A Few Words About A few words about... The Sound of Music (1 Viewer)

[TonyD]

guess i'll just keep my copy of the first release.

 

[Roger Rollins]

Ditto....

When Mr. Harris speaks, I listen.

Pre-release critical judgment of a DVD release, or especially a reissue or deluxe edtion, before everyone has it can often be deceiving There was a bit of negative pre-release commentary here saying the new BEN=HUR was inferior to the old transfer, which I found laughable. However, Mr. Harris and Mr. Kane praised it, with respectful qualifications.When I got my copy, I agreed with their position on the newer release, as did almost every publication and newspaper critic in the country (as well as everyone I know who loves these films nad understands them.

Before Oz came out the flame war over screen captures was such horse-droppings, that (having seen it for my own two eyes) I found it disheartening, because the new transfer is so much more accurate, crisp, clean, and yes, it is properly cropped.

So here we are again, pre-SOUND OG MUSIC and OKLAHOMA, and having seen both, this is a time I have to side wth the naysayers. Both are half-heatered attempts to bring the films out properly, but clearly no one knew what they were doing. I was disappointed in both for the same reasons that RAH echoed here.

Sad...sad..sad...

I just wait until the high-def DVD (whatever format wins or if there are two, whichever is better), and pass on theee.

How Fox could have butchered the opening to OKLAHOMA! is beyond comprehension.

sad..sad..sad

 

[Garysb]

Two down one to go. I wonder if State Fair will be worth an upgrade if you are not interested in the 1962 remake which is included in the new edition.

 

[Steve JD]

Will rent it to see the new extras, but if this classic has not received first-class treatment it deserves I am not about to shell out more money when I already have the original DVD. I too will wait for HD (and pray they will get it right that time!).

Sheeesh! You'd think they would get people who actually CARE about this film to work on a 40th anniversary DVD release!! : (

 

[DaViD Boulet]

What gives?

After all this time? How hard can it be? Wasn't the high-def capture from the last restoration deemed proper? Why can't it yield superior results?

And that scratch still on the opening scene is without excuse. This artifact is an enormous distraction that mars the opening and it would be SO EASY to digitally correct.

?????




We can only HOPE that our future HD version will finally present this film optimally transfered/mastered. But one begins to lose heart when a studio seems to have an ongoing problem like this...does it point to a larger problem that would just as easily compromise an HD presentation given that the problems we see on the DVD are not related to the DVD format but rather to misguided transfering/mastering?



p.s. what about oklamhoma...where is a link?

 

[RobertSiegel]

Well, now I am saddened by what is being said. Since this is my favorite movie, I will buy it for the new extras (just what Fox wanted) and to see it without the edge enhancement, which I think totally ruined the opening scene in the first edition. No one that has seen these discs has so far mentioned the soundtrack and how it compares to the last dvd. Any word anyone?

The good news is that when Fox announced they were going with Blu-ray dvd, they announced several titles that would be their first releases. Included were the Die Hard films, the Alien films, An Affair to Remember and The Sound of Music. So we may not have to wait long. Let's hope Fox is very careful with the hi-def titles. Then they can make some corrections, like restoring the high end of the soundtrack back to Hello Dolly. The laserdisc of Dolly (the 5.1 edition) sounds better than the dvd because the high end is there.

I recently saw KING AND I on hi-def net, and it looked simply stunning. It was one of the best classics I have seen in high def (next to Auntie Mame). Unfortunately, they presented the opening credits of King and I in the original aspect, then went to 16:9 for the rest of the film. GO FIGURE!

All in all, I am sad by what I am reading. This is one of Fox's most beloved classics and saved the studio, there is some problem in their transfer department, seems to me like this attempt should have been perfect. , I am very tired of spending on this film, 4 VHS versions, 3 laserdisc, and now 2 dvd's. I have never been satisfied that we were getting the best picture and especially the best sound. Listen to how great Oklahoma and King and I sound, and this movie was made appr. 10 years later! I hope there is an improvement in the soundtrack, in scenes like MY FAVORITE THINGS on the previous dvd, the sound is awful, poor orchestral presentation and dialogue awful!

Can anyone that has seen this new dvd comment on the sound?

 

[TonyDale]

It's my favorite movie, too. Long story would tell how I was impressed with it on its initial roadshow showings, seeing it from the top row of a now sadly-demolished theater and the subsequent twenty viewings in its first year alone - suffice it to say that once I saw LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in 70mm, thanks to Robert Harris, also on a now demolished screen, there was a near-tie for first place in my heart. Still, SoM tops my list with LoA a very, very close second.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Robert,

you're one of the few other people to have noticed this along with me...in my review of the DVD I did extensive comparisons with pcm and ac-3 on the laserdisc...prompted because when I first played the DVD I was astonished how "dead" the 5.1 mix sounded...I couldn't believe it but in their effort to remove mag-hiss from the soundtrack (which they should have just left alone...that's such a misplaced "restoration" effort IMO) they totally removed all the top-end of the soundtrack--a 5.1 soundtrack which, as you know, is beautifully preserved on the 5.1 AC-3 on the laserdisc.

I hope someone at Fox understands that they made a mistake with the 5.1 on the DVD for Hello Dolly...after every other DVD review I read praised the audio presentation without hesitation, I doubt it. :frowning:

 

[Joe Caps]

The Hello Dolly DVD track certainly is deader than a doornail. ONe could do something with a good equalizer, but Fox didn't do a simple high end cut off. the entire track is severely noise gated, leaving no natural sounding dialog or decay time on anything.
Sometimes I wonder just who is running the show over there. I have heard nothing but bad things about the new, very soft Oklahoma. I'm lookng at the old DVD which looks very sharp.

 

[DeeF]

The old Oklahoma! DVD is certainly sharper, but it is so filled with artifacts that it's terribly distracting. And it isn't anamorphic, which makes a big difference on my 16x9 plasma television. And the colors of the old bleed everywhere.

Of the 3 DVDs (one old and two new), I prefer the Cinemascope version of the movie (on the new DVD 1) to the other two, though I can see that the Todd-AO version will be splendid (has an amazing depth that the Cinemascope lacks).

P.S. Oh! This is the thread about Sound of Music. Sorry about that.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

noise reduction was indeed the problem here.

Until the day that digital noise redution algorithms get so good as to be "transparent" to the musical information and selectively remove only hiss, IMO hiss and background noise should be left alone.

It really disturbs me when the studios remove "hiss" to make the masses happy and remove all low-level top-end information at the same time. Even old optical soundtracks sound better than many of the filtered soundtracks finding their way onto DVD these days.

The fact that 99% of the reviews talk about "the audio sounded great for such an old movie...no hiss could be heard" doesn't help matters. There seems to be a serious misunderstanding in the video community that 'hiss' is somehow the sign of bad sound and that its absence is somehow the sign of good sound. We need a few more audiophiles who actually know about sound to get involved to help educate enthusiasts. Just like film-grain used to be ubiquitously "bad" in the average HT enthsiast's mind...and now we have an evolving understanding of film-grain as part of the natural detail of the medium of film that isn't always to be erradicated...so we need to instill a respect for mag his as something that's part of historic audio tracks that can't easily be removed without losing real and important sonic information as well.

 

[Robert Harris]

This is precisely the same situation with LoA.

The 6 track magnetic masters were delivered to a sound facility for a cleanup.

Beyond the re-cutting of the tracks which has been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, the "hiss" was cleaned.

The problem is that the hiss didn't need to be cleaned, as we had added the hiss to hide the differential noise floors between four track magnetic, b/w optical slash dupe, monaural magnetic and newly recorded dialogue and effects.

Sir David was a part of the restoration mix, which was handled by some of the finest Hollywood professionals.

It now sounds as if we hadn't a clue as to what we were doing.

RAH

 

[Mark Anthony]

Mr Harris, I was under the impression that the audio "error's" had been corrected for the limited 40th anniversary 70mm re-issue and the subsequent superbit dvd, is this incorrect?

M

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Great story RAH. It demonstrates very clearly how similar the comparison is bettween the two, and how ignorant assumptions that "hiss is bad" can be just as damaging as the "grain is bad" knee-jerk digital mastering approach:

audio mag hiss = visual film grain

the similarities:

Hiss/Grain is Sometimes good, sometimes bad, (sometimes neither) all depends on the design of the "art" and the intensions of the director and creative team.

Just as with grain, hiss should be left alone if it's *supposed* to be there. And just like with grain, it should never be removed if doing so would also remove real detail.

 

[DeeF]

I wish somebody would send me a disembodied soundtrack from Hello Dolly laserdisk. I could marry it to the DVD movie using iMovie, and then we could really compare the difference.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Dee...

I've actually fantasized about the same thing. If I had a way to get that AC-3 from my laserdisc and dub it onto a DVD with the DVD's picture...I'd be in Hello Dolly heaven...



Hmmm...I've got an RF demodulator. I guess I'd need a PC with an input that could accept an bit-stream Dolby Digital 5.1 input...

 

[DeeF]

It might be good enough (for comparison purposes) just with a stereo analog track. You could just... plug it into your computer using a stereo plug, and then capture the sound using iRecord, or something like that.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Actually I don't think it would be as good. When the Dolly dvd came out, I played both the AC3 tracks on the laserdisc and the dolby surround, and the dolby surround was not nearly as good of a track. I did have fun going back and forth between the dvd soundtrack and the laserdisc though. The dvd seems to have a more full sound, but the high end is missing completely and all life of the music seems gone. I'd rather have the thinner AC3 track because it has the entire high end.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

The AC-3 on the Hello Dolly DVD is FAR SUPERIOR to the PCM in that case and clearly the best audio presentation on home-video thus far. the 2.0 PCM on the laserdisc is muddy and bland by comparison.

IMO, the 5.1 DD mix on the DVD and LD are identical except for the missing top-end of the DVD due to the noise reduction.

Review here:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=157279

 

[DaViD Boulet]

excerpt from the review detailing audio of the Hello Dolly DVD:


Sound...

If you’ve been reading my reviews and are thinking “he always gives 5 out of 5 for any DVD that he likes” well fasten your seatbelt and put a lid on that coffee cup. With all due respect to the fantastic folks at FOX who really do seem to care about their films as much as we do, there is something that needs to be said.

First for the positive. Consistent with many of their other 1960’s vintage films now available on DVD (ex: Sound of Music), FOX has admirably preserved the historic sound-mix which includes directional dialogue from the 6-track master on our Dolly DVD. BRAVO. While Dolly is not as directional as many big-budget films from this era, we still owe FOX our appreciation for boldly going where other studios fear to tread…a place terrifying to Warner Brothers (just had to say it). I want to thank the folks at FOX for their sensitivity to preserving the historic integrity of the audio mixes of their films by not “remixing” all the sound for “home theater” and arbitrarily dumping all dialogue into the center channel. No re-recorded follies effect either . Thanks.

Next up, a caveat: The historic mix, while thankfully preserved here by the powers-that-be, is NOT an audiophile recording (nor was it ever). Vocals are very flat-forward sounding and the orchestra sounds flat as well with little sense of depth. Chrous vocals sound congested at times and there’s a general harshness to the sound when things (Barbra) really get going. These faults are with the source recording and not the fault of this DVD: the audio on the previous laserdisc had the same short-comings as does the CD-soundtrack (which boasts having been remixed from the source audio stems) from the late 1990’s. On the positive, dialogue is relatively clear and musical numbers sound full with good bass extension even if the overall presentation is a bit flat and artifical.

So what’s the problem? Seatbelt tight and properly secured?……

Laserdisc: How does the DVD audio compare?

I’m not going to tell you that the 2.0 PCM stereo from the laserdisc produces a more satisfying ProLogic experience than the 4.0 DD of the DVD (is that what you were thiking?). In fact, Dolly was an unusual laserdisc in that it was a rare case of the PCM sounding unquestionably inferior to the lossy-compressed 5.1 AC-3 Dolby Digital soundtrack (the 2.0 PCM just sounds muddy and ill-defined to my ears). What’s really, really upsetting to me is how much better the AC-3 Dolby Digital soundtrack on laserdisc sounds compared to the Dolby Digital on the DVD. Most of you who have laserdisc probably don’t have an RF modulator required to get AC-3 Dolby Digital playback from your AC-3 LDs. However, the difference I’ve discovered between the LD/DVD Dolby Digital soundtracks is important to discuss and even those of you without the laserdisc deserve to know about it. I’m hoping that by making this problem known, FOX might take better care not to make the same mistake with future DVD soundtracks. Folks at FOX, please understand this is the attitude in which I’m sharing my criticism and don’t take offense at my comments about the audio on this disc.

To put it simply, the Dolby Digital on the DVD has been noise-suppressed to remove hiss from the master tapes which has inadvertently removed all low-level acoustic decay and high-frequency sparkle…basically stripping out all the richness and “life” from the audio recording.

Yes I know other review sites have unanimously praised the audio of this DVD. And to put things into perspective, without an A/B comparison most listeners might never know that anything is missing. But I can tell you that when I first played the DVD through my system at home, my very first impression was “hmmm. Sounds like there are no highs…like all the high-frequencies have been muffled.” I noticed this immediately which was what prompted me to shake the dust off the old laserdisc in the first place. Taking the DVD over and playing through my friend’s lexicon system with B&W Nautilus speakers left me (and him) with the same distinct impression “The audio sounds dead.” It’s as if someone’s taken a thin blanket and covered the tweeters of the speakers. Or like when you take a cassette tape that hasn’t been encoded for noise reduction and hit the “Dolby B” button to remove the hiss during playback…you loose all the highs and most of the acoustic detail that makes the music worth listening to in the first place.

Both in my system and my friend’s, we took care to synchronize the DVD and LD to do some crafty back-forth audio switching. The first thing to make clear is that the laserdisc AC-3 audio is recorded about 3-6 db higher than the DVD…but don’t let this fool you into thinking that this level change is the source of the “perceived” improvement. Adjusting volume leaves the sound-quality differences unmistakably clear. The best example for comparison is the famous “Hello Dolly!” number near the end of the film. Playing the DVD on its own sounds reasonably satisfying to most folks and you might not notice a problem (though some will as I did). But switching to the laserdisc AC-3 changes that entirely; it’s like someone just pulled the sound into tight focus and added a top-end that previously wasn’t even there. A soundstage that’s not present on the DVD recording suddenly appears on the laserdisc soundtrack as newly revealed acoustic space opens up into a soundfield.

On the laserdisc, suddenly musical instruments have decay and atmosphere…instruments sound much more realistic and have timbres and textures that are less artificial. But the most dramatic improvement is in Barbra’s vocal track! Her voice goes from sounding restrained, blanketed, and “dull” on the DVD to suddenly opening up with a richness and texture that’s full of nuance and naturalness. Her voice literally “sings” on the laserdisc AC-3 audio. Whereas the DVD might have sounded satisfying enough before, switching back to it after listing to the LD audio makes it sound like someone just wrapped the speakers in a thin blanket—dull and lifeless by comparison (again, adjusting the volume to compensate for level differences doesn’t change this).

The improvement of switching to the LD AC-3 reminds me of when, after having gone swimming, the water in your ears suddenly clears during a conversation a few hours later and you find yourself surprised by how much clearer everything sounds because you had become used to the “dull” sound to the degree that you hadn’t even realized that your ears were filled with fluid.

To put it another way, the improvement of the laserdisc AC-3 vs the Dolby Digital on the DVD is more significant than ANY improvement I’ve ever heard with DTS/DD comparisons. Even my Partner (who usually avows not to be able to discern any of these “technical” things I’m always talking about with sound and picture) had NO trouble saying “Wow…Barbra’s voice sound so much clearer on the laserdisc…the music on the laserdisc really does sound better—much clearer”. You do the math.

Any negatives with the LD AC-3 audio? Well, because the laserdisc audio preserves the full frequency response and most of the dynamic range of the master recording you hear some tape-hiss from the magnetic tracks. Not a problem for me as IMO that’s like seeing a bit of film-grain in the picture…it’s part of the medium and it’s not cause for criticism. The AC-3 on LD is also a tad bright…but surprisingly I didn’t find the “duller” sound of the DVD any less fatiguing than the LD during loud musical numbers. In fact, it may have been slightly more fatiguing because my ears kept trying to hear detail on the DVD soundtrack that just wasn’t there.

In Fox’s defense, I can they were caught in a catch 22…either they run the audio through some sort of noise-suppressor and mildly compromise the fidelity of the primary recording OR leave the mix with all that gorgeous acoustic detail in-tact and run the risk of consumers and reviewers complaining about being able to hear “hiss” on the soundtrack. And that’s a valid concern: just like we have many folks who continue to complain about film-grain because they don’t understand the medium of film, you can just imagine how some folks would launch into whining because of audible tape-hiss on their speakers but who wouldn’t be bothered by the apparent lack of sonic information that comes along with noise-reduction because they're not aware of what they're missing (only those of us with the laserdisc and AC-3 RF demodulators have the opportunity for an A/B comparison). What’s a studio to do and where does the audiophile’s needs fit it?

Solution? Why not put two 4.0 soundtracks on the DVD…one with hiss and one without. But seriously, the solution shouldn't be to compromise the integrity/fidelity of the source recording to take out the "hiss" for the DVD audio. This sort of thing falls into the general pool of “educate the consumer/studio”…just like the acceptance/importance of widescreen and preserving film-grain are things that the broader DVD community is slowly but steadily moving towards, hopefully awareness of the integrity of historic audio mixes (which FOX got right) and maintaining faithfulness to the fidelity of those recordings on DVD (which they didn’t) will get “on the radar” of the HT community and studios alike. You can bet that communities like HTF bringing discussions of topics like these out into the open are having an enormous impact at the studios “who care”.

Skinny on audio…

I need to be honest about the problem with the audio on this otherwise fantastic DVD effort. And to keep things in perspective for all of you now wondering whether or not you should buy the DVD, had I not had the laserdisc AC-3 to compare, my audio-comments would most likely be favorable with just a slight caveat of things sounding a bit dull. But having heard all that actoustic detail and musical-nuance on the AC-3 laserdisc tells me that the master recording had something special that’s been lost on this DVD soundtrack, and my suspicion is that it’s a byproduct of a well-intended effort to apply noise-reduction to remove all evidence of magnetic tape-hiss. Please FOX (and others), take my comments in the spirit in which they are intended…to help make sure that your evolving and generally excellent DVD efforts continue to improve to serve both fan and film alike. And for those of you on the edge of deciding whether or not to purchase this disc, let me assure you that the audio quality of the DVD is still very good, and my disappointment is more a reflection it could have sounded even better (so I'm still Highly Recommending this DVD despite the noise-reduction problem with the audio)...

Sound: 3/ 5
:star::star::star: