I was just thinking ....(yes I know ,dangerous)
That maybe the LIVE FROM THE FRONT ROW ,which are KBFH shows maybe in SQ matrix .
That maybe the LIVE FROM THE FRONT ROW ,which are KBFH shows maybe in SQ matrix .
If they were supplied radio station reels from the '70's yes. But I doubt that very much.
SQ? That is Dolby Digital and Dolby Surround.Here's what was rattlin around in my pea brain.
The Live From Front Row series on Silverline rather obviously did not come from the Biscuit vault which we all know ,no longer have the 2channel masters that were quad encoded.
But they do have the Multi's, which were not Barbecued. So given that Silverline 's requirements were to have Multi's.....and they were not sent ...and instead they were supplied with 2channel tapes for the rather crappy 5.1 upmixes ?......
Would they not be SQ encoded on the Stereo dvda section ?
I only have one in this Silverline series ,10cc , but perhaps others with more can verify this possibility.
PET ROCK RECORDS supplied mine ,and I'm sure the rest as well.
Anyway I thought I'd post this Strangeness for any and all to comment. So is this a source of live SQ or not ?
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SQ? That is Dolby Digital and Dolby Surround.
SQ was a matrix system developed by CBS Laboratories for Vinyl discs back in the 70's. It needed an SQ decoder to decode the 4 channels of info on the disc. Dolby Digital was developed in the 90's for DVD and Laserdisc and with the proper decoder would yield 5.1 DISCRETE channels of info.
I "fondly' remember this blurb announcing Silverline's 'contract' with Sanctuary Records promising 140 MLP DVD~A 5.1 titles. It actually ended in a lawsuit waged by Silverline against Sanctuary Records for NOT supplying the master/multi track tapes promised:
https://www.mixonline.com/recording/silverline-sanctuary-release-140-dvd-audio-titles-375317
As much as we rag on Silverline, they did manage to release some very interesting, esoteric and fine sounding discrete MLP DVD~A 5.1 titles, But we can all agree that the LIVE FROM THE FRONT ROW series was NOT among them. If you play a few of them in MLP DVD~A STEREO [96/24] like the Pat Benatar and the Gerry Rafferty DVD~As, they really can sound quite good.
It seems likely that KBFH sourced their UK concerts from the BBC (much cheaper and easier than sending a crew to England to record a concert). Also, what’s on Discogs is not necessarily a full cataloging of the BBC quad series because (a) if they used reel tapes early on, those may not have seen many copies in circulation and (b) BBC is a central UK government subsidized collection of entertainment sources, potentially broadcast nationally out of one central location, so the need to press up a lot of LP’s or duplicate a lot of tapes may not have been present.
The BBC receives no funding from the government, it is funded by a licence fee.
Sadly the government seems to want the BBC funding to be via subscription rather than a licence fee (which is way way cheaper than my Sky TV subscription). I think we'd just end up with wall to wall 'lack-of-talent' contests on TV hosted by 'reality show' stars, ugh! BBC4 took over from BBC2 with 'quality' programmes, now its mainly a repeats channel ........ and does anybody actually watch BBC3?I wasn't aware that the BBC Transcription service releases were earmarked for overseas use only. I've been looking for one (in stereo) by Mary Margaret O'Hara that appears to be pressed here in the UK in 1990, but I don't expect to find it soon. I've seen bootlegs of some of the major artist (like Led Zeppelin) in shops here. I was just pondering whether the BBC had ever licensed the surrounds of those or even retained them. I know they licensed the Procol Harum quad release from the transcription series for stereo reissue on numerous labels (including Peel's Strange Fruit imprint) and it looks like an expanded version (in stereo) of the Be Bop Deluxe Hammersmith recording (originally a BBC quad transcription) was scheduled for Record Store Day.
But just now looking at Silverline's Front Row series, a large number of them are sourced from KBFH releases, though mostly late 80's and 90's KBFH broadcasts. Unless KBFH continued to record in multi-channel after they were said to have ended that (and after quad broadcasting had ceased to be viable), the truthfulness of them being true multi-channels seems tremendously suspect. The thing about surround live recordings is that a dishonest label (not specifically throwing shade on Silverline) could easily toss some stock audience ambience in the rears along with some slight echo and fake a surround live recording to the extent that some buyers wouldn't question it, maybe wouldn't be happy, but they might just be satisfied having a new live album. Columbia's Johnny Cash Live At San Quentin is pretty slight for a quad LP, very much just audience in the back, music in the front (I would hope that Folsom Prison has a bit more to it, or why did Columbia do a surround SACD). I have other, studio Silverline releases and the only one I can think of that was purpose mixed for release as a 5.1,that is Pere Ubu's Modern Dance. And some are just outright ridiculous (a collection of early 60's Searchers recordings in 5.1, really?!?!)
Also, I use the word "subsidized" not in anyway that I am disagreeable about paying my licensing fees (I'm largely happy with what you get for your various fees and taxes in the UK). But the truth is that the BBC is a national network (rather than private or private non-profit) of news and entertainment resources that are funded by a hypothecated tax (our licensing fee) and while the BBC collects the fees, it's my understanding is that they don't initially go to the BBC, they go into a consolidated UK government fund, then through a perfunctory Parliamentary appropriations vote and then back to the BBC. I guess a better way to put it is that they are subsidized by fees/a tax collected specifically for the BBC, rather than out of the UK general governmental budget. Many Americans get so panicked about taxes and government funding, the US could learn a bit from the UK about creating methods where you can call some taxes "fees" and avoid having to have heated debates about them ad infinitum.
The Transcription Services discs were not made for the distribution of programmes within the UK. They were a purely commercial venture for the time limited licensing of BBC sourced material to foreign broadcasters who were offered discs on a subscription basis. A lot of the discs are not of shows that were ever aired in that (or in some cases any) form in the UK. Very many of them are compilations of recordings from various events and recording sessions. There are not many quad discs because it would appear very few foreign broadcasters were interested in taking quad material. The BBC offered to provide material in either SQ or QS but I don’t think any customers ever wanted QS encoding. I think the typical pressing of each TS disc was somewhere from 50-100 discs.
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