Unfortunately, I don't know if they are to die for...but they are quite good.
BluRay Music Video Poll The Beatles - 1/1+ [BluRay]
- Thread starter JonUrban
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Unfortunately, I don't know if they are to die for...but they are quite good.
To anyone in the group:
Are the surround channels strictly reverb? ..Or do some occasional (truly discrete pieces) ever make their way into the surrounds?
If the video sections were reviewed as "The Beatles in 3-channel sound", (L/C/R) what type of ranking would you give it?
Thanks!!
Are the surround channels strictly reverb? ..Or do some occasional (truly discrete pieces) ever make their way into the surrounds?
If the video sections were reviewed as "The Beatles in 3-channel sound", (L/C/R) what type of ranking would you give it?
Thanks!!
No. It varies a lot from mix to mix, but Giles certainly put a lot of time into this. I listened to a bunch of the mixes in Adobe Audition last night (isolating individual channels), and many of the songs have real (if not terribly adventurous) five channel mixes. For example, listen to Let it Be: you'll hear choral background vocals (and other parts) in the surrounds. You'll also hear a fair amount of reverb. Some of the mixes are decent, but some are hopeless, as the input tapes are substandard (e.g., From Me to You, Words of Love).
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But the single DVD release does not contain the stereo studio mix; they're on the CD.
And the Dynamic Range of the 1+ CD is the second lowest (DR 8) of any Beatles release listed on the Loudness Wars website.
I was very excited when word came out that this was going to released, but like they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The poor surround issue is just one of many lost opportunities in the surround world. But the point Jon is making here is quite valid. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the stereo audio contained on this the highest resolution possible at this point in time. The stereo was remixed as well on this. Correct? At one point in my life, a better sounding Beatles re-issue would have been a big deal. Can someone try to describe the quality of the stereo content by comparing it to the most recent stereo re-masters series? I hope asking about the stereo fidelity isn't blasphemy here... but inquiring minds want to know ....before deciding where to spend my hard earned 5.1 dollars.
IMO, the stereo mixes of the studio tracks on the BluRays are the best and cleanest that I have ever heard except for Get Back on BluRay 1. For some reason, it does not sound nearly as good as the 2009 stereo remaster. However, version 2 of Get Back on BluRay 2 is nice and clean. I enhanced the music to 7.1 using DPLIIx and Logic7 and I was really pleased with the results. Other than Get Back version1, these stereo studio tracks on the BluRays are my go-to versions. Hope this helps.
Is that good or bad?
No stereo on the DVD? How is that possible?
alk3997
500 Club - QQ All-Star
The lower the DR number, the more compressed. An 8 is listed as just above "bad" by the website.
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=The Beatles
But, don't go too much by just a single number. The Love CD shows heavier compression than most other Beatles albums and yet it is quite enjoyable.
Andy
There are stereo mixes on the DVD/Blu-Ray, but they're of the soundtracks to the videos, which are not (always) the same versions present on the CD. Also they're not designed to be listened to as a continuous experience, but individually: the transitions are choppy. The CD contains new stero mixes of canonical studio version, sequenced to be listened to from start to finish.
Finally, I think I have a good way to listen to these. First, I prefer the stereo to the surround mix. The surround mix is loud, and it feels fatiguing unless I set to -36 or so db. Next, using the jukebox setting and selecting the songs eliminates the title cards between songs. Lastly, I am comparing the stereo versions to the 44/24 files from the usb and the blu Ray stereo is (so far) profoundly superior in clarity. This is a change from my first impressions from when I first got this, so there you go.
alk3997
500 Club - QQ All-Star
The Beatles 1+ Blu-Ray / CD collection is first and foremost a video collection. Really, it’s a stereo video collection, where the lossless 5.1-channel DTS-HD Master Audio track was an afterthought. In fact, the default audio setting on the discs is "stereo". The user must select the 5.1-channel audio track from the discs' setup menu to hear Beatles 1+ in 5.1-channel sound.
The videos, with the exception of the Get Back / Let It Be – project videos, were painstakingly restored. Those videos are a lot of fun to watch and provide a fascinating record of music videos during the birth of the medium. After watching the early black-and-white videos, the restored color looks even more vivid.
The Atari-era graphics on disc 1 are just bad. But they convey what song is coming up and allow (almost always) the Blu-Ray player to transition between one resolution / frame rate and another. Or, at least they should but on songs such as Come Together, they weren’t quite long enough for most players.
However, this isn’t the Videophonic-Vid forum (for video watchers). It isn’t the Monophonic-Mon forum (perhaps that’s reggae?). It isn’t the Stereophonic-Steer forum, either (don’t know what that would be for). It is the Quadraphonic-Quad forum and is a forum for those who obsess over multichannel and high resolution music, like myself.
From a 5.1-channel review standpoint, never has an offical Beatles release have been so “uneven”. I really want to like this 5.1-channel release but, again, it really comes across as a superfluous mix. It is so similar to the stereo version that 5.1-channel mix might as well not have been included.
The 5.1-channel mix is dominated by the front left and front right speakers. Some, reduced level vocals are included in the center channel. The rear channels include discrete instruments but those same instruments are always included in the front channels. This means that, at most, the instruments will be heard approximately half-way back in the 5.1-channel surround field. To be fair, on the later-era songs, vocals do occasionally fill the sound space, which is a nice effect.
The lack of the use of the full 5.1-channel sound field was an artistic decision by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, who are credited with (blamed for?) the 5.1-channel mix. Since this is foremost a video mix the pair felt, and the Apple directors agreed, that the sound should focus the viewers up front.
This is true to a certain extent, but the sound effects in Yellow Submarine certainly could be “freed” to move across the full room, right? That is the way we heard it with the Yellow Submarine movie 5.1-channel mix. The surround mix of Tomorrow Never Knows / Within You Without You for Love didn’t need to be “flattened”, did it? More-fuller surround mixes exist – we’ve heard them on the Yellow Submarine DVD (and then Blu-Ray) 5.1-channel mix, the Anthology DVD DTS 5.1-channel mix and the Love DVD-Audio 5.1-channel mix.
And, perhaps, that’s the actual rub that is irritating people. We’ve heard more-engaging (fuller?) 5.1-channel Beatles mixes. Many of us actually own them from the previous releases. We know what could be done because it has been done in the past. In many cases while listening, I caught myself thinking, “why couldn’t they have just copied the old 5.1-channel mixes?”
But, the use of the full 5.1-channel sound field is only half of what we are here for. There is also the improved audio fidelity.
The Beatles 1+ Blu-Ray offers 96-kHz / 24-bit sound. This should have improved the “sonic experience” for all of us. And, certainly, for tracks like Lady Madonna and Hey Bulldog, it has. Those songs benefit from the processing that was performed. Ringo’s snare drum on Penny Lane has never sounded better. In fact, Ringo’s drums seem to benefit the most from this new release.
The songs that use live tracks are amazing to my ears / brain. Given the quality of the audio that the Abbey Road team started with, to hear these live tracks with such clarity (and with reduced screaming) is amazing. This bodes-well for next year’s “Beatles Live” release and the eventual re-release of The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl.
However, the LFE channel throughout the two discs is so poorly mastered that the LFE channel becomes distracting on many of the tracks. This was exactly what Giles Martin said they were trying not to do – distract the video watcher with the audio. The LFE on Ticket To Ride has such a high level as to cause the room to shake. There are at least 8 other songs that have LFE levels that are way too high. If all of the songs had LFE levels with exactly the same amount of overage it would be one thing, but having the mega-bass levels show up seemingly randomly by song just means that the quality control by Tim Young and his associates at Metropolis Studios was poor. Mr. Young is credited with performing the 5.1-channel audio mastering.
The other audio quality question was the use of compression, as it seems to appear in the front left and front right channels. These channels always peak right at 0dB indicating that normalization has been used to make every song's front left and front right channels use the full upper dynamic range of the 24-bit words. However, particularly in the songs up through Hello Goodbye, the levels don’t drop off much. It’s not unusual (credit Tom Jones) to see the digital VU meters stay between -4dB and 0dB for the entire song. This is likely the result of compression and if the “loudness wars” website is to be believed, this would be consistent with the large amount of compression used on the remixed Beatles 1+ CD.
So that brings us to the end of this long and winding review. Despite its flaws, I found myself really enjoying the Beatles 1+ Blu-Ray / CD release. But, that was because of the videos. It is after all, a video release. It is a stereo video release. It is not a 5.1-channel masterpiece or anywhere close. The 5.1-channel track has flaws, including the 2-dimensional surround mix and the obvious flaws in the mastering of the LFE channel of some songs. Overall, this release is a 5.1-channel mess but then there are those great (or at least strange) videos.
If this was a video site, I’d give this collection a 9. But, this is a multichannel, high resolution audio site and from that perspective, I give the Beatles 1+ Blu-Ray/CD collection a solid 6.
Andy
The videos, with the exception of the Get Back / Let It Be – project videos, were painstakingly restored. Those videos are a lot of fun to watch and provide a fascinating record of music videos during the birth of the medium. After watching the early black-and-white videos, the restored color looks even more vivid.
The Atari-era graphics on disc 1 are just bad. But they convey what song is coming up and allow (almost always) the Blu-Ray player to transition between one resolution / frame rate and another. Or, at least they should but on songs such as Come Together, they weren’t quite long enough for most players.
However, this isn’t the Videophonic-Vid forum (for video watchers). It isn’t the Monophonic-Mon forum (perhaps that’s reggae?). It isn’t the Stereophonic-Steer forum, either (don’t know what that would be for). It is the Quadraphonic-Quad forum and is a forum for those who obsess over multichannel and high resolution music, like myself.
From a 5.1-channel review standpoint, never has an offical Beatles release have been so “uneven”. I really want to like this 5.1-channel release but, again, it really comes across as a superfluous mix. It is so similar to the stereo version that 5.1-channel mix might as well not have been included.
The 5.1-channel mix is dominated by the front left and front right speakers. Some, reduced level vocals are included in the center channel. The rear channels include discrete instruments but those same instruments are always included in the front channels. This means that, at most, the instruments will be heard approximately half-way back in the 5.1-channel surround field. To be fair, on the later-era songs, vocals do occasionally fill the sound space, which is a nice effect.
The lack of the use of the full 5.1-channel sound field was an artistic decision by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, who are credited with (blamed for?) the 5.1-channel mix. Since this is foremost a video mix the pair felt, and the Apple directors agreed, that the sound should focus the viewers up front.
This is true to a certain extent, but the sound effects in Yellow Submarine certainly could be “freed” to move across the full room, right? That is the way we heard it with the Yellow Submarine movie 5.1-channel mix. The surround mix of Tomorrow Never Knows / Within You Without You for Love didn’t need to be “flattened”, did it? More-fuller surround mixes exist – we’ve heard them on the Yellow Submarine DVD (and then Blu-Ray) 5.1-channel mix, the Anthology DVD DTS 5.1-channel mix and the Love DVD-Audio 5.1-channel mix.
And, perhaps, that’s the actual rub that is irritating people. We’ve heard more-engaging (fuller?) 5.1-channel Beatles mixes. Many of us actually own them from the previous releases. We know what could be done because it has been done in the past. In many cases while listening, I caught myself thinking, “why couldn’t they have just copied the old 5.1-channel mixes?”
But, the use of the full 5.1-channel sound field is only half of what we are here for. There is also the improved audio fidelity.
The Beatles 1+ Blu-Ray offers 96-kHz / 24-bit sound. This should have improved the “sonic experience” for all of us. And, certainly, for tracks like Lady Madonna and Hey Bulldog, it has. Those songs benefit from the processing that was performed. Ringo’s snare drum on Penny Lane has never sounded better. In fact, Ringo’s drums seem to benefit the most from this new release.
The songs that use live tracks are amazing to my ears / brain. Given the quality of the audio that the Abbey Road team started with, to hear these live tracks with such clarity (and with reduced screaming) is amazing. This bodes-well for next year’s “Beatles Live” release and the eventual re-release of The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl.
However, the LFE channel throughout the two discs is so poorly mastered that the LFE channel becomes distracting on many of the tracks. This was exactly what Giles Martin said they were trying not to do – distract the video watcher with the audio. The LFE on Ticket To Ride has such a high level as to cause the room to shake. There are at least 8 other songs that have LFE levels that are way too high. If all of the songs had LFE levels with exactly the same amount of overage it would be one thing, but having the mega-bass levels show up seemingly randomly by song just means that the quality control by Tim Young and his associates at Metropolis Studios was poor. Mr. Young is credited with performing the 5.1-channel audio mastering.
The other audio quality question was the use of compression, as it seems to appear in the front left and front right channels. These channels always peak right at 0dB indicating that normalization has been used to make every song's front left and front right channels use the full upper dynamic range of the 24-bit words. However, particularly in the songs up through Hello Goodbye, the levels don’t drop off much. It’s not unusual (credit Tom Jones) to see the digital VU meters stay between -4dB and 0dB for the entire song. This is likely the result of compression and if the “loudness wars” website is to be believed, this would be consistent with the large amount of compression used on the remixed Beatles 1+ CD.
So that brings us to the end of this long and winding review. Despite its flaws, I found myself really enjoying the Beatles 1+ Blu-Ray / CD release. But, that was because of the videos. It is after all, a video release. It is a stereo video release. It is not a 5.1-channel masterpiece or anywhere close. The 5.1-channel track has flaws, including the 2-dimensional surround mix and the obvious flaws in the mastering of the LFE channel of some songs. Overall, this release is a 5.1-channel mess but then there are those great (or at least strange) videos.
If this was a video site, I’d give this collection a 9. But, this is a multichannel, high resolution audio site and from that perspective, I give the Beatles 1+ Blu-Ray/CD collection a solid 6.
Andy
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This is a difficult one to rate fairly.
The quality of the material is well known. You either like it or you don't. For the most part I do.
To a degree quality of video is wasted on me. I'm more than happy with some of the grainiest offerings on YouTube. They have obviously put a lot of work into remastering the video, and it is probably as good as it is possible for it to be.
Video quality - 10
The stereo sound is at first impressive. Then it becomes fatiguing and it doesn't take long to realise that it's too darn hot for my liking. None of the mixes strike me as being an improvement. I am content with the original mixes, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest if the vocals are in one speaker and the accompaniment in the other.
Stereo as a listening experience - 4.
Stereo audio-visual - 7.
Insofar as surround sound is concerned I prefer aggressive stage/studio perspective to audience. I am not at all impressed by add-a-track ambiance that wasn't present on the original recordings. Interestingly, I haven't any problems with excessive bass on any of the tracks.
Surround as a listening experience - 1.
Surround audio-visual - 7.
The quality of the material is well known. You either like it or you don't. For the most part I do.
To a degree quality of video is wasted on me. I'm more than happy with some of the grainiest offerings on YouTube. They have obviously put a lot of work into remastering the video, and it is probably as good as it is possible for it to be.
Video quality - 10
The stereo sound is at first impressive. Then it becomes fatiguing and it doesn't take long to realise that it's too darn hot for my liking. None of the mixes strike me as being an improvement. I am content with the original mixes, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest if the vocals are in one speaker and the accompaniment in the other.
Stereo as a listening experience - 4.
Stereo audio-visual - 7.
Insofar as surround sound is concerned I prefer aggressive stage/studio perspective to audience. I am not at all impressed by add-a-track ambiance that wasn't present on the original recordings. Interestingly, I haven't any problems with excessive bass on any of the tracks.
Surround as a listening experience - 1.
Surround audio-visual - 7.
I think you are misreading my intentions....I'm not being mean spirited at all..at least that is not my intention
I don't think you come across well in your reaction to my post on the other thread.
I am not traumatised. Less than delighted, but not traumatised. Neither was I traumatised by A Hard Day's Night. If something pleases me, I say so. If something displeases me I rarely bother to say anything. If something really displeases me then I will say so.
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milt
800 Club - QQ All-Star
Wow only 10 people so far voting in the poll.
I know a LOT more than than that on this forum bought it.
I guess I'm going to buck the mainstream opinion on Beatles 1 because I'm very happy with it.
At the announcement I was kind of quizzical about it being based on videos but the content convinced me.
I bought the CD\2 BD set and wonder why people would consider anything else.
I've listened to the stereo mixes twice and the 5.1 once.
I find the 5.1 to be excellent. Nice life-sized soundstage that fills my room.
The fidelity is awesome and again a tribute to everyone who created them.
One only has to compare Beatle recordings with their contemporaries like The Stones and the difference is stark.
The only track I found distracting was the boosted LFE on Ticket To Ride. Way too hot.
None of the others mentioned here seemed blown out at all.
The 2nd disc is especially good with the live tracks really standing out and showing how good The Beatles could be as a live band.
I'm going to give this a 10. The hot LFE on 1 track isn't going to drive me crazy and I'm not going to bother changing the trim
Video quality - 9 to 10. Obviously some are better than others but that is source dependent and overall they're excellent.
Sound Quality - 10. Same as above. When it's good it's brilliant.
2.0 - 9. They are a bit hot but not overly so and it is very nice to hear the stereo mixes properly balanced instead of the fake stereo on the originals.
5.1 - 10. Surely not as immersive as Love but that was not the intent of the producers. I think they did fine job and we don't have to endure the mashup shit except on TNK\WYWY.
That really is my biggest complaint on this release. Why in the world they didn't do a discrete version of TNK mystifies me.
It's such a great song. The driving rhythm section is fantastic.
Ok, let the flaming arrows fly.
I know a LOT more than than that on this forum bought it.
I guess I'm going to buck the mainstream opinion on Beatles 1 because I'm very happy with it.
At the announcement I was kind of quizzical about it being based on videos but the content convinced me.
I bought the CD\2 BD set and wonder why people would consider anything else.
I've listened to the stereo mixes twice and the 5.1 once.
I find the 5.1 to be excellent. Nice life-sized soundstage that fills my room.
The fidelity is awesome and again a tribute to everyone who created them.
One only has to compare Beatle recordings with their contemporaries like The Stones and the difference is stark.
The only track I found distracting was the boosted LFE on Ticket To Ride. Way too hot.
None of the others mentioned here seemed blown out at all.
The 2nd disc is especially good with the live tracks really standing out and showing how good The Beatles could be as a live band.
I'm going to give this a 10. The hot LFE on 1 track isn't going to drive me crazy and I'm not going to bother changing the trim
Video quality - 9 to 10. Obviously some are better than others but that is source dependent and overall they're excellent.
Sound Quality - 10. Same as above. When it's good it's brilliant.
2.0 - 9. They are a bit hot but not overly so and it is very nice to hear the stereo mixes properly balanced instead of the fake stereo on the originals.
5.1 - 10. Surely not as immersive as Love but that was not the intent of the producers. I think they did fine job and we don't have to endure the mashup shit except on TNK\WYWY.
That really is my biggest complaint on this release. Why in the world they didn't do a discrete version of TNK mystifies me.
It's such a great song. The driving rhythm section is fantastic.
Ok, let the flaming arrows fly.
Wow only 10 people so far voting in the poll.
I know a LOT more than than that on this forum bought it.
I guess I'm going to buck the mainstream opinion on Beatles 1 because I'm very happy with it.
At the announcement I was kind of quizzical about it being based on videos but the content convinced me.
I bought the CD\2 BD set and wonder why people would consider anything else.
I've listened to the stereo mixes twice and the 5.1 once.
I find the 5.1 to be excellent. Nice life-sized soundstage that fills my room.
The fidelity is awesome and again a tribute to everyone who created them.
One only has to compare Beatle recordings with their contemporaries like The Stones and the difference is stark.
The only track I found distracting was the boosted LFE on Ticket To Ride. Way too hot.
None of the others mentioned here seemed blown out at all.
The 2nd disc is especially good with the live tracks really standing out and showing how good The Beatles could be as a live band.
I'm going to give this a 10. The hot LFE on 1 track isn't going to drive me crazy and I'm not going to bother changing the trim
Video quality - 9 to 10. Obviously some are better than others but that is source dependent and overall they're excellent.
Sound Quality - 10. Same as above. When it's good it's brilliant.
2.0 - 9. They are a bit hot but not overly so and it is very nice to hear the stereo mixes properly balanced instead of the fake stereo on the originals.
5.1 - 10. Surely not as immersive as Love but that was not the intent of the producers. I think they did fine job and we don't have to endure the mashup shit except on TNK\WYWY.
That really is my biggest complaint on this release. Why in the world they didn't do a discrete version of TNK mystifies me.
It's such a great song. The driving rhythm section is fantastic.
Ok, let the flaming arrows fly.
Nobody is going to flame you...just remember to actually vote on the poll above...
Ok, let the flaming arrows fly.
I hope that they don't. One should always feel able to state their opinions.
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