Transformers won best audio quality at the Hi Def Awards?

[kiskiboy97]

I wonder what the other nominees were. I can't imagine it sounding better than Live Free or Die Hard.

[ryoohki]

Just like at Cinema Transformers lack one thing.. LFE.. there's almost no LFE from the HD DVD (friend showed me a demo)... very disapointing in that effort..

[Downhere]

While the LFE wasn't as pronounced as with other movies, there was still plenty of it on my set-up.

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

Just like at Cinema Transformers lack one thing.. LFE.. there's almost no LFE from the HD DVD (friend showed me a demo)... very disapointing in that effort..

Yeah that's not true. Some people may have actually recieved faulty copies on HD DVD (Michael Bay said he was looking into it). My copy had extreme ammounts of bass. I agree with BTBuck here, it is by far the best Dolby Digital-Plus audio track I have ever heard. But also, like he said, it's not the greatest soundtrack out there.

[werewuf]

Originally Posted by Downhere

Have you listened to the Transformer DD+ track all the way through? You can only make an informed opinion if you actually experienced it. If not, then you really have no right in saying it shouldn't have won for best sound.

Sorry I disagree, if this soundtrack had been in one of the two new formats it would have been superior hands down. My equipment, fortunately, gives me the new formats and everything I have heard in TrueHD and HDMA is superior to the older formats. The controversy over HD-DVD not including one of the new formats on such a deserving title was there immediately upon release of this of this disc. This being the Hi Def awards I found it questionable that that a title without the highest level of "Hi Def" audio got the award over other titles that did.

[MatrixS2000]

Originally Posted by werewuf

Ummm No, The question is there because it was NOT in Dolby TrueHD or DTS HDMA. After all the controversy about HD DVD not being able to to have the new level soundtracks, I felt this was a weird statement for the Hi Def Awards to be making.

+1 Hi Def Award to a non hi def audio track...anyone else see something wrong with this????

[coolmilo]

Transformers winning best audio is an insult to people with ears. Live Free Dies Hard's AQ was hands down superior when compared to Transformers. And there are many other title that I can think of with better audio than TF (including the rat movie).

My HD DUD friends have also expressed their disappointment with the AQ of TF. One of my friends has a very high end home theater. Unfortunately he is purple at the moment. But he was so disappointed in the AQ of the HD DUD version of TF that he went out and purchased the DVD for comparison purposes.

Heck, even Close Encounters of the Third Kind (30 year old movie) had better AQ than Transformers.

And I will be the first in line when this movie shows up on Blu-ray in 12 months. But Paramount will need to fix the audio problems and include a lossless audio track before I break out the CC. The LFE should be scary good for this movie and it’s currently not even close.

[ClaytonMG]

I get the feeling that most people think that the sound on Transformers litterally sucks because it's on HD DVD without lossless/uncompressed audio... That's just sad. I wish they would do an experiment and take a Dolby Digital-Plus audio track, pack it as PCM, you'd all still say the PCM track is better by far. And no, Close Encounters does not have better sound than Transformers, sorry. There's nothing wrong with the mix on Transformers people. Wether you like it or not or want to admit it or not, it sounds pretty good.

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by coolmilo

And I will be the first in line when this movie shows up on Blu-ray in 12 months. But Paramount will need to fix the audio problems and include a lossless audio track before I break out the CC. The LFE should be scary good for this movie and it’s currently not even close.

Again, since you must not have read what I said earlier, they are looking into errors on some discs. My disc has killer bass.

[AikonEnt]

Originally Posted by MatrixS2000

+1 Hi Def Award to a non hi def audio track...anyone else see something wrong with this????

My thoughts exactly. It's my understanding that the HD-DVD copy of Transformers has identical audio to the DVD version. Now I'm not saying it isn't a decent soundtrack because I have the DVD and it sounded great (though I'm not sure my neighbours appreciated it at 11pm ), but it isn't hi-def audio, it's SD audio so it shouldn't be eligible. Just because it's on a hi-def disc (though as it's HD-DVD it's doing a disservice to the term hi-def ) doesn't make it hi-def. If I rip a DVD and write it to a Blu-ray it's doesn't make it a hi-def film does it?

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by AikonEnt

My thoughts exactly. It's my understanding that the HD-DVD copy of Transformers has identical audio to the DVD version. Now I'm not saying it isn't a decent soundtrack because I have the DVD and it sounded great (though I'm not sure my neighbours appreciated it at 11pm ), but it isn't hi-def audio, it's SD audio so it shouldn't be eligible. Just because it's on a hi-def disc (though as it's HD-DVD it's doing a disservice to the term hi-def ) doesn't make it hi-def. If I rip a DVD and write it to a Blu-ray it's doesn't make it a hi-def film does it?

I think you might've understood wrong. The Dolby Digital-Plus track isn't a port from the DVD, it's an actual 1.5mbps track compared to the 448kbps on the DVD.

[coolmilo]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

I get the feeling that most people think that the sound on Transformers litterally sucks because it's on HD DVD without lossless/uncompressed audio... That's just sad. I wish they would do an experiment and take a Dolby Digital-Plus audio track, pack it as PCM, you'd all still say the PCM track is better by far. And no, Close Encounters does not have better sound than Transformers, sorry. There's nothing wrong with the mix on Transformers people. Wether you like it or not or want to admit it or not, it sounds pretty good.

My friend has several purple friends in other parts of the country and they ALL report the same flaws with TF. LFE is very disappointing and the overall AQ does not live up to the quality many other current titles. And it was a huge mistake to not include lossless audio with TF. It’s like buying a Porsche with a VW engine.

So it might sound OK (especially to you) but it should in no way even be considered for any awards. There were so many complaints about the AQ of TF that it just does not make sense that it won an AQ award. It’s like someone threw the DUDer’s a bone. Let’s be real!!!

Sheesh, we do comparisons all the time between lossy and lossless audio. AND THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE!!!

[sj001]

I'm sorry, but lossy audio should NOT even be in the running for best sound, it should REQUIRE the disc to have lossless audio. I am amazed by the people who say they cannot tell the difference, there is a WORLD of a difference, even my GF can hear it on every movie.

[coolmilo]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

I think you might've understood wrong. The Dolby Digital-Plus track isn't a port from the DVD, it's an actual 1.5mbps track compared to the 448kbps on the DVD.

Again there were many complaints. And many home theater enthusiast (at the high end) who thought the audio was better on the SD DVD than the HD DVD. So the issue for me is there were problems and complaints about the AQ of this title and it is a joke that it won best AQ.

[FilmmakingFiasco]

Originally Posted by MatrixS2000

+1 Hi Def Award to a non hi def audio track...anyone else see something wrong with this????

Matrix, this seems all to familiar...

[Rustmonsteru]

...Best soundtrack based on what though?

I'm sure it sounds really good (haven't heard it myself) b/c this is an action movie biased kind category and action movies typically use more of the soundstage, but are they grading them on the soundtrack itself or how well it was implemented on the hddvd with the codec they chose?

It's going to be really tedious hearing about this for the next month from the "good enough" hddvd crowd and from the easily paniced blu fans.

[ClaytonMG]

Where are you reading that people said the Standard DVD sounded better than the HD DVD? And are these people biased or are they actually nuetral on the whole format war?

[Rumar 4U]

I personally think without disrespecting no one

We cant judge based upon Technical Specifications. Thats being biased. Myself as a Studio Audio Engineer with experience sometimes cant hear the difference between different mixes (gotta hear them so many times)

For those of you that maybe dont know in Audio theres a Plugin called Dither in which reduces the 24bit (almost same quality) into 16bit for CD compatibility most of times

Also if Bit rates are the issue why the MP3 music downloading its so much popular each day (can you tell the difference between MP3 and WAV) at a very high levels

If in the Main mix you place the "Main Focused Sound" higher the encoding will be better for that sound that theyre giving priority focusing in what they really want

I thought Transformers Sounded Incredible, much better than so many BD's uncompressed Sounds (way better than Spiderman 3 in Blu which i own)
So we need to start not getting biased and hear the reality

If it would it sound better in Blu ? maybe cause they just had to put up all the volumes high and forget about mixing and dump it on PCM without compression (much easier)

[mel2]

Did these awards cover just released movies. because pirates at world end takes the sound award hands down. the maelstrom sequence alone destroys transformers. kingdom of heaven deserved its award. nice to see that film get recognition.

[dialog_gvf]

If the care that went into Transformers was applied across all HD DVD titles, then would be something to talk about. We can imagine they spent a great deal of time on the segment re-encodes and the audio to get it to that level. It was the statement title for Paramount after defecting. It had to be great.

If you're willing to put up with 3/3.5 PQ/AQ for most releases to get the occasional HD DVD title that matches Blu-ray's fairly common level of quality, then HD DVD is your format.

Gary