DVD/DTS Poll Queen - A Night At The Opera (30th Anniversary Collector's Edition) [DTS 96/24 DVD+CD]

[Bob Romano]

Though this is not a "new" title please rate the 30th Anniversary DTS DVD and NOT the DVD-A version.

 

[neil wilkes]

Well, someone has to go first so why not me.....
I got this one after the DVD-A, as it was just too cheap to pass up.
In the DVD, the whole album is now set to Eye Candy mode - each track has either real video, or montages made up from stills. This will satisfy everyone who has to look at their music and die-hard fans will appreciate the previously unseen film for "Good Company" and the pseudo-live feel for the opener "Death On Two Legs".
The mix is in DTS 96/24 (why they don't call it DTS 24/96 like the rest of us is beyond me, but hey!)
The stereo on the DVD is apparently a downmix - not a dedicated stereo mix. I have not checked the CD yet so do not know if the same mix is on this. I say "apparently" a downmix because in the liner notes we read that the "5.1 Audio conformed to Stereo by (nameless)".

The mix is *not* the same as the DVD-A. The DTS-DVD is a heck of a lot brighter, and a lot more heavily compressed as well.
The changes are mentioned in the notes as "improvements" but that really depends on who you ask - my partner says she prefers this version, but for me I prefer the original. I'll sit down one day & list the differences, but the easiest one to spot them in is in BoRhap.
The rears in this are in places too loud for the fronts - especially in some of the more operatic moments - and there are some very odd guitar levels & placements. Overall, things seem to jump around a lot more rather than the smooth work from Elliot's original DVD-A version - although how much of this was created by the "mastering" remains to be seen. It seems that Bob Ludwig really does hit the limiters - hard.
The closing track "God Save The Queen" is now a true 5.1 and not an upmix as on the DVD-A.
Overall, a 9 from me - this release is worth buying even if you already have the DVD-A.

 

[rusinurbe]

The mix is not dramtically differenty from the original DVDA but as stated some missing parts were found and I believe a section of the Profet song and God save the queen are essentailly new mixes.

I think teh difference in sound is more down to DTS encoding, that anything else I suppose I should go back to the origianal DVDA and listen to the DTS track to confirm that.

I also could not see why the could not/would not add an MLP copy to the disc as well is that down to 'real estate' Neil I cant tell if its a DVD 5 or 10.

The CD I beleve got a general thumbs up on the Hoffman site at the time.

I also have both as I am quite a big queen fan and if the other albums were given this kind of Anniversary treatment then i would be a happy man.

8 for me though.

 

[neil wilkes]

The mix is not dramtically differenty from the original DVDA but as stated some missing parts were found and I believe a section of the Profet song and God save the queen are essentailly new mixes.

I think teh difference in sound is more down to DTS encoding, that anything else I suppose I should go back to the origianal DVDA and listen to the DTS track to confirm that.

I also could not see why the could not/would not add an MLP copy to the disc as well is that down to 'real estate' Neil I cant tell if its a DVD 5 or 10.

The CD I beleve got a general thumbs up on the Hoffman site at the time.

I also have both as I am quite a big queen fan and if the other albums were given this kind of Anniversary treatment then i would be a happy man.

8 for me though.

Telling if it's a DVD5 or a DVD9 is as simple as looking at the disc in your drive, and seeing how large it is!
If it is under 4.5Gb, then it's a DVD5. Larger and it is a DVD9.
Because of the heavy video content I would guess it's a 9.
Hold on a minute please, and I will go & look. Won't be long.....

Back - it's a DVD9, just - 5.32Gb so there is certainly enough room to add the lossless.
The DVD-A is a DVD( at 7.71Gb, split out as 3.36 in the Audio_TS and 3.85Gb in the Video_TS, so there is indeed plenty of room for the lossless to have been added. .

Moving right on. This new version really is different in my studio - it's a hell of a lot brighter, and the mixes are quite different on the tracks I have heard & compared. I will sit down & go one to the other, but just check Bohemian Rhapsody. Vocals are much, much louder in the rears to the point of overwhelming in places yet the DVD-A is far better balanced in this respect. The section in "The Prophets Song" is allegedly the vocal breakdown in the middle of it and again seems to be too loud in the rears.
Overall, it is also a lot louder with less dynamic. That is overcompression or overly hard limiting - Bob Ludwig seems to be VERY prone to this, check out the Layla SACD for an example. But i digress.
There are a lot of little things like this on the album.
Don't get me wrong - this is a great release, but to my mind the DVD-A simply sounds better, it's better balanced, it's not so squashed - and none of this is down to the DTS reduction. Sure, it loses a hell of a lot by chucking out data and even a DTS stream will sound somewhat thinner than a lossless stream.
I'm going to stop now, before I degenerate into pure ranting.
Buy this record - it is worth the money. But the DVD-A is still better.

 

[Ge Someone]

.. Bohemian Rhapsody. Vocals are much, much louder in the rears to the point of overwhelming in places[..] The section in "The Prophets Song" [..] again seems to be too loud in the rears.

I have noticed a few musical DVD-Vs that had (IMO) the rears +3dB, maybe this was one of them. In that case it might have been introduced in the (DTS) encoding stage or when mastered on a wrongly calibrated system (hard to imagine). THX has a mode where the rears are lowered -3dB, but it is meant for cinematic material really.

 

[daved64]

I have noticed a few musical DVD-Vs that had (IMO) the rears +3dB, maybe this was one of them. In that case it might have been introduced in the (DTS) encoding stage or when mastered on a wrongly calibrated system (hard to imagine). THX has a mode where the rears are lowered -3dB, but it is meant for cinematic material really.

I have not seen or read anything that makes me believe that this is a whole new mix other than God Save The Queen. I'm going with your theory of an encoding issue.

 

[rusinurbe]

Telling if it's a DVD5 or a DVD9 is as simple as looking at the disc in your drive, and seeing how large it is!
If it is under 4.5Gb, then it's a DVD5. Larger and it is a DVD9.
Because of the heavy video content I would guess it's a 9.
Hold on a minute please, and I will go & look. Won't be long.....

Back - it's a DVD9, just - 5.32Gb so there is certainly enough room to add the lossless.
The DVD-A is a DVD( at 7.71Gb, split out as 3.36 in the Audio_TS and 3.85Gb in the Video_TS, so there is indeed plenty of room for the lossless to have been added. .

Moving right on. This new version really is different in my studio - it's a hell of a lot brighter, and the mixes are quite different on the tracks I have heard & compared. I will sit down & go one to the other, but just check Bohemian Rhapsody. Vocals are much, much louder in the rears to the point of overwhelming in places yet the DVD-A is far better balanced in this respect. The section in "The Prophets Song" is allegedly the vocal breakdown in the middle of it and again seems to be too loud in the rears.
Overall, it is also a lot louder with less dynamic. That is overcompression or overly hard limiting - Bob Ludwig seems to be VERY prone to this, check out the Layla SACD for an example. But i digress.
There are a lot of little things like this on the album.
Don't get me wrong - this is a great release, but to my mind the DVD-A simply sounds better, it's better balanced, it's not so squashed - and none of this is down to the DTS reduction. Sure, it loses a hell of a lot by chucking out data and even a DTS stream will sound somewhat thinner than a lossless stream.
I'm going to stop now, before I degenerate into pure ranting.
Buy this record - it is worth the money. But the DVD-A is still better.

I was not saying that this is a bad release far from it i had hoped it would encourage the rest of teh Queen catalog to be revamped in 5.1 (Queen 2 and News of the World especially). sadly it does not look to be the case.

I believe any thing that sound different is down to the re-encoding the revamped mix due to the additional Multi track being found. I dont think that they would have gone out of their way to remix the whole album it was already pretty good.

Now Neil has confirmed the space is there it makes even less sense not including a Hi rez lossless surround track as well.

 

[ssully]

I realize the stereo version isn't the focus here, but I found it interesting that the stereo tracks on CD included in the new anniversary edition DTS DVD-V, were LESS dynamically compressed than the stereo tracks on the older DVD-A versiion

DVD-A stereo 'Death on Two Legs"

2007 anniversary CD

btw, the mulichannel mix on the DVD-A doesn't seem to be squashed like the stereo mix -- here's LR channels of Death on Two Legs

maybe someone else could rip the 2007 DTS 5.1 LR channels for comparison.?

 

[neil wilkes]

I'll rip both the DVD-A & the DTS-CD today.
About the mix.
The liner notes specifically state there have been changes. It's essentially the same core - but it is still different, and this is NOT down to the DTS encoding. If the rears are louder - and I think they are - then they have been turned up. When encoding, you can drop the rear levels in DTS & DD, but not in MLP - there is no provision to do this.
My guess is the mix was altered on a system that was calibrated for film/TV, with the rears actually set 3dB lower.

We will see when I do the comparison

 

[Ge Someone]

The liner notes specifically state there have been changes.

If I recall correctly Brian May had to change some very minor things (besides GSTQ).
There were some remarks about the mixes in this thread and this one (sometimes it is fun to see ones own reactions a few year later)

 

[neil wilkes]

Extracting the DTS stream right now.
The really odd thing is that according to DVDDecrypter, the DTS streams are 48KHz, not 96.
I assume this is an error in DVDDecrypter?
They decode at 24/96 though.........will be posting screenshots soon.

 

[Ge Someone]

The really odd thing is that according to DVDDecrypter, the DTS streams are 48KHz, not 96.

As you know, DTS 96/24 has a "core" stream that's standard 48kHz. It is pretty save to asume that DVDdecrypter doesn't know about the DTS 96/24 extension.

 

[neil wilkes]

As you know, DTS 96/24 has a "core" stream that's standard 48kHz. It is pretty save to asume that DVDdecrypter doesn't know about the DTS 96/24 extension.

That's true enough.
Running into trouble decrypting the DTS streams though.
I used the real DTS tool for the job (DTSDec command line) and the results were considerably shorter than the DVD-A.
Going to try again.
It seems the DTS-DVD version is a heck of a lot more compressed though....

 

[0tto]

i bought this DVD-A some 3 years ago.
never got patience to listen to the disc from start to the last chord.
incredible bad sonic picture. high pitch "s, sh" of voices easily can develop ears cancer after 5-10 minutes of listening.
unfortunately this defect appears not only on this disc but quite often can be heard on many others.

 

[Bob Squires Jr]

Neil,

Did you ever get to do a comparison between the Parlaphone version and the Hollywood release?
Since they have different core numbers,
I'm wondering if there are any oddities with that one.
(I know there are 2 different Hollywoods, one pre-release which sounds like
cattle fodder, and the normal issue.)

-Bob

 

[neil wilkes]

Neil,

Did you ever get to do a comparison between the Parlaphone version and the Hollywood release?
Since they have different core numbers,
I'm wondering if there are any oddities with that one.
(I know there are 2 different Hollywoods, one pre-release which sounds like
cattle fodder, and the normal issue.)

-Bob

I don't have a parlophone version. That is seriously scarce & I have only ever heard about it & never seen one.
I have the 2 Hollywood records versions (The Pre-Release & the one I got from yourself), with different hub numbers but I have not (yet) had the time to check the mixes. I will try to make time.
Different Hub Numbers mean that a different master set was used. This could be caused by one of 2 things - either an authoring error or a mix change. Given the potential for a clash between Elliot & Brian May, I suspect the latter. ALl I do know is that one of the engineers at Brian May's studio confirms there were multiple versions done for ANATO.

 

[Bob Squires Jr]

I don't have a parlophone version. That is seriously scarce & I have only ever heard about it & never seen one.
I have the 2 Hollywood records versions (The Pre-Release & the one I got from yourself), with different hub numbers but I have not (yet) had the time to check the mixes. I will try to make time.
Different Hub Numbers mean that a different master set was used. This could be caused by one of 2 things - either an authoring error or a mix change. Given the potential for a clash between Elliot & Brian May, I suspect the latter. ALl I do know is that one of the engineers at Brian May's studio confirms there were multiple versions done for ANATO.

Here are some scans of the disc and rear cover of the Parlophone edition.
The front cover does not appear to be different.
Disc bears the numbers of EMI5398309/1.2

 

[neil wilkes]

That is definitely different to both my versions, which are Hollywood Records.
Your Bar Code is different, the logo placement on the back cover is different, and the disc number implies EMI put that one out.
I'd suggest it might be a UK/Europe version apart from the NTSC logo on the rear cover.
Wonder if the mix is different, or if it is the same as one of the 2 DVD-A versions I have here.....

 

[Bob Squires Jr]

I'd suggest it might be a UK/Europe version apart from the NTSC logo on the rear cover.

I bought it from HMV Japan if that helps... which is why it would be EMI and still be NTSC maybe?? You will soon be able to make a comparison.

-Bob

 

[Chris Gerhard]

This thread got sidetracked with discussion of the various DVD-A's but I just purchased this DVD-V, despite owning a couple of the various DVD-A versions. My Yamaha RX-V663 receiver calls this a 96/24 DTS disc and I have noticed most people describe these DTS DVD-V's as 24/96. The video content isn't great but I might sit through it again and see if I find it more interesting. Overall, I think it is very close to as good as the DVD-A. Based on comparisons to other surround DVD-V's, this one gets a 9 from me.