"Red" Blu-ray Audio Comparisons (1 Viewer)

[Robert George]

Originally Posted by TonyD

Without discussion like this many wouldn't have known about this so now they do and can choose the right disc for purchase.


If it has lower bit rate and lower sound quality it is inferior, not opinion.

Discussion of a given disc is great. Presumption of quality based on a published spec without seeing the disc is counterproductive.


Explain your second point. Are you saying lower bit rate is automatically lower quality?

 

[Carlo_M]

I understand where Robert's coming from. However I am one of those who definitely benefited from this discussion as I had no idea the 1-disc version contained lossy audio.


I am fighting more for the principal of the matter here. Summit is not the first to issue multiple releases of a movie on BD. However in nearly every other instance, the single disc has been identical in A/V spec as the first disc of the multi-disc set. So you knew that by purchasing the single disc movie, you received the same encode, transfer and quality (whether it's detectable you can decide for yourself) as the multi-disc version.


This release is really the first one I've seen where they purposely cut a lesser quality master for the single disc. And while we can argue whether the "Average Joe" can hear a difference, there should be no debate that a lossless soundtrack technically is superior in quality to a lossy soundtrack. And the fact is that on some systems, by some people, the difference can be heard.


My fear surrounding this release is that it's a Pandora's Box of sorts. If this business model works for them, will the big studios will follow suit? And the established practice of making single disc versions identical in A/V quality to multi-set versions will go by the wayside.


Blu is being sold as the "best picture and sound" but Summit is now starting to differentiate between "best" qualities in their own releases. I'm hoping this is an aberration and not a portent of things to come.

 

[TonyD]

Originally Posted by Robert George

Without discussion like this many wouldn't have known about this so now they do and can choose the right disc for purchase.


If it has lower bit rate and lower sound quality it is inferior, not opinion.

Discussion of a given disc is great. Presumption of quality based on a published spec without seeing the disc is counterproductive.


Explain your second point. Are you saying lower bit rate is automatically lower quality?

[/QUOTE]

Yes.

 

[Robert George]

Originally Posted by TonyD
Yes.

Then you're wrong.


Not opinion.

 

[Mark Booth]

Originally Posted by Carlo Medina and Ditto!


Mark

 

[Scott Calvert]

Whattaya know, Robert George, still defending lower quality even after all these years. You really should know better by now Robert.


I was big time lurker back in the early days of DVD and for those of you who don't know, Robert used to get all huffy about complaints regarding non-anamorphic DVD as well. Look how that turned out.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I agree with Robert that lower bitrates do not necessarily result in an inferior quality product. There are limits to what the human ear can perceive, and there is a point with every good encoder where the final product will be visually identical no matter how many additional bits you throw at it. At what bitrate you reach that point depends on the codec, the encoder, the resolution and the source material. When Paramount released The African Queen on Blu-Ray last year, the studio presented the original mono soundtrack in a lossy 224 kbps AC-3 track. The reason, Paramount said, is because the limited nature of the surviving audio elements rendered no audible improvements at higher bitrates.


The question with Red, though, is: If the lossy 5.1 AC-3 track on the BD-25 release sounds as good as this film can sound, why bother creating the DTS-HD track for the SE release? If the BD-25 transfer is visually identical to the BD-50 transfer on the SE, why go through the time and expense of making the higher bitrate transfer at all?

 

[Carlo_M]

Wow. What a great question. I had been looking at it from the other side why dumb it down unless to provide a lesser quality product for those looking to save a few bucks. But this is an absolutely revelatory question that Adam presents. If really there was no qualitative difference, and the studio really was about saving every penny they could because they're not one of the "big boys", why even bother to do the BD-50/DTS-HD version at all? Why not just slap another extras disc with the same BD-25 as the single disc?

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

The question with Red, though, is: If the lossy 5.1 AC-3 track on the BD-25 release sounds as good as this film can sound, why bother creating the DTS-HD track for the SE release? If the BD-25 transfer is visually identical to the BD-50 transfer on the SE, why go through the time and expense of making the higher bitrate transfer at all?

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Don't they need the extra space for the extras on the SE version?


Presumably, they've already maxed out use of the BD25 and needed to go to BD50 in order to include the extras. And if they needed to go w/ BD50 for that, then it wouldn't hurt at all to offer the higher fidelity audio anyway.


The one thing that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me is the moderate diff in video bitrate/encode -- based on the numbers provided by Mark, it isn't exactly a big jump for the SE version.


If I had to guess, maybe Summit originally thought the (moderately higher bitrate) video encode plus whichever audio track would fit just fine on the BD25, but found out it wouldn't after the video encode was done, so they opted to make what seemed to them to be reasonable compromises and ended up w/ what's on the movie-only BD.


_Man_

 

[Timothy E]

The HTF review of the RED Special Edition Blu-ray has been posted: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/308350/htf-blu-ray-review-red-special-edition

The studio did not provide us with the regular edition for review so the review does not contain a comparison of the respective audio tracks on each edition.

 

[Mark Booth]

Thanks for the review, Timothy!


So, we have yet another review of the SE version of 'Red' and Timothy had this to say about the DTS-HD MA track


The English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks are sublime. This disc may have the best directional audio effects on any film I have seen for a very long time. The discrete sound effects of gunshots, shell casings falling on the ground, and explosions may be reference quality. The sounds of helicopters hovering overhead and pan effects may deceive viewers into looking out their windows. Dialogue is always appropriately audible over music and sound effects, creating a sound mix that is immune from criticism.


NOBODY is referring to the lossy DD 5.1 audio track on the movie-only version as "reference quality" or "a sound mix that is immune from criticism". But we have four reviews now of the DTS-HD MA track that are all saying pretty much the same thing.... the SE's audio is notably outstanding.


I look forward to an experienced reviewer getting his/her hands on BOTH versions and posting their thoughts on how the two audio tracks compare.


Mark

 

[AlexF]

Here in my part of Canada, I've only seen the SE version of Red. No movie-only copies anywhere. It's retailing for anywhere between $20 and $26.

 

[Josh Dial]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

The question with Red, though, is: If the lossy 5.1 AC-3 track on the BD-25 release sounds as good as this film can sound, why bother creating the DTS-HD track for the SE release? If the BD-25 transfer is visually identical to the BD-50 transfer on the SE, why go through the time and expense of making the higher bitrate transfer at all?

To be fair to Tony, I think this was exactly the point he was trying to make (although he didn't make it very well).


Here, we have a release in two flavours (ignoring the flipping for simplicity's sake): one with a lower bit-rate and a lossy audio track, and a second with a higher bitrate and lossless audio. Is it honestly acceptable, years after a format's release, and in the middle what is arguable the absolute "beginning of the end" of the DVD format, for a studio--however small they may be--to release a film in this manner? I say "no, it is not acceptable."


"Special edition," for the most part, carries with it the conotation of "more extras" or "longer cut" or "a bunch of cool (useless to some) stuff." Is it really appropriate for a studio to lump in audio quality and (debatable here, see above posts) picture quality in as "features?" That's basically what they are doing here, and I for one don't find it appropriate. Imagine if the barebones edition of Avatar was a simple DD 5.1 track, and the bitrate was less than that of the SE. Heads would roll. The thread would be 20 pages long.


Moreover, I sometimes just don't understand this forum anymore. We're some of the most ardent supporters of the home theatre industry, from hardware to software, all the way to the popcorn machines and soda fountains. Recently I've seen things like the acception of profit beating out artistic merit, ridiculous levels of DNR being allowed and even praised, and now "awww just let the studios release some lossy audio--you can get lossless on the SE!"


Yes, the film comes first, but the technical side of things used to count for something, too.

 

[Worth]

Originally Posted by AlexF

Here in my part of Canada, I've only seen the SE version of Red. No movie-only copies anywhere. It's retailing for anywhere between $20 and $26.

Red has a different distributor in Canada than in the US. I believe the SE is the only version available.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Just had lunch with a friend of mine and asked him if he had purchased Red on Blu-ray and if so which version. He purchased the inexpensive version not knowing that the DTS-HD was only available on the more expensive version. He had assumed that the only difference was supplements.


Personally, I hope that this type of release does not become standard practice. IMHO, lossless audio is an established standard for contemporary film releases in 2011 on Blu-Ray and anything less than that is not acceptable; nor will such titles find their way into my media library.


- Walter.

 

[Mark Booth]

Randy over on Blu-ray.com has compared the lossy DD 5.1 track of the movie-only version of RED to the lossless DTS-HD MA track of the SE version of RED. As far as I know, he's the first person to do so and post any comments publicly. Here's his message: http://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-movies-north-america/158651-red-january-25th-19.html#post4318037 Needless to say, I'm glad I waited until I could get a better deal on RED Special Edition! Mark

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Walter Kittel

Just had lunch with a friend of mine and asked him if he had purchased Red on Blu-ray and if so which version. He purchased the inexpensive version not knowing that the DTS-HD was only available on the more expensive version. He had assumed that the only difference was supplements.


Personally, I hope that this type of release does not become standard practice. IMHO, lossless audio is an established standard for contemporary film releases in 2011 on Blu-Ray and anything less than that is not acceptable; nor will such titles find their way into my media library.


- Walter.

Yeah, I must admit this type of release strategy bothers me. Give both releases the same audio and video specs. Customers need to be more cognizant because you can't assume nothing now.

 

[Mark Booth]

Another twist on this whole "lower quality audio or video encodes for rental/barebones editions" discussion. There's a fellow over on AVS that has compared the Blu-ray rental versions of 'The Town' from both Blockbuster and from Netflix. He is saying that the video quality is so inferior on the Netflix rental disc (compared to the Blockbuster rental disc), that he thinks the Netflix discs must be counterfeit. Obviously, we've told him that is very very unlikely. But his observations about the image quality could be correct if there are two different video encodes at play there. Perhaps the Netflix rental is on a BD25 and the Blockbuster rental is on a BD50?


The guy said he tried more than one Netflix disc and he is absolutely convinced the image quality is notably inferior on the Netflix rental disc.


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1311148


If our suggestions are correct... If the Netflix rental disc uses a low enough bit-rate encode that the image is noticeably degraded, that's one more alarming turn of events for the Blu-ray format as far as I'm concerned.


Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

I watched RED (Special Edition) this evening. I felt the DTS-HD MA track was excellent. Plenty of subwoofer action in the appropriate places, terrific use of surrounds, and an overall lively soundtrack. There was NOTHING about it that I would describe as "flat" or "ordinary". It rocked!


Mark

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by Mark Booth


Either way, seems very odd that the Netflix version would be noticeably inferior to either the Blockbuster version or the retail version (of the theatrical cut) under the circumstance...


_Man_