Ask questions to Blu-ray Music insider "Alexander J"

[Alexander J]

I am really glad you post here this question.

I was reading you opinion about this matter on AVS and will be glad to answer this.

Thirst of all you can not fight the progress of sound technology and prevent people from experiencing music utilizing capabilities of the new 7.1 systems that now becomes a standard home theater set-up for Blu-ray media.

So your assumption wrong from the beginning.

Secondary you are wrong about my production process of producing these titles. I am already post my creative approach but I see the need to post it again:

There is no synthetic delivery from 5.1 to 7.1 in our releases.
Our "Acoustic Reality Experience" Classical titles reproducing stage in front channels and natural ambience in all surround channels delivering better perception of Acoustic environment compare to 5.1 mixes that is especially making big difference in medium and large Home Theater rooms.

But specifically for Material originally recorded for Naxos according your ideology we don’t need SACD and DVD-format ether it was also released on regular CD's and you can upmix it with any 5.1 receiver.

Original content creators and music community will support it, the conductor of Mussorgsky release one of the most recorded conductors in the world Jose Serebrier who was assisting Stokowski with Mussorgsky transcriptions call me personally to share his excitement about his recording will be released in 7.1 lossless audio format and currently helping me in approaching major classical labels to release award winning content.

Regarding stand along DTS-HD codec used, we have DTS 5.1 music discs format, everybody enjoying it and industry has no problem with that so technically speaking this is just next generation of it, but now with 7.1 lossless audio.

People are looking for 7.1 lossless music titles and Surround Records will deliver it now without waiting for somebody to pick up the tab.

Originally Posted by Kilian

It should be made clear at the outset in discussions like this and in marketing info such as the product description on Amazon that these classical titles were originally recorded, produced and released by Naxos, a budget classical label, as SACD and DVD-A in 2003-2004. The BDs are upmixed (5.0 or 5.1 to 7.1) and up-sampled (48KHz to 96KHz, at least for the Grieg and I presume the rest also) tracks, whichever way you want to spin it. It's not a big deal and I don't see doing it this way is the way forward. The folks at sa-cd.net don't think much of it either. You could play the Naxos SACD in the 60 GB PS3 and it gives you 24-bit 176KHz PCM and the receiver upmixes it to 7.1.

There is no need for three parallel uncompressed (PCM) and losslessly encoded (Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD MA) tracks, except as a novelty and demo disk. Routine inclusion of more than one merely perpetuates the myth that they are fundamentally different. We don't need to have movie BDs with parallel encodes in mpeg-2, VC-1 and AVC do we?

For music-only BDs, PCM and dts-HD MA or dts should cover most people's needs at present and the foreseeable future. Having dts-HD MA only isn't such a good idea at present and there is space and bandwidth to fit about two hours of 7.1 96/24 PCM and dts-HD MA on a BD-25. At the end of the day it's about the actual musical content that matters most, not the codec, spec or gimmicks.

I'm all for classical music on BD but we need the major premium labels to come onboard to make any real impact, because they have the very best artists and a large catalogue together.

[JimShaw]

Alexander J

Welcome aboard.

I am also new to this forum and new to Blu-ray.

Thanks for the link to Blu Music. Because, once again, I am new and did not realize I could get Blu Music.

I will order a few and give them a test run through my sound system.

I am excited, thanks.

[Clark Kent]

Some of your releases look very interesting as I wasn't aware of them before you posted here. I think I might pick up the Mussorgsky title as I just love that piece of music.

[Fatboymart]

Hi Alexander

My father has not had an interest in his music collection for some time, mostly as his equipment is very old. After a brief demo of DTS core (I have to upgrade too) and a print off of your music titles, my father has a new fire burning inside for hi end music.

I am going to order the titles above and wrap them for Christmas – should make an old man happy.

Regards

Martin

BTW. That Pink Floyd project would be very fitting, with the passing away of Richard Wright. I would like to see "Dark side of the moon".

[Blu Titan]

Welcome aboard Alexander J We all appreciate your time and effort to provide us with revelant information concerning BD Music.

[milou6]

Welcome! Glad to have you aboard!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Alexander J

Glad to join the forum.

I am the artist and producer of the new line of Blu-ray audio titles:

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?studioid=51

This is a new product and many of you may have questions.

This is the thread where I will be glad to answer these questions and share my thoughts and visions for Surround Sound Music on Blu-ray media and showcase some samples.

Alexander Jero
Surround Music Artist / Producer
Surround Records/ Surround Magic Studio

Welcome!

I hope that Iceman informed you that one of the prerequisites to Insider status on Blu-ray.com is to send the other Insiders a freebie Blu-ray.

I, myself will take VIVALDI.

Again, welcome to the forum and it’s about time that music lovers got their share of the action.

[phloyd]

Welcome to the forum!

So, will all of the Surround Records releases be 24/96 DTS-HD Master Audio and 7.1 audio channels?

Or are you planning to try PCM or TrueHD also moving forward.

Thanks again for participating.

Cheers!

[PeterTHX]

Welcome!

I would also like to see a TrueHD option on your titles, because some of us have little ones running around and I appreciate the night mode option. Far more BD players support it natively as well.

[dobyblue]

Very pleased to see the Rachmaninov and Vivaldi releases, I will be ordering those for sure.

I have no problems with dts-ma, TrueHD or PCM - as long as you're presenting lossless mixes you have my vote.

One note - 24/192 7.1 is not possible with Blu-ray Disc, so 24/192 sources would need to be presented in a 5.1 mix; not that I think anyone would have a problem with that!

Thank you for taking the time to post here.

[PeterTHX]

One note - 24/192 7.1 is not possible with Blu-ray Disc, so 24/192 sources would need to be presented in a 5.1 mix; not that I think anyone would have a problem with that!

Not possible or out of spec?

DD @640kbps was out of spec for DVD but still possible on a couple discs.

[Anthony P]

Hi and welcome to the forum, classical music is not my cup of tea but I think I might get one for my dad, though the PF title you mentioned in your post interests me.

Are these BD-A titles or regulars BD (i.e. when BD-A players come out will these work on them?)

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Not possible or out of spec?

DD @640kbps was out of spec for DVD but still possible on a couple discs.

Not spec'd currently within dts-ma specs or Dolby's specs and in PCM would be 36.884 Mbps...so hardly reasonable.

Although Dolby says they can do up to 13 channels with Dolby TrueHD, would the current DolbyTrueHD decoders be upgradeable via firmware on all units? If they can't it would be a mistake to implement it specifically for BD-Audio players because you would immediately kill any chance high resolution music has of making it in the mainstream.

[Big Daddy]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Not possible or out of spec?

DD @640kbps was out of spec for DVD but still possible on a couple discs.

BDA format specifications, p.18 limit the audio to 6 channels of 192kHz/24bit.

Max.bitrate
LPCM: 27.648Mbps
Dolby Digital: 640kbps
Dolby Digital Plus: 4.736Mbps
Dolby Lossless: 18.64Mbps
DTS digital surround: 1.524Mbps
DTS-HD: 24.5Mbps

192,000(samples per second) x 24(bits per sample) x 6(channels) = 27.7Mbps

[PeterTHX]

^^^

I know the spec.

I'm just saying it might be possible to do something out of spec as a secondary track.

[Alexander J]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Very pleased to see the Rachmaninov and Vivaldi releases, I will be ordering those for sure.

I have no problems with dts-ma, TrueHD or PCM - as long as you're presenting lossless mixes you have my vote.

One note - 24/192 7.1 is not possible with Blu-ray Disc, so 24/192 sources would need to be presented in a 5.1 mix; not that I think anyone would have a problem with that!

Thank you for taking the time to post here.

Like I mention in one of my previous posts the idea was to create a user experience similar to CD or SACD, for that purpose I decide to choose only one stream that was chosen only in terms of my better exposure to DTS technology, encoding and production process.

However my internal production for the organ performance title will be at 24bit 192K, DTS ProAudio just confirm me that however I can create a 7.1 24/192k stream file using DTS-HD Encoder players can not play it back in terms of BD spec limitation.

All Fox with Insider Status please e-mail me your addresses so you can receive your disc

More later,

Need to get back to work,


Best,

Alexander

[scott1256ca]

I also think it is not necessary to include PCM TrueHD and DTS HDMA of the same spec. One should be enough.

However, my real reason for posting is to ask what your thoughts are concerning 7.1 (or 5.1 for that matter) vs. 2 channel sound? A number of audiophiles think 2 channel still provides a better, or more realistic experience with a proper setup than you can get with surround speakers. What do you think?

I for one would like to see a mix optimised for stereo, in addition to a surround sound mix, for comparison if nothing else, but you may want to consider it to appeal to a broader audience.

Also, given a previous question, I presume when you mix these you have access to the original multiple tracks? Can you tell us if the tracks as originally recorded were 96k 24 bit?

[Alexander J]

Originally Posted by scott1256ca

I also think it is not necessary to include PCM TrueHD and DTS HDMA of the same spec. One should be enough.

However, my real reason for posting is to ask what your thoughts are concerning 7.1 (or 5.1 for that matter) vs. 2 channel sound? A number of audiophiles think 2 channel still provides a better, or more realistic experience with a proper setup than you can get with surround speakers. What do you think?

I for one would like to see a mix optimised for stereo, in addition to a surround sound mix, for comparison if nothing else, but you may want to consider it to appeal to a broader audience.

Also, given a previous question, I presume when you mix these you have access to the original multiple tracks? Can you tell us if the tracks as originally recorded were 96k 24 bit?

All my work is dedicated to presenting music in surround sound. So for me multichannel surround sound reproduction is a current stage of the natural development of the technology of sound reproduction that started with Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877 until the 1950s. Second stage of Stereo was based on inventions from the 1930s, reached the public in the mid-'50s, and has provided great listening Pleasure for four decades.Stereo improved the reproduction of timbre and added two dimensions of space: the left- right spread of performers across a Stage, and a set of acoustic cues that allow listeners to perceive a front-to-back dimension.
Third Age represented by Multichannel surround sound technology, natural involving presence in A way that is robust, reliable and consistent there each individual sound can has its Unique location in 3-dimensional space.

Talking about source material for Surround Music Recordings I cant not to mention great project by John Newton of Sound mirror, Inc. of remastering and producing RCA “Living Stereo” SACD series that was done from old analogue three-channel recordings that made legacy for Surround Music on SACD. I am strongly believe that the talent of Engineers and Producers is that making the difference in your multichannel music experience, and now with the new 7.1 sound reproduction capabilities artistically speaking giving content producers new variety of colors that we never had before to deliver to you the Reality of Acoustic Experience.

Getting back to our titles Vivaldi and Mussorgsky releases as well as all my electronic music titles was originally digitally recorded at 24bit 96K resolution. And I can ensure you, that all our future releases will be produced at least from 24bit 96K resolution source material respectfully because I see that majority of people would like to see that.

[Icemage]

This is pretty exciting stuff, Alexander J. Welcome to Blu-ray.com!

Can you comment on the relative publishing costs at this time regarding Blu-ray music discs versus SACD and DVD-A? Just a "it's more expensive but worth it" or "it's about the same but a bigger potential audience" sort of response will suffice.

[Alexander J]

Originally Posted by Icemage

This is pretty exciting stuff, Alexander J. Welcome to Blu-ray.com!

Can you comment on the relative publishing costs at this time regarding Blu-ray music discs versus SACD and DVD-A? Just a "it's more expensive but worth it" or "it's about the same but a bigger potential audience" sort of response will suffice.

As far as right now it is match more expensive to produce and publish Blu-ray Disc then SACD or DVD-A in term of originally this technology was developed to present movie and video titles, but looking forward in to a future I see a great potential of Blu-ray for music media and believe that software developers and Authoring Houses will came out with new solutions to present music on Blu-ray disc that also should stimulate the development of profile 3.0 for Audio.

As a producer who dedicated last decade to the Art of Surround Music and High Definition Audio formats I see the great new opportunity in Blu-ray.

In terms of large commercial success of these releases - the future will tell.