Dark Side Of The Moon-> Where's Da Dolby!?

[joel2762]

I was out looking at some DVD's last night and saw the Pink Floyd, Dark Side Of The Moon dvd. I checked the back. It said Dolby Stereo! I want a DVD with surround sound! How come one of the greatest bands ever has a stereo mix!? If you go buy a new Britany Spears or Hillary Duff dvd I bet it's got surround sound:mad: What gives!? Is this the only one they make? Is there another available with 5.1? Thanks

P.S.: Also went to look at some Energy Speakers. I went in the store and found the speaker room to be torn apart. Stuff laid everywhere not setup. Lights off in the room. I was the only customer in the store...There was one guy watching TV, and about 3-4 more sat in the corner behind the counter having a chat....Couldnt they be putting the speaker room together!?!? Ugh that's the only dealer around here too :p

[bturk667]

If I am not mistaken it is only in multi-channel SACD!

[sslabs]

I think the two of you are talking about two different things. Yes the SACD is multi-channel, but I believe the original poster is asking about the DVD for DSOTM not the SACD.

It's actually not unusual that the DVD is stereo only. Lots of old movies and low budget titles are stereo only. The reasons for this are many. For Dark Side, you have to look at how it was recorded. If it's a lot of behind the scene stuff, the quality is probably just average at best.

You also have to keep in mind that even when good audio exists (in the form good studio masters for example) taking a two channel mix and doing a multi-channel mix, and doing it WELL, takes a lot of time.

Bottom line, don't hold your breath for a multi-channel mix. As for the teeny bopper music, you have to keep in mind that while I'm sure most folks around here consider such "music" just fluff, it's being recorded in a different time. Now people actually record with hi-res audio and multiple channels in mind.


- Tony


www.StrangerSoundLabs.com

[bturk667]

He said he wanted a DVD in surround sound. As I wrote, I believe it only comes in surround sound on SACD. I may be mistaken, however.

[Woochifer]

The disc that you're describing is a documentary, and I doubt that the sales on that particular DVD would be big enough to justify doing a whole new surround mix. With movies, the studios won't bother to put together a 5.1 Dolby Digital transfer for the DVD, even if a discrete surround mix was originally done for the theatrical release. Movies like Blue Thunder and Superman II were originally released with 70mm six-track prints, but only got 2.0 Dolby Surround tracks on their DVD releases. To me, that's more inexcusable because the source material's out there.

If you want 5.1 surround for that Floyd disc, just get a SACD player and the new hybrid SACD/CD version of DSOTM. There, you will hear the album in full 5.1 surround and at a much higher audio resolution than DD. If that documentary was done before the SACD came out, then they would have had to create an entirely new surround mix in order to do a DD 5.1 release, and that process is more involved than you think.

The thing about newer material is that multichannel mixes are done by default and the two-channel CD mixes get mixed down from there. With older albums like DSOTM, the original masters are only in two-channel, and you would actually have to go back to the original multitrack master tapes and do a completely new mix to get a surround mix. This type of remixing takes time. I read that some of the master tracks for older albums are poorly documented, so the engineer might not even know which track has the correct take that was used for the original album. Also, in some cases like Steely Dan's Aja, the multitrack masters for several songs are missing so a surround mix can never be done until they are located. Lots of variables that need consideration.

[joel2762]

The DVD I was looking at had some concert stuff on it for the Dark Side OF The Moon songs but yes it did have a lot of other documentary parts. I just thought it would be good to have a surround mix on it. As for SACD I don't think i'll buy a player just yet, just to hear the Floyd SACD :p...There was another Floyd one too...Live at Pompeii? or something and I recall that it did have 5.1...Looked good but I want Dark Side Of The Moon too. Oh well i'll get it later anyways that's all I can do!