The Terminator (1984) - Original Theatrical Mono Preservation (Released)

mgm/sony has released james cameron’s sci-fi classic with a brand new transfer, which looks fantastic. one could argue that the inclusion of a more modern day tint, subtle but still noticeable, is a bad thing. personally i have no real problem with it.
the real problem is the omission of the original theatrical mono mix. fans have asked mgm for the inclusion since the first blu-ray release and yet again mgm ignored the fans call. but what about the 5.1 remix supervised/mixed by academy award winner gary rydstrom? is it really that bad? the answer is no. it’s a good remix, with a modern touch and a tie in with sfx of terminator 2, e.g. phaser sounds of the hunter killers. but some changes are pretty big compared to the original mix (especially the gunshot sfx change in the sarah conner killing scene) and that’s what a lot fans got on the fence. i recommend to see the new 5.1 mix as an alternate mix. nothing more, nothing less.

back to topic…

luckily the original mono mix was previously released on laserdisc and on dvd. so the preservation was rather easy. with the help of a friend, shoutouts to jj666 for his awesome syncing job, anyone with the new 2012 blu-ray release can now enjoy the lossless original theatrical mono mix.

source: the terminator thx laserdisc - pcm captured via toslink by myself
synced by jj666 to the u.k. blu-ray
release format: flac, 16bit mono at 44.1khz
download: -

_the laserdisc had different studio logos then the new u.k. blu-ray. did you change this?
yes. i have added the mgm lion logo and orion picture sounds to the mono mix, so that the audio and video match.
_

can this be synced to the u.s. blu-ray?
my audio track needs a delay of +8950ms to make it sync with the u.s. blu-ray. this delay value was confirmed by NeonBible.

why do you use flac instead of wav?
flac is a lossless codec and saves spaces. it’s practically identical to wave. you can easily transcode it to wav, if you need to. you wont loose any quality, hence lossless.

please note: if you share this on another place, then don’t forget to give credit to the people making this release possible.

I can confirm that +8950 syncs with the US release, watched the whole movie the other night.  However you can still hear the end of the lion roar from the MGM logo right at the beginning.  I have removed in an audio editor myself.  I'm not a pro so not sure if I've affected the whole track by doing it though!

Just to be clear, this track syncs with the UK Blu-ray without needing to add the delay or change the file format right?

You guys rule.

supersonic395 said:

Just to be clear, this track syncs with the UK Blu-ray without needing to add the delay or change the file format right?

correct, no delay if you have the u.k. blu-ray. when you mux to mkv then you don't need to change flac to wav. however, if you remux to blu-ray using tsmuxer, then you need to change the audio to wav with 48khz.

zeropc said:

supersonic395 said:

Just to be clear, this track syncs with the UK Blu-ray without needing to add the delay or change the file format right?

correct, no delay if you have the u.k. blu-ray. when you mux to mkv then you don't need to change flac to wav. however, if you remux to blu-ray using tsmuxer, then you need to change the audio to wav with 48khz.

Awesome!

As I'll want to burn it to a blu-ray disc, I'll be using the latter option. Thank you again :)

I have a question. I tried downloading mkvtoolnix but it won't work on my version of mac so I downloaded tsmuxer. I used another program to create a WAV file but that file wouldn't open in tsmuxer so I created an AAC file which did open in tsmuxer. Here's my question. When I'm using tsmuxer do I want to use the file that the program creates after I click Start Muxing or do I wanna create a meta file and use that one?? Thank you.

1. tell us what mac os you run, e.g. 10.8.4, and which mkvtoolnix version did you use

2. when using tsmuxer, just drag your source files into, then select all wanted/deselect all unwanted tracks, select outformat (.ts, .m2ts or blu-ray) and then click "mux"

afaik aac is no valid codec for blu-ray. so you may only remux to .ts - somebody else may verify this in case i'm not correct.

Mine is 10.5.8. I converted it to .ts. The default program for the file is MPEG Streamclip. However, when I play the clip in this program I don't hear anything.

Thank you zeropc for the Terminator mono soundtrack. I made my dvd and had no trouble getting it to synch up. No more watching the vhs copy for me!!

Wow! This uncompressed mono track sounds amazing.  So much more natural than the 5.1 mix on the BD.

Thanks!

thank you zero pc for the track! i have been having problems with mine i think im doing something wrong. i use mkvmerge then select 00000.mpls from the playlist on the disk untick every box but AVC/h.264 which is the video then i click add and select the mono flac and then start muxing but the sound is out of sync with the picture! i have the region free blu ray can someone help me am i doing something wrong

Demux the BD with Eac3to.  Then remux.

Thanks, zeropc, for making the mono available. I wasn't going to buy the blu-ray because of it not having the mono. But after downloading your mono flac, I bought the 2012 UK Blu-ray. I now have muxed it with the mono and it's awesome!

I am just curious as to why you used the LD for the mono source and not the dvd? Is it because the LD has PCM audio?

DVD mono cannot possibly compare to PCM from a laserdisc. The difference is astounding. 

Moth3r said:

Matt_Stevens said:

DVD mono cannot possibly compare to PCM from a laserdisc. The difference is astounding. 

ABX or it didn't happen.

LMMFAO Moth3r ....... almost lost my coffee to the TV screen.

:)

DVD-BOY said:

Quite common on music DVDs and BFI titles will include PCM is space allows it, otherwise 320Kbps AC3.

Mono on DVD is 192kbps about 99% of the time. Only with music and specialty releases will you find more than that. It's a shame. 

Finally got round to watching this with the Original Mono audio.  Perfectly synced to the rip of my UK BD disc. Excellent, excellent experience. Way better than the gimmicky sounding 5.1 track. 

Thank you zeropc!