Are all lossless tracks of a movie the same?

[nitinblurayfan]

I recently bought The Avengers in India and it sounds pretty bad. It was released by Sony, not Disney.
There is hardly any surround activity and the sound (especially the high end) doesn't have the same level of clarity that is in almost every lossless mix.
Truth be told, it actually sounds like like Dolby digital track. There is a night and day difference between Captain America (US import) and Avengers (bought in India).
I'm planning to buy it again from the US or UK.

My question is this - Do audio tracks differ across the world sometimes when released by different studios (like video quality does)? Or is it the same everywhere as lossless is lossless?
I don't want to waste my money buying another copy and getting the same quality as I wonder if it's placebo.

It is a 7.1 DTS-HD MA track with a bitrate of 5mbps.

Can somebody please help shed some light?

ALso, here is the Indian thread with more people complaining about the issue:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...=203839&page=2

Somebody please help me out.

[BluProofie]

Originally Posted by nitinblurayfan

I recently bought The Avengers in India and it sounds pretty bad. It was released by Sony, not Disney.
There is hardly any surround activity and the sound (especially the high end) doesn't have the same level of clarity that is in almost every lossless mix.
Truth be told, it actually sounds like like Dolby digital track. There is a night and day difference between Captain America (US import) and Avengers (bought in India).
I'm planning to buy it again from the US or UK.

My question is this - Do audio tracks differ across the world sometimes when released by different studios (like video quality does)? Or is it the same everywhere as lossless is lossless?
I don't want to waste my money buying another copy and getting the same quality as I wonder if it's placebo.

It is a 7.1 DTS-HD MA track with a bitrate of 5mbps.

Can somebody please help shed some light?

ALso, here is the Indian thread with more people complaining about the issue:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...=203839&page=2

Somebody please help me out.

Yes, they do differ since people who have early copies of the US edition say that the audio is reference quality. Also, most foreign releases are missing special features that the US edition has like the audio commentary, the music video and a few of the featurettes.

[nitinblurayfan]

Have blu-ray editions of different countries ever differed in audio quality before?

[42041]

No idea about The Avengers audio, but you cannot compare two completely different soundtracks on different films.

Ultimately, lossless tracks are whatever was fed into the encoder. In theory they could mess around with EQ or compression, or they could've even transcoded a lossy track, though I can't fathom why anyone would do that.

[bhampton]

No. They are all different or there would only be one of them.

[retablo]

Originally Posted by bhampton

No. They are all different or there would only be one of them.

Originally Posted by 42041

No idea about The Avengers audio, but you cannot compare two completely different soundtracks on different films.

He's not. The OP is asking about different region's audio tracks on the same film, I think.

I would assume all lossless tracks of the Avengers is the same. There's no reason for it not to be. But something could've gone wrong in the manufacturing of certain discs, perhaps.

[BluProofie]

Originally Posted by nitinblurayfan

Have blu-ray editions of different countries ever differed in audio quality before?

Yes.

Originally Posted by retablo

He's not. The OP is asking about different region's audio tracks on the same film, I think.

I would assume all lossless tracks of the Avengers is the same. There's no reason for it not to be. But something could've gone wrong in the manufacturing of certain discs, perhaps.

That's incorrect. Many foreign releases have contained either worse lossless audio tracks or better. It's entirely possible the Indian distributors of The Avengers screwed up the audio, especially since the US disc has reference quality audio according to people who have gotten the disc early.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by BluProofie

That's incorrect. Many foreign releases have contained either worse lossless audio tracks or better. It's entirely possible the Indian distributors of The Avengers screwed up the audio, especially since the US disc has reference quality audio according to people who have gotten the disc early.

+1

Lossless audio doesn't guarantee the soundtracks are identical by any means. In fact, I'm positive that some smaller distributors/labels take lossy stems and upconvert them to a lossless output, simply because the original lossless soundtrack is not available to them. Remember that in many territories the distributor is not the original producer of the film and they may have trouble acquiring the original lossless soundtrack. It's not usually a concern with the Hollywood studios, but it has happened on smaller labels.

[Leterface]

Is there any chance for consumers to know if the BD have a real lossless audio track or only lossy upconverted lossless audio?

[Brian81]

Originally Posted by Leterface

Is there any chance for consumers to know if the BD have a real lossless audio track or only lossy upconverted lossless audio?

I'd guess the only way would be to listen to them. I'd easily be able to pick off one of those 192kbps tracks even if it was listed as TrueHD or Master Audio, but I doubt I'd tell the difference between a 1.5Mbps DD+ track and a TrueHD track.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Brian81

I'd guess the only way would be to listen to them. I'd easily be able to pick off one of those 192kbps tracks even if it was listed as TrueHD or Master Audio, but I doubt I'd tell the difference between a 1.5Mbps DD+ track and a TrueHD track.

Most people can't. I even tried myself with Dune, U-571, and a couple other titles and could not hear the difference (except for an occasional boost in bass on the lossless track) in the DD+ @ 1.5 Mbps found on the HD DVD and the DTS-HD MA track found on the BD.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by Leterface

Is there any chance for consumers to know if the BD have a real lossless audio track or only lossy upconverted lossless audio?

Yes, if you rip the audio off the Blu-ray and perform spectral analysis. Both Dolby Digital and DTS in their lossy versions have specific frequencies where the musical content is rolled off above it. I know of no unified resource keeping track of this though, except for a few vague threads on other forums.