Conan The Barbarian - Blu-ray (new DTS track available) and a host of info (Released)

OK, so this last Tuesday Conan The Barbarian was released, well come to find out the US version is missing a scene that was present on the Collector’s Edition DVD, the scene is where Conan & Subotai talk about Blueberries and the spring wind before the battle towards the end of the movie, I also bought the HK version, but this one HAS that scene, so it is exactly like the CE DVD, however, ALL versions on BD are kind of messed up on the audio, especially during the opening when the Riders of Doom were raiding Conan’s village, the choir\singing is gone, there are more scenes like this to.

This is really messed up, for any Conan fans this REALLY sticks out pretty bad, well listening to the differences from DVD to Blu, I have realized something I must do now, I am taking the 2.0 mono from the CE DVD and putting it in sync with the BD, well that is done now, but I am going to go ahead and do something else to, I dug up both of my long out of print Varese Sarabande CD’s(Barbarian & Destroyer) and I am going to make my own Iso Score for each BD as well.

This is where I need advice, I am already half way through the Barbarian CD, and this Iso Score will be DD 2.0, but what I am curious of is this, would an upmixed Iso Score to DD 5.1 be a cool idea or not?

Hell, there might not even be any fans here of these movies LOL, I already got a PM at another site to do this same thing with The Terminator, I guess a lot of people really like that mono mix also.

dark_jedi said:

Hell, there might not even be any fans here of these movies LOL, I already got a PM at another site to do this same thing with The Terminator, I guess a lot of people really like that mono mix also.

I'd be really interested in this.

I'd love to hear a 5.1 upmix. Apart from the missing choir, the Fox remix is pretty good. And, of course, mono just doesn't do justice to Poledouris' amazing score.

Any chance you could combine the CD score with the BDs soundtrack to fill in those missing elements?

The Griff said:

I'd be really interested in this.

I'd love to hear a 5.1 upmix. Apart from the missing choir, the Fox remix is pretty good. And, of course, mono just doesn't do justice to Poledouris' amazing score.

Any chance you could combine the CD score with the BDs soundtrack to fill in those missing elements?

You know, that is exactly what crossed my mind late last night while working on the score, cant that part of the CD score be laid on top of that audio section or will that not work? that way I can keep the GREAT audio that is there already and the sound effects and just add in what is missing.

and you are absolutely right, the mono is cool, but it certainly does NOT do Basil's score justice at all.

dark_jedi said:

You know, that is exactly what crossed my mind late last night while working on the score, cant that part of the CD score be laid on top of that audio section or will that not work?

I don't see why not! As long as the CD is from the same recording as the one used in the movie. If that's the case then even if, for some reason, the timing doesn't match perfectly, you should be able to manipulated it slightly (squash/stretch/trim etc) to fit. You could also try de-emphasizing everything but the choir so there's less chance of an echo or volume boost on the common elements.

I think its definitely worth a try! If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Oh, man, but if it does...

I am definitely going to give it a try once I figure exactly out how to go about it, and I will check the other tracks on the BD, but I would assume they are all going to be the same, because I agree that putting the original mono in sync with the BD is just NOT that great of an idea, I mean the NEW DTS-HD MA track just totally ROCKS! it really sounds great, except for a little bit of missing choir\singing in 3-4 scenes tops, and it is not even the whole scene LOL, because very honestly, the mono track does NOT do Basil's FANTASTIC score justice at all, so I am not sure if I am even going to spend much more time on the mono LOL, because if you have read any of my posts on audio, you will see I could care less for a mono audio file at all, especially on new modern HD Receiver setup I have now.

I will however finish my Iso Score project for both Barbarian & Destroyer in 2.0 and 5.1, because I just LOVE this score.

*edit, I just checked the other tracks, and it is just as I thought, it is the same on them to, looks like the only to fix it is to add it in from the CD.

Geez, I had no idea the BD release(s) of Conan were so messed-up.  Glad I held off on purchasing.  I would say that I hope Universal eventually revisits it...but it is Universal :/

Sounds like a great project, DJ.  I look very forward to the final result :)

I just read over on TheDigitalBits.com that Universal is looking into the complaints about the U.S. BD version, specifically about the audio.  They might wind-up issuing a replacement disc (which we can only hope would also restore the missing scene).

OmegaMattman said:

I just read over on TheDigitalBits.com that Universal is looking into the complaints about the U.S. BD version, specifically about the audio.  They might wind-up issuing a replacement disc (which we can only hope would also restore the missing scene).

All right, first things first today: There appears to be an audio problem with Universal's new Conan the Barbarian Blu-ray. Essentially, the film's "remastered" 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack is missing several pieces of choral music in Basil Poledouris' score and select instruments are apparently inaudible in the mix. It also appears there may be occasionally inaudible sound effects. And the disc doesn't include the original mono mix, so you've no other option. I've alerted Universal to this and am told that they're looking into it. Hopefully, they'll correct the problem and issue replacement discs, because this is the kind of thing that drives diehard fans of a film absolutely crazy. We'll let you know as soon as we hear more.

The HK versions are region free, and all the extras are in NTSC, so for the money, this is your best bet, I have the US releases and the HK releases of both Barbarian & Destroyer and I definitely like the HK's better, I ordered them from a place called dddhouse, they take paypal, and they ship fast.

Believe me, I am really hoping that we get a disc replacement on this, but I am NOT going to hold my breath on it, because the 5.1 track has been messed up long before this BD release, so if it was going to get corrected, it should have been back then, but like I said, I SURE hope it gets corrected along with the missing scene on the US release.

I am still working on this, just slowly, but I have just 1 more scene to correct, I have the audio all lined up but I am having a couple of thoughts on just how I should do this, 1, do I just swap out the Left & Right channels? or 2, do I overlay them? because there are some sound effects in there also, but DAMN what a difference hearing these side by side with the score CD is, so I need thoughts on this.

1 more thing, does anyone here know if you can lower the sound\decibel on these new score parts so it is not SO loud, if there was no speech I would not care, but in some scenes there is some dialogue and I do not want to totally drown it out with the new score parts, after working on this, I wonder if that is why the choral parts are missing, or very, very muffled, who knows, plus I am doing this in Vegas.

Thanks

OK, I think I have it, but I need people to listen to it and let me know if the blend sounds good and please listen to the volume levels, as I said, there are only 3 scenes that are affected by this, I only encoded a DD 5.1 file for testing, if everything sounds good, then I will encode the new DTS-HD MA track to replace the one on the BD, so if anyone wants to listen to this DD 5.1 tack and give me some feedback please let me know.

Thanks

the 3 scenes are,
Riddle of Steel\Riders of Doom
Recovery
Battle of The Mounds

Great stuff, DJ. How did you go approaching those volume/mix issues you mentioned in your previous post?

I'd love to help out but I work away from home and wouldn't be able to test your samples out until mon/tues. I'd still be very keen to do so, however.

Somebody give the man a hand!

The Griff said:

Great stuff, DJ. How did you go approaching those volume/mix issues you mentioned in your previous post?

I'd love to help out but I work away from home and wouldn't be able to test your samples out until mon/tues. I'd still be very keen to do so, however.

Somebody give the man a hand!

Thank you, and you are the only person to take me up on it so I can wait, I need input on this, like I said, especially need to see if it seems seamless to you, and volume levels, I just tested it and I am liking it very much, the only thing I would say is to turn your receiver down before you start it, I set the dialnorm to -31 so it is loud, I left it that way because I want to hear everything on these scenes, the final will have the dialnorm set to what it is on the retail DTS-HD MA track, which I assume is -27.

So no one else wants to listen to this DD 5.1 track and let me know what you think?

Griff, I will send you a PM with the links(2) for testing this 5.1 track, it is DD 5.1 @ 448 with -31 dialnorm, final will be the full DTS HD track.

Got the PM.

Can't wait to get home and check this out. Very excited.

I must say that I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this project. Conan is a brilliant film and its score is one of the most memorable.

Will be back with my thoughts in a few day's time!

The Griff said:

Got the PM.

Can't wait to get home and check this out. Very excited.

I must say that I'm surprised there isn't more interest in this project. Conan is a brilliant film and its score is one of the most memorable.

Will be back with my thoughts in a few day's time!

Thanks you so much for taking a listen, but please delete or don't download that version, I will PM you a new DD 5.1 track that is much improved(Thanks to some tips from Ady, so I learned something new in Vegas, love learning!) this new track is done, my oldest Son was over last night, and I did NOT want my youngest Son to watch the movie until I fixed the audio, well my oldest Son went over the parts when played on my system and he could not tell a difference at all, from retail to my edits, and he LOVES the choral parts being reinstated, he was also wondering how in the hell I was able to leave in all the sound effects as well on the left & right channels, He also told me he will not be buying Barbarian he wants a copy of mine LOL, but bought Destroyer.

I have had no luck getting anyone to want to listen and test for me so this is all being done by myself pretty much, which is OK, most of my projects are for myself and Family anyways, a lot of them don't even get a mention, but Thanks again for giving it a go and seeing what you think, just check for a new PM.

This new technique I learned from Ady sure made it take A LOT longer to do, but it was well worth it, but between my oldest Son and I, we have come up with some tweaks that will make the HD audio track even better, so I am planning on making a few more tweaks before final(well our final) because the file that you will test I believe is final, I am not sure if anyone else will like the tweaks we want to do LOL, but maybe.

*edit, for the lack of interest, I figure people are just holding out hoping the Studio will fix and offer a replacement(which I personally highly doubt because the 5.1 mix has been like this for years) or that some have no idea how to demux a Blu-ray and swap out the retail HD track for this new one and re burn it, or simply just don't like my work, but it really doesn't matter to me now, I LOVE it, both my Kids LOVE it, and the 1 person that did grab an earlier version really liked it to and asked me how I did it, so all is good.

MrBrown said:

You know whats with the UK Bd of Conan?

It seems to contain a different Video Version. So it might contain another audio mix, too.

In the Scene at about 104:36, when in the US Version the Women on the Stone is telling Conan that Thulsa will come, the UK shows instead a longer scene with Conan and Subotai preparing the Battlefield and talking about winds and storms before battles...

Here is a German comparison between UK and US BD regarding the different scene with pictures:

http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=357350

That scene is in ALL the FOX versions whether it be the UK, Australian, HK(which I also have) for some very strange reason Universal did not have that scene in our(US) release, but it is on the Universal Collector's Edition DVD, and as far as the audio, it has already been confirmed to be the exact same 5.1 audio used on ALL releases, all Countries, so ALL suffer from the same minor errors, because as I said, I have the FOX HK release, and the Universal US release, so I could do my OWN comparison, and not have to rely on internet drabble and hear say like other future releases coming.

MrBrown said:

Ah okay, thanks for enlighten me.. I thought the HK release identical to the US release... and so I thought the uk version different. I am sorry for this.

At some point the whole Studio A and Studio B crap is confusing. Not forgetting dumb german release company Concorde, which not even known that there is a Conan Blu in the world... not even talking about that their german special Edition is the normal cinematic version, just with the international Special Edition Cover...

Yea HK is identical to UK and the rest.

The part I highlighted above, are you kidding me LOL?

I'll make sure to grab the latest samples, DJ.

And, if you don't mind me asking, what additional tweaks were you planning on making past the 'final' version?