Let me know what your favorite dvd-a is? I don't much care for the monopolizing of Sony. Personally, if no one has checked out this disk yet, the "Flaming Lips" "Yoshima Battle the Pink Robots" is a fantastic disk. Both one of the best albums i have ever heard but also some amazing swirling surround effects that actually make me dizzy to listen to. Very revolutionary disk in my book. I'm looking to expand my dvd-a collection but im not sure which are "gotta have" dvd-a's
It's all down to personal taste, really. I mean I've not heard the discs you mention, but one day I will. Currently, my fave "official" DVD-A are Alice Coopers Welcome to my nightmare and Queens A Night At the Opera. I have other "home cooked" ones that I like equally - I just did a set of early Bowie albums from Stereo to 5.1 and in all modesty think they sound great! (MWSTW, Hunky Dory, Ziggy, Aladdin Sane & Bonus tracks) It is a really good thing that there are at last some affordable DVD-A authoring apps out there for all. I'm lucky as I have discWelder Chrome, but the Bronze & Steel versions are very good too, and now there is WaveLab 5 with DVD-A Authoring included. These are good times for us home authors. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]www.opusproductions.com Digital Audio Specialists[/small]
WOnder what some of the Moody Blues converted to DVD-A would sound like Wilkes. You sould try that in 5.1, especially Forever Autumn...
Funny you should mention that - I am being sent 2 moodies albums done to 24/96 direct from the original Quad mixes. Can't remember exactly what, but I'll PM you as soon as I get them. Going from Quad to DVD-A is a good thing, as you can get around the limitations of not using MLP, as it is perfecty possible to do 4 channels at 24/96 without running into limitations. But I digress. As soon as I get the discs, I'll let you know.
Cheers Wilkes, let me know how it gets on, 4 channels would be great to hear on a surround system. I suppose the technology is similar to the DTS NEO surround, which in effect creates teh surround sound from the 2 channel stereo. Is what you do, replicating that process, but at the recording stage, rather than the playback stage, and is it better to listen to such a conversion rather than leaving it in 2 channel and letting the DTS do it? Thanks Chris
The Moody Blues ones are actually done from the Original Quadraphonic mixes. The Bowie ones I have done were done as follows: 1/. Re Record - not rip - from the CD at 32 bit 44.1KHz 2/. As recording, instead of just one stereo pair, record to 2. 3/. On the second pair, use a Subtraction process, and remove Rh material from Lh channel, and vice versa. This effectively removes the centred material, leaving me with a standard stereo pair, and a "surround" pair. 4/. Use an MS matrix to extract the Centre Channel. 5/. Assign all 3 tracks to the 5.1 output. Stereo main to a surround panner, disabling rears & centre, 100% to front. Reverse for surrounds. Assign centre channel directly to the centre. 6/. Reprocess using UAD-1 Pultec, & UAD-1 Fairchild. On centre channel, use a vocal compressor setting as it helps to make the main vocal really stand out. On the 2 stereo pairs, turn off compression, and reduce input accordingly so the channel does not exceed a maximum level of K+6 on a K-20 metering system. 7/. Export out at 24/44.1 to N-channel split mode. If wanted, generatean LFE channel using LFE splitter set to an 80Hz crossover on a 24dB slope. For DVD-A I don't bother with an LFE. Not necessary, IMO. 8/. Create DVD-A with Minnetonka DiscWelder Chrome, after encoding to MLP. That way, I get 5-6 albums on a single DVD-R in Full surround! As for samplerates, I am just not convinced by the higher samplerates yet. Increasing the resolution to 24 bit makes a huge difference, but I cannot tell the difference between 88.2 or 44.1 KHz.
I dont know anyone that could tell the difference between 44.1 and 88.2 since our ears/brains are supposedly not supposed to be able to pick up that high a frequency anyway. Why do you think that the Low Frequency Channel is not needed on DVD-A? I love the LFE on DVD Movie videos, and i set my crossover at 80Hz (recently changed from 100Hz) and set the pick-up of the main speakers to SMALL at 80Hz (instead of their ability to pick up around 28Hz or so). I find the low frequency channel enables clearer Bass levels, but im not expert ;-) Also, does the method you describe work better than having a DVD-A playback using the DTS Decoding Neo 6 method or creating the 6.1 channels from the stereo track. When listening to a 2 channel movie in DTS Neo 6 mode, and then the same movies 5 channel sound in DTS or DDEX 6.1, there is a big difference in my opinion.
Oriphus. The main reason that the LFE is, IMHO, not needed in DVD-Audio is sort of complex, but here goes.. According to both DTS Acoustics & Dolby Labs, LFE does not equal subwoofer. The FE is there purely to increase the available headroom in Bass response should the system need it, or in the case of DVD-Video, should there be any genuine LFE content. It is also needed when playing back audio in DTS or DD formats too, as there is a Bass Management system built into most players these days. The only other time an LFE is needed in music is when you are using a sub/satellite speaker system that cannot handle full range bass reproduction down to 20/25Hz on all 5 speakers. DVD-Audio has no such bass management system, and I tend to mix all my stuff in Full range 5.0, as I do not need - or want - an LFE channe unless I am doing something along the lines of the 1812 overture. Or Dinosaur movies. What I do is to use a tool like the LFE splitter, which behaves sort of like a variable HPF with variable slope, and variable output attenuation. Then I can emulate the effects of Bass Management. Another very good reason not to use an FE with music is that ever changing variable - end users & their systems. You can never know for sure exactly what crossover frequency any one of these systems uses. You sort of have to assume that if something is piped exclusively to the LFE then there is a very real chance that when played back it may not actually sound how you intended it to. Another cause of problem with using LFE for music is phase cancellation. Many, many good reasons. Basically for DVD-Audio the rule of thumb is to use full range in 5 main channels, and reserve the LFE for effects. As for your final question, I am not quite sure what you mean. Can you elaborate please, as DVD-A is full frequency PCM and DTS is perceptual lossy compression. The two are 2 different formats.
Ah...something i hadnt realised. Thanks for the clarification. What i meant with my last question was really, is it better to allow the decoders on Receivers, or any systems, to decode 2 channel into 6 channel, or is it better to have it already set up as a 5/6 channel on a DVD-A disc. I get the feeling im probably asking a stupid question here lol
It really depends on how the original material was mixed, as when using the built in surround processors the source material should be either stereo, in which case the processors will turn it into Pseudo Surround, or else Dolby Surround - which is a matrixed version. It is mixed as LCRS, and folded down into Lt/Rt for playback on both stereo systems, or a surround system which will "decode" it back into LCRS. If the original material is full DTS/DD Surround, it will be best to set the outputs from CoAxial into the reciever, which should then decode back into 5.1, or to use the slang, 3/2 with LFE (If present). If you use the analogue outputs in these circumstances, it usually outputs according to how things are set in the player. I generally prefer to output the raw digital stream into the reciever & let the amp do the job.
