More Zep News (1 Viewer)

[Brian L]

Immigrant Song is the only overlapping track. IIRC, the audio on the DVD is from the same performances as the CD, although the video is from a different show.

The audio on the CD is from two shows in LA. The audio on disc 2 of the DVD is set from Australia (Immigrant Song only), New York City (Song Remains the Same concerts I think), Earl's Court, and Knebworth. At least as far disc 2 of the DVD, they do not overlap.

Don't have either at my desk, so I do not know the source of DVD disc 1.

FWIW, I listened to the whole CD, and disc 2 of the DVD. My impression is that someone got the EQ and mastering right on both the CD and the DVD. Everything sounded good, although of course, the overall quality does vary from track to track.

As far as audio on the disc 2 of the DVD, I actually preferred the Dolby Digital tracks over the DTS tracks. My player lets my toggle between the tracks, and while I thought the DTS had a bit wider soundstage, I though the low end (bass and drums) on the DD tracks was a bit heavier (in a good way).

Keep in mind that I did not attempt any sort of level matching or anything; I just toggled through between the audio tracks. Not sure why that would be, and of course, YMMV, but thats what I heard in my rig.

Anyway you slice it, these discs are a MUST have for anyone that is even a casual LZ fan.

BGL

 

[Chris Farmer]

Kevin, where di you hear that? Reading the liner notes for the DVD (for a music DVD is it an insert or liner notes?), I got hte impression that this wasn't all we were getting, it's all there was to give. It said that pretty much they didn't have a lot to work with, so they emptied the vaults, put everything they could on there, and turned it loose. Even what we have has some problems on the DVD, Disc 1 has numerous parts where the only surviving bit is audio and photographs, where the songs keep going, but the video is replaced by pictures. Not a complaint, just saying that I think this really does show that this is everything they had to give.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Brian,
The video footage that accompanies "Immigrant Song" on the DVD is from a completely different concert appearance than the audio recording. It's mentioned in the liner notes. The video is from Sydney, Australia, and the audio is from the Long Beach gig (with a few punch-ins from the LA gig) like on the HtWWW CD.

Regards,

 

[Brian L]

The video footage that accompanies "Immigrant Song" on the DVD is from a completely different concert appearance than the audio recording. It's mentioned in the liner notes.

10-4. After I posted, I realized you were only commenting in Immigrant Song. Sorry about that.

Still a damn good DVD, though!

BGL

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Perhaps Kevin read/heard about more audio releases from the vault rather than video?

As for the CD, the sound is pretty good, but I wish they would back off on the digital limiting. It's not as severe as on a lot of modern releases, but it is still unnecessary.

Regards,

 

[KevinJ]

i'd take it any way i can get it...audio or video

 

[Ken Stuart]

In a recent interview with ICE Magazine, engineer Kevin Shirley, who was involved with the restoration, remixing, and remastering of the audio for the Led Zeppelin DVD and live CD "How The West Was Won", mentions that the audio was sampled at high-def resolution and that "there's going to be a DVD-audio release of that (HTWWW) coming out a bit later." He adds, "It is excellent, fucking mind-blowing."

 

[Seth Paxton]

Carlo, somebody in the software thread brought up the DVD-A being delayed to make it a flipper with the CD on the other side. Just something to consider if you can find some verification. I'll be waiting for the DVD-A no matter what.

 

[Carlo_M]

May be true, Seth, but my CDs take a bit of abuse being shuttled to the car, work, on the go, etc. and I'd rather not do that to the DVD-A. I'll be buying all incarnations(actually already bought the DVD and CD).

 

[Rich Malloy]

As for the CD, the sound is pretty good, but I wish they would back off on the digital limiting. It's not as severe as on a lot of modern releases, but it is still unnecessary.

It sounds a bit like this on the DVD, as well. Not so much as to turn it all into a big fat distorted mush, though I'm convinced some of the more bombastic portions otherwise would come through cleaner and with more separation among the instruments. It's almost like my "Lord of the Rings" DVD, where I'm hitting "reference" SPL levels at a much lower volume setting than most of my other DVDs. I'm only slightly troubled by this... but I can't help but wonder if some of this material would sound better had they left a bit more headroom.

And I'm having another problem with the audio tracks on the DVD, though this may be player-related (but I've never experienced it before): I can select the PCM track initially, and it also defaults to PCM. But if I switch to the DTS or DD tracks, I find I can't switch back to PCM. My receiver won't lock onto the signal. The fix is to exit to the menu page and then reaccess the track. As I still haven't decided whether I prefer the DTS or the PCM track (actually, depends on the particular recording thusfar), I'd like to be able to do the "A:B" thing a bit more easily. Unlike the previous poster, the DD track doesn't sound very good on my system. The bass is boomy and ill-defined, and there's much less distinction between the instruments. The DTS track sounds better to me, but it also sounds a tad processed. The PCM track is nice, but the soundstage isn't as wide or deep as the DTS track on my system.

But they all sound better than I would've ever hoped this material could sound. I'm only quibbling. If you're a Zep fan, you'll definitely want this (I'm sure you've already got it!). But I do wonder if anyone else is having trouble reaccessing the PCM track "on-the-fly" as I described it in the last paragraph?

 

[Ken Stuart]

Carlo, somebody in the software thread brought up the DVD-A being delayed to make it a flipper with the CD on the other side. Just something to consider if you can find some verification. I'll be waiting for the DVD-A no matter what.

It is thought that DVD-A's in general are being delayed to make them flippers, there's no specific information on this being the case for HTWWW.

(In fact, since there is no publicity for the HTWWW DVD-A, there is no point to making it a flipper, since just about everyone will already have the CD version.)

 

[Rich Malloy]

Do we know for sure whether the DVD-A will be the material on the CDs, or might it be the material on the DVD? Unless I'm mistaken, there's not alot of overlap between the two, and it would seem to be easier to bring the surround DVD-V mixes to DVD-A than to remix the CD material for surround. I hope they're doing the CD material, as the DTS and PCM tracks on the DVD-A would be redundant.

 

[Larry Geller]

Do we know for sure whether the DVD-A will be the material on the CDs, or might it be the material on the DVD?

According to the ICE article, it's DEFINITELY the CD material, and they say the surround mix is great!