HiRez Poll Queen - NIGHT AT THE OPERA [DVD-A/BluRay Audio]

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Rate the DVD-A/BDA of Queen - A NIGHT AT THE OPERA


  • Total voters
    200
The lossless stereo mix is the smashed one on the 2002 DVDA. Noticed it back in 2008 and posted about it on Hydrogenaudio and here. (Unfortunately the screencaps didn't survive the extinction of various image hosting services.)

I've only done stereo DVD-A rip-->FLAC-->playback, is there a primer anywhere for ripping, storing (FLAC) and playing back multichannel tracks with foobar2k?

Btw, it's kind of sad how many DVD-A (checking stereo only so far) are turning out to be 'loudness wars' victims. Queen's 'Night at the Opera' looks better on the recent anniversary CD, than on the DVD-A from 2002. The recent Talking Heads dualdiscs are also quite dynamically limited as is Yes 'Fragile' and the Who's 'Tommy'. DVD-A tracks from Billy Cobham, Neil Young, and Deep Purple, however, display 'natural' , expansive waveforms. I can post screencaps if anyone's interested.

Curiosities: The Queen ANatO stereo tracks are stored on the DVD-A as one gigantic LPCM file. Interesting 'authoring' there. The Talking Heads 'Speaking in Tongues' Dualdisc has the L/R channels reversed in the DVD-A stereo version compared to the CD track.

NB again that the ANATO 5.1 mix on the same DVDA is NOT loudness-war compressed. Just the original stereo mix mastering.
 
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The lossless stereo mix is the smashed one on the 2002 DVDA. Noticed it back in 2008 and posted about it on Hydrogenaudio and here. (Unfortunately the screencaps didn't survive the extinction of various image hosting services.)



NB again that the ANATO 5.1 mix on the DVDA is NOT loudness-war compressed. Just the original stereo mix mastering.
Yes I remember that. The HFPA blu ray is exactly the opposite!
 
The DVDA was one of the first multichannel discs I bought back when Best Buy had a section for them.
It was disc 1 or 2, most likely from Best Buy, along with Brain Salad Surgery, unfortunately I don't have the receipt to see which was scanned first. These were purchased after setting up my first 5.1 system (2001 or 2002) and before I could play MLP. They put me on a path I've never looked back from.
 
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There is a slight error on the song "You're My Best Friend" for the DVD-A release (not sure if it's an issue on the blu-ray, too). The center channel of the mix is in the wrong polarity. The reason I say it's a slight error is because the center channel is mixed pretty quietly, so I am unsure how big a difference inverting the polarity would make to the track.
 
In terms of DR, I don't think the complete stereo version on the DVD-A is any different. It's very compressed, while the 5.1 mix is not.
 
The complete 96/24 LPCM original stereo mix (complete with smashed DR too) is in the VIDEO_TS folder.
If you want the stereo mix look at the HFPA blu ray. Awful brick walled 5.1 but a great stereo transfer, complete opposite of the DVD-A/V.
 
If you want the stereo mix look at the HFPA blu ray. Awful brick walled 5.1 but a great stereo transfer, complete opposite of the DVD-A/V.
I forget. Does that version have an actual 5.1 version of "God Save the Queen"? I believe they didn't have the multitracks for the initial 2003 mix, if I remember correctly.
 
I forget. Does that version have an actual 5.1 version of "God Save the Queen"? I believe they didn't have the multitracks for the initial 2003 mix, if I remember correctly.
The DVD-V and Blu Ray both have brick walled 5.1 mixes, but both also have a true 5.1 remix of God Save The Queen. As you rightly say the DVD-A/V had an upmix as they could not find the multi tracks.
 
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