Curiousity on date pushbacks.

[Patrick Cleasby]

At the forum at the beginning of November, Warner Vision international announced that for the UK relaunch end August they shipped 60,000 units to retail.

At that point, (1st week of November, thus barely 2 months later), they had received 10,000 reorders from retail. They proclaimed themselves very happy with this.

I have also heard that rumours is doing about 400 a month in the UK.

I think these numbers are pretty good for the UK.

I think WB are on the right track now Warner Vision have taken over the operation. i spoke to Ken Caillat at The Multi-channel Forum in May, and at that time (only a few months into WVI's tenure) he mentioned that the feeling inside the Warner's camp had gone a bit tentative. Since then, the relaunch and the numbers seem to have regalvanized them. All of their guys seem very enthusiastic.

I wish the same could be said for EMI who are still extremely tentative, and reluctant to call it. They won't give me plans and they won't give me numbers.

 

[John Kotches]

This was my intent, reasonable discussion about the topic of lateness, and delving into the reasons why they are (mostly) coming out late.

As others have noted, setting realistic schedules might be a step forward.

Patrick,

A question for you... how many titles that have been sent out for multi-channel mixes have gone out to the artist for approval and required remixing?

This is something that could add substantially to the timelines.

Regards,

 

[Patrick Cleasby]

...I'm waiting for an artist (Fish from Marillion) to turn up at the studio to approve a DVD-V 5.1 mix right now, so I'll let you know! Rest assured I'll be talking to him about DVD-A ing both his next album and back catalogue.

Other than that, I know for a fact that one of the factors in the Running on Empty delay is last minute tweaks to the 5.1 mix by Jackson himself. He's a bit of a special case as he and Ladyani both have Nuendo systems and seem to swap ideas back and forth a bit like Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding of XTC used to do with 4 track cassette demos back in the day!

As has previously been noted, the Moondance mix is approved, Elliot Schiener had to bring it to London to demo it to Van. I bet that was a tough sell!

Schiener has been quoted as saying, regarding one of his earlier efforts, the excellent DTS CD of Gaucho, that now Becker and Fagen have gone through doing the 2VN DVD-A, if Gaucho is to be SACD-ed or DVD-A-ed they would redo it, making it less front focussed, particulary with regard to putting more drums and voice in the rear.

Rest assured, it is bound to be the previously HDCD-endorsing Canadians who are the most exacting, Joni is apparently one of the only artists who has explicitly requested 24/192 for the stereo, although how you go about approving your ex-husband's MC mixes (or not) I'm not sure! I would imagine Neil Young is similarly stringent.

Robin H's presentation emphasised the value of knowing the 5.1 expertise of the mixer/engineer/facility used, and of course, that the one formula which tends to lead to success is original engineer and/or artist involved in the 5.1 mix.

 

[P94109]

I have two different comments here. First, if those in this group also collect a large number of DVD movies and music, you may be aware that the same thing happens with those releases. Just one example: a favorite movie "The Name Of The Rose" was listed in the early days never showed up. There have been well over 25 titles listed for DVD music (opera in particular) that keep being delayed. Explanations range from adding newly found materials to plant capacity. The idea that the publicity department waits until all elements are prepared seems to be left in limbo. Criterion is especially bad with street dates being delayed for as long as a year.
I am not stating that they should not get their act together between those in publicity and the production departments, but it is not only in DVD-Audio that this happens.
Second, I have a dual player and can hear both DVD-Audio and SACD. To use language I don't like: "SACD sucks!" The stereo is not as clear even as the 96/24 stereo and the surround is generally badly done (in my opinion - remember we all have opinions on this sort of thing). As for the formats themselves, DVD-Audio has so much more to offer that is rare on SACD such as lyrics, some videos and options that allow one to get the disc with only a DVD player and have them still good when upgrading to DVD-Audio/Video players.

 

[AllAroundSurround]

All I can say is ... Hmmmmm! Interesting !
Rob