A HARD DAYS NIGHT - Blu-Ray [AVOID!!]

OK. I fell for it. Hope you did not.

After reading on some website that the new Canadian Blu-Ray disc of this movie had a "beautifully remastered 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack", I spent the $20 and ordered the disc from Amazon.ca.

It showed up today, via DHL (actually had to sign for it) and I popped it in the Oppo. As I feared, it's the same dull, muddy, echo chamber soundtrack that was on the original "remastered" Mirimar DVD from 2002.

Not that I expected anything better, but there was always a glimmer of hope. Anyway, save your $20 on this one. The picture is pretty nice, "filled" to 16x9 (or distorted to 16x9 if you will), but there are many spots and dirt that fly by on the screen.

This is in no way the definative version of this film. I'll stick with my Criterion LaserDisc for now.

I'm-a Tell-a U !!!!!


https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showpost.php?p=98130&postcount=9


Sorry guys, but you should not have expected any better. Cash in, nothing else.

Ok, I'm curious. I wouldn't have expected the bluray to really offer anything better than the dvd. But since you mention your preference for the laserdisc....what is it that makes the laserdisc a better choice to the dvd edition? I don't have a laserdisc player, so when it came out on dvd I purchased it. I would have hoped that with improved technology, it would have been possible to offer something of at least equal quality on dvd to the previous laserdisc edition. Is this something that would make it worthwhile to seek out a laserdisc player and laserdisc of it, and convert to dvd for a superior dvd version? That is, if one was nuts enough to spend the time and money that such a project would involve.

I am glad I read the earlier thread here predicting Miramax would repeat the same poorly executed effort with the Blu-ray that was seen with the DVD. Thanks for saving me $20.

Chris

The main reasons to buy the Criterion LD (or the MPI DVD, if you can find it): it has most of the songs dubbed into the soundtrack in stereo (though I don't remember either having the original mono soundtrack, as YS does); and it's fullscreen which, while not necessarily the correct theater ratio, is probably better to watch than the letterboxing of the Miramax disc.

ED

I finally got a chance to demux the Blu-Ray DTS-HD Master Audio track from this Blu-Ray. The results are pretty startling.

You can see, even in it's shrunken form here in this jpg, that the songs are pretty much stereo, maybe "barely" stereo-more-like-mono, living in the FL & FR, while the movie dialog and effects are in the Center Channel by themselves. The rears are ambience to the music and when listened to solo sound like someone listening to a live concert in the rest rooms of the concert hall.

There is absolutely no "surround" effect at all, with the possible exception of a tiny bit of audience noise in the rears for the concert at the end of the movie.

Compare this wav file to the tunes on the Help! DVD and the difference is night and day, to the eye and to the ear.