer.rar you posted earlier for the final work or other tools?

Is there a generational loss or potential artifacts created by the decoder process separating the Prologic channels? Is there is a slight degradation of the audio when comparing this multi-step process to the one step of encoding the Belbecus DC48 mix directly to 2 channel AC3? Should it be noticeable or not? Would be it be like a very mild version of the artifacts caused by re-encoding an MP3 over and over a few generations?

Please don't take any of my questions the wrong way or as any sort of criticism. My ear isn't that sensitive. I'm just honestly wondering what the answers are.

Thanks again for sharing your work and any insights you may have.

Thanks for all the info boys. I love to read about this stuff.

DD must be a great codec compared to mp3. A 96 mono can sound very decent enough for an old film, but Beatles in 96 mono mp3 doesn't...

Thanks very much for your detailed reply, satanika. Honestly, I couldn't say that could discern any issues with your 5.1 track. It just has a different feel, as expected. I'll do some more listening tests to see if I can pin down the difference in a way I can explain better. I may also try to see if I can replicate your process with the unedited DC48 track + LFE.

I haven't listened to the DTS yet, but maybe I will try that to see if I can hear any difference. My original audio-only listening tests were done as AVCHD on SD card, which isn't compatible with DTS on my player (at least, I don't think this is is). I know the 1.5 Mbps track won't fit with my video bitrate, but I may be able to squeeze the 640 Kbps track on the disc.

Could someone please send me a new link for hairy_hen's LFE-only FLACs file? The link earlier in the thread says the file has been deleted.

Thanks.

Here you go neebis: http://www.sendspace.com/file/c0cb2i  LFE-only FLACs for all three movies re-uploaded.

When I was first starting this project, back when it seemed like a crazy idea and I didn't know if it could actually work, I did record the LFE from my receiver's subwoofer output, since I didn't have any other way to do it that I knew of (being on a Mac it can sometimes be hard to find equivalent programs to do such things, or get Windows versions to work right).  Later I discovered the program A52decX, which is what have I since used to demux the AC3 into individual mono files.  Obviously this is preferable since it avoids going through unnecessary digital to analog conversion and back again, and there won't be any noise from the receiver added in.  Using the LFE will certainly work added to the '93 mix without changes--the first two times I made AC3 encodes I did it that way, and only made edits later when I had more sources to work from.

I'm glad to hear you like what the LFE does for the movie.  If you want to compare more of it to the straight '93 mix I'd say the Battle of Yavin is a good place to listen, and also the part where the Falcon comes out of lightspeed and follows the TIE fighter to the Death Star--the bass should be quite noticeable in those parts.  For Empire, the whole Battle of Hoth is kickass, from the Imperial walkers first shaking Echo Base to the power generator exploding and everything in between.  In Jedi, Jabba's sail barge exploding and the Emperor's death are especially thunderous.

I completely understand about wanting to keep things as original as possible.  These versions have become my favourites, but I'd be equally happy watching the original stereo or any other good and authentic sound mix.  I plan on using as many soundtracks as I can when I'm able to get some double layer encodes going.  The few changes I made were basically with the aim of getting all my favourite aspects of various mixes together into one track, or as close as I could reasonably get to that.

hairy_hen said:

Here you go neebis: http://www.sendspace.com/file/c0cb2i  LFE-only FLACs for all three movies re-uploaded.

Thanks very much for your comments and for uploading your LFE tracks again. I thought I had saved them a few weeks ago, but I was wrong. Now, I have it saved for any future projects.

My previous comparison was only the first 10 minutes of the movie, so I'll definitely give the end of the movie a try too. My previous listening tests were back to back audio only, one after another and my dual-layer video is too big for more than one track, but I may do a quick low video bitrate encode, so I can have multiple tracks and switch back and forth between them on-the-fly.

Well, now that I'm done with my original '93 version, I want to experiment with other options. I may try to do my own upmix and I'll probably also try a version with the standard mono mix. (Hey, I wonder if 1.1 AC3 (mono+bass) is possible?)

I was thinking, with all these new projects from the Japanese special collection LDs coming and with all the different audio mixes on a.b.starwars, would it be hard to synch up these new dvds to match the gouts so we can use the audio as we please?(I have all of them I think)

Or is this always done, to match was does already excist?

(the mono-mix and belbecus pcm rips have been out for some time now)

hairy_hen said:

I've uploaded the LFE channel as a FLAC file for anyone who wants it.  To use, simply combine with the 1993 PCM soundtrack from Belbecus.  It already has the 1.017 seconds of silence at the beginning, so make sure your PCM has this at the beginning as well.  Then simply load your wavs for each channel into the AC3 encoder of your choice.  For those without high-end software, I recommend Aften (or a gui thereof) as it's free and easy to use.  I encoded as 2/0 + LFE format at 448 kbps, to preserve the best possible quality for DVD.  If you have the ability to derive 4 or 5 channels from the stereo mix, using some kind of ProLogic/ProLogic 2 emulation software, feel free to do so.

If you are working on a GOUT-synched preservation project using HD footage and creating a custom 5.1 mix using the '93 and '97 soundtracks, please feel free to use this if it's to your liking.  (lol)

 

Here's the link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/zchhv8

How the hell do I get aften to work? There aint no program files in that map?

The version of Aften I use is a gui called "Wav to AC3 Encoder".  Do a search for that and you should find it no problem.  There is a command line version also but I've never really got the hang of how to do stuff like that.  The gui contains numerous options for improving the sound within a given bitrate--I set them all to their maximum quality level.  It gives explanations for what they all do.  For a straight mono or stereo encode, you can load the source file directly, but for a greater number of channels, I select "multiple mono input" and load them individually, because I find opening enormous multichannel wavs to be problematic for my system memory.  To do that you'll need to create a separate mono file for each channel.  You can select either wav channel mapping or AC3 mapping.  Wav order is Left, Center, Right, LFE, Left Surround, Right Surround; while AC3 order is Left, Right, Center, Left Surround, Right Surround, LFE.  You'll want to use 448 kbps for your bitrate, as it is the highest permitted by DVD spec.  If you have a player that can do 640, by all means do that (I imagine most Bluray players wouldn't have any problem with it, but I don't know for sure). 

I'm fortunate that the Aften gui works on my Mac--if it didn't I'd be out of luck because there don't seem to be any AC3 encoders that aren't outrageously expensive.  I tried to use a DTS encoder, but it always quit after I clicked the encode button--no idea why.  Not compatible with WINE, I guess.

Thanks for your reply dude. Do I have to seperate L&R channel in some way or do I just load the pcm wav in both channels + the lfe in the sub?

You'll have to separate the left and right channels into separate files to use this method.  I would imagine most audio editors are capable of this.  If it doesn't have a function for that in the menu options, set the zoom parameter so that it shows the entire file in the space of the window, then select/highlight the left channel only, copy it, create a new mono file--don't forget to set it to 48 khz--and paste the left channel into it.  Save.  Do the same for the right channel.  Then load your mono files into Aften in the order left, right, LFE.  Set the channel configuration options to "2/0 + LFE", "LFE channel is present", and "Dolby Surround encoded".  Bitrate to 448 kbps.

Other settings for best quality as follows--Fast bit allocation: more accurate encoding; exponent strategy search size: 32; bandwidth: 60; stereo rematrixing: mid/side; block switching: selectively use 256-point; dialog normalization: 31; dynamic range compression: none; apply bandwidth low-pass filter; apply DC high-pass filter; apply LFE low-pass filter.

Using these settings will increase the encoding time somewhat, depending on your computer, but it should still be pretty fast.  The sound will be quite good even if left at the default values, but if you can get additional quality out of it, why not?

I'm assuming you're going to use the 2.1 channel format.  If you want to make a 5.1 as Satanika did, then of course set your channel configuration as "3/2 + LFE" instead, and be mindful of what order you load the channels.

I muxed a version of the full film (ANH) with 3 audio tracks: 1) DC48 encoded with Aften, 2) satanika's 5.1 upmix of hairy_hen's LFE mix and 3) the retail GOUT mix, so I could switch back and forth on the fly and make a better comparison.

The DC48 was as expected and as previously posted, it was a nice full and rich sound, within the limits of Prologic. It definitely lacks a discreet channel sound of your 5.1 or any modern film, but it feels nicely integrated within it's range and limitations. I've since watched the whole film with it and it works for me as the definitive 1993 mix.

I only listened to a few sections of the retail GOUT mix for comparison to both other tracks, and really there is no comparison. It just sounds very thin next either of the other mixes.

I haven't watched the whole film with the hairy_hen/satanika 5.1 yet, but I spent some time listening to many more sections throughout the film including the Battle of Yavin. First off, I didn't detect any significant degradation or other negative artifacts of the upmix process (at least to my untrained ear on my budget 5.1 system). I had wondered if that might be an issue, but I didn't hear anything that would detract from my viewing or listening experience.

In general, the hairy_hen/satanika 5.1 is crisper, with sharper separation of sound and a nice booming low end, especially on the space battle scenes. For the space scenes most of all, this 5.1 really makes the sound more powerful and gives the audio more of a pop, in the positive sense of "visual pop", the audio equivalent of richer colors and contrast. Among other qualities, the dialog also benefits from a clearer, more discreet sound.

Now, being able to A-B listen (switching back and forth from DC48 to h_h/s 5.1) I could hear another quality that was different between the two, besides just the LFE and 5.1 upmix. In comparison to DC48, the h_h/s 5.1 mid and high ranges seem to be boosted almost like turning up the treble, so the sounds are sharper. It's especially noticeable on dialog and horn instruments in the music.

I haven't heard hairy_hen's original 2.1 and I didn't have it on the video for comparison, so I don't know if that quality was part of hairy_hen's original processing or if the effect is only present on the 5.1 upmix. I didn't recall seeing a mention of additional sharpening or processing of the the mid and high ranges, so I can only guess that it might be due to the ATSurround process. I'm not sure if part of the low end was stripped from the main channels and redirected to the LFE along with the actual LFE track or if the ATSurround matrix algorithm just has the quality of dialing up the "treble" as part of the process.

I wonder if anyone else noticed this quality of the h_h/s 5.1 mix. It may just be me and it may only be detectable when switching back and forth in a direct comparison to the DC48 track. It's not necessarily a negative, it's just different when compared to the DC48. Obviously, this effect also contributes to the crisp, sharp and more discreet quality of dialog, fx and high end of music (horns, etc.).

Scanning through the film to test various sections, I noticed a only few areas where either the overall effect of the LFE or increased crispness/treble didn't quite feel right (to my back-seat, amateur mixer's ears).

04:42 - 49 The ambient ship sound of doom as Vader walks down the hall seems a bit much here with the boosted LFE, especially in comparison to the intent of the sound in the DC48. There is a similar, but more subtle effect throughout the film in this sequence and with the Death Star interior ambient sound, but this short section is the only place where the LFE seems overdone in relation to the rest of the sound and surrounding shots. I know it's intentional, but the relative weighting of the low end in the DC48 mix works better for me.

44:14 ... Throughout sections of the Catina scene between music and dialog, the room tone/background ambient noise and voices/tape hiss(?) is a bit more prominent and over-emphasized by the crisp/treble quality of the 5.1 mix, in comparison to the DC48.

1:31:32 ... The Falcon interior ambient noise (jet plane interior sound, etc.) takes on more of a hissing/noise quality under the music due to the same crisp/treble values.

I didn't listen and compare the entire film, so there may be other sections with similar issues. I have the feeling that these areas only stood out to me because I was switching back and forth between the DC48 and h_h/s 5.1 and intently listening for differences. I doubt they would be very noticeable during a normal viewing of the film with the 5.1 track alone.

In conclusion, the h_h/s 5.1 passes with flying colors as a great alternative track. It's very listenable and watchable and really dials up the intensity of the space flybys and battle scene a few notches. The dialog also has a more discreet quality more like a modern 5.1 mix and it's easier to pick out than on the DC48. I just watched the full film with the DC48 Prologic and I had to turn my receiver up a couple notches louder than I usually listen to 5.1 to get the right feel of sound I'm used to.

My comments are only intended as constructive feedback and to compare notes with what others are hearing. I'm especially interested to know if anyone else is hearing the crispness/sharpness of the 5.1. I wonder if it's only on the 5.1 or also on the 2.1 and if it's due to ATSurround or some other filter or perhaps it's an unintended effect of part of the editing or upmix conversion process.