A few words about...™ The African Queen -- in Blu-ray - Page 4

I'm not sure that I buy the notion that a lossy track isn't HD. (what ever that means in audio terms) After all its not as if the lossy track isn't capable of reproducing all the full fidelity of almost any audio track. It is. Its just a matter of if in throwing away some elements that 99% of the population can't hear, has an over all effect on the sound. It may or it may not. And the higher the bit rate, the less it throws away.  The image we are looking at is in fact lossy also, but it is still HD quality. Its still 1920 x 1080.

We aren't exactly talking about a low bit rate track either. I heard a quote of 224kbps for a single mono track, as apposed to 448 (745 for DTS) spread among 6 tracks. If that were a 6 track mix at that bit rate it would be 1344kbps!  That is an extremely high bit rate, and can probably more than accurately represent a 60 year old mono optical track. Now did they use a lossy track because the license for a losssless Dolby or DTS track was more? I don't know. Is it possible that a lossy encode of the sound track sounded more like the original optical sound than a lossless encode? Yes.

Doug

Most of the time, I can let this pass. But not when I see it from people whose opinions I respect.

When did it get decided that "HD audio" = lossless? What standards-setting body issued this decree that so many people seem to take for granted?

TV broadcasts are "HD" with lossy audio.

The Blu-ray spec permits a disc to qualify as "HD" with lossy audio.

In fact, lossy compression is pretty much the norm, because every single video codec used on Blu-ray is lossy. And yet no one complains, "That ain't HD!"

I understand the arguments in favor of lossless audio, and I'm not trying to downplay them. But this notion that somehow a source isn't "HD" unless there's a lossless audio track is, you'll pardon the phrase, lost on me.
Edited by Michael Reuben - 3/25/10 at 8:39pm

Why insist on a lossless track if there is a possibility that flaws in the original recording could be emphasized, resulting in a disappointing reproduction of the movie's soundtrack? Who would want to pay a premium for that? If anything, the result would be a chorus of complaints that the studio was putting out poor quality work and charging a premium for it.

Michael:

I thought Craig's rhetorical simplicity summed up my developing thoughts on the issue nicely.  There's a lot about this discussion I don't understand.  That's why I've been asking all the questions.  And, I tell you truly...I've been learning a lot from people on both sides of the issue.

It seems to me that Blu-ray discs exist to give a better A/V presentation of a film than is currently available on a DVD.  Maybe that's a flawed perception.  I think of DVD as "SD" and Blu-ray as "HD."  Maybe that's flawed, too.

Since the capacity of Blu-ray discs allow for lossless audio, the whole reason I began asking "the question" at the beginning of this thread was because I don't understand why the decision would be made NOT to include a lossless audio track when the technology exists, the disc space exists, and cost doesn't seem to be a factor. 

So while there hasn't been a standard set by Congress, the IOC or the Rensselaer City Council (although I could talk to them about it) that "HD audio = lossless", I guess I am still grappling with the "why not?" of it all. 

Let's hear it for rhetorical simplicity! "Four legs good, two legs bad!"


Who could disagree with that statement? It's obvious, right? But then one has to fill in the specifics of what's meant by "better".

For example, many people (I among them) feel that, all other things being equal, Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks at a bitrate of 640kp/ps are "better" than those at a bitrate of 448kp/ps. The latter is the rate commonly used on DVD, and both significantly improve on the bitrate used in theatrical DD. The former is commonly used on Blu-ray as a compatibility track for systems that can't process Dolby TrueHD. But for zealots who have drawn a bright line between lossless and everything else, it doesn't matter that the 640kp/ps bitrate track is "better" and, in most cases, transparent to the uncompressed master. They'll say it's "not HD", because . . . well, just because.


That's an interesting assumption. Capacity is just that -- a finite amount of digital real estate. How to allocate it is part of the judgment of mastering the disc. Since the uncompressed video file far exceeds the capacity of even the largest Blu-ray disc, choices always have to be made. Some of the earliest Universal Blu-rays looked worse than their HD DVD counterparts, because the video suffered additional compression to make room for lossless audio (e.g., U-571). Every disc presents its own issues, and every disc producer has choices to make, based on a host of factors, some of them obvious, many of them probably not.

Generally, I'm happy to see lossless audio on a disc if only because it means there won't be any second-guessing. But I also don't consider it a tragedy when the disc doesn't feature lossless, particularly when the people who have heard it (which I haven't) report that the sound is high quality. And as a reviewer, I've learned to review discs, not specs.
Edited by Michael Reuben - 3/25/10 at 9:21am

Michael said it quite well.

I guess from my perspective, the codec is just a delivery system. As long as it is delivering high quality audio, or video that (at least to me) is indistinguishable from the original, I couldn't care less if it is lossy or lossless. Specs don't particularly interest me, the final result does.

Doug

More food for thought (and excellent information).  Thanks, Michael. 

The section of your response about disc capacity is interesting.  I was under the false assumption (again...I'm learning here) that there was plenty of room on a Blu-ray disc for a lossless audio track of a normal length feature film...and still allow a high quality video presentation alongside. 

I'm surprised to hear that the video of some HD-DVDs suffered because of the inclusion of a lossless audio track.  That's what I get for being late to the HD game.  I missed most all of the format war.  If I hadn't, I might know a lot more about this issue.  I was blissfully reading DVD threads while all that was taking place around me.


Remember when Rhetorical Simplicity opened for the Stones during their 1974 tour?  They were awesome!

Actually, it's some BRD titles that look worse than prior HD DVD release of the same title(s).







Crawdaddy

Yes, Michael pretty well sums up my position on this matter.  A while back I was upset that the new BR release of Casino didn't have a lossless audio track on it and was the same disc used in the prior BR release.  IMO, I think Casino made in 1995 with a great soundtrack could've benefited from a lossless audio track.  However, I don't think the same benefit exists for TAQ with it's 60 year old mono audio track.  Maybe, I'm wrong with my reasoning behind these two different releases.

 

 

 

 

Crawdaddy
 

I don't think I could disagree with that assessment. All things being equal, yeah give us the lossless track. Particularly for modern sound tracks. Now if we were talking about Dolby Digital plus, honestly I think it would be splitting hairs. But with blu-ray thats not really an issue.

Doug

By the way, I meant Goodfellas not Casino, but my basic argument is the same.





Crawdaddy

As with so much else, it depends.

It depends on the film length, content and nature of the source (some material compresses better, some not so much).

It depends on the extras you want to include (leave off something from a previous DVD edition, and listen for the howling).

It depends on the available budget (a BD-50 costs more to manufacture than a BD-25).

It depends on who has the final say on what constitutes "high quality video".

At the risk of digressing even further from TAQ, let me offer a quick example: the Blu-ray of Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's early film Near Dark. Its a catalogue title and a cult film; so Lionsgate wouldn't spring for more than a BD-25. There were supplements and commentary from a prior DVD they obviously felt they had to include. And to satisfy the lossless crowd, the soundtrack was mastered in DTS-HD MA, although it was hardly a high-end affair.

Something had to give. Know what it was? Picture quality. The image was filtered and stripped of fine detail. The result was a disc that is, according to the standards of the lossless zealots, fully "HD". But according to someone who knows the film well (that would be me), the disc does a worse job at presenting it than the previous DVD. I wonder how much better an image could have been achieved with the bit savings from a simple DD 5.1 track.

Of course, the obvious answer would have been to use a BD-50, but economics are part of the landscape, and the point is that there will almost always be limitations of some kind (economic, technical, artistic) requiring a disc producer to choose between competing priorities. Blu-ray expanded possibilities, but it didn't make them limitless.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I think Allan Gray's score is absolutely wonderful!  The score does make itself known, but I don't feel in an obtrusive manner.  I mean hell, it actually backs off during the opening credits and just lets the sound take over...how many films from this time period do you see that in?

The score, I feel, is very similar in style to Gray's work for Powell and Pressburger's films, particularly his wonderful score for A Canterbury Tale; lots of little themes pop up during the movie here and there (same with his work for Powell and Pressburger), giving the film a light-hearted, whimsical feel.  The scene you mention, Bogie and Hepburn boarding the boat together for the first time; Gray's score for that scene makes the movie feel...like a MOVIE.  I'm so tired of a lot of modern day film scores which just seem bland and boring, with no real interesting orchestration or even catchy melodies.

I've been following this discussion and I thought some might like to read this article:

www.hemagazine.com/node/Dolby_TrueHD_DTS-MA_versus_Uncompressed_PCM

As you read it, keep in mind Doug's comments above about it being a mono track that is getting224 kbps.

My box set came yesterday and I can't wait to watch it this weekend.  It's one of the classics that I haven't seen.  I've only been able to catch parts of it on TV over the years.

Michael: 

Thanks for Post #103 (the Near Dark example).  It is a great example of how economics and capacity intertwine and can force tough decisions which might mean that a lossless track might have to give way if it would really force the video signal to suffer.

I know there are an infinite number of viewpoints on what is important when it comes to a release (PQ, SQ, bonus features, subtitles, packaging, price, and on and on) so I can understand that not everyone can be pleased.  I was under the apparently false assumption that lossless audio tracks on Blu-ray were not an issue in terms of being space hogs.

That's an impressive read, David.  Thanks for posting.

As "mind-numbingly boring" as the listening/testing process is...I sure would love to give it a try sometime in a facility like that! 

Here is Paramount's take on the subject:
 

from this thread

Okay.  How much more does it cost to manufacture a BD-50 versus a BD-25 at volume?

A significant amount.

[Insert flogging a dead horse smiley here!]

Excellent, I Love it. 

Perfect reason there I think, simplest way to say it.

This is simply not true. In fact, it is patently ridiculous.

If there were a lossless track on this disc, there would be no debate. You aren't going to hear pops, ticks, and hiss you would not otherwise hear in a compressed track. I can't believe this keeps getting parroted, here on the Home Theater Forum no less.

Hold it. First of all, I'm not parroting anything. All I did was ask a question. The originator of this thread believes that a lossless track wouldn't add anything to the track and that, conversely, a lossy track would not result in a loss of fidelity. There was some discussion earlier that using lossless compression might actually make the track sound worse because of the recording limitations of the period, and that was all I was referring to. How many people would be very happy if the use of lossless compression did bring out the limitations of the recording?

Furthermore, the limited dynamic range on a lot of these older soundtracks may just make a lossy track the most economical method of reproducing a recording that is transparent to the master. I'm not advocating that studios do that,since, as a viewer, it wouldn't bother me to see lossless tracks on every release; however, if I was involved in the production of these discs and a lossy track had no sonic difference to that of a lossless track then I would question spending 50,000, or whatever the extra cost is, to provide a lossless track that is sonically identical to a lossy track. It is easy for us to demand that a studio spend money on a lossless track that could be sonically meaningless when it comes to fidelity, because we are not in any way impacted financially; however, if we owned a studio we would think twice about expending cash to produce a lossless recording that could just as well be reproduced in a lossy format with no loss in fidelity and for a lot less money. I would think that this would be especially true for limited dynamic range mono recordings. 

It is not a fact that it is patently ridiculous.  The uncompressed audio has greater dynamic range than a compressed signal.  While it's not likely that we could tell the difference given the perceptual coding techniques used and their ability to reproduce an effective dynamic range at or near the limits of human hearing, it's possible some of the flaws in the original recording will be audible or more audible in the version with greater dynamic range because there is more separation from the noise floor.  In the compressed version, they may disappear into that noise floor since the dynamic range has been limited.

When digital recording was in its infancy, engineers found out that they had to worry about noises that were never a problem before because of the increased dynamic range of digital recording versus analog.  For example, when recording a guitarist, small fret noises and clothing rustles that weren't an issue when recording in analog became overwhelming in digital.  It's not that they weren't there in the analog recordings, but they weren't as clear or prominent since they were closer to the noise floor.  The increased dynamic range of digital recording allowed these soft sounds to be further from the noise where they stood out more--- sometimes to the detriment of the track. 

While I'm not saying it is the case here, it is conceivable that an uncompressed track compared to a compressed track could make flaws more apparent just as the increased resolution on the visual side makes it easier to see matte lines, make-up imperfections, etc. 

I doubt that is why the decision was made to use a compressed track as it is much more likely that it was a space saving matter.  I'd say space was at a fairly high premium on this disc as its size is 46.6 GB.
Edited by DavidJ - 3/25/10 at 9:04pm

^ In my case, I don't care whether lossless in any particular instance provides a greater dynamic range or frequency range: that has nothing to do with lossless vs lossy anyway, you can have greater or lesser of either in both formats depending on how engineered. There is the opportunity for increased resolution, but those who know say we don't need it here. OK, I'll buy that. It's the increased SMOOTHNESS that lossless offers to my ear that I appreciate. It seems hard to believe that any restorative work done on the audio wouldn't be archived in lossless, at the least for future work when the budget allows. Or maybe none was done yet, just minor EQ. This will not be the last release of TAQ. As though it would be my first double/triple dip...

That's not entirely true, but it becomes a complex issue and in practice your conclusion is probably close enough to not matter.


Oh, I'm sure that it would be archived in a lossless format.

 I just want to add my two cents (six cents, since I've chimed in twice before on this topic).   There have been statements that Lossless is better than Lossy, or conversely, that Lossy is worse than Lossless.   These statements are not true.

What is true is that Lossless CAN be better than Lossy, and that Lossy CAN be worse than Lossless.    But as anyone who knows logic, CAN does not imply ALWAYS.

In terms of any computer file, depending on the compression scheme, and the content of the file, when a compressed file is subsequently uncompressed, it CAN be identical to the original.   It may not be, but the simple act of compression does not guarantee a loss of data.

In terms of audio, even if there is loss of data, the loss may be insignificant - either incable of being reproduced by the current electronic reproduction, or incable of being heard by the human ear.

I don't know if these apply to TAQ.   But neither does anyone else on this forum.   To state that  Lossless is the best does not take into account the few cases where Lossless and Lossy are equal in the reproduction of sound.   In those few cases, there is no best.

David

First of all, the accusations that the picture quality suffered on Near Dark and U-571 because of lossless audio are false.

Here are the total disc sizes of the two films in question:

Near Dark 21.16 GB
U-571        19.91 GB

So in both of those cases, they had a few more gigs of space to work with on a BD-25.  Near Dark has everything to do with it being a Lions Gate title.  They've put out plenty of BDs with less-than-stellar video quality (mostly on catalog titles).  It's anyones guess as to why Universal did the filtering on U-571, since they left plenty of unused space on the disc. 

On The African Queen, I think you are probably correct.  The differences would be small.  But the issue is why they didn't just put it on there and make everyone happy.  

Thank goodness for studios like Criterion who use uncompressed/lossless tracks on everything.  This includes old mono films with limited dynamic range like The 400 Blows. I'm sure if Criterion thought a lossy 224kbps track would sound better, they would use it.