Disney Digital Copies.....MONO Sound Only Now! (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

I donloaded the digital copy of Tron Legacy included with the four disc set and noticed that after transferring it to my devices, it is MONO on my PC, IPAD 2 and ITOUCH


Anyone else experiencing this??




Thanks


PS...See update in post #4 below.

 

[Tino]

Update:


I checked some other recent DISNEY films that I transferred and they too are in MONO. In addition to Tron Legacy, they are:


Tangled

Toy Story 3

The Sorcerer's Apprentice


All my other downloaded films are fine, as are some older Disney downloads such as UP and A Christmas Carol, all playing fine in STEREO.


I have been on the phone with Disney and Itunes and they don't know what's going on. Disney gave me a new Legacy code and I re- downloaded it with the same result.

 

[Curtis F]

I noticed the same thing. This is disappointing. I hope they can correct this.

 

[Tino]

Thanks Curtis for confirming.


UPDATE...so I spoke to Disney again after I dowloaded some digital copies on other computers with the same result and was told something I can hardly believe....


ALL Disney Digital Copies since Toy Story 3 are now in MONO Only. The reason is....get this...some people complained that while listening with one earphone or thru one speaker, they were experiencing sound dropouts because it was in stereo.


So Disney decided pretty much too mix both channels exactly the same to avoid this "problem"




They say this is their policy moving forward and currently have no plans to offer these digital copies in stereo.


All this direct from a digital copy technician fron Disney.


I know most people don't use their digital copies, but many of us here do and I think if Disney goes to the trouble of offering these digital copies, they should offer them in stereo as ALL other studios do.


What do you guys think about this?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

When I pull up the Tron Legacy digital copy in iTunes, the info window on the file says that it contains both a "Stereo" and a "5.1 Surround" track. Is there actually a secondary audio track there that would play on an AppleTV or other device?


I'm not a huge fan of digital copy because the quality just isn't good enough. I wish they had options in terms of which ones you can download. My MacBook Pro has a 1080p screen, so watching the low-res digital copy on it is brutal. Why not offer an HD version, if not full 1080, at least 720? Recently I purchased an episode of a TV show through the iTunes store, and they provided me with both an HD version to watch on my computer, and a smaller SD version for portable devices. As long as these digital copies come on a separate disc (as opposed to being something you download from their server), why not make a higher quality version available to complement the SD version? They already did the HD-for-iTunes Store encode so the work's been done, and the money's already been spent on their end to add the extra disc to the set. It would cost them nothing, literally, nothing to put it on the disc, and everyone would be a winner.

 

[Tino]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg

When I pull up the Tron Legacy digital copy in iTunes, the info window on the file says that it contains both a "Stereo" and a "5.1 Surround" track. Is there actually a secondary audio track there that would play on an AppleTV or other device?


I'm not a huge fan of digital copy because the quality just isn't good enough. I wish they had options in terms of which ones you can download. My MacBook Pro has a 1080p screen, so watching the low-res digital copy on it is brutal. Why not offer an HD version, if not full 1080, at least 720? Recently I purchased an episode of a TV show through the iTunes store, and they provided me with both an HD version to watch on my computer, and a smaller SD version for portable devices. As long as these digital copies come on a separate disc (as opposed to being something you download from their server), why not make a higher quality version available to complement the SD version? They already did the HD-for-iTunes Store encode so the work's been done, and the money's already been spent on their end to add the extra disc to the set. It would cost them nothing, literally, nothing to put it on the disc, and everyone would be a winner.

Josh


The info bar does state that on ALL the Disney copies I have downloaded, but if you listen to it through headphones, or stereo speakers, it is definitely MONO. The tech said something like" It is a stereo mix, but we mixed both channels the same".???


I Agree with you on HD versions.


I am watching these on my itouch and ipad 2 and I think the quality is fine...but Mono???? Don't get it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I took a listen to the Legacy digital copy this evening (long train ride, time to kill, iPhone comes in handy) and yup, it's mono. It's bizarre that people would complain about missing some of the sound in stereo versions if they're not wearing their headphones on both ears, and it's kinda flabbergasting to me that Disney would be catering to the lowest common denominator here. It's even a little more shocking on this film in particular, because the filmmakers created a stereo mix for the DVD especially for people who don't have surround equipment, because they wanted it to sound it's best in that setup. But then again... there are a lot of things about the Legacy release that I'm not happy about. One thing I am happy about: the Blu-ray (2D, I don't have a 3D TV yet) looks amazing. I put it on the other night just to check how it looked and figured I'd watch it another time, and I found myself standing about two or three feet away from the TV for about an hour just sucked into it, and it took me that long to realize, dude, you're just standing in front of the TV. And no, I wasn't on anything It just looked that good.

 

[TonyD]

I took a listen to the Legacy digital copy this evening (long train ride, time to kill, iPhone comes in handy) and yup, it's mono. It's bizarre that people would complain about missing some of the sound in stereo versions if they're not wearing their headphones on both ears, and it's kinda flabbergasting to me that Disney would be catering to the lowest common denominator here. It's even a little more shocking on this film in particular, because the filmmakers created a stereo mix for the DVD especially for people who don't have surround equipment, because they wanted it to sound it's best in that setup. But then again... there are a lot of things about the Legacy release that I'm not happy about. One thing I am happy about: the Blu-ray (2D, I don't have a 3D TV yet) looks amazing. I put it on the other night just to check how it looked and figured I'd watch it another time, and I found myself standing about two or three feet away from the TV for about an hour just sucked into it, and it took me that long to realize, dude, you're just standing in front of the TV. And no, I wasn't on anything It just looked that good.

I doubt thy are catering to anyone with this mistake especially a lowest common denominator. I'm sure it's just a mistake. By mistake I mean bad decision.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Originally Posted by TonyD

I doubt thy are catering to anyone with this mistake especially a lowest common denominator. I'm sure it's just a mistake. By mistake I mean bad decision.

From Tino's above post, after speaking with technicians at Disney:



UPDATE...so I spoke to Disney again after I dowloaded some digital copies on other computers with the same result and was told something I can hardly believe....


ALL Disney Digital Copies since Toy Story 3 are now in MONO Only. The reason is....get this...some people complained that while listening with one earphone or thru one speaker, they were experiencing sound dropouts because it was in stereo.


So Disney decided pretty much too mix both channels exactly the same to avoid this "problem"


They say this is their policy moving forward and currently have no plans to offer these digital copies in stereo.


All this direct from a digital copy technician fron Disney.


Sounds to me like catering to the lowest common denominator. What I find most frustrating (besides the fact that the filmmakers specifically made a new 2.0 stereo mix for the DVD for people lacking surround sound, which should have been utilized here), as I mentioned above, is that higher quality versions are already encoded for outlets like the iTunes Store - it would take absolutely no effort and no additional cost to recycle that same file they already prepared to give digital copy users both a lower quality version for smaller devices, and a higher quality copy for larger devices.

 

[Tino]

And to add another "??" to this discussion....


The Incredibles Digital Copy is in Stereo.

 

[Rob W]

Perhaps Disney can alert people that both the ipad and the iphone have settings that will output mono sound for those who run into this issue with stereo tracks. I suspect many other portable devices will do the same.

 

[Tino]

I'm curious as to whether the itunes version of Tron Legacy is also Mono?


According to the itunes specs, it's in Dolby Digital 5.1.


But then again, as mentioned above, that's what the MONO copy states.


Sorry, but does this make sense to anyone?

 

[Tino]

Originally Posted by Rob W

Perhaps Disney can alert people that both the ipad and the iphone have settings that will output mono sound for those who run into this issue with stereo tracks. I suspect many other portable devices will do the same.

Rob


The issue isn't with the iphone, ipads and similar devices. There are no settings to do this, as confirmed by the Apple rep I spoke to.


It's a Disney mastering decision made at the corporate level.