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A Hard Day's Night-audio

post #1 of 17
1/31/07 at 8:44pm
Thread Starter 
I noticed that the music does some weird things on this disc. During "Can't Buy Me Love" it sounds as if someone is turning the sound up and down all through the song. Was this like this before?
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post #2 of 17
2/1/07 at 7:08am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

No. The DVD sounds like crap. Go check out the reviews on Amazon.
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post #3 of 17
2/1/07 at 8:02am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

The sequences of Beatles music are a mono reprocessed for stereo mess. The rest of the film is essentially straight mono and sounds better than anything previously available on home video. Since they did not have isolated dialog and effects tracks to do a true stereo remix, they should have given us the original mono track.

Regards,
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post #4 of 17
2/1/07 at 1:50pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

This DVD was a miss as far as I'm concerned, both audio and framing-wise. I really hope it's re-done.
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post #5 of 17
2/1/07 at 3:49pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

^ Fat chance of that happening!

We still don't have proper DVD releases of Help! and Magical Mystery Tour... plus the extras and making-of's from the oop MPI releases.
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post #6 of 17
2/1/07 at 10:36pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Yeah, if you're noticing the audio particularly the second time they play "Can't Buy Me Love," it's a big mess. As was mentioned above, they didn't have the separated dialog and music tracks, so they had to use the dialog mixed with the music and then add the reprocessed fake stereo on top of that, with awful results.

At least they used the mono versions of the songs... too bad it wasn't done well.
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post #7 of 17
2/2/07 at 4:34am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

I've noticed sound problems also occur with the Beatles Anthology DVDs. Any sequence that goes from dialogue to music has a dramatic increase in volume. The music is much, much, much louder than anything else.

As for the other movies, Help was rumored, about 3 or 4 years ago, to be out in 2005 to tie into the film's 40th anniversary, but as we see, that came and went and no DVD. Far as I can tell, it isn't on the radar now. The only one that is is Let It Be, which is still rumored to be coming in 2007.

Here's an old report on Let It Be (but the most current, near as I can tell):
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/403letitbeagain.html
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post #8 of 17
2/2/07 at 1:20pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

It's just so ridiculous that the standard Beatles movies, of all things, aren't properly out on DVD.
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post #9 of 17
2/3/07 at 2:31pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Karlosi
It's just so ridiculous that the standard Beatles movies, of all things, aren't properly out on DVD.
I consider Yellow Submarine to be pretty well done. They even included the original mono audio (except one reel's worth reverts to a fold-down of the stereo for some reason).

Quote:
I've noticed sound problems also occur with the Beatles Anthology DVDs. Any sequence that goes from dialogue to music has a dramatic increase in volume. The music is much, much, much louder than anything else.
I think this is a problem with a lot of music-related 5.1 mixes. I had the same issue with the remix of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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post #10 of 17
2/3/07 at 4:25pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Karlosi
It's just so ridiculous that the standard Beatles movies, of all things, aren't properly out on DVD.

Really. I wish they could all be licensed to Criterion for a box set... A Hard Day's Night (from Buena Vista or the Weinsteins... whoever), Yellow Submarine from MGM (Fox), and Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, and Let It Be from Apple Films. I know I'd buy it!
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post #11 of 17
2/3/07 at 7:06pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Couple years ago there where comments made by Ron Furmanek about the audio mix he did and gave to Disney. Somewhere it was messed and not used, but the audio example on the Miramax edition is awful. Really why not just give us a mono track instead of trying to create a faux 5.1 surround track?

Last I heard Apple was claiming to release Let It Be on DVD soon. Well that was four years ago and we still don't even have the remastered CD's out yet. It may happen this year, but I seriously doubt Apple will get around to it for another 100 years!
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post #12 of 17
2/4/07 at 4:17am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul_Nyman
Couple years ago there where comments made by Ron Furmanek about the audio mix he did and gave to Disney. Somewhere it was messed and not used, but the audio example on the Miramax edition is awful. Really why not just give us a mono track instead of trying to create a faux 5.1 surround track?

For the same reason so many films are overmatted these days on DVD -- to satisfy the home theater enthusiasts, fill their rectangular screens, and to bounce off their speakers in all directions.
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post #13 of 17
2/4/07 at 8:53am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

I finally found the link for the remarks by Ron Furmanek from 2004.

Posted on 2/14/2004 at Steve Hoffman Forum: Q & A with Ron Furmanek

re: A Hard Days Night film audio

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...&postcount=312
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post #14 of 17
2/6/07 at 8:21am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

It's hard for me to believe the messed up soundtrack was not intentional. If the songs were mixed and presented flawlessly, no one would need to re-purchase the re-mastered audio cd's. Not a conspiracy but a clever marketing ploy.
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post #15 of 17
2/6/07 at 9:24am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Mac
It's hard for me to believe the messed up soundtrack was not intentional. If the songs were mixed and presented flawlessly, no one would need to re-purchase the re-mastered audio cd's. Not a conspiracy but a clever marketing ploy.

Rather, it seems like some well-meaning people at Miramax thought they could "improve" the track when it was fine the way it is. Just like how Vertigo's 5.1 mix has problems with foley not matching the rest of the sound in fidelity. Think of it like the housemaid cleaning up Sherlock Holmes' desk with the good intention of cleaning it up.. ruining the layers of dust needed to check the age of documents. Even with the weird 5.1 mixing, it's obvious the restored mono track sounded great (and vastly improved from the tinny mono/stereo mix on the MPI DVD).
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post #16 of 17
2/6/07 at 9:38am

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul_Nyman
Couple years ago there where comments made by Ron Furmanek about the audio mix he did and gave to Disney. Somewhere it was messed and not used, but the audio example on the Miramax edition is awful. Really why not just give us a mono track instead of trying to create a faux 5.1 surround track?
Ron Furmanek did not remix the audio as there were not sufficient materials to do an adequate remix. He put together a restored mono track, and that is what was provided to Miramax - before they decided to "improve" it.

Regards,
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post #17 of 17
2/6/07 at 12:57pm

Re: A Hard Day's Night-audio

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick McCart
Really. I wish they could all be licensed to Criterion for a box set... A Hard Day's Night (from Buena Vista or the Weinsteins... whoever), Yellow Submarine from MGM (Fox), and Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, and Let It Be from Apple Films. I know I'd buy it!


I remember the Criterion LD release (which was licensed from MPI) had that mono/stereo mix that the MPI DVD sported. I don't know whether this was it's debut (the LD), or whether they simply used what MPI gave them. I remember theatrical prints from the 80s having this mix also.
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