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

[Tempest]

Originally Posted by victorvondoom88

Compression is compression. You can't compress anything with out losing something. It just isn't possible however slight it may be. If one compresses more than another then it is giving up more information. There is no way around it.
As far as winrar vs winzip all I can say is I have seen several movie clips compressed with winrar where the audio is no longer in sync with the video.

Your all confused...

Encoding/Converting (making mp3 from .WAV file) is different than Compressing (making a winrar/winzip file).

Encoding is creating something new where you do loose something while compressing is just compressing something into an archive to later be decompressed into the EXACT form it was before.

[surfdude12]

not sure why i'm reading lots of posts that LOTR will have DTS-HD MA...is there news that they've changed from Dolby-true HD??

from what i've heard, Warner did a great job on Matrix trilogy, and that seems to me to be the only arguable equivalent project to compare this to.

yeah, lossless is lossless. i look at it like 3 branches of a chain restaurant: theortically they should all produce the same food, but in reality they don't and i prefer one slightly over the other 2.

[BIslander]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

yeah, lossless is lossless. i look at it like 3 branches of a chain restaurant: theortically they should all produce the same food, but in reality they don't and i prefer one slightly over the other 2.

Please, now. There's no such thing as identical (lossless) food preparation.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by BIslander

Please, now. There's no such thing as identical (lossless) food preparation.

in theory my friend, in theory

[RiseDarthVader]

A sound engineer that also makes posts on this forum has said multiple times that lossless is lossless. Any difference you are hearing is a placebo effect. Are you really saying you have better ears and a perfectly calibrated acoustic room,speakers and sound equipment and have ears that have been tested to hear differences in frequencys? I dont think so.

[davcole]

Originally Posted by aramis109

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.

KING KONG is 3+ hrs with 2 versions with a 24bit lossless track. I believe GODFATHER II has a 24bit TRUEHD track and it's 3hrs +.

[davcole]

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.

I've read a lot from people who have expressed the same opinion. Ideally the TRUEHD should sound better as it's 24bit compared to the 16bit PCM. Personally playing around with both the PCM and the TRUEHD track, I can't draw that conclusion.

[davcole]

As for my hopes for the audio, i'd like to see 24bit TRUEHD 6.1. Having the EE's on DVD and having a 6.1 set up, I can tell you I appreciate having the backchannel available to me, i'm not bothered if the back channel was taken from a reprocessed back channel. 6.1 would give us on BD exactly what we received on the DVD with lossless audio.

As BD bills itself as having master quality audio or being able to have an "exact" copy of the studio master, I don't want anything less. All the 24bit tracks i've listened to have sounded stellar to me and as I believe these films are 24bit recordings, I don't want anything less.

[Driver_King]

Originally Posted by Tempest

Your all confused...

Encoding/Converting (making mp3 from .WAV file) is different than Compressing (making a winrar/winzip file).

Encoding is creating something new where you do loose something while compressing is just compressing something into an archive to later be decompressed into the EXACT form it was before.

Exactly. I am sorry Mr. Vondoom, you are incorrect and confused. There is no contemplation with lossless. Lossless is lossless. Lossy is not just lossy. There are other factors that come into play there. That is not the case with lossless. If it was not truely lossless, then it would not be called lossless audio.

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by LembasBread

Which BD's have both options that you've been able to compare the two? Unless a BD has both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA derived from the same mix (the amount of which I can count on one hand) it's once again an apples to apples comparison.

None. What I am saying is that I have rarely been disappointed with any of the soundtracks that I have heard in HDMA. I have however been disappointed with most of the soundtracks I have heard in TrueHD.

[victorvondoom88]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

None. What I am saying is that I have rarely been disappointed with any of the soundtracks that I have heard in HDMA. I have however been disappointed with most of the soundtracks I have heard in TrueHD.

I 100% agree.

[LembasBread]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

None. What I am saying is that I have rarely been disappointed with any of the soundtracks that I have heard in HDMA. I have however been disappointed with most of the soundtracks I have heard in TrueHD.

Wouldn't you then have to conclude that BD's you've heard encoded with DTS-HD MA simply have better mixes than BD's that have been encoded with TrueHD? Given what you've said, there is no way you can logically claim that the 24-bit Dolby TrueHD soundtrack on Transformers would sound any different compared to it having been compressed with DTS-HD MA at 24-bit.

Just because Master and Commander (DTS-HD MA) sounds better than Gattaca (Dolby TrueHD) doesn't mean that a "better" lossless audio codec was used to compress the master. I'm going to go with it sounds better because of the Academy Award winning sound design/mix by Richard King, Paul Massey, D.M. Hemphill, and Arthur Rochester.

[LembasBread]

It sounds like a lot of people in this thread have an intriguing placebo effect: Anti-Dolby bias held over from the days of DVD.

Dolby is a content delivery company. They've produced and marketed a lossless audio compression method for home video. There are plenty of lossless compression file types out there and there will be many more. To say that Dolby - a world-class, industry reknowned and respected content delivery company - somehow screwed it up is not thinking properly.

BTW, Dolby TrueHD wasn't even developed by Dolby. It was called Meridian Lossless Packing and was used on DVD-Audio discs until Dolby bought the licensing rights to it and repackaged and remarketed it as Dolby TrueHD. This helped contribute to there being TrueHD decoders on the market since day one of the high def disc formats.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

My opinion...

If they treat the LOTR audio as they did the Dark Knight audio, it will be above average for Warner Bros. track record. If they up it to 7.1 they will really surprise me. If they up it to a DTS HD MA or PCM track, I may actually consider buying the theatricals when they release.

[Driver_King]

Originally Posted by victorvondoom88

I 100% agree.

Would you mind naming a few of the absolutely horrendous mixes that you hate that have Dolby TrueHD? Including new releases? With DRC off? Level matched? Also, how do you justify a DTS version being better if the Dolby mix is the only one available? Just wondering.

[Driver_King]

Originally Posted by LembasBread

It sounds like a lot of people in this thread have an intriguing placebo effect: Anti-Dolby bias held over from the days of DVD.

Dolby is a content delivery company. They've produced and marketed a lossless audio compression method for home video. There are plenty of lossless compression file types out there and there will be many more. To say that Dolby - a world-class, industry reknowned and respected content delivery company - somehow screwed it up is not thinking properly.

BTW, Dolby TrueHD wasn't even developed by Dolby. It was called Meridian Lossless Packing and was used on DVD-Audio discs until Dolby bought the licensing rights to it and repackaged and remarketed it as Dolby TrueHD. This helped contribute to there being TrueHD decoders on the market since day one of the high def disc formats.

I just have to say excellent post. If there was a blind test done with a Dolby mix and a DTS mix with the same amount of channels and level matched, I am pretty sure nobody could tell which one is which. By the way, there are Blu's out there with all three lossless codecs for you to compare.

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by LembasBread

It sounds like a lot of people in this thread have an intriguing placebo effect: Anti-Dolby bias held over from the days of DVD.

I can't speak for everyone of course... but I don't have an anti-dolby bias. During the days of DVD I loved Dolby and was completely unaware that many people preferred DTS. When I first got into watching blu's I was really excited to see either DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD instead of PCM listed in the audio because I mistakingly thought either of those MUST be better than just plain PCM. As I watched more and more blu's I realized that all lossless tracks are not created equal.

As I said previously... I don't know why DTS-HDMA sounds better to me. It could very well simply be a case of the movies that I have watched with that format had better audio to begin with. But as the pattern continues... I begin to doubt that it is as simple as that.

Movies that I have watched with HDMA audio that I really enjoyed include The Doors, Hellboy II, and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. Movies with TrueHD that were not as good as I hoped for include The Dark Knight, Indianna Jones and the Crystal Skull, and The Brave One. One TrueHD track that did not disappoint me was The Lost Boys..... but I believe that is at least in part because I was so familiar with the original DVD track and lossless was such an obvious improvement over that.

[victorvondoom88]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

Would you mind naming a few of the absolutely horrendous mixes that you hate that have Dolby TrueHD? Including new releases? With DRC off? Level matched? Also, how do you justify a DTS version being better if the Dolby mix is the only one available? Just wondering.

First off I never said there were any "horrendous" mixes that I hate. Not sure were you got that.
I never said that DTS version is better on any particular film that has only a Dolby track either.
I also have stated I do not use DRC, not sure why you keep bringing this up.
As far as level matching goes no I have never broke out my SPL meter to make sure that the levels match. However I find that with PCM and DTS-HD tracks I play them at lower volumes than TrueHD ones.
I said I prefer PCM and DTS-HD MA over Dolby TrueHD as a whole, as in my favorite movies I use PCM over TrueHD and DTS-HD MA when availible.
"300" for example I find the uncompressed PCM track to be a more engaging and overall better experience than the TrueHD track. Same goes for Spidey 3, though the movie itself blows compared to the other two.
Overall I find the PCM and DTS-HD MA "mixes" to be more engaging and overall better experience.
I'm not saying that all TrueHD tracks are bad, I never said they were.
I found Batman Begins to be underwhelming for a TrueHD track. That one comes to mind right off hand. I know it doesn't have another track to compare it to and it isn't a new release, so this probably won't meet your criteria but I expected more from this release.

Having said that I find that "Transformers" and "The Dark Knight" to be the two of the best TrueHD tracks that I have in my collection. I didn't start boycotting Warner titles until I had already seen TDK and it was a buy for me before the credits rolled in the theater.
Now if they were to re-release them with DTS-HD MA or PCM tracks I would probably buy them again.

I never said anything other than I prefer PCM and DTS-HD MA tracks over the TrueHD counterpart (if there is one). I'm not anti anyone, if anything I'm pro PCM as I have far more of them than I do DTS-HD MA.

My beef with warner is there inconsistency in releases. Them opting out of PCM altogether is somewhat understandable but look at how many 640kb DD 5.1 tracks are on the Harry Potter Boxed set I count 9! Catalan and Flemmish, really?? Though they do have PCM. Why not put both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA on there instead and use subtitles? Oh yeah the subtitles are on there too. Why?

Why settle for "good enough" mentality? This format is currently the best and that is what I want and expect, the best that they can put on the disc.

My opinion...

If they treat the LOTR audio as they did the Dark Knight audio, it will be above average for Warner Bros. track record. If they up it to 7.1 they will really surprise me. If they up it to a DTS HD MA or PCM track, I may actually consider buying the theatricals when they release.

I'm with ya on that Petra. Though I would much rather have the extended cuts. Come on Warner do it right the first time. I had high hopes for the New Line releases until Warner took over their releases.

I've said all I have to say so I'm done with this, I have more constructive things to do.
Enjoy your blu's!

[Squozen]

Originally Posted by victorvondoom88

Compression is compression. You can't compress anything with out losing something. It just isn't possible however slight it may be. If one compresses more than another then it is giving up more information. There is no way around it.

Oh dear.

Son, you need to actually do some tests with different lossless packing algorithms and an MD5 hash checker because you're talking utter cobblers.

[Driver_King]

So you agree that not all Warner Bros. Dolby TrueHD mixes are bad and some are good, correct? I was trying to get that out of you. If that is true, then I do not understand why you said that you wouldn't buy LOTR if it had a Dolby track since it wouldn't be good enough or something along those lines. I also didn't see post 35 where you said you don't use DRC. I apologize for the confusion there.