little-endian

A big thank you to RU.08 for pointing out that great release!

ScruffyNerfHerder said:
My point was that a near-field mix is created to sound better in a home. That’s all. 😃

Well, but you also put an assumption that the LaserDisc audio would have a near-field mix created to sound better at home.

And just in case I gave that impression unintendedly: I don’t know it any better for sure, so I am not claiming to know the truth here, just trying to get a discussion going to find it out.

Because from what I see and hear, and judging by the dynamics, the LaserDisc PCM track doesn’t feel like some compromised near-field mix to me so I would be interest why you guys apprently think so.

ScruffyNerfHerder said:

Basically, as I understand it, a near-field mix is a remix of the theatrical audio for home theater. Near field because you’re near the speakers in a home theater, and in a far-field mix (i.e. a commercial theater) you aren’t. So, the Laserdisc audio is redone to sound better in a home, whereas the original optical track sounds better in a movie theater.

Maybe I am missing something here, but thanks to RU.08 I had the chance to listen to the “optical track” in comparison now and to my eyes and ears, the LD audio is technically better in every aspect.

Not that the optical track wouldn’t be worth being preserved due to the different sound and historical value alone of course, but the LD audio features a significantly higher dynamic range (just like DiscLord reported it) and is also “clean” whereas the (I assume analog) optical track has distortions which are especially noticeable during the dialog.

Thus I’d rather assume that it was in fact the LD audio which was originally created as the cinema master back then and not vice-versa. If they would have adjusted it to sound “good” on home theaters afterwards, normally that would have meant a reduction of dynamic range, not an increase as many nowadays low-end soundbar stuff (or worse) actually sound better with higher compressed sources. And given that it the mass market, no surprises here. However, the LaserDisc would predate that loudness-war era anyway so I wonder where the “near-field mix theory” comes from.

At least from what I’ve heard now, the optical track sounds like a decent attempt to reproduce the original master, however with all the limitations of these analog optical systems that time whereas the LD gives you the raw, dynamic deal.

Ah, I see. However, I am then successfully confused in terms of your former comment which was “Also, the optical audio is better quality than the LD”.

Due to Disclord’s review, I thought that the PCM of the US THX-LaserDisc was the version to get:

Quote:

“The CLV used the 9db headroom limited Dolby Stereo SR soundtrack while the THX WS CAV used the 20db headroom SR master that was created for the Dolby Digital release prints. The CAV discs sound has a power and clarity that the CLV cant match with its more limited headroom.”

@Superrayman3, RU.08, ScruffyNerfHerder

Since some of you keep mentioning the LD, can you please be more specific about what LD release you mean? There are plenty different ones including the 1662 CS which according to DiscLord is supposed to have the unaltered far field mix as PCM.

However, your mentioning of 48kHz suggests AC3 as this is the only format on the LD which uses that sample rate.

@Superrayman3: Maybe you mean the content which might in fact be different fidelity-wise but just in case you were referring to the technical aspects in general, a few remarks as this is very often stated wrong:

Superrayman3 said:

I’d like to try doing the same with the optical track as well but that one may be a bit trickier to work with since it’d be at a much higher bitrate and have a higher fidelity in comparison to a CD which would probably make such an edit noticeable when compared to the LD track which has a similar bitrate and fidelity to a CD but I’m open to trying it if it means I can help preserve a piece of Disney history).

What do you mean by ‘higher bitrate’ in comparison to “a CD”? If you refer to sample rates and bitrates, there is good news or bad news (depending from the point of view): there is no “higher fidelity” than what the good old, soon getting 36, CD provides. At least not as long as human beings don’t develop better ears. Much better ones as actually, the CD specs already exceed them severely in most situations. Both the sample rate and the bit depth in PCM provide such high quality (in theory, we better don’t get into nowadays charts music) than there is not a single blind test which has proven any high resolution audio to be discernible from it’s “old-fashioned” CD counterpart (given the same mastering of course).

I just ran some basic tests using the LD audio and restoring the original line is somewhat possible but there’s two caveats at play, first the LD audio will have to be down-mixed from 48000 to 44100 in order to keep a consistent quality with the CD audio (from what I understand if my research is correct, the audio track on LDs was originally encoded at the 16-bit 44100 sample rate prior to the introduction of AC3 so theoretically there should be little to no noticeable quality loss if my understanding of LD audio is correct)

With nowadays software, the conversion of 48 kHz to 44.1 kHz should be completely transparent and these few kHz one loses on the Nyquist frequency, virtually no one can hear anyway. AC3 is technically worse than PCM of course given the same source, but even here … at 384 kBit/s maybe, I haven’t had a change to really ABX them. At least it shouldn’t be entirely impossible. 😃

While I perfectly understand the beauty of private trackers (higher chances of having active seeders, lower chances of attracting hyperactive lawyers) I somehow must have missed the part where it is still a neat idea to release such great projects like Aladdin in 35mm through rather inconvenient P2P-networks when there are way faster and more reliable one-click-hosters like Zippyshare available which don’t even require registration.

Maybe someone can enlighten me here, thanks.

I’ve found the the second version of it on Share-Online. 24.22 GB, 50 parts, all up. However, without a premium account it takes ages to download it.

Update:

Alright, got it (again).

For anyone interested: don’t expect too much though. It looks different, but the scan result is far from being perfect as others already stated due to severe black crush and blown highlights which render the dirt and scratches being the least of a problem. Might be interesting as color reference source but overall I’d claim that both the DVD and BD are far superior until we get a copy of the 35mm in better shape.

Haha yeah, that number in dollars one might spend for the HiVision MUSE, but in this case it’s actually quite cheap and including shipping. 😃

Probably the PIBF-91219, but I’ll report back.

MrBrown said:
But if you go to buy the PIBF-1219, go on, I won’t hold you back. 😄

Apparently you didn’t yeah, 498¥ later … 😉

The AC3 track of the first Live/Artisan US-DVD can’t be easily synchronized to the recent BD’s video master either so yet another hint that the DTS audio of these obscure Japanese releases might be in fact based on the same mix. So the issues getting it aligned are to be expected. Maybe you can save yourself some trouble by contacting Jonno who created the custom AC3 file back then. In theory, the same treatment should be successful with the DTS source.

What do you mean by DTS track? The track I talk about contains the cinema DTS audio which is a completely different codec than the home video DTS variant but can be easily decoded via a Foobar plugin to 5.1 PCM. Hence no “classical” DTS involved here which could be decoded by AV-receivers directly.

@mumbles_:

Not sure whether schn4rk is still working on this but for the time being I could provide you the “raw” DTS APT-X100 footage so on a rainy day you could go ahead and sync it together on your own which in the case of Hackers luckily isn’t that difficult.

Many thanks for replying on that somewhat dated topic, MrBrown.

So your introduced “PIBF-92119” was a typo then and doesn’t exist, correct?

In terms of the two Japanese DTS releases being the same or not, guess there’s once again only one way to find out …

Luckily they are not expensive, especially if one is in Japan anyway with thus moderate shipping costs. 😉

I’d like to revive this thread as at least for me, this whole Terminator-2-CDS-mix-or-not-thing still hasn’t been fully examined, let alone of an official confirmation which we’ll probably wait for forever.

So I went through this thread again and also some others and the following points are still unanswered for me.

Let’s start with probably the most tricky one as playback devices are even rarer than the tapes -

1. The D-Theater release - has anyone had a chance yet to check out which mix had been used for this one back in the days?

2. So there seems to be at least some kind of consensus now that the AC3 data on the first Artisan/Live US DVD is in fact not the only source for the allegded CDS mix, but also available in form of the DTS data carried by some Japanese DVD.

In that regard …

MrBrown said:

Maybe I have the Japanese PIBF-92119 DVD with the Full Rate DTS Track here next Month.

Are you sure about that catalog number? Because I’ve “only” found the two so far which is confusing enough actually to have again two different releases with DTS included apparently:

PIBF-91219 and PIBF1219.

Besides from that - again - if that is true, then the “always been right” user DiscLord must have been wrong back then when he stated “For example, the original T2 DVD theatrical cut used the 5.1 mix made for the Kodak/ORC CDS (Cinema Digital Sound) system - no other DVD and no LaserDisc ever used that mix.” in this thread.

If I am not mistaken though, Gary started the remixing work in 2001 for the Ultimate Edition of the DVD so any former ones including LaserDiscs would have been released too early to carry any altered mix of the original?

Which leads to point

3. Does the US LaserDisc with AC3 LD68952-2DD carry the CDS mix now or not?

The mentioning of “remastered” is a bit irritating, although “remastered” doesn’t necessarily mean “remixed”. Maybe the term rather tries to emphasize on the fact that it is in 5.1 now in contrast to the former Dolby Stereo releases and thus “remastered”.

4. How many 5.1 mixes are known for Terminator 2? To my knowledge only the 2 of Gary Rydstrom before and after he revised his own work, but on the other hand, there are tons of releases and sometimes customized versions assumingly done by the releasing studio itself, like it happened with a the “platinum edition” DVD of Se7en if I remember correctly.

Sooner or later, I’ll figure it out on my own (yet have to get a D-Theater compatible D-VHS player, the LD and one or two of the Japanese DVDs with DTS) but I’d like to keep the discussion going and maybe someone has been “already” able to compare all these versions.

Cheers!

As I apparently got it pretty wrong when it comes to my recent rant about the Starship Troopers UHD (HDR->SDR issue though), just in case a disclaimer right away - all what I’m writing now is assuming the screenshots at caps-a-holic represent the final look and are not a result of yet another tone mapping or some other flawed conversion process:

Papai2013 said:

The 10th Anniversary Edition of ‘Memento’ looks fantastic!

Well obviously it appears to be a matter of taste after all but I wouldn’t call clipped highlights and boosted contrasts to ‘look fantastic’. Might be in the minority apparently as the new disc got decent ratings overall.

About on par with how a 35mm projected print looks like, with boosted contrast (acquired from the stages of printing - ON-IP-IN-Release print)

How about the filtered black and white - scenes which look way less ‘film like’ than on the original release thanks to the lack of grain and spatial resolution?

https://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=664&y=251&d1=3933&d2=3932&s1=36536&s2=36526&l=0&i=8&go=1

The original Blu-ray looks horribly dull and flat. Movies projected on film do not look so dull and lifeless.

Well, at least the contrast could still be boosted during playback of the original master whereas you won’t be able to recover the highlights on the boosted remaster. Since the details originally have been there, they obviously are part of what was captured at the set and hence should be there - whether the overall look is too dull for someone’s personal taste or not.

Many thanks for your replies and sorry for being a bit late catching up.

@Turisu: you are right, they actually have indeed. That I’ve somewhat painfully realized by now.

After all, I put too much trust in the correct result of having madVR converting it including the usual comparison sources and based all my arguments on that.

Hence the only reason I opened that thread here was because I felt stuck there with no explanation before Geoff_D luckily pointed it out.

So it seems to be a general issue depending on the target brightness mastering, but this thread here might still be interesting in terms of having a comparison with a 35mm copy one day to really be sure.

@Synnöve

You seem to be right as well, as of now I guess we can entirely forget the usual image comparison sites and methods which most of us are only too used to. 😦

My mistake, used the wrong syntax. They should work now.

A great, cheesy, gory and satirical classic from the 90s, recently re-released on UHD.

As far as I remember, both the DVD and also the Blu-ray (sadly I haven’t had a chance to check the LaserDisc yet) were considered to be decent releases considering the medium at that time.

Now while the UHD release seems to beautifully preserve the original resolution and grain structure of the 35mm original, the contrast looks hopelessly boosted to me. This is especially visible during the football match but also faces which even have a slightly orange tint.

I have to stress the “to me” here because - yes, of right now I don’t have the proper equipment to really check whether the blown out whites are due to the tone-mapping when using madVR or my Note 8’s hardware decoder (yeah, 4K on 6 inch might be overkill, but still should be good enough to judge whether the resolution and contrast are decent or not).

When I found a thread at avforums where at least a few mentioned the boosted HDR, I tried to bring that issue to further attention but instead I mostly got the heat of being a newbie there and raising a stink without even owning HDR-capable equipment and thus “haven’t seen” (which misses the point as it should be possible to get it displayed correctly via madVR and MPV). So I guess protocol and formalities are more important than content these days.

So just in order to rule out any flawed playback on my side, I’d be interested in knowing your experience when displayed on a decent TV. Also, maybe someone got his hand on a 35mm print so it would be possible to compare the UHD release to the theatrical presentation in terms of color and contrast back in the days.

Swazzy said:

http://batman-news.com/2017/07/10/christopher-nolan-4k-remaster-dark-knight-trilogy/

Interesting that Nolan himself is instigated in the production of this remaster. Maybe we’ll see a theatrically faithful version yet?

Well unfortunately, Nolan can hold up as a prime example that the involvement of a director is no guarantor that a remaster turns out to be better:

http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=3933&d2=3932&s1=36530&s2=36520&i=2&l=0

With Memento, we yet again had a master with the contrast boosted (which seems to be a spreading decease these days just like the loudness war with audio) and lower resolution black and white scenes.

You’re welcome. The only combination which personally I used to be successful with, I described in another forum.

Even editors like Audacity or Cool Edit Pro screwed up the data on my system, however that doesn’t seem to be the issue in your case.

In terms of comparison, I’d just rely on built-in tools like “fc” under Windows or something similar and a hex editor of your choice for synchronization as after all, you’ll hardly be able to catch exactly the same position of several recording runs.

If the first shorter run was successful, then there is no reason to change the recording software or format I’d say and of course technically, 16-bit-PCM is just right.

First thing I’d do is to make a second recording and compare the resulting files if they are identical to rule out any playback problem.

Thanks rymo, would be nice if any other here has a backup of the second disc for the sake of archival.

In terms of the content, a while ago I started this thread, so you might be interested:

http://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5517

Yes, those were the times. The times of decent mixes and no retarded loudness war and huge dynamic ranges … sigh.

Luckily, that logo intro was also contained in the 35mm scan which was floating around a while ago. With all the dirt and scratches one has the true nostalgic experience of that movie, haha.

Ah yeah okay, the channel assignment has to be adjusted. But the biggest leap is that this decoder plugin takes care of the mixing whereas the Winamp plugin puts out the raw 5.0 audio “as is”.

This plugin is so inconspicuous and unadvertised that it took me a while as well to discover it. Good find and very well worth archiving - which I would recommend doing with your DTS CD also. One never knows …

Doesn’t that plugin already output the correct mix including generating the LFE out of the bass part contained in the rear channels? Actually it should be possible to create a FLAC file or other format “on the fly” directly in Foobar as well.