Alan Lee UK

Movies in mono on DVD

Got my copy of the movie 'Just Between Friends' on DVD through the post today. I was somewhat disappointed to find that, despite PlayUSA stating that it is stereo, the soundtrack is only mono. For a film made in 1986?? Surely there must have been at least a stereo soundtrack when it was shown in cinemas? (As one of the few people who saw it in a cinema, I should know, but I clearly wasn't taking much notice of cinema sound formats 17 years ago).

Likewise 'Ordinary People' from 1980 is only in mono.

Are there any examples of movies made later than these that are only available in mono on DVD?

greg_t

According to the internet movie database, Ordinary People's theatrical soundtrack was mono, but it shows Just between friends in Stereo.

Jesse Skeen

For some time, not every movie was done with a stereo soundtrack- I don't know how they decided though, since for example Last American Virgin was in stereo but Conan the Barbarian was mono! Back then there were still several theaters that had only mono sound too, or multi-screen theaters that only had stereo in some but not all houses (these I avoided like the plague, most of them are finally gone now!) I think "The Naked Gun" (1988) was the last major studio release with a mono soundtrack, which ironically is available only with a 5.1 remix on the DVD!
In comparison, the digital formats caught on rather quickly- these days 99% of everything that's out uses it, whether it really "needs" it or not.

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Andy_G

Woody Allen continues to use mono mixes.

Stephen_J_H

Anything Else was 5.1.

\"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

Peter Apruzzese

FULL METAL JACKET from 1987 was only released mono in theatres.

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Colin Jacobson

IMDB says it's mono. Every DVD review I saw says it's mono. Every movie Woody Allen's ever made is mono. I'd have to believe it's mono...

Colin Jacobson
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Josh Steinberg

It sure sounded mono to me when I saw it theatrically...

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Nick Sievers

Thanks for the clarification on that, I had no idea. When I rented Curse of the Jade Scorpion I just thought the local distributors of the DVD in R4 were being sloppy.

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Kevin M

Here's a question regarding Mono soundtracks on DVD, any Pro or Con opinions on the use of 1.0 mono instead of 2.0? I always thought a 1.0 mono track would use less bit rate but when I used my girlfriend's Sony to look at the BR on A Christmas Story it was using a 192 bitrate same as a 2.0 track, is this common?

-Kevin M.


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Stephen_J_H

I don't know how common it is for a 1.0 soundtrack to be @ 192Kbps; all I know is that my The Man Who Would Be King flipper, which is 1.0, sounds atrocious.

\"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