Info: Bad audio remastering on blu-ray

This is basically a sort of follow up to by “mono tracks butchered on 5.1 remixes” thread where I basically wanna go into instead about how audio restorations can go wrong. One minor example is Rosemary’s Baby, comparing between the US Criterion and UK Paramount pressings, which are of the same master. The Criterion pressing has noise and bass reduction on it, resulting in the mix sounding flat. But the UK Paramount pressing is free of both bass and hiss reduction so it sounds a lot more alive, vibrant, and more detailed. (comparison here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqOO3fty1Q0) But I feel that there are lots of other movies that Criterion and other companies have noise reduced which hindered the audio presentations, and I wanna know what others you’ve noticed as well.

crissrudd4554 said:

Jaws- Mono on 2005 DVD is a tad crisper than mono track on BD and lacks ‘flaws’ that the latter. Mono track on mid-1990’s LD has certain dialogue/effects that are more present than those on the mono tracks on the DVD/BDs.

https://vimeo.com/166704816

The Terminator- Mono on Image DVD and LD is better sounding than Mono on MGM DVD. Sound effects are much louder and beefier on the Image releases. However some effects differ between the two.

https://vimeo.com/295910511

Frankenstein- Restored VHS and LD sound best though they lack the restored ‘God’ line. 1999 DVD has audio heavily DNR’d while a more flat and a tad muffled sounding track is used on the 2004 DVD and carried over to subsequent releases including BD.

https://vimeo.com/56206935

https://vimeo.com/295910511

Halloween- Mono on 35th Anniversary BD and 40th Anniversary UHD is a downmix of the surround track, not the original mono. 2007 BD as well as the 35th Anniversary BD included in the deluxe set with all the films has the correct mono.

interestingly enough the 1999 DVD for Frankenstein also sounds much better than the blu-ray, most likely due to the less amount hiss reduction and even better is it appears to be uncensored unlike the VHS releases.

crissrudd4554 said:

Yes the 1999 DVD has a very unique mix but was a bit problematic. For the most part it’s mixed very low. I don’t think I’ve been able to watch that DVD without the need of turning the volume up. However there’s points where certain things get louder in the mix so overall it’s not very well balanced. From a quality standpoint it’s pretty good. Very clean with much of the audio crackle removed. If Universal has been able to properly balance it out and not make it so quiet for the most part it could have been a lot better.

Speaking of the VHS’, the 1999 VHS has an uncensored track.

I actually made a comparison video of the 1999 DVD mono and the Blu-ray mono
https://vimeo.com/348112133
Though I’ll admit I did turn up the DVD audio a bit to make it more consistent with the BD mono volume. I used three different clips and especially in the last one the BD mono sounded very muffled yet was the noisiest of the two.

crissrudd4554 said:

SpacemanDoug said:

crissrudd4554 said:

Yes the 1999 DVD has a very unique mix but was a bit problematic. For the most part it’s mixed very low. I don’t think I’ve been able to watch that DVD without the need of turning the volume up. However there’s points where certain things get louder in the mix so overall it’s not very well balanced. From a quality standpoint it’s pretty good. Very clean with much of the audio crackle removed. If Universal has been able to properly balance it out and not make it so quiet for the most part it could have been a lot better.

Speaking of the VHS’, the 1999 VHS has an uncensored track.

I actually made a comparison video of the 1999 DVD mono and the Blu-ray mono
https://vimeo.com/348112133
Though I’ll admit I did turn up the DVD audio a bit to make it more consistent with the BD mono volume. I used three different clips and especially in the last one the BD mono sounded very muffled yet was the noisiest of the two.

Nice. Yeah I had the same issue when I made my LD vs BD comparison video. I initially posted it without any alterations to either track but when I played it back on my TV through our Roku box I realized the LD audio had noticeably lower volume than the BD. Because I didn’t want that aspect to affect people’s opinions on the comparison since I was comparing quality not volume I went back and increased the volume on the LD track. Not by much. Just enough that it was more on par with the BD track.

I’ve also liked Criterion less and less over time because of their mediocre compression methods and they’re very very hiss reduction happy. Some of their releases sound worse than DVD audio. The truth is lossless/lossy encodings won’t mean shit if the remastering isn’t done right in the first place for the audio. People just refuse to accept their issues because of how biased they are about Criterion.

crissrudd4554 said:

Yeah I can see that especially when they have releases where the mono is in one channel where others will have it two channel.

dual mono/regular mono won’t make a difference either if there is hiss and bass reduction involved, sometimes in cases (like with The Godfather) a lossy dual mono track will sound better than a lossless 5.1 track due to lack of hiss or bass reduction on the lossy mono track unlike the 5.1 where there was bass/hiss reduction applied

Just look at the comparison I made of the two blu-ray releases of Rosemary’s Baby. Both the Criterion release and the UK Paramount release are from the same restoration but Paramount didn’t apply bass/hiss reduction on their master unlike Criterion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqOO3fty1Q0

The Criterion mono sounds flat in comparison to the Paramount mono.