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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
I sent an email several days ago sharing my disappointment with them after I'd heard that Journey to the Center of the Earth would not be getting a lossless audio track. I stated that I will not buy any Blu-ray disc that does not have a lossless track and that I will encourage others to do the same.
Thanks for the addy, I'll copy my email and send off a hard copy.
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
Patrick, I'm curious: did you check the menus to see if there is a TrueHD option available? I know that any TrueHD titles I have on HD DVD defaulted to the DD+ track and you have to manually select the TrueHD track. This is true of both Warner and Uni titles with TrueHD on HD DVD.
\"My opinion is that (a) anyone who actually works in a video store and does not understand letterboxing has given up on life, and (b) any customer who prefers to have the sides of a movie hacked off should not be licensed to operate a video player.\"-- Roger Ebert
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Dave Moritz
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
I will be sending WB an email as well. There are a number of Bluray releases that I wanted but they had lossy audio track. So I did not buy them and I will not buy any future Blu-ray releases that do not include a lossless audio track! If I didn't care about audio/video quality I would just buy the SD-DVD, why would I want the same lossy track on Bluray? I hope that WB hears this and corrects it by offering lossless audio on there Blu-ray releases.
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HighDefDiscNewsB
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
The funniest aspect of this whole lossless situation is that Warner includes lossless tracks on titles that don't even call for it (for example I received in 'Rest Stop' on Thursday and that has a TrueHD track) but doesn't include a lossless track on titles that cry for it ('Speed Racer' anyone)???
Makes absolutely zero sense to me.
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ATimson
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
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Originally Posted by HighDefDiscNewsB
The funniest aspect of this whole lossless situation is that Warner includes lossless tracks on titles that don't even call for it (for example I received in 'Rest Stop' on Thursday and that has a TrueHD track) but doesn't include a lossless track on titles that cry for it ('Speed Racer' anyone)???
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Was
Rest Stop single-layer or dual-layer?
Given that to WB
Speed Racer's theatrical intake only justified a BD-25, it seems like they basically went with a 5.1 track so they could go balls-to-the-wall with making the video look as great as it possibly can; they chose to sacrifice those extra ~3.5 Mbit/s to the picture quality.
Was only going with a BD-25 the ideal solution? Not as consumers. But if that was WB's business choice, I think that the disc is the best possible compromise given the situation.
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
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Originally Posted by Cees Alons
Perhaps a copy of that letter should be sent to Sony, to urge them to make more BD50 slots available.
That would help the studios to plan more releases that can carry the lossless tracks when 25Gb isn't enough.
Cees
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Question, is it a matter of availability of BD50 discs? Also, what's the cost of two BD25's vr one BD50. Maybe studios can put the film and lossless audio on one BD25 and all the extras on second BD25.
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Douglas Monce
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
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Originally Posted by Ron-P
Question, is it a matter of availability of BD50 discs? Also, what's the cost of two BD25's vr one BD50. Maybe studios can put the film and lossless audio on one BD25 and all the extras on second BD25.
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Depending on the running time of the film, its likely that a lossless track would cut into the quality of the image on a BD25. It maybe that because there is still a some what limited production ability for BD50s, Warner chose to have the best picture quality possible on a BD25, so the lossless track had to go.
Speed Racer may have an image that is particularly challenging and may need a fairly high bit rate to maintain the image quality. It is also a little longer than the average movie.
I don't know for sure that these are the factors that figured into Warner's decision, but it seems logical.
Doug
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
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Originally Posted by Ron-P
Question, is it a matter of availability of BD50 discs? Also, what's the cost of two BD25's vr one BD50. Maybe studios can put the film and lossless audio on one BD25 and all the extras on second BD25.
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Not so much availability of BD 50 discs as pressing facilities that can produce the discs. All the studios have to make judgment calls in terms of what films will get the BD 50 treatment and what films will be "good enough" on a BD 25. Cost may come into the equation, but it's ultimately about replication availability. We've known about this for awhile.
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Ronald Epstein
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
I think writing a polite and constructive letter is a good idea.
Anything beyond that, including littering any more threads with
complaints is not.
Will is quite correct that the studio is very good about responding
to consumer concerns. In fact, I guarantee this thread will be read
by the studio. Perhaps they will address the issue in an upcoming
chat with the forum.
Continue the polite discussion -- the studio deserves nothing less
even though you may not agree with this problem.
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
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Originally Posted by Xylon
Double dip 
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That's my guess which is why I'll rent "Speed Racer" for the time being. Writing a letter might do some good, but I doubt it. I'm sure WB read plenty of the bitches that occurred on websites like this one and still went ahead with a lossy track.
Also if the space constraint of a 25G BD is going to result in degraded video or audio then I would rather have slightly less than perfect audio, rather than degraded video. The effects of lower video quality are much more noticeable than slightly downgraded audio.
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
There are 4 types of Warner releases that get lossy audio only from what I can tell:
1. TV shows
2. New films that performed under box-office expectations
3. Catalog titles that had the disc image finished prior ~June 2008 (having been prepped for both formats)
4. Catalog titles with Mono 1.0 original audio
#3 is not an issue as most of these have now been scheduled; however, a few more may still need to make their way into the market.
#4 is a problem only for those with absolutely amazing hearing (The Adventures of Robin Hood is an example of one of these releases).
#1 is a matter of paying for a higher quality mix.
#2 is the most frustrating, and needs to be corrected ASAP.
I think the big problem is that Warner is so huge that the different home video production lines are likely working with different standards. Catalog is a different division than TV, TV is a different division than TV Animation/Kids, New Releases is different than Catalog, etc.
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
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Originally Posted by Edwin-S
That's my guess which is why I'll rent "Speed Racer" for the time being. Writing a letter might do some good, but I doubt it. I'm sure WB read plenty of the bitches that occurred on websites like this one and still went ahead with a lossy track.
Also if the space constraint of a 25G BD is going to result in degraded video or audio then I would rather have slightly less than perfect audio, rather than degraded video. The effects of lower video quality are much more noticeable than slightly downgraded audio.
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Quite so. As such, I will continue to weigh the odds, for films I want to own, of a future release with lossless vs the likely time frame for such a release vs how often I plan to watch the film. With
Speed Racer, I'm more than willing to live with the less than perfect current edition. With other films, it'll be case by case. But plain ol' vanilla DD/DTS have served me well for quite some time now--it's not the best available option, but is is far from "crap". The jump from 480p to 1080p (or even 720p) is far more significant than the jump from "lossy" to "lossless".
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Douglas Monce
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
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Originally Posted by David Wilkins
If the BD25 issue is an industry wide problem, then why does WB continually feature lossy audio more often than other studios. They obviously place little value on hi-res audio. True, WB has been a great studio for hi-def software, but the current trend is obvious, seems to be growing, and their decision making as to which titles get hi-res audio is sometimes baffling.
I've always been in favor of cutting studios slack, when it comes to adjusting to a new marketplace, format, or whatever. I've spoken out in favor of being patient about many issues in the past, but this particular issue at this particular point in the game, seems to be a regressive step deliberately taken. It flies in the face of everything we've been sold on, about the BD format.
You say WB is choosing higher fidelity video over audio? Raw bit-rate doesn't always translate into a noticeably superior video transfer, when deciding how best to use disc space for presentation of a given title.
Patience is a fine virtue, but this particular problem continues to spread...where WB is concerned. Other studios seem to be less afflicted. Continuing to complain about it is perfectly legitimate.
As a side note: BD must be doing well, if they're bumping up against production capacity. They've had a decent chunk of time to make assessments and implementations.
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I haven't looked at the actual numbers but its likely that Warners releases more titles than just about any other studio, and as such has to make hard choices about what releases will get a BD50 and which won't. (assuming that each studio gets an equal allocation of BD50 scheduled slots)
Other studios with a lighter release schedule may not have to make those choices.
Doug
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
aren't there ONLINE petitions where u can get issues resolved? i can't remember which now, but u can goto that cause site and create a cause and email it many people and they will sign it. doing it on physical pen and paper is a huge hassle and many people are way too lazy to do so. I AM ONE OF THEM

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so if som1 creates an online petition and links it here, I WILL SIGN IT!!! bring it on! i luv this idea. let's get the movement going! =P. i refuse to buy BD's without lossless on movies THAT HAVE TO HAVE IT!!! i saw speed racer opening night. blew me away, i remembered making a mental note to buy the BD when it came out and was about to pre-order it when online sites reported non-lossless. it's not the first time too, superman returns and happy feet didn't have that when they first came out. superman returns has just been re-issued, i bought it straight up from WHV on release date. if happy feet and speed racer and many movies that REQUIRE it gets re-released with lossless i am SO THERE.
but please remember also that releasing EVERYTHING on lossless doesn't make 100% sense unless studios (not just WB) go back to original sountrack and remaster THAT too. sometimes they dump the same print on both lossy and lossless for pre surround sound/hi-fi days and it'll make no difference. but if they HAVE remastered original audio, we want lossless no matter how new or old the films are. i believe Dolby includes TrueHD 1.0 spex AS WELL. so even casablanca can include lossless TrueHD 1.0!!!
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re: Writing a letter to Warner about lack of lossless audio on their BRD
Online petitions are largely ineffective, as there is no way to verify the information contained in them, including the signatures of the signees to the petition.
\"My opinion is that (a) anyone who actually works in a video store and does not understand letterboxing has given up on life, and (b) any customer who prefers to have the sides of a movie hacked off should not be licensed to operate a video player.\"-- Roger Ebert