U571 Incorrect Bass Levels (1 Viewer)

[Sean Oneil]

WoW! What great cover art! Where did you order that from David?
Too bad the Region 1 version did not have full rate DTS or that artwork.
I want one!
PS, what region does Belgium fall into? -2 yes?
[Edited last by Sean Oneil on August 12, 2001 at 05:28 PM]

 

[David-alexander]

Hi Sean

superb isn"t it? when I saw tons of these at the local "wal mart" here, I was wowing!
But I have the region 1 so I hesitated. a good friend bought it and brought it tonight: we tried some scenes: ouch!!! mega giga ouch!!!!
makes me wish the Superbits dvds were full rate dts..... sigh.
Belgium is region 2. Note that the french dvd of U571 is a two discs set with half rate french dts and half rate english dts only (and two dolby 5.1 track also). the Belgian dvd, which is the only one with this awesome cover art, only has full rate dts english, and dolby 5.1 french and english, one disc only (dual layer).
you can try this site maybe, the biggest belgian online retailer. they will surely agree to sell it to you.
http://www.dvdzone2.com/
Now, if I could find the poster with that cover art... maybe some video retailers have some.
cheers
David
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[Edited last by David-alexander on August 12, 2001 at 05:29 PM]

 

[Sean Oneil]

Are all R2 DVDs PAL format?

 

[David-alexander]

no, Japan, which is region 2 also, is ntsc.

 

[Lewis Besze]

Exactly Lewis. If I calibrated to the same level as half the films I see theatrically (not that I could do it, but we're talking theory here) then I may as well turn the sub off!

I don't think it's a calibration issue at all.
Theaters just don't have good bass,mostly of hardware limitations,and the fact that they have a huge space to fill.
This is why I roll my eyes when people use theatrical presentation as their reference,especially from years ago based on their memmories.
If it wasn't for the size of the screen,I would have stopped going years ago!
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"You Hungarians always disagree"

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

The bottom line for me is this: I don't know which track is closer to the original master, but never once during the DTS track did I say to myself "Oh, this movie just sucks... depth charges would never be that loud."

 

[Sean Oneil]

I just read a disclaimor on the R2 DVD site about the R2 disc

Apparently, the film displays french subtitles ALL THE TIME when the film is played back in the english DTS 5.1 version.
Bummed, because the subtitles will not be in the black bars because there are none on this transfer.
Bahh!
I wish Universal would release a full bit DTS in R1. And I wish Fox would release a full-bit DTS 'Titan AE' somewhere.

 

[David-alexander]

on the subtitles: by default yes but you can select NO. however, the subtitles during the German dialogues will remain in French.
now, i will check the region 1 again tommorror or so and probably, on second thought, the sound pressure will be the same BUT the smoothnest and the the musicality of the full rate dts is a real plus here on the region 2 Belgian dvd ( the sole one in Europe with a full rate dts I think ).
the black and the compression density seemed to me a little less pristine as the region 1 though. the region 2 had a brighter image but the blacks were blacker on the region 1, to my memory.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I just know that the bit-rate does make a difference. If you want to compare bit-allocation to bit-allocation with different bit-rates, just take the same recording and rip an MP3 at 128kbps and another at 192kbps. Which one sounds better?

Be careful- this bitrate issue is usually irrelevant. With MP3, you're comparing the same codec at 2 different data rates. With DTS and DD, you're comparing two different processes.
One reason DTS has a high bitrate is that much command data is incuded in the datastream. Dolby builds much of this into the hardware portion of the decoder- this make DTS more flexible, but eats up data allocation with system information having nothing to do with audio.
Comparing bitrates is really only valid when talking about the same codec- and even then it's misleading as the bitrate levels usually correspond to audio quality in an exponential fashion- so an increase two fold in bitrate might only give a 5% increase in audio fidelity.
-Vince
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[Adam Barratt]

Full bit-rate DTS is nice, but who was the genius that decided to crop a 2.35:1 film to 1.78:1? Simply crazy; this negates any value the soundtrack may offer and then some.
Adam

 

[Jon D]

Full bit-rate DTS is nice, but who was the genius that decided to crop a 2.35:1 film to 1.78:1? Simply crazy; this negates any value the soundtrack may offer and then some.

Huh??? Are you on the right topic? U-571 is a 2.35:1 disc with a 754 Kbps DTS track.
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[Sean Oneil]

Be careful- this bitrate issue is usually irrelevant. With MP3, you're comparing the same codec at 2 different data rates. With DTS and DD, you're comparing two different processes.

Thanks for the tip ...

Compare a MP3 file to a .lqt file then.
Of course the two codecs are different, but the fact remains that both are throwing away information. One might throw away different information than the other -if you know what to listen for, you will hear the holes in the compression scheme.
Really, all of this is pointless though. I agreed that the DD bass levels were correct so lets just forget about it.
[Edited last by Sean Oneil on August 14, 2001 at 02:58 AM]

 

[David-alexander]

Jon D: euh?? read a few posts earlier, there is a region 2 reformated to 1.78:1 but with full rate DTS. kinda nice
"I agree the DD bass levels are correct" : ?? to what ?
we are all assuming here. there is a difference between what is assumed and what is pleasing to many or most

these days, I kinda find that the dvd soundtracks oftentimes, no matter if it's the dts or dd track, are much more pleasing and reference than the theatrical sound......

 

[Lewis Besze]

Huh??? Are you on the right topic? U-571 is a 2.35:1 disc with a 754 Kbps DTS track.

Looks like you 've missed page 2 on this thread!
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"You Hungarians always disagree"

 

[Sean Oneil]

David
I was not comparing the DD tracks to anything other than what simply sounds natural. No science in this case. All I need to do is turn down the bass a bit to get the DTS track just right though. I am not complaining about the DTS track.
[Edited last by Sean Oneil on August 12, 2001 at 11:18 PM]

 

[Adam Barratt]

Huh??? Are you on the right topic? U-571 is a 2.35:1 disc with a 754 Kbps DTS track.

Hehe. Are you?
Adam

 

[David-alexander]

Adam
he he

cheers
David
PS: I'll buy a twinkie to whom can find me that awesome region 2 cover art but on a nice poster

. Well, mmh, looks like I'm closer than you are guys.

I'll see if I can contact those who did it here.

 

[David-alexander]

btw, I pretty much think TITAN AE has subsonic bass deeper than the U571. seems U571 has most of its bass in the 15-80hz while TITAN AE, as Bjoern plotted it, is clocked flat down to 5hz ( the ice chase for instance ).

 

[Adam Barratt]

quote: I was saying that by having a mix which is too dynamic for a codec to compress -you may have to reduce the levels somewhere in the mix to keep it under the 0db ceiling.[/quote]
The dynamic capabilites of Dolby Digital is usually far in excess of the source material (and the playback hardware), and certainly shouldn't be a limiting factor.
The original soundtrack should always be kept under 0dBFS, and if it isn't there's nothing either format could do to prevent unpleasant digital distortion. If it doesn't exceed this brickwall limit, then there is no reason to reduce levels any further.
The absolute volume of all channels shouldn't prompt the soundstage to collapse. In fact, high volume material in all channels is likely to be easier to encode than lower volume, harmonically-complex material, as so much of the original content becomes redundant thanks to greater acoustic masking. The absolute sonic requirements of these channels is therefore significantly reduced.
Bass is rarely rolled off to conserve bandwidth. When it is rolled off (deliberately, as is commonly done) it's usually below 20Hz, and not to compensate for any limitations of the compression system used. Bass is often allocated more data than higher frequencies (above say 10kHz), as acoustic masking is considerably less efficient at low frequencies. Whenever space is a consideration, high frequencies are the first to go: above 18kHz with low bit-rate Dolby Digital (384kbps) and above 19kHz with low bit-rate DTS (754kbps)
Adam
[Edited last by Adam Barratt on August 13, 2001 at 02:14 AM]

 

[Tony Lai]

Wow.
Is it too much to ask for 2:35.1, PAL and 1,536k/s dts 5.1???
Put a Dolby 2.0 track if you have to. That sounds like a real sub burster.
I never realised that Titan AE went so low - 5Hz? Far out. You need Krell Master Reference to fully realise that.
T.