Blu-ray Review HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: The Sound of Music (Combo Pack) (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

^ Do you have the most up to date firmware for your player?

 

[trajan]

It looks like an upgrade is in order.

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by GMpasqua





Not on my display, and I was looking for it because I was seeing patterns there I had never seen before.

Nor on mine. Nothing even remotely like that.

 

[Joe Caps]

Sorry, just dropped the disc in and BLASTED the sound. the slap is not low - it is not there !!!!

 

[Scott Calvert]

Originally Posted by JohnMor









Nor on mine. Nothing even remotely like that.

Don't most 1080p displays have a "full pixel" mode? I know mine does. Set to full pixel and aliasing goes away. Any time the display has to do processing to scale the image it's going to introduce artifacts.

 

I heard the slap. It's under "song." In fact, it's right at the beginning of the word. Also, what about the other sound effects? Listen to the music/effects track. The sound of her footsteps going to the stream and throwing pebbles in the water are really loud. They are very low on the final track. So, it's not just the apron slap. Why doesn't someone here ask FOX? The restoration team used the original printmaster. They spent hours restoring this...I'm sure they know what they are doing.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

I have a feeling any scenes with music were rebuilt from scratch. Anyone else notice that the sound of Maria's kiss during the reprise of "My Favorite Things" appears to be missing as well? It is at 2:01:17, and the sound effect is very clear on the music/effects track and the 4.0 mix, but I sure can't hear it on the new 7.1... It's things like this I don't like because it makes me wonder how many other alterations there are that I'm not picking up on.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Originally Posted by Joe Caps

Sorry, just dropped the disc in and BLASTED the sound. the slap is not low - it is not there !!!!

I hear it, but it is quite buried in the mix. I don't hear the sound of Maria's kiss at all however during the reprise of "My Favorite Things." She sings, "I simply remember my favorite things," and then she kisses her hand, as if blowing a kiss, and then continues (see 2:01:17). This section also buries Julie's voice in the mix when her voice was quite distinct in the past and on the included 4.0 mix.

 

[Chuck Pennington]

Call me crazy, but I think the look of this featurette with its color and detail actually looks better than a lot of the feature film. Am I crazy?

Originally Posted by Sebastian1972



"Salzburg:Sight & Sound" featurette is now in HD actually. It appears to be a brand new transfer & it looks quite beautiful.

 

This is where I am confused...the original printmaster was used. So how could they eliminate the sound effects? Even if they used the music/effects track, wouldn't the music be affected if they lowered the track to eliminate sounds?

 

[Chuck Pennington]

In the restoration featurette they also mention Fox provided a completely clean orchestra-only track that they used for the new mix. Perhaps they didn't have a clean effects-only track, I don't know, but I would imagine a great many sound effects are either buried or missing in the new 7.1 mix. Just because they were able to use the printmaster for the first time doesn't mean that was the sole source for their new mix. Again, it reminds me of what Disney has been doing with their animated films, rebuilding elements from a variety of sources, cleaning and de-noising those elements separately, and then having something with which to really create a new mix.

Originally Posted by Eric Scott Richard

This is where I am confused...the original printmaster was used. So how could they eliminate the sound effects? Even if they used the music/effects track, wouldn't the music be affected if they lowered the track to eliminate sounds?

 

[MatthewA]

I also heard the slap on the 7.1 but it was extremely quiet.


Is it possible that, as Chuck suggested, they don't have a separate effects track and had to rebuild it from other sources? It's not that crazy. The studios had libraries of stock effects which still exist and have been for sale to production companies. When I volunteered at a public access station we had huge catalogs for equipment, stock footage and stock music, and they had CDs of vintage foley sounds from Universal, MGM, Warner Bros. and Fox. I know the foley effect for the wind in the very first shot in the film has been used in dozens of other films, and every time I associate it with The Sound of Music. This probably is not a Vertigo-style fiasco but there are a lot of interesting questions raised.



Now that I know they have the separate vocals and orchestra tracks I'm still holding out hope for a complete soundtrack (the one included in the BD is the original album). This was the perfect time for it, the music-only track on the Five-Star DVD was muddy with literally no high ends at all, and not everyone was lucky enough to get the 30th Anniversary Laserdisc with the expanded CD, but Sony Legacy missed the boat. No wonder the music industry is dying; it's karma catching up with it. There's virtually no way it would be a poor seller. And considering they were able to use expanded tracks on the 35th anniversary 2-disc edition, I don't get it. I'm aware the United Federation of Musicians has a huge say in the release for soundtracks of any film after 1960, and they are much more lenient on limited releases by labels like Intrada, La-La Land, Film Score Monthly, and others, than mass market releases.


And I am impressed that they remastered Salzburg Sight and Sound. I also noticed that they used the original laserdisc version of "From Fact to Phenomenon". On the Five-Star DVD, the credits were redone to reflect the change in nomenclature of the home video division, and it seemed like it was converted to 24 frames a second, making the videotaped interviews look weird and unnatural.

 

The other concerning thing is that her footsteps stepping on the rocks are muted in the opening number as well. The sounds were muffled on the last release too...that is why I am confused because this is a new restoration, so why does it have the same errors as the last release?

 

[Tarkin The Ewok]

There are a few items on the old DVDs that don't seem to be present in their entirety on the Blu-ray set, judging purely on the list:


Salzburg Sight and Sound (36 minutes on the 5-Star Collection, 13 minutes on the Blu-ray)

-Perhaps the rest is part of the locations section of the Blu-ray?

"The Von Trapp Family: Harmony and Discord" A&E special

Mia Farrow Screen Test


Have these been included in some form on the Blu-ray, either under another name or wrapped up in some other bonus feature? I'd like to sell or donate my DVD copies if there is nothing worth hanging on to them for.

 

[MatthewA]

The Mia Farrow test is there, and I think that Salzburg: Sight and Sound was always 14 minutes. The IMDb says so.


Also look out for clips of Christopher Plummer's original vocal track for "Edelweiss". The track makes a good case in defense of dubbing non-singers. Still, as a historical artifact the whole track is one thing that could have been included as an extra, now that we know it exists.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by MatthewA

Also look out for clips of Christopher Plummer's original vocal track for "Edelweiss". The track makes a good case in defense of dubbing non-singers. Still, as a historical artifact the whole track is one thing that could have been included as an extra, now that we know it exists.

Does it? IIRC, the clip from the song with Plummer's own singing is the same in both the 480i excerpt from [FONT= 'times new roman']Hollywood Screen Tests[/FONT] and the new "Edelweiss" featurette in the Musical Stages section. I'm wondering if they took the audio from the Hollywood Screen Tests video and synched it up to the new restored 1080p picture for the "Edelweiss" featurette.

 

[MatthewA]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

Does it? IIRC, the clip from the song with Plummer's own singing is the same in both the 480i excerpt from [FONT= 'times new roman']Hollywood Screen Tests[/FONT] and the new "Edelweiss" featurette in the Musical Stages section. I'm wondering if they took the audio from the Hollywood Screen Tests video and synched it up to the new restored 1080p picture for the "Edelweiss" featurette.

They referred to it as "one of the few surviving tracks", implying not everything survived. If what they did find existed in the late 1990s when they made that special, I doubt they'd throw it out.

 

[Matt Hough]

I certainly would like to have heard all of Christopher Plummer's own vocals if they had them. I guess they didn't.

 

[Vern Dias]

What's on the printmaster for the 70mm prints would be exactly the same as what was recorded on the 70mm release print's mag tracks. Now it's possible that the printmaster for the 35mm 4 track mag prints was different since it would have to have either omitted or blended the LC and RC channels into the L and R channels.

Previous video transfers (and dubbed tracks) may well have (probably did) used the 4 track printmaster. This could account for the differences.


Vern

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I'm probably going to get this eventually, but have been debating only because I've got SO many other copies of this movie already (between me and my parents) :


1981 Magnetic Video laserdisc

1983 CBS/Fox Video CED videodisc

1985 CBS/Fox VHS Hi-Fi tape

1989 CBS/Fox laserdisc- letterboxed with the worst side break in the format's history (side 2 ends with a dissolve then cuts to black, then side 3 repeats that dissolve.)

1994 Fox Video laserdisc box set with CD

1995(?) Fox Video laserdisc with AC-3

2000 Fox Five-Star Collection DVD (2 discs)

Fox Spain region 2 PAL DVD (one disc- got this at a thrift store for 4 bucks, just because I figured if I didn't pick it up, someone else would and not know how to play it in the US!)


I think only "2001" beats this for most copies though, since it was issued twice on the failed CED format (I have every title put out on that format) and it was also issued on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (I bought the HD-DVD since I'm also collecting that failed format, and my dad bought the Blu-Ray.)