PANIC ROOM - What to Believe? (1 Viewer)

[Dave H]

Mike,

My ridiculous statement about DTS ("Panic Room has a DTS track; so it must sound incredible! What's the problem?!) was meant to be sarcastic.

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

Jeremy,

Has Sony officially said this? When? I'm just curious as this would be the first (save for Alien 3, which is another whole ball of wax) David Fincher film that didn't go all out on one special edition or another (The Game having had a Criterion LD release).

I'm assuming there's a ton of supplementary material geared toward an eventual SE release. That's why I'm waiting...

...then again, we haven't heard anything about the Mothman Prophecies SE DVD we all thought would be announced around this time.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Yeah, even though CTHV said they wouldn't be revisiting it, just like Paramount said they wouldn't be revisiting the Star Trek movies back when they first came out. Just like Disney said in 1990 that Fantasia would never be available again on home video. Oops. That's just marketing hype.

 

[Raine Linton]

So its ok to have everything in DD but not in DTS? It almost sounds like a P&S vs Widescreen debate.

 

[oscar_merkx]

how is this for excitement, Jodie Foster and the press of the Roundtable
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...sterround.html
very good and insightfull

 

[Garrett Lundy]

As for DTS on every movie..it can get silly.
Are some people fooled into thinking Beastmaster was originally shown with a 6.1 DTS-ES mix?
Why can't they just use DTS tracks n movies that had DTS releases. I want the proper DTS on In the Mouth of Madness Gawd-demmit!

 

[James Reader]

Even though Columbia has already gone on record to say that they don't have plans for a non-superbit release of Panic Room? Ok...

That's strange because the UK r2 release was announced with a number of supplements (which admittedly have been taken off now). The list was very detailed in their contents - sadly I have forgotten the specifics at this time.

However, the supplements would obviously have to have been filmed while the film was being shot, so I would imagine most of the work, bar the editing would already have been done.

 

[Eric_R_C]

Raine, would you please explain why you think this is comparable to a P&S vs. Widescreen debate? As far as I am aware, all DVD's are required to have a PCM and DD soundtrack (correct me if I'm wrong.) I don't mind a DVD having DTS, as long as it's done well, and not just thrown in just for the sake of advertising. Otherwise, it's the same as saying "This DVD has special features, like chapter selections.", although in this case, valuable space is wasted for other material.
Personally, I like added features, like makings-of and commentaries. Hell, I won't even buy the Superbits Deluxes if they lose the commentary. I'd prefer the extra space be devoted to these. Of course, the best solution is a 2-disc version, or DVD-18 flipper like T2 (I have this version, not the 2 disc.)
Of course, not every commentary is done well (i.e. Memento LE) and not every Superbit replaces a features-laden prior release (i.e. Johnny Mnenomic, so I'll probably get the Superbit), but I never said there should be no DTS.
At least try to make some good points in your argument, instead of slapping a simplified label on someone else's opinion.

 

[Damin J Toell]

As far as I am aware, all DVD's are required to have a PCM and DD soundtrack (correct me if I'm wrong.)

Well, it's either a PCM or a DD track, but I think that's what you probably meant, anyway.

DJ

 

[Eric_R_C]

Now that I think about it, it's supposed to have an analog and digital track. This would mean a stereo or prologic track, AND a PCM or DD track. After this, you can add a DTS track.
Many of the "DTS disks" (i.e. Dances with Wolves, Apollo 13, etc.) had DD 2.0. Of course, some DD-only DVD's come only with DD 2.0 (i.e. Sneakers), which is a shame. At least Sneakers is widescreen.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Many of the "DTS disks" (i.e. Dances with Wolves, Apollo 13, etc.) had DD 2.0.

Every DTS disc must contain either a DD or PCM track to maintain compliance. They all have it.

DJ

 

[Eric_R_C]

Okay, some clarifications.
I did some research. You're right, Damin. A DVD is required to have either a DD soundtrack or a PCM soundtrack. I forgot that DVD players transpose (or remix) a DD soundtrack to analog stereo. Of couse, the analog is important for people who don't have a modern receiver capable of decoding digital soundtracks (like my friend, who uses his pro-logic receiver to listen to movies.)
http://www.fredsoundofmusic.com/newsletter6.html
Also,

Can the DVD format even support analog sound?

That's a good question. Laserdisc had PCM, and it was analog in both video and audio (Not counting DD and DTS, obviously). I'm not sure what the difference is between DVD PCM and Laserdisc PCM. I was under the impression they were the same, since many DVD reveiews stated that the DVD PCM tracks were sometimes similar to the Laserdiscs. I thought PCM was the "digital track" (that I've seen on some covers), and there was also an analog stereo track (the original format.)
I guess the admin should change this thread title soon

 

[Damin J Toell]

I thought PCM was the "digital track" (that I've seen on some covers), and there was also an analog stereo track (the original format.)

That's generally right, although as commentary tracks became more common, the analog soundtrack would be in mono on analog channel 1 and the commentary would appear on analog channel 2 (or vice versa). Eventually, some discs failed to contain an analog soundtrack of the film at all (which would result in an inability to hear the soundtrack on old players without support for digital tracks), reserving the analog channels for commentaries, isolated scores, DD, and the like. In any case, "special edition" LDs usually only had a mono analog track, at best.

DJ

 

[Eric_R_C]

Okay, this is jogging my memory. I knew those details about LD analog/digital tracks, I just wanted to be sure I was remembering correctly.
I would imagine reviewers liked LD soundtracks better than the DVD counterparts because, at the time, LD soundtracks were generally done VERY WELL at that point in their evolution. DVD, which was up and coming, tended to skimp on DD soundtracks, hence so many early titles only had DD 2.0 or 2.1, such as Battlestar Galactica (go ahead and laugh, but I remember sitting in front of the huge wall-speakers at the back of the theater. That soundtrack was BAD-ASS at the time.)
Also, PCM is an uncompressed soundtrack, and is more of a space-hog than DTS & DD combined. However, if you listen to Young Guns in DD 2.0 and PCM, the PCM has MUCH better discrete placement and spacialization. Hell, I swear I can hear some surround steering going on. The DD sounds flat by comparison.
In fact, many DVD producers didn't intend to have full-range surround tracks even in DD 5.1. My Kenwood 1080VR, which was pretty good at the time, has 120 watts to the front speakers, but only 60 to the surrounds. The next-highest (and top-of-the-line) model 1090VR had 150 watts all the way around. You still hear reviewers complaining of wasted opportunities to place surround effects in many modern movies. Hell, Forrest Gump got a lot of flack for it (although I hear the Vietnam sequence was BAD-ASS)
I like that term, BAD-ASS

 

[Damin J Toell]

I would imagine reviewers liked LD soundtracks better than the DVD counterparts because, at the time, LD soundtracks were generally done VERY WELL at that point in their evolution.

I was talking about people to this day saying that LD PCM is better than DVD PCM and that LD DD 5.1 is better than DVD DD 5.1....

DJ

 

[JJR512]

There is a difference between PCM on DVD and LD. LD (and CD) PCM uses a 44.1kHz sampling rate, whereas DVD uses a 48.0kHz sampling rate. Samples in both cases are 16 bits in size, and there are two 16-bit samples each cycle (one each for left and right). Multiplying it out, we can see that the bitrate for LD and CD PCM is 1,411,200 bits per second, while the bitrate for DVD PCM is 1,536,000 bps. The extra samples in DVD PCM give slightly better resolution to the recreated analog waveform. The most practical upshot is that the highest frequency response increases from 22.05kHz to 24kHz (the highest frequency that can be encoded in any PCM format is equal to exactly half the sampling rate), although since most people can't really even hear 20kHz, I don't really see why that's important.

 

[JJR512]

I was talking about people to this day saying that LD PCM is better than DVD PCM...

If the same source material were encoded for LD PCM and DVD PCM, the DVD should sound better, due to the slightly greater resolution. Personally, I doubt most people would be able to tell the difference. This is assuming that it's the same source material directly encoded, with no processing or enhancements or other changes made to the source before final encoding. Now, if in real life, an LD PCM soundtrack sounds better than a DVD PCM soundtrack, it's probably because the same source material was not used, or that there were other differences the source material was subjected to prior to final encoding. I've seen it speculated before that more care went into producing soundtracks for laserdiscs than has gone into DVDs; this could be why the technically inferior PCM of LD might sometimes seem better than the technically superior PCM of DVD (based on what others have said in other threads).

 

[James Bergeron]

Ok I only put it in for a few minutes, but I went through some scenes and well it's dark but it looks better than it did in the theatre and the DTS sound is much more enveloping than what they had at the theatre. And of course the bass is better.

I think they did a great job, it's not grainy just dark.

 

[GerardoHP]

I ended up buying and watching it on Tuesday. It looks and sounds great and, personally, I don't much care for a lot of extras cuz I never have the time to watch those. So, I'm happy.

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

I don't see what the complaints are, as far as the sound goes. From what I remember from the theater, the DVD was very faithful. It was a spare film for sound, so comparing it to Resident Evil is just stupid. Surely the reviewer was aware of the differences?

Bruce