Lord of the Rings and Warner audio discussion (split from LotR megathread)

[aramis109]

Originally Posted by saprano

As i said plenty of times in the LOTR threads, with warner handling everything expect an ok transfer. its not going to be a pefect picture, it will have problems just like every other warner release. i just dont get that studio.

As for the audio, its not going to have a DTS 7.1 soundtrack. it will be DTHD 5.1 16 bit. this movie deserves a 7.1 track. and who cares if we cant hear the difference between 16 and 24 bit, bluray can handle it so use it. this is what im talking about when i say warner always half @sses everything.

So you think that along with a high-bitrate 3+ hour movie a 50gb disc is going to be able to handle a 24bit soundtrack? See Akira for reasons why eventually, regardless of BD, you simply run out of space. They could just barely get in what they got in.

I'll also disagree that Warner botches every movie as well. Matrix trilogy, Troy, TMNT, Corpse Bride, LA Confidential, I Am Legend, The Dark Knight, Body of Lies, Blade Runner, The 300 and 2001: A Space Odyssey all are pretty top-notch in my book and I can personally speak on their quality both in audio and video.

Originally Posted by victorvondoom88

If lossless is lossless then why does spidey 3's LPCM track sound better than the Dolby TrueHD? And don't try the whole level matching, and "hot" DTS soundtracks blah, blah. You can argue about those points all you want but this isn't about loudness it's about overall sound quality. In the real world on my system that is calibrated, with the volume at the same level, switching between the tracks. IMO the LPCM track has more detail and better defined bass and well it just sounds better overall.
Sadly I wish I had a movie that had all three LPCM, DTS-HD MA, & DTrueHD on it.
No the codec doesn't make the sound but it isn't crazy to think that one encoding could be superior to another. I believe that DTS-HD MA uses less compression than TrueHD. Dolby claims there encoder is more "efficient" than DTS's. I am of the opinion less is more when it comes to compression.
As far as LOTR films go Warner wont see my money until I get DTS-HD MA or LPCM period. I can keep my special extended cut with DTS-ES 6.1 for now. BTW IMO the DTS-ES tracks sound way better than the Dolby tracks on the dvd's same real world situation.
Just my opinion and worth just what you paid to hear it.

Ugh, why do we keep having to go here? I'd love to do a double-blind test with Spidey 3 with you. They're all lossless, and as much as you'd like to discount it, level matching does make a difference. There's no difference in quality. There may be (and I'm going outside of what I believe here) a slight difference in playback of some frequency ranges which equates to "quality" to you. This is the same reason that some people like "bright" speakers and some appreciate "warm" or "rich" ones more- it's all down to what the speakers (or in this case the codecs) accentuate.

I'll agree, I'm not purchasing this set as I only want the EE's, but it's funny how people are so quick to crucify a release that's not even been released yet.