Jonno said:
StarThoughts said:
I am pretty sure that the AC-3 track on Alien is a straight transfer of the 70mm mix and not a new mix. It was a selling point on the LD when it came out — granted, there wouldn't be split-surrounds, but the front separation (which was quite significant in this movie), discrete surround and dedicated bass channel would have made it worthwhile.
Not arguing with that - the qualities of the Alien track are well established - we're talking about the Aliens mix right now.
On that point though, I've just gone back to Alien briefly and found these comments about the mix from the old thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/44-movies-concerts-music-discussion/206357-truth-about-alien-dvd-audio.html
It seems that Alien's 6-track mix did have split surrounds, and a close look at the AC-3 version would seem to bear this out (there's not a wild difference between the two rear channels, but it's there). I wonder why those lists didn't pick up on that? Anyway, Aliens is likely to be a great deal more straightforward due to its vintage (not many soundtracks were pushing the technical envelope at this point in time).
That is right. From our Italian friend, here are the surround channels off of the LD:
