I'm revisiting the master files from my revised synchs from a couple of years ago. I think I've got a nice balance for home systems now. The audio isn't really fit for home systems as-is; crossovers and overall volume reduction are necessary because the audio is too damn loud (clipping in places too!). I'll see about making these available when I've finished the final touches.
CapableMetal said:
I'm revisiting the master files from my revised synchs from a couple of years ago. I think I've got a nice balance for home systems now. The audio isn't really fit for home systems as-is; crossovers and overall volume reduction are necessary because the audio is too damn loud (clipping in places too!). I'll see about making these available when I've finished the final touches.
Thanks for that, will you release each in 6 mono wav files?
CapableMetal said:
I'm revisiting the master files from my revised synchs from a couple of years ago. I think I've got a nice balance for home systems now. The audio isn't really fit for home systems as-is; crossovers and overall volume reduction are necessary because the audio is too damn loud (clipping in places too!). I'll see about making these available when I've finished the final touches.
You know where to reach me when you're ready. LOL
;)
dark_jedi said:
Thanks for that, will you release each in 6 mono wav files?
I was planning on DTS-HD so that people can mux it with a conformed video should they want to. The standard that they are conformed to was discussed in the Special Edition preservation standards thread a long time ago. That said, I will make them available to you privately in any format you need so that you can adjust them if necessary.
CapableMetal said:
dark_jedi said:
Thanks for that, will you release each in 6 mono wav files?
I was planning on DTS-HD so that people can mux it with a conformed video should they want to. The standard that they are conformed to was discussed in the Special Edition preservation standards thread a long time ago. That said, I will make them available to you privately in any format you need so that you can adjust them if necessary.
If you did all six films, what would they each synch to?
I imagine the 97SE would synch to the laserdiscs since that's all we got basically. TPM would also use the Japanese laserdisc in that case. ROTS could use either the DVD or Blu-ray I suppose. So really all I'm asking is how about AOTC.
she/her
mwah
I didn't do all six films in the end, just the 97SE trilogy. They sync to the standards that a few of us figured out between us a while back. The NTSC laserdiscs aren't all we've got and are actually missing frames. The digital broadcasts are far more complete, as are the PAL laserdiscs and after comparing the various releases together we discovered that between them they are frame accurate to the official DVD and Blu-Ray releases. The only exception was a single missing frame in TESB, which we decided to include as the standard because it would conform to the DVD video frame count.
I don't have TPM on laserdisc, so my only source for that would be the digital broadcast of the theatrical version. Frame counts for the prequels weren't discussed at the time, and I never investigated them properly because I find it very difficult to watch them without sighing in disappointment throughout most of the films. I might have a crack at them some day, but I don't know whether there is enough of a difference between the lossless tracks on the Blu-Ray's (at least for AOTC and ROTS) to actually be worthwhile.
Well I vote for lossless mono wav files so we can sync to what is needed ourselves, but it is totally up to you of course.
CapableMetal said:
I didn't do all six films in the end, just the 97SE trilogy. They sync to the standards that a few of us figured out between us a while back. The NTSC laserdiscs aren't all we've got and are actually missing frames. The digital broadcasts are far more complete, as are the PAL laserdiscs and after comparing the various releases together we discovered that between them they are frame accurate to the official DVD and Blu-Ray releases. The only exception was a single missing frame in TESB, which we decided to include as the standard because it would conform to the DVD video frame count.
I don't have TPM on laserdisc, so my only source for that would be the digital broadcast of the theatrical version. Frame counts for the prequels weren't discussed at the time, and I never investigated them properly because I find it very difficult to watch them without sighing in disappointment throughout most of the films. I might have a crack at them some day, but I don't know whether there is enough of a difference between the lossless tracks on the Blu-Ray's (at least for AOTC and ROTS) to actually be worthwhile.
I'm not sure if you refer to actually owning the laserdisc or just a preservation, but you should grab althor's Japanese Laserdisc on myspleen. The laserdisc is the theatrical cut so you could theoretically synch it to that. AOTC doesn't have a "theatrical" version released aside from the bootleg recording which is undoubtedly missing frames.
she/her
mwah
clutchins said:
CapableMetal said:
I didn't do all six films in the end, just the 97SE trilogy. They sync to the standards that a few of us figured out between us a while back. The NTSC laserdiscs aren't all we've got and are actually missing frames. The digital broadcasts are far more complete, as are the PAL laserdiscs and after comparing the various releases together we discovered that between them they are frame accurate to the official DVD and Blu-Ray releases. The only exception was a single missing frame in TESB, which we decided to include as the standard because it would conform to the DVD video frame count.
I don't have TPM on laserdisc, so my only source for that would be the digital broadcast of the theatrical version. Frame counts for the prequels weren't discussed at the time, and I never investigated them properly because I find it very difficult to watch them without sighing in disappointment throughout most of the films. I might have a crack at them some day, but I don't know whether there is enough of a difference between the lossless tracks on the Blu-Ray's (at least for AOTC and ROTS) to actually be worthwhile.
I'm not sure if you refer to actually owning the laserdisc or just a preservation, but you should grab althor's Japanese Laserdisc on myspleen. The laserdisc is the theatrical cut so you could theoretically synch it to that. AOTC doesn't have a "theatrical" version released aside from the bootleg recording which is undoubtedly missing frames.
Capable has been around for awhile. I'm sure he's got his options figured out already.
:)
I'm sticking with DTS-HD because these are already synced to a frame-accurate source (as far as was determined), conformed to 23.976fps, manually adjusted for better balance, and are intended for general use for everyone, whether it be in preservations or just personal projects. These aren't the decoded vanilla WAV's of each reel that I made available on the Spleen a few years back.
I'm going to include an encode of the video sources I used for each film so that people will have something mux with them. They were upscaled to 720p so that I could see mouths moving when I did the sync, and I will encode them to a relatively small file size as video quality was not my objective anyway. I'll also hit the blu-ray compatibility flag in the encoder in case people should want to play them on blu-ray players or TV's via a usb drive or disc. These aren't colour corrected or enhanced, just upscaled with nnedi3 (probably... it has been a long time since I produced them). No frills, basically.
Mono WAV's will also be available for any that want them for their own projects.
I'll just be glad to finally get around to getting these out there. I should have done it years ago. I might take a look at the prequels in future, but aren't particularly bothered about them right now.
CapableMetal said:
Mono WAV's will also be available for any that want them for their own projects.
Thank you for this.
I'm so excited for this. On behalf of audiophiles everywhere, thank you for your commitment, Capable.
I can hardly wait to see somebody pick up the rest of the prequels as soon as we get theatrical presentations of AOTC. Perhaps somebody could tackle ROTS since there are no major alterations to the framecount? In any case, the hype train continues to roll.
she/her
mwah
Check the spleen. ;)
Mono WAV links will be following shortly to anyone who is interested, just let me know via PM (DJ, you don't need to; you'll be first on list when its ready).
CapableMetal said:
Check the spleen. ;)
Mono WAV links will be following shortly to anyone who is interested, just let me know via PM (DJ, you don't need to; you'll be first on list when its ready).
Thank you, so what video did you sync to, what was your source?
Thanks again for the mono wav files later.
Its a combination of the 'TB' broadcasts your team used for your 97SE release, patched with the 'Gkar' broadcasts, which are pretty much frame complete but of a lesser quality. ROTJ also had to be patched with the official DVD in a few places due to the fact that every 1997 release is missing quite a few frames from what was deemed 'complete'. It was agreed that the official DVD's were frame-accurate to the 97SE when you excluded the '04 changes (Palpatine in TESB, Naboo appearing in ROTJ).
I'm almost certain the frame counts are accurate because of how easily it was to synchronise; position each reel correctly to the reference video and mixdown; no time-stretching or cutting the audio mid-reel was needed to make it fit.
My video sources have been included with the DTS-HD versions for the sake of having a visual reference to go with the audio, and they are by no means a preservation. I leave that sort of thing up to people who are much better at it.
The synch information is in a text file with the audio (and will be with the WAVs too), but is taken from this thread where it was discussed quite a while back.
I've done a little bit of comparison work between the new foobar plugin and the older winamp version. While the foobar plugin is nice, since it does the work of splitting the LFE and surround channels for you, I found that it does not attenuate the surrounds. This leads to quite a bit of clipping.
I got much better results using the methods posted earlier in the thread with Ozone 5.
On a different note, I think we've always assumed that there should be a 3dB attenuation in the surround channels due to the DTS post production literature.
Here's the studio setup info from the pdf:
To me this also suggest that the LFE should be boosted by 3dB. However, whenever I tried that, it seems wrong. I'm just curious if anyone else has an opinion on the LFE levels.
If I had some gum, I’d chew a hole into the sun…
My opinion in the end was to trust my ears and my gut. I can't help but feel that the official crossover spec is redundant unless you happen to have the same equipment, correctly positioned in a space of the same size and shape, and with the same calibration as an actual cinema. In the end, after resigning myself to the fact that it just never sounded right, I used my ears and some reasoning.
At this point I've tinkered with it so many times that I cannot remember exactly what I did in the end to get the final result. I took hairy_hen's advice and processed the surrounds and LFE in Ozone to get a better crossover, and adjusted the low-pass cut-off to create a cleaner, and more relevant, LFE channel because it seemed too active before.
I also tried the foobar plugin to see what it ouput. In my tests it produced decoding errors in the surrounds and LFE's in short bursts, and in several places; sound that most certainly isn't present on the discs. I don't know whether it was a configuration issue on my end, but it did it with each AUD file that was fed to it, so in the end I stuck with the files I decoded three years ago using the Winamp plugin.
I think we came to the same conclusion regarding the foobar plugin. It's a little half-baked. I never noticed any errors other than the surround channel clipping, but the output was definitely different than the winamp plugin, even for the L,C, and R channels.
I don't think the DTS specs are completely useless though. They give a clue to the analogue processing in the system, which has to be accounted for when decoding.
Setting the surround speaker output 3dB lower, at 82dB, in the mixing studio, hypothetically means that they're encoded 3dB hot. This also suggets that setting the mixing studio LFE at 88dB leads to the encoded signal being 3dB less than what should be heard when decoding.
Unfortunately, the DTS Encoder Suite won't let you apply that 3dB cut at the encoding stage for DTS HD-MA.
Anyway, boosting by 3dB always sounded weird to me which is why I left it alone before.
If I had some gum, I’d chew a hole into the sun…
You are right, a cut to the surrounds provides a much better balance. The annoying thing is that I now need to make one final release of these less than a week after I thought I had made the 'final' release and washed my hands of them (I don't like the SE, although I have enjoyed playing with the DTS audio).
I incorporated the surround cut into my Ozone filter, and left the LFE alone because boosting it really doesn't work for the mix. It sounds better than it has ever sounded.
I have prepared ANH and ROTJ with these settings and they're good to go, but I'm going to have one last check of ESB because something doesn't feel right. I'll hold off posting the WAVs until all is perfect. Free time permitting, it should be very soon.
The surround channels most definitely need to be attenuated by 3 dB in order to provide proper balance. I explained why in a post in the other DTS thread, which I will copy/paste into here:
hairy_hen said:
Theatrical sound systems are calibrated such that a -20 dBFS pink noise tone will play at 85 dBSPL from the front left, right, and center channels, while the rear channels measure at 82 dB. This is to maintain backwards compatibility with Dolby Stereo analog tracks, which have a monaural surround capability rather than stereo rears. In Dolby Stereo, the entire array of surround speakers is treated as one unit, which together measures at 85 dB. So when 5.1 came along, they essentially split the existing surround in half, with the left and right each playing the same signal at 82 dB instead. When heard together, the combined result of all the surround speakers is at 85 dB as it should be.
What this means is that because the surround channels in movie theaters and post-production stages are deliberately set to play back at a lower level than the front channels, the content of the surrounds will end up being 3 dB louder than it otherwise would be. The mixers will set the level of the surround effects to sound 'correct' to them on the system they are listening on. When this is played on home theater systems, which are calibrated with all channels set equally to 85 dB, the surrounds will end up being 3 dB too loud.
Because of this, a theatrical mix played on a home system must have the rear channels lowered by 3 dB in order to sound the way the mixer originally heard it. 5.1 encoders typically have a selectable option to do this automatically when creating the files for home use, but this was not always the case.
Note that calibrating the surround channels at 82 dB instead of 85 applies to all theatrical 5.1 formats, not just DTS. Playing the same signal out of each surround results in a doubling of the acoustic power, which increases the total level of a mono signal by 3 dB. It's the same thing that happens with the phantom center in a stereo mix. Double power results in a 3 dB boost, but this must be distinguished from doubling voltage, which is what occurs when summing electrically—this creates a level increase of 6 dB for phase coherent signals.
So the surround channel calibration is easily explained when looked at in this manner. When it comes to the LFE channel, however, things become considerably more complicated. I tried to figure it out a while back and couldn't quite arrive at a satisfactory explanation for everything in the DTS system manuals, because we have no idea exactly what the analog chain inside their hardware actually is. I am going to go back and open my Pro Tools session for the '97 SE DTS again, so I can take another shot at giving you guys an exact method to reproduce the LFE calibration and crossover.
We found TPM as serendipitous.CapableMetal said:
I'm almost certain the frame counts are accurate because of how easily it was to synchronise; position each reel correctly to the reference video and mixdown; no time-stretching or cutting the audio mid-reel was needed to make it fit.
However, in practice you must take into account the “fuckwit factor”. Just talk to Darth Mallwalker…
-Moth3r
Im not sure why, but i found i got better results in foobar loading all of the aud files in and converting the them to wav in a single output file. Otherwise the results were strange, occasionally devoid of surrounds at all.
Preferred Saga:
1/2: Hal9000
3: L8wrtr
4/5: Adywan
6-9: Hal9000
Without a valid theatrical source for AOTC, it's a shame that the DTS CD will go to waste for the time being. On the other hand, will the one for ROTS sync with the DVD or Blu-ray?
she/her
mwah
If the changes don't affect frame count, yes. Its possibly not worth it though. If the mix hasn't been changed since the theatrical release, then the lossless audio on the blu-ray is better.
CapableMetal said:
If the changes don't affect frame count, yes. Its possibly not worth it though. If the mix hasn't been changed since the theatrical release, then the lossless audio on the blu-ray is better.
At least having the theatrical audio is beneficial for preservation.