5.1 Beatles

[Guy Robinson]

I did pick it up and I am in the middle of listening to the first disc. I have to admit that I am impressed with the audio and video considering the age. After listening to DVD-A and SACD (and recent concert DTS DVD-V's) as my primary diet I figured that the sound on this would suck. While some of it has a "flat" sound to it, the sound is much better than I expected from this era. It is definately a required purchase. Much better than in 1965 when I saw them for the shortest concert ever (I believe it was less than an hour) in Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Yes I am that old (I was 12 at the time) and lucky that my best friends father knew someone that had seasons tickets at MLG so had first dibs on tickets. I was in the second row from the front and the screaming was so loud that you could hear very little. Anyway, thanks all for the recommendation. I thought I had enough of the Beatles but I guess not.

 

[chrisguy13]

I can't believe someone requested a fullscreen version of something here. Fullscreen is the mono of video, you are missing so much. I expect more from people who care about 5.1 music.

Sorry, It's just realy frustrating owning a Widescreen tv and going to the video rental store only to find fullscreen movies. Even if I had a 13" fullscreen tv, i would still prefer widescreen. It gives a movie feeling and you don't have half the picture cut off.

Just think of it this way, in 5 years, all your fullscreen movies will now have black bars on the side, since widescreen is the future format of tvs. I can't wait till the day, I'll be laughing my ass off!:evil:

 

[daved64]

Guy
There is no such thing as enough of the Beatles!
I cheated....I watched the extras first, very interesting....then I had to see/hear Free as a Bird....I thought the sound was great! I'll have to sit and watch it from the start.

 

[beljah]

Glad you're enjoying it Guy! I really couldn't get over the improvement, especially picture-wise, from my VHS copy. Scenes that seemed washed out are now crystal clear, like the background when George is being interviewed in his garden. I can understand skipping ahead to the bonus disc since for a lot of people that WAS the selling point & it doesn't disappoint, but I think at least one attempt should be made to go through the set chronologically. After that, whatever floats your boat.

 

[daved64]

Ok.....I watched more of the Anthology....mamma mia it sounds GREAT! I am the Walrus was incredible.....even the second half..where on the 2 channel cd it goes into fake stereo....on the DVD it sounds great....I notice so much detail...the WHOOOOOOOO'S and other vocals swoops on Walrus sound so clear....the guitar sticks out much more.....gotta go.....wife is breaking my coleones........more later!

 

[JonUrban]

I just went through Vol 7 & 8 in detail, listening and watching the 5.1 mix. Wow, this stuff is stunning. Very nice, although it is mostly a 3 channel "stereo", with heavy use of the center speaker, but it sounds great. The DTS track is killer. From what I saw, the remastered Let It Be film should be tremendous. The 5.1 mix of Let it Be, Long & Winding Road, Revolution, Free as a Bird are presented in their entirty. These are definatly the film versions, and they look and sound great. Even the MMT stuff is super.

Can't wait for the <strong>DVD-A</strong>!!!!!!!

:-jon

 

[beljah]

We can only hope Jon! Good call on the MMT material. I have the "Ultimate" DVD set w/ "Help!", "Making of AHDN", and "First US Visit" along w/ MMT and I played it back in Feb. when I was ill & it doesn't look as good as on the "Anthology".

 

[Ick]

Does anyone have plans to make a DTS CD sountrack of all the songs on the Anthology?? That would be VERY cool to have. I'd do it myself if I had the equipment.....

 

[JonUrban]

I have some on my PC already, however, there are many songs that are not complete. It would make for a strange DTS CD, some song "snippets", and others complete, or almost complete.

 

[beljah]

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere & it's not something I noticed on the VHS set, but I noticed something on my third time through the DVD set. In the 10th chapter of the third installment on the second DVD titled "In His Own Write" about John's first book, if you watch the cover of the book John will wink at you. If this is common knowledge please forgive my disclosure, but this was the first time I caught it.

 

[kstuart]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"Something" has only the cymbal-wash to the rear"
WHAT???? How about THE ENTIRE ORCHESTRA in the rear!! Same for all the Abbey Road cuts. The End sounds absolutely AMAZING in 5.1 as does Something. Looks like you have to re-calibrate your system or something, because I'm hearing WAY more rear info than you seem to be. I'm listening to the DTS track. Could it be that you are using the DD track & that there's THAT MUCH difference in their quality? [/quote]

Actually, every time I checked on Anthology, the DD track was the same, or slightly better than the DTS.

There is a persistent myth that "DTS is better than DD" (similar to the myth in the 80's and 90's that "quad was a horrible thing that almost destroyed the music industry"). Actually, a group of audiophiles compared material recorded in both formats, and they could not distinguish any difference. The fact that we usually hear better sound in DTS DVDs is because the DTS corporation engineers spent more time getting the sound right, in order to increase their reputation. Obviously it worked. If the DD and DTS tracks are done by the same person, they sound very close to the same.

PS I think it is pretty clear now that "Quadwreck" had something set wrong when he did his rear channel survey of Anthology - the equipment is so complex now just to play a record that I do that all the time.

 

[Cai Campbell]

It is certainly no myth that DTS employs 4:1 compression while DD is variable between 8:1 and 12:1 compression. Perhaps a random group of "audiophiles" cannot tell the difference, but for me, the numbers speak for themselves! Next we'll be hearing that MP3's really do offer "CD sound quality". Audio compression is bad. More audio compression is worse.

 

[Wunlow]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It is certainly no myth that DTS employs 4:1 compression while DD is variable between 8:1 and 12:1 compression.[/quote]

The older 384kb/s DD has a 12:1 compression ratio. I believe 448kb/s DD (which is used on most newer DVDs, sans WB DVD releases) has roughly a 10:1 ratio. Full bit rate DTS on DVD (1.5mb/s) indeed does have a 4:1 compression ratio, but most new DVD DTS tracks with full length features are now using "half-bit rate" DTS, running at 754kb/s. The half bit rate DTS allows for better video quality and more room on the disc, but the compression also goes up (somewhere between 5:1 or 6:1).

The DTS vs DD debate still rages on quite vigorously on the various home theater forums. My take on DTS vs DTS (using their present 448/756 bitrates) is more like comparing two compression schemes vs two radically different bitrates. I'm sure DTS does some things better with certain material and vise versa. But again this just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions...

 

[sspsandy]

For the heck of it, I recorded the stereo music cuts onto cassette. It is a tough job since there is a lot of talking that cut off certain songs, or inexcusably, run over songs in the middle. However, once it was done, it makes for an interesting retrospective of the Beatles career. The stereo tracks are Dolby Surround encoded, so played back through the pro logic II processor in my car it sounds quite stunning. Most of the tape is like a Beatles medley with songs playing for a verse or two and running into the next one, but you end up with a tape that packs about three times as many songs on it compared to if they were full versions of the songs (which I would have preferred). One complaint I have with DVDs is when the producers feel it is necessary to create a quasi documentary, with comments elbowing in on the songs, when I look at these discs more as record albums to be listened to multiple times. The comments should be reserved for a separate menu choice, leave the music intact. The fifth time around, hearing some lame comment about the band or music that cuts off the beginning or end of a song, or pops up in the middle, is like chalk squeaking on a blackboard, irritating.