Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Home video audio remixing

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-16-2008, 03:03 AM:

Does anyone know how much remixing is done on the AC3 tracks of a DVD release these days? I have a feeling most movies today are remixed for "small rooms" and/or "crappy speakers", rather than taking the pure 5.1 mix and transferring it to the DVD release.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-16-2008, 03:16 AM:

Hard to say. I know Aladdin has a "home theater" 5.1 mix that sounds absolutely gawdawful as well as the "original 5.1 mix" which sounds so much better.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-16-2008, 11:37 AM:

I think it's a pretty common thing for DVDs and Blu-ray discs to have slightly different mixes from what played in movie theaters.

Many movie soundtracks are mixed with the "X-Curve" of large auditoriums in mind. A big part of the "Home THX" thing was adjusting EQ to counteract that when playing the same mix at home. There is some merit in developing a "near field" mix without that X-curve being part of the audio. That's something New Line has advertised on some of their DVDs.

I also think the filmmakers often go back and change things between the theatrical release and DVD release, possibly to fix things they missed in a blind rush. It sucks that a feature film's mix is often assembled at the last minute. The score, ADR, foley, etc. of a movie that just opened such as Quantum of Solace may have had many of those elements in production into late October or even the beginning of November. Audio editing tools benefit from much more powerful, precise and sophisticated technology than ever before. Even still, if things get done in a rush something is going to get done half-assed.

Then there's the issue of Dolby•EX, 6.1 discrete and 7.1 discrete channel mixes. A lot more of those have been produced for home theater than for commercial movie theaters. Dark City didn't have a 7.1, four surround channel mix during its theatrical run in early 1998. Yet the Blu-ray version has a 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-16-2008, 07:46 PM:

Do any commercial movies have a true 7.1 discrete mix? They'd have to be d-cinema or some sort of newfangled DTS, and I've yet to hear about theatrical 7.1 (4 surround) mixes.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 11-16-2008, 09:43 PM:

I'll echo Bobby's comments about re-mixing for DVD release. When I lived in SoCal and could take part in the Hollywood SMPTE meetings and tours of local post facilities, one of things commonly shown was the mixing rooms for video release.

These rooms were much smaller than the mixdown stages used for theatrical release mixes. These rooms were sized to approximate a small living room, and the monitors used were chosen and optimized for listening in the near field.

So yeah, I'd say that the chances are high that what you hear coming from a DVD or Blu-ray disc will be different (sometimes quite different) from the original theatrical mix.

Even the various theatrical mixes of a given title may be different from each other, such as the Dolby SR mix versus the Dolby Digital mix. The mix desks can be set up to automatically fold the digital mix down to LT and RT, but the LT/RT mix is checked separately and can be adjusted separately.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-16-2008, 11:40 PM:

Even the digital mixes can be different from each other on a release print, but that is pretty obvious (SDDS-8, duh).

I imagine (i.e. my guess) that perhaps the EQ is adjusted for near field most of the time but only rarely is tampering with the actual effects/placement/levels done... mostly with the conversion to 7.1 or whatnot.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-17-2008, 07:46 AM:

What is the deal with "7.1" home systems, anyway? Do they actually reproduce seven discrete channels plus subwoofer? How is that possible on a DVD? I was under the impression that DVDs only support five discrete channels plus subwoofer, which could be extended to six channels plus sub with EX.

Is this just a marketing scam, or is there an actual extra channel? If so, where do the speakers go?

And is anyone else annoyed when films originally mixed for Dolby Stereo (pre-digital, 2:4 matrix) all seem to have some new whizzy-bangy "Dolby Digital 5.1!!!" remix for their video release? Why can't the video producers at least include the original mix as an option? It's not as if it would cost anything, since the original mix already exists. Same for films with both a mono mix and a Dolby mix--why not include both (not everyone has a surround system at home, and the mono mix would sound better on a crappy TV speaker)?

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 11-17-2008, 08:29 AM:

DVDs can have 6.1 discrete channels, but 7.1 is a Blu-ray thing. The extra speaker is a fourth surround channel.

quote: Scott Norwood
And is anyone else annoyed when films originally mixed for Dolby Stereo (pre-digital, 2:4 matrix) all seem to have some new whizzy-bangy "Dolby Digital 5.1!!!" remix for their video release?

Hell yes!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-17-2008, 09:19 AM:

Scott, I wish they would include the original theatrical 5.1 mix. From what I can tell (and the few times I sit in front of a tv) some of these remixes are all toned down for some shitty little Bose system or something.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-17-2008, 09:50 AM:

Or maybe they're mixed so dialog comes out of the surround speakers so "redneck videophiles" won't think their system is defective! [Big Grin]

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 11-17-2008, 10:42 AM:

When most people refer to 7.1 surround, they are talking about the number of speakers they have, not necessarily the source they are using. However, for those few that are using the term correctly, 7.1 channel surround sound is only possible with DTS HD audio, which can only be found on Blu-ray and HD DVD.

DVD has had 6.1 channel mixes using Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES, but those sound formats cannot handle discrete channels greater than 6.1 (AFAIK).

DTS HD (both lossy High Resolution Audio and lossless Master Audio) can have up to 7.1 discrete channels. There are different speaker configurations, which can be specified in the DTS data, which dictate where the speakers should be located for each channel. The most common 7.1 configuration is going to be where there are side surrounds to each side of the listener and then back surrounds behind them at an angle. An alternate configuration has the side surrounds behind the listener as well with the rear surrounds between them:

Speaker Layout / Configuration

Widescreen Review had a lengthy article about the subject of home theater mixes and how the sound place for New Line handled soundtracks for home video releases. The fact that there is no real standard for where people should place the surrounds makes it challenging for the sound people to do the best possible.

The various speaker configurations as outlined on DTS' site seem confusing and unnecessary at first, but they serve as a specification for where the sound channels are being mixed to in the studio. In theory, the A/V processor that is installed could take that information and correllate it with the configuration of speakers in the installation and remix the channels as necessary to orient the sound as originally intended.

My setup is similar to the 7.1 Standard configuration, which I believe is the common configuration that the audio firm for New Line was using. I use the DSP in my receiver to extract rear surround information for those movies that do not have discrete channels and I'm very satisfied with the result!

I also have wiring in the ceiling for a over-the-listener height channel and I can wire for front height channels as well. My receiver can do the latter but not the former, and I haven't been curious enough to play around with it. I'm interested in the effect that a over-the-head channel would have, but not enough to cut the holes and install ceiling speakers just to experiment...

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-17-2008, 10:59 AM:

quote: Scott Norwood
What is the deal with "7.1" home systems, anyway? Do they actually reproduce seven discrete channels plus subwoofer? How is that possible on a DVD?

DTS-ES 6.1 is the only format for DVD that offered more than 5.1 discrete channels of audio. Dolby•EX was still a 5.1 channel format with a matrix-derived center surround channel.

quote: Scott Jentsch
When most people refer to 7.1 surround, they are talking about the number of speakers they have, not necessarily the source they are using. However, for those few that are using the term correctly, 7.1 channel surround sound is only possible with DTS HD audio, which can only be found on Blu-ray and HD DVD.

That's incorrect.

Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio (lossy), DTS-HD Master Audio (lossless) and Linear PCM can all feature 7.1 discrete channel mixes on Blu-ray.

3:10 to Yuma is one example of a Blu-ray movie with a 7.1 discrete LPCM mix.

The Nightmare Before Christmas has a 7.1 discrete mix in Dolby TrueHD.

I don't know of any Blu-ray discs or HD-DVD titles that have featured Dolby Digital Plus 7.1. However, DD-Plus definitely does support 7.1.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army has a 7.1 discrete DTS-HD Master Audio mix. Guillermo Del Toro also used 7.1 DTS-HD audio on the Blu-ray discs of The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-17-2008, 06:13 PM:

Scott, I am not usually annoyed with the 5.1 remixes. Those like Back to the Future, Ghostbusters or whatnot are certainly not "whiz-bang" but definitely better than matrixed stereo. One mix that I have heard ruined was when they remixed Terminator 1 from mono to 5.1. They used all new sound effects and that was really odd and distracting.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-17-2008, 06:47 PM:

I agree about the 5.1 Dolby•EX remix on The Terminator DVD being pretty odd. They used a bunch of the same sound effects used on T2, which included some pretty unrealistic handgun sound effects. It's very different from the original mono mix -which had its own weird choices (like the Dirty Harry .44 magnum sound effect applied on numerous different handguns). On the bright side, the original mono track at least was included on the DVD.

I understand the filmmakers have the need to beef up elements like handgun sound effects. However, it would be nice if they still had some sense of realism to them. NONE of the audio mixes to The Terminator have ever had a realistic sounding .45 auto handgun sound effect.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 11-21-2008, 09:34 AM:

I stand corrected on the 7+ discrete channels issue; I neglected to read my own Help documentation that I created when I researched the issue last year.

web page

Dolby TrueHD is actually capable of 8 full range channels, but I've never heard of any title taking advantage of it. TrueHD mixes greater than 5.1 have been so few and far between that I must have erased it from my memory as something that was possible with that format. Likewise with PCM 7.1!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-21-2008, 10:53 AM:

Dolby TrueHD is actually capable of playing much more than just 8 channels of audio. The Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats limit any audio storage/playback format to 8 channels.

It is pretty strange how there's so few Blu-ray movies using Dolby TrueHD for 7.1 audio.

It seems like DTS-HD Master Audio gets a lot more use for 7.1 channel releases. Disney even surprised me when they released Sleeping Beauty with a DTS-HD 7.1 mix rather than something in Dolby TrueHD. Maybe Disney made some sort of deal with DTS. The Wall•E BD has a DTS-HD Master Audio track on it rather than the Dolby formats normally found on Pixar releases.

Lionsgate has released a decent number of movies on Blu-ray with 7.1 channel LPCM mixes.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-21-2008, 04:08 PM:

Wall-E is in 6.1 channels despite the box saying it is 5.1. I imagine they took the original 6.1 discrete mix and slapped it on the disc which became the matrixed EX/ES mix that the theaters played.

Posted by Jon P. Inghram (Member # 4125) on 11-21-2008, 04:51 PM:

The 25th anniversary DVD of Blade Runner has some (IMHO) horrible sounding reverb effects added in certain scenes, like when Roy and Leon are interrogating the eye guy (James Hong.) The 1992 Directors Cut release sounds much better to me but unfortunately I haven't seen it in the theater so I can't make that comparison.

In Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future was almost unintelligible when we saw it in the theater, while on the DVD he sounds fine.

On the other hand, the 1998 DVD release of The Thing (haven't heard the '04 re-release version) sounded, to me at least, to be a good match to the theatrical version which I saw recently. The picture however did not compare very well: The theatrical version blew the DVD away. Even after seeing the DVD many times I had never noticed that at least one of the dogs had one blue and one brown eye, and that one character had a nose ring.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-21-2008, 05:36 PM:

Presumably home THX settings are supposed to compensate for the differences between the theater and the home environment. According to the article a theater mix needs a brighter sound which would support what Joe Redifer stated about the results from his auto-setup feature on his new receiver. Of course if the DVD producer "compensates" in advance then the setting would be wrong again. There should at least be a standard.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-21-2008, 05:51 PM:

The "standard" should be creating two variants of the same mix, with one variant optimized for large volumes of cubic air space typical of commercial movie theater auditoriums and the other variant a near field mix without the "X-curve" being applied to the EQ of the mix.

Some movie studios already do this on certain releases. Others do not. No one is going to agree on everything. That's why we have different studios using different audio formats and doing other things their own way.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-03-2008, 05:22 PM:

And that's why, in the end, it all boils down to Joe the Home Theatre Owner who is going to adjust his "tone controls" to his exact taste, no matter how far off he gets it from any standard. He's the one who has to be pleased and he's the one with his fat fingers on the control knobs....with his wife constantly telling him to "turn it down."

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-03-2008, 07:03 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
control knobs

LOL, what century are YOU living in? Knobs... hahahahahahahah! It's all digital buttons now!