The Complete "The Lord of the Rings: score - with 5.1 DVD - Page 4

Got mine today! But no real listening time. Tomorrow at work! Love the packaging and have moved the DVD to a slim case like others have suggested.

Sorry folks-didn't mean to sound like a teacher admonishing his class to behave.

I just see ALL the surround formats slipping further into obscurity month by month and don't want to see them totally disappear. To me surround music is the biggest development in music since the CD.

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Lately I've been sending emails about surround music to labels that issue music I like or actually own. They never reply so I am not sure if I'm pissing them off, if I look like a shill, or my message is just ending up in their spam folder. I usually put in a link to the document on the grammy.com site called "Recomendations For Surround Sound Production" so they have something professional to read.

And this thread over at quadraphonicquad.com about a professional surround music conference definitely motivated me even more, particularly this section:

my emphasis

Wow.

Finished my first listen at work and really enjoyed being able to listen to the full music from such scenes as the Council at Rivendell and the gift-giving at Lothlorien. Loved the fact that they included Gandalf's and Bilbo's snippets of The Road Goes Ever On plus Merry and Pippin's drinking song.

Many listens ahead to fully digest it all.

Oh and Lance the 5.1 mixes are awesome!

Just got it as a present last night. Nice collection. Only listened to the first CD so far, but lots of stuff I didn't hear before.

Only thing is, I don't like the hub the DVD-A is on. When I opened the package, the disc was loose, and I'm not exactly confident that the rubber hub will hold the disc. overall, tho, very nice package.

Jason

Sorry Lance,

I picked mine up at Fry's but I bought it for my wife to give to me at Christmas! I won't be able to listen til Sunday.

Good to hear this dvd-a turned out well. Actually since it's from Reprise (a Warner sub-label), I shouldn't be surprised since none of Warner's dvd-a discs that I own are stinkers (that may sound like butt-kissing, but it's true!).

...So how is everyone playing the DVD-Audio disc? I have a DVD-A capable player (Panny RP2), but I'm using the digital-out into my Anthem AVM20. It's reading both audio options from the disc (DVD-A Stereo or DVD-A Surround) as a 2.0 channel input, and assigns the DSP mode to whatever I have the 2.0 channel input set for (it can be changed on the fly, but DD 5.1 is not one of these options; I am allowed the full range of Pro Logic and PLIIx options, plus Anthem's proprietary DSP's).

The Dolby PLIIx Music mode sounds good, but I am wondering if there is a better option, either in software or hardware setup.

Am I really going to have to buy 6 RCA cables to output to my processor for the best possible sound? It would seem that my Anthem's DACs would be superior to the Panasonic's; sorry to sound newbie-ish here; I obviously haven't messed with DVD-Audio very much...

You need to use 6 cables (analog out) to play the dvd-a, I believe. If you use digital coax you will only get 5.1 in DD for this disc, yes? Check your DVD player instructions on how to hook this up if it indeed is a DVD-a player.

Lee: if that Panasonic really is a dvd-audio player (all you have written is "RP2") then what's coming out of the digital output is very probably a downsampled and/or downmixed version of the stereo and/or surround hi-res signals on the disc (I don't know what the resolution is for this disc-anybody know yet?).

Your processor is doing the best it can with this diluted 2.0 channel signal, but you're not hearing what the engineers actually put on the disc.

But if your Panasonic is like others I've messed with, you can access the Dolby (or DTS if it has them) tracks by stopping the disc-don't eject it though-then going into the correct section of the player's set-up menu and choosing the dvd-video playback option, though I can't remember exactly how that option is written. Anyway, doing this will cause the player to act as if it's a regular dvd player and the Dolby, etc menus will then appear.

As far as cables are concerned: Using the analog outputs for hi-res signals exclusively was a concession to the paranoid music label execs (this is optional though: a few discs do allow hi-res stereo signals to exit digitally). Also: I'm not a believer in exotic interconnects, so I personally wouldn't pay more than $30 for a three foot pair. Compared to the skinny ones that come with new gear, I just like better cables in the $15 to $30 range because they have much better shielding to absorb stray EMI from nearby appliances, fluorescent lamps, etc and they are just physically built better. I use Acoustic Research myself.

Anyone hear about a rumored 2006 release of all three movies in hi-res audio?

I'm tempted to get this release, but would wait if there is a more grand set coming.

Thanks

-Frank

Hmm, never seen PCM resolution stated that way. I guess it's taking the sample word length & multiplying it by the sampling rate.

Well, it's just my luck that I would get the copy that doesn't work.
Tried playing the DVDAudio disc in my Pioneer universal player and though I can hear music in the title section, when I play the disc it's completely silent!

I've never had trouble playing any other disc on the Pioneer. Anyone else having trouble with the DVDAudio disc? Or just me?

Robert:

What Pio do you have--563A? If so, I'd opine that you're experiencing the problem many 563A owners had/have with newer (mainly Warner) DVD-A discs having been authored with newer encryption software. Pio 563As manufactured before about I think February 2005 need a firmware upgrade to play these titles (Neil Young's Greendale and Seal IV are examples; a friend with the Dual of Keane's Hopes and Dreams recently experienced this issue).

Do a 563A search and you'll get many hits, including this one: Pio 563A firmware fix.

-p

Paul,

Thanks for the help! I'll give it a shot.

I might have to switch over to my Samsung 941 in the meantime...

RJC: Again, what Pio uni player do you have? 563, 578 or 588? -p

The 563. I emailed Pioneer, we'll see what they can do for me...

FYI...the DVD-A 5.1 and stereo options are at 24-bit/48kHz, which I believe is the original session resolution.

48/24 seems really popular, and matches up with the preferences I read about in the pro audio publications (i.e. an increase in sampling rate not that big a deal sonically speaking, but increased sample word length *is*).

And we have all those new dvd-a titles coming out that prove....oh wait, never mind.

I'm having a problem with the DVD-A disc, and I don't know if the disc is faulty or if it's a problem with my settings.

My setup is as follows:

Cambridge Audio 540D -> Pioneer VSX-811 -> 4.1 setup (no center). The mains go via the Pio's preouts to monoblocks, while the surrounds are hooked up directly to the Pio. The 540D is connected to the Pio by an optical lead for DVD and 6 RCAs for DVD-A.

I have the following settings:

Pio:
Front - large
Center - none
Surr - small
Sub - off (I run the sub from the monoblocks)

540D:
Front - large
Center - small
Surr - small
Sub - off

(I'm already confused at this stage - is the signal going through 2 separate stages of signal processing, one in the 540D and one in the Pio?)

With these settings other DVD-As I own such as A.I. play without a problem. With exactly the same settings I try the FOTR DVD-A, and suddenly the center channel is not mixed into the mains!

I change the center setting on the 540D to 'off', and the center signal is heard (the 540D obviously mixes it with the mains by doing this), but it still doesn't sound right. For example, listening to Aniron the voice is much more diffuse and in the background than it should be. I know it's not meant to be that way because when I try the stereo DVD-A track, Enya sounds crystal clear.

So, what is going on here? Is my 5.1 DVD-A track faulty?

*very frustrated*

Nick:

How many DVD-As do you have besides A.I. that seem to play fine (i.e., you have center channel playback)?

-p

Hi Paul,

I have 4 other DVD-A discs that work fine.

Nick: What titles? (I'm interested in finding out what labels the titles are on.)

-p

A.I. - Warner
Brian Bromberg Jaco - A440 music
The Planets - Naxos
Sibelius Lemminkainen suite - Finlandia/Warner

Nick: did you know a lot of surround mixes don't use the center channel? Many pro mixers don't like using the cc for various reasons, so what they place there is a ghostly sounding (near) duplicate of what's in the left/right mains either to

1) help stabilize the front image, or
2) just to keep people from thinking something is wrong with their gear or the disc.

Elliot Schiener is probably the most well known mixer to not use the center in many of his mixes. This is true on three of my discs: The Nightfly, Sea Change and Guero (though occasionally an isolated sound does suddenly pop up on the last two).

In other words this might make it seem like your player is redirecting the center signal, when in reality it is not (my own player, a Pioneer DV-656A, won't redirect the cc).

But many discs DO use the center, sometimes just for vocals and sometimes for that and several instruments.

As far as that track's diffused/in the background sound, I'll bet this is further proof of the lack of cc redirection. Why I think this: my Pioneer player has no bass management for hi-res signals. My Simple Minds dvd-audio disc has a surround mix with Jim Kerr's unprocessed lead vocal completely isolated in the cc....or so it seems. But if I phyiscally disconnect the center speaker, it almost seems like everything is normal, because I can plainly hear his voice. But now it is lower in level & contains lots of delicate reverb. To make this even more believable, my Boston front mains can image pretty well and so Mr. Kerr's voice still seems to emanate from the center. My Doors L.A. Woman disc is basically the same.

So: the surround mixers have spread the lead vocal across all three front channels in various ways to create the sound they deemed appropriate for that album.

Weird things can happen with the LFE channel too on some hi-res players. People have reported that when they set their player to "no sub", some players don't redirect this signal to anywhere i.e. it is lost (I think the Pioneer DV45 does this-I can't remember). There's supposed to be a FAQ here somewhere about all this, but I couldn't find it.

Pro mixers also have different ideas on what to do with a disc's LFE channel. Since most mixers think using five full-range speakers is the best way to reproduce surround music*, many of them don't use the LFE for anything. That way, if the customer is using a sat/sub system (i.e. no full-range speakers), that customer can apply whatever form of b.m. HIS particular system needs, rather than the studio engineers trying to second guess him.

And the opposite is true: other times the LFE *is* used but the signal there is a duplicate of something that is already in the front main channels-this is done for the customers who own subwoofers and will then give the overall mix some extra punch.

Then there is the mix that uses the LFE for very specific sounds, sounds essential to the music and not duplicated anywhere else.

Here's an interesting factoid I just discovered (I did most of the above tests back in 2003): when I set my Pioneer to "no center" and play one of my Warner or UMG dvd-audios, their surround mixes play normally. But when I play my discs from DTS Entertainment that way, the surround track is downmixed into stereo. I have no idea why. But maybe this is why on some players, when a track starts the phrase "no downmix" scrolls across the display? Downmixing can really screw up a song's sound & its imaging (same with movie soundtracks), so maybe this is a "safety" feature of some kind????

I hope all this made some sense-if it didn't just ask.

* a speaker that gets down flat to at least 40Hz seems to satisfy their requirement (and me!), because most music starts to fizzle out below that point.