Yes, why not? The BD has all this room that allowed it to win the hd dvd/bd war. I would have liked to see it as you suggested.
Thank you
glad I'm not alone!
why not..? well, on the one hand there's an argument for inaction.. and on the other there's an argument for intent on the part of the people behind this and I get all of that.
cynical me says possible laziness. why work hard to create two different mixes when one will do..!?
realistic me counters that with factors such as:
- added cost (of creation to the label and possibly ultimately to the customer at retail) plus there's the added time taken to knock up another mix (this has already taken years to appear and it had to come out in time for Christmas etc)..
- the law of diminishing returns to the label/artists.. the more this costs them to produce and the less it sells, the less likely the possibility of more Warner BD-Audio.
then there's the question mark hovering over creative/artistic intent.. it's a live gig after all, so an audience mix could be seen as more appropriate/faithful to the material.
either way, my personal summation of this release is its a dropped ball mix-wise for a standalone BD-Audio when there's already a duplicate of the mix readily available in other (arguably more appealing) guises.. but what there
IS here is a glimmer of hope/potential if this BD-A sells by the bucketload.. and this in turn could help pave the way for at least a raft more
discrete surround remixes of studio material on BD-A.
I would add this.. online sales are one thing and they are not inconsiderable.. but they are still not enough. this BD-A has to do the unthinkable/nigh-on impossible and get into stores in order to sell.
case in point; HMV (huge UK music retail chain - the only major High Street presence left selling CDs etc in this country of 60 million + people, in fact) had no copies of the BD-Audio today AT ALL. while they had a lovely natty cardboard display replete with giveaway Celebration Day T-Shirts stuffed with loads of copies of the DVD/CD and BD/CD combo..
..and therein lies the rub. there's already umpteen other ways to get this same mix in the same quality as on this BD-A.. but virtually each alternative comes with more content than the BD-A (plus all the visuals) for not much more money.
surround fans will soon learn this BD-A offers nothing over the BD-V, other than the "feature" (I use the term loosely) of no visuals.. so once the early adopters (**) are done, how many surround nuts will still buy this?
(**I'm one of 'em - I feel like a lamb to the slaughter with these pre-orders nowadays, screwed up mastering glitches and all on TAAB, this Zeppelin thing turns out to be just the same as the video mix... blah!)
casual shoppers will doubtless buy the one with video (and bells/whistles/T-shirts) unless they stumble upon the BD-A (good luck with that if you're in a brick & mortar in the UK!) and happen to buy it by mistake -- then they return it when they find it has
no video..! aarrgghh!
so.. who will buy this BD-A?
how can it sell in sufficient numbers to justify its existence?
how can it help our cause to get more surround music releases in Hi-Rez from Warner (et al)?