Rush joins the "Box Set" crowd - Buy a box set, get a 5.1 disc

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On the positive side, Jimby can be and should be proud of those 40 or so DVD-Audio titles that we're brought to market. Many of us own some or all of them. They were great when they first came out then and will still be great 100 years from now. It had to been tough sledding to have put all that work out, just to not have the sales that were expected. I still never got an answer to my question about what constitutes "enough sales." Oh well. The old way for music companies to do business in general was broken and that should have been obvious by the 2000s. Certainly he now understands our passion for surround and what is wanted/needed if anyone paid attention. A new business model needs to be worked out between all concerned parties. He still seems to be in some sort of position of influence and perhaps he might help us out here sometime. The 2 threads he posted that we're promotional for BR had surround on them. His posting about DVD-Audio being on all players being delayed a year because the DVD copy protection was broken was an interesting read. Anyway, all water under the bridge. Perhaps he might chime in again someday with some better news. These box sets are certainly proof that DVD-Audio Surround/Stereo is not dead by any means in 2011.
 
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Jim Belcher ("Jimby") was the Production Director for DVD Audio at Universal Records and indeed was the DVD A producer for Steely Dan, Diana Krall, etc. - he is now the currently the VP of Advanced Technology at Universal primarily involved in BD technology.
Regardless of what he said at QQF, this guy is a pioneer. He was exploring DVD Audio back then and now he's continuing on. Dream jobs or what! By the time in checked in here he was likely pretty damn bitter about the lack of support from his co-workers in Marketing. Now he's a VP - Yes! If he knows about us then that's a good thing.
 
I always felt that Jimby felt 'betrayed' by those in his company with regards to Surround Music. We did everything here at QQ to support him. Look back and you will see a LOT of posts by me pointing out the great work UMG was doing sticking with SACD after Sony bailed. We promoted every UMG release with fanfare, including the Blu-Ray titles he was involved in.

I was bewildered as to why he would take the arrogant tone against us when we were basically his target marketplace, be however small we are.

He is forever free to come here and promote anything he's doing, just as ANYONE who promotes or creates surround music is.

THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE! :)
 
I'm not a huge fan of Rush, but I enjoyed the DVD-A of Moving Pictures.

If anyone from Universal is infiltrating this forum, I'm not that interested in getting the 5 free CDs with my DVD-A. I might be interested in buying some of the DVD-As alone.

I love Pink Floyd... but I don't have to have every note ever played by them.
Just a seperate BD disc or even a "smaller version" with a CD of the James Guthrie mix and the BD with all of the mixes.
I barely listen to CDs anymore so my surround music is the one thing I will go to lengths to listen to.
I won't pay for 5 CDs I won't listen to, posters I won't hang on my wall and books I'll never get to reading.
Just gimmie my surround discs dammit! :)
 
I love Pink Floyd... but I don't have to have every note ever played by them.
Just a seperate BD disc or even a "smaller version" with a CD of the James Guthrie mix and the BD with all of the mixes.
I barely listen to CDs anymore so my surround music is the one thing I will go to lengths to listen to.
I won't pay for 5 CDs I won't listen to, posters I won't hang on my wall and books I'll never get to reading.
Just gimmie my surround discs dammit! :)
Yup.
 
thedigitalbits.com is reporting that all of these albums will be released in 24/96 high resolution stereo on HDTracks.com for a price of $17.98 each, apparently confirmed by Universal Music. I'm not sure if this an indication that there will be standalone CD+DVD-A releases in the future or not, but it certainly makes it seem like more of a possibility.

I'm still not sure what I want to do with these boxes. As a few have pointed out, if we'd heard of a Rush DVD-A coming out in 2009 that cost $45 we would have been all over it. Hell, people at SH.tv are crawling over each other to get stereo SHM SACDs for $50+ a pop. I'm concerned about buying these and then having standalone releases come out later and make me double up on content, but I'm even more concered about missing the boat entirely and seeing these go out of print in a nanosecond and fetching $$$$$ on eBay next year.

Decisions, decisions....
 
"Signals" has always had an oddly placed stereo mix on some tracks. Looking forward to seeing a solid mix out of that album.
 
Great post OQG! The marketing seems at cross purposes or confused with the points you mentioned. Why bundle it up for the clueless? We're always told that the mixing expense is what keeps us from getting what we want. With that out of the way or "paid for" by the box releases, some individual packaging details are clearly no big deal. aka How do we sell more of these same asset(s)?
 
mine arrived today....my first listens tonight to Fly By Night and Signals reveal the following:

These are DVD-As that show the 5.1 mix at 24/96
The mixes are a "far cry" better than Snakes and Arrows. They are discrete (although somewhat inconsistently so) and there are some very fun and pleasing moments on both discs. I'll reserve comments about each individual disc for the poll threads.

However, while these mixes pull elements out of the mixes that you have never heard before, there may be a cost. My first pass tells me that these mixes may be volume boosted a bit as I had to turn them down on occasion.

As always, YMMV.
 
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. And BTW, I do not know Jimby personally, but the "bitter jackass" comment was really unnecessary.
Just wanted to clarify that of course it was unnecessary, but that's how I felt reading his posts. Note that I didn't say he was a bitter jackass personally, though there was a level of jackassedness in his posts that might lead one to that conclusion reasonably. But I do appreciate any contributions he might have made to surround music and would support him if given the chance.
 
Polls are up!

For those who get these boxes, BE CAREFULL!! The discs come "flying out" when you take the digipacks out of the case. The packaging is pretty nice, however. The three boxes "go together" very nicely. I need more time to absorb these guys, so far all I did was scan the DVD-A's and create the polls.

As was said above, it's nice to see 3 new DVD-A's from UMG. As for having to buy the 5 CDs to get them, well, that's another issue. Of course, one could think along the lines of "Buy the DVD-A for $40, and get FIVE FREE CDs and a Box!" :)
 
I just wish the &^*%$# who thought of these boxes knew that we're only buying them because we're afraid the DVDAs won't be available otherwise, not because we think it's a fair deal. But then again, it's still from a record company, so why should we expect any different?
 
I just wish the &^*%$# who thought of these boxes knew that we're only buying them because we're afraid the DVDAs won't be available otherwise, not because we think it's a fair deal. But then again, it's still from a record company, so why should we expect any different?

So what about the guy buying the set for the rest of what's on it?
 
this seems like attempt to hunt two rabbits by single shot. stupid, as everything,
what had came out from all mega labels during the past 20-30 years. all those
$70+ SHM SACDs and fancy anniversary-crapfilled boxsets shows that recording
industry mostly gave up on the reaching mass market and just trying to squeeze
maximum of remaining from the past small segment, without concern that such
move eventually would kill even most loyal consumers.
 
I bought my sets at ImportCDs for $39.48 including shipping and handling. For under $40 for the DVD-a plus 5 CDs, I don't feel so abused. I just wonder what the plan is for other albums.

I have only listed to farewell to kings so far, but sounds great! I have dined on honeydew!
 
That's a fair point. I suppose they're out there.

I'll put it to you this way: When Rush releases an album, there's enough die-hards out there that it will debut in the top five of the Billboard Top 200 albums before it sinks like a rock. There are a TON of Rush die-hards out there who will buy everything and anything.
 
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