captainsolo said:

It's very simple really. These discs were created by transferring the original magnetic tracks with the master audio untouched. Usually for film prints the mix would be tweaked, EQ'd and fit onto the format. Then each individual theater had their own standards or lack of standards for proper audio presentation. It's still this way today, in fact IMO even more so. Despite having lossless audio, I can't find a theater with decent sound anymore. There's more quality at an art house with a horribly battered print of For a Few Dollars More that had the mono track going nuts with uncontrollable volume spikes!

I'll have to dig up a VCR and look at all my tapes for the titles. IIRC for most of the series waves from the '93 set on they were all letterboxed.

Thanks Captain Solo. I never realized that some theaters were so badly setup for sound.

Getting back to Bond, I've watched the first 2 on bluray. Now, I don't have the best tv, but damn! they really did a good job with what were then 45 year old negatives that were only scanned at 4k.

Are these restorations considered average, or were Lowry setting a standard with those?