By the way, I meant Goodfellas not Casino, but my basic argument is the same.
Crawdaddy
Crawdaddy
Originally Posted by Mike Frezon
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.
Originally Posted by Mike Frezon . [/i]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?Powell&Pressburger wrote:
I am a avid film score collector and I must say this score aside from one cue was really obtrusive! That cue when Katie and Bogie are leaving on the boat, I turned to my friend and simply said that was really not needed. You almost expected a cut to germans chasing them. It just seemed way to strong.
from this threadThe African Queen is presented with its original English mono audio track encoded at 224kbps Dolby Digital. It was encoded at a higher bit rate (224 vs. 192) than most other classic titles and has plenty of space for peaks encoded at 224kbps to cover the relative static dynamics of its range audio. Just to give this context, you wouldn’t construct a 100 gallon tank for 5 gallons of gas, there is no benefit in doing so and a higher bit rate ceiling provides zero benefits to the audio experience.
Okay. How much more does it cost to manufacture a BD-50 versus a BD-25 at volume?Originally Posted by Michael Reuben
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".
A significant amount.Originally Posted by rich_d
Okay. How much more does it cost to manufacture a BD-50 versus a BD-25 at volume?
Originally Posted by Robert Harris /forum/thread/299090/a-few-words-about-the-african-queen-in-blu-ray/60#post_3673870
Originally Posted by Edwin-S
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.
Originally Posted by Scott Calvert
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.
That's not entirely true, but it becomes a complex issue and in practice your conclusion is probably close enough to not matter.^ 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
Oh, I'm sure that it would be archived in a lossless format.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.
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.Originally Posted by bugsy-pal
A well encoded 320kbps MP3 is pretty hard to distinguish from CD quality on anything but a top end audio playback system, in my experience. Of course, as the bitrate is lowered, audible artefacts become apparent. But I tend to think that even at 224kbps, you wouldn't notice any degradation - especially on audio such as that for the African Queen.