Sleeping Beauty BD - 2008 - Page 10

RomanSohor · 10-14-2008, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottR

Why didn't Disney include a lossless audio track for the original sound mix? Would it have sounded better?

DTS-MA is lossless - I assume you meant PCM?

Douglas Monce · 10-14-2008, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RomanSohor

DTS-MA is lossless - I assume you meant PCM?

No I think he means that he would like the original sound mix in lossless also. The DTS-MA is a new mix based on the original sound elements found in Germany.

Doug

Vern Dias · 10-14-2008, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Why didn't Disney include a lossless audio track for the original sound mix? Would it have sounded better?

No, Disney's audio tracks in that era tended to be bandwidth limited with rolled off highs and no real deep bass. That was true for the few Disney Mag releases as well.

Listen to many of the live action Disney DVD releases for examples.

Vern

ScottR · 10-14-2008, 04:24 PM

Thanks for your responses!

DaViD Boulet · 10-14-2008, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Quote:
Why didn't Disney include a lossless audio track for the original sound mix? Would it have sounded better?

No, Disney's audio tracks in that era tended to be bandwidth limited with rolled off highs and no real deep bass. That was true for the few Disney Mag releases as well.

Vern,

your comments reveal a common misconception about the benefits of losslessly audio: namely that it only benefits material that's well recorded or high-fidelity to begin with.

That's not the case. The sonic compromises of lossy compression aren't restricted bandwidth or rolled off frequency response; they are the omission of audible sounds based on generalized models of human perception and masking. In other words, any recording will sound worse when it's lossy compressed, regardless of how good-or-bad one may think it sounds to start with.

Most kids growing up these days on a steady diet of MP3 won't understand this, but even old mono, hiss-ridden recordings like optical soundtracks and 1950s mag film tracks sound better in lossless than they do when lossy compressed. My laserdisc of A Christmas Story and It's a Wonderful Live sound noticably better than the "lifeless" audio on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc (in the case of a Christmas Story... Wonderful life not on blu just yet).

It's one of the reasons why those who enjoyed the PCM on laserdisc with old and vintage films were so excited about blu-ray... the compromise with lossy Dolby on DVD was excruciating. In fact, Once or twice I synced up my laserdisc player to the DVD of a few catalog classics like that to hear the PCM audio while watching the DVD video. And it made a difference! Sony has a few 1950's sci-fi BDs with both lossless TrueHD and lossy and you can flip between them. My ears had no difficulty hearing the more open, airy sound of the lossless encoding, even given the limits of these dated recordings.

The 4.0 soundtack of sleeping beauty, even with it's inherent limits, would sound better in 24-bit PCM than it does in lossy-compressed Dolby. That's true with almost every recording ever made.

ScottR · 10-14-2008, 11:03 PM

So, it would have sounded better in the theatre in 1959 than it does on Blu?

BCGHR2 · 10-14-2008, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bleddyn Williams

Can't believe more people haven't chipped in with their impressions yet. Anyway, here are mine...

This disc looks absolutely amazing. So detailed, so clear. I found myself looking at the backgrounds a lot because they were so beautifully rendered.

What this disc doesn't seem to look like is film. Its been polished and buffed to an inch of its life, and is a super-clean and colorful image. But there's nothing that says its film to me - it looks almost like digital animation.

I know this film was shot on 70mm which might account for the absence of grain. One of the endless previews before you can get to the menu (you have to click through them or fast forward rather than being able to hit the menu key - BOO) showed images from upcoming Disney films, like Pinocchio, which did have a look of grain.

So - what's on this Blu-ray disc looks phenominal. But how much does it look like what theatergoers saw back in the fifties?

BCGHR2 · 10-14-2008, 11:55 PM

SLEEPING BEAUTY did have 70mm screenings - but the negative is 35mm, albeit running sideways through the camera. Look at the frame examples on the RAH article.

DaViD Boulet · 10-15-2008, 12:54 AM

Quote:

So, it would have sounded better in the theatre in 1959 than it does on Blu?

That all depends on the audio system of the particular theater.

The point is that the 4.0 soundtrack PCM master at the studio sounds better than the 640 kbps Dolby Digital version of that 4.0 soundtrack on this Blu-ray Disc. A lossless version would have sounded just as good.

That's true for any and every soundtrack.

Vern Dias · 10-15-2008, 12:59 AM

Sorry, David, but I think you have been drinking the lossless cool aid

When you have limited bandwidth and relatively high distortion, all the lossless will do is to preserve the original limited bandwidth and distortion.

Believe me, the original SB sound track was no great shakes and wasn't that pleasant to listen to, even in 6 track mag. None of the Disney tracks of that era were. Remember also that we are not talking PCM here, but rather magnetic sound which was purposely bandwidth limited for the printmaster.

The remastered track is far superior in all respects to the original 6 track mix.

Obviously this discussion could easily take on the aspects of $5000.00 speaker cables so I am going to leave it at this point.....

Vern

DaViD Boulet · 10-15-2008, 01:13 AM

Quote:

When you have limited bandwidth and relatively high distortion, all the lossless will do is to preserve the original limited bandwidth and distortion.

So adding another layer of degredation by lossy phsyco-acoustic compression doesn't matter? Not to my ears given the many laserdisc titles I've enjoyed of vintage films that clearly sound better than their DVD counterparts despite the audio's inherent flaws. Make an MP3 of a bad sounding recording and it gets even worse.

Quote:

Believe me, the original SB sound track was no great shakes and wasn't that pleasant to listen to, even in 6 track mag. None of the Disney tracks of that era were. Remember also that we are not talking PCM here, but rather magnetic sound which was purposely bandwidth limited for the printmaster.

When I said "PCM" I'm talking about the PCM master at the studio that's been derived from that mag track... the PCM master that was then further compressed to Dolby Digital. After digital transfer and restoration, both the new 7.1 mix and the orignal 4.0 mix were mastered to a final PCM file. That file is represented bit-for-bit on the blu-ray for the 7.1 mix via DTS-HD MA. But the 4.0 PCM file is not, and instead is put through an additional, though minimal, stage of degredation from lossy Dolby Digital compression.

Quote:

The remastered track is far superior in all respects to the original 6 track mix.

Vern, you're totally missing my point. I never said that the remastered track wasn't better sounding... read my review at dvdfile if you want to see just how much better I think it sounds.

My point is that the PCM master of the 4.0 soundtrack sounds better than the dolby-digital version of that same signal.

That has nothing to do with whether or not the newly mastered soundtrack sounds better than the 4.0 mix.