Friends Season 1 Audio.... (1 Viewer)

[TonyE]

For those of you who have this boxed set, i have a question...

All my DVDs are fine so i know it isn't my player or receiver..when watching some episodes i noticed that the voices are mostly coming from the L and R speakers and not the center channel!

Me and my gf were wondering why it sounded different and the voices sounded a lil soft, it seems a few voices and music only come out of the center channel.

Anyone else notice this?

 

[David Lambert]

Both Season 1 and Season 2 have been remastered in Digital Dolby 5.0; I think you are experiencing the same sense of "something's not right with the sound here" that I did when first viewing Season 1. And I got a definate feeling of Deja Vu when I popped in Season 2 last week!
We're used to hearing these broadcast over-the-air in simple stereo, and so hearing them redistribute things to the 5-channel sound field - which I don't think they've really made effective use of, by-the-way - gives the impression that what's left in the mains is a bit weaker than what you've been hearing for years.
I wish that the producers had included a standard 2.0 track on this, so we could listen to this in its Original Audio Format if we choose. But alas, it is missing from both sets. Maybe they'll read this and include it in future sets. Yeah, and maybe I'll get a half million dollars today out of the blue.
Still, while I don't have these punched up right now (it's not quite 5 in the morning here, and both my wife and son are still in bed, so I ain't GONNA punch them up right now ), I don't think it's supposed to be as drastic as you are describing.
Does your receiver have the different DSP modes like mine does? Y'know: "Hall", "Stadium", etc? Make sure all of that is turned off before you play the Friends discs. I put in an episode over the weekend, right after the missus was done listening to a music disc in "Hall" mode, and it definately was weird until I put it back into standard mode. You may have the same issue.
Overall, this is still one of the most enjoyable season sets I've got in my rather extensive TV-On-DVD collection. Make sure your system is set correctly, then sit back and enjoy it. You'll get used to the 5.0 soon enough.

 

[DanC]

I know what you mean TonyE and this has been discussed before. I too noticed that in some of the season one episodes, all of the spoken dialogue and music came from just the front two speakers. Actually, I think the laugh track did come from the center channel. It only happened on a few episodes for me and so far I haven't noticed it on season 2. I also believe this was a problem with the previously released "Best Of" sets. Try a search & I'm sure you'll find those older threads that go into the discussion a little more.
I thought something was wrong with my speakers at first but I logged on here and noticed that other members had experienced the same thing...thank God for this place!