Re: Sound problems on DVDs (was Re: Star Wars digression was Re: The Myths of Gaming) (was: Star Wars digression was Re: The Myths of Gaming)

Douglas Bailey <> wrote in
news::

> (Follow-ups set to alt.video.dvd, since you're more likely to get
> useful comments there.)
>
>>> Malachias Invictus wrote:
>>>> The sound transfer on the Indiana Jones trilogy sucks big ass. The
>>>> dialog is for too soft, and inevitably followed by overly loud
>>>> action with poor sound balancing.
>
> I didn't bother watching the DVD of the second _Indiana Jones_ film
> (which I've never seen, in any event), but the first and third ones
> sounded about right to me on my set-up.

There is no second Indiana Jones movie. There would have been, but
everybody was busy making this piece of **** gross-out movie instead.
>
> Have you set your speaker levels using test tones (from your receiver
> or a calibration disc)? Also, are you listening in 5.1-channel, or is
> your player downmixing the track to stereo?
>
> Bear in mind, too, that if you're accustomed to the soundtrack from
> the VHS release of the film, the DVD will sound *much* more dynamic:
> the explosions will be louder relative to the dialogue. This is not
> necessarily an error in the mix.

When it causes people to complain about the histty mix, it's an error in
judgeeent.
>
> Malachias Invictus also wrote:
>> You can really tell on Aliens, as well. The dialog is in mono, but
>> the music and effects are in surround.
>
> That's because dialogue in a modern-day mix is almost always anchored
> to the centre front speaker for clarity. And the music and effects are
> usually spread across the stereo image precisely so that they don't
> conflict with the dialogue.

They often fail.
>
> "It's...good practice to put dialogue in the center track and leave
> the peripheral speakers for effects so that people who aren't in the
> center of the room don't get inconsistent audio. It also turns out
> that the spatial separation of effects and dialogue coming out of
> different speakers makes it easier for the audience to distinguish the
> two and one can turn those effects up louder without swamping the
> speech."
>
> --paraphrased from presentation by Jim Hilson of Dolby Labs
> <http://www.v-site.net/smpte-ne/calendar/mar8meet.html>

"Play the goddamn master on cheap equipment like most people have, and
adjust the goddamn music track so it's not louder than the goddamn audio
track. Otherwise, your DVD will suck."
--Direct quote by Terry Austin

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