Question on The Lord of the Rings CR 5.1 Audio

The Complete Recording CDs for The Lord of the Rings came with DVDs that offer 5.1 mixes of each and every track. I’ve found little technical info about these DVDs, but I’ve found 24-bit encodes on the Shrine, so I assume that the files are .WAV on the disc. Wait, does that make sense? DVDs can’t normally have lossless audio. :erm:

Anyway, look at what happens when I load up the first track into Spek.

Well, huh. For those of you who don’t know how spectograms work, if it were really lossless all those lines would be going much farther, up to the tippity-top. Instead, they’re all stopping at about 18kHz – indicating that these "lossless" files are really about 192kbps.

Maybe it’s a fluke. Let’s try another!

Oh.

Basically I’m wondering about the file format of the audio on these DVDs, what the bitrate is, and if these 24-bit FLAC files are just upconverts. I don’t own the discs, so I can’t see for myself, but would anyone lucky enough to own a copy be able to provide some insight?

Is this for your attempted film mix?

Yeah, I’m just testing the waters to see how well I can do the first few cues.

Um, you have a transcode..

Um, you have a transcode..

I figured as much. :p I’m more interested in what the original file formats are. Some DVDs actually have DTS audio (the first three Bionicle films, for example) and I’m wondering if maybe these LotR discs might have that audio format as well… in which case I doubt the spectograms should look like this.

I think they were AC3 files, I’d assume. Idk. I have the version from rutracker, and it’s 24-bit.

Huh. Mind showing a spectrogram of your first track when you get a chance?

Maybe Size and Bit Ect Actually Not Important and Means Nothing to The Companines After All…. 😉
Jokes.

Blasphemy! Everyone knows size matters! :p

Blasphemy! Everyone knows size matters! :p

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdcrw6NwvA1qkdogo.gif

DVD’s can have lossless.

LPCM.
5.1 LPCM can only be "bit-streamed" through HDMI.
Other methods only convert to 2.0 before bit-streaming.

But, yes, the 5.1 FLAC encodes on here have some degree of surround sound.

Not so much as I’ve observed.

You can easily downmix to simple_stereo and not look back.

The best 5.1 you’ll ever find is that mixed in the movie (be it DVD or BD in descreet 6.1).
The score is decent in 5.1. But not as great as you’d expect it.

At the most, you’d have it in 48kHz over 44.1kHz.
Downmixing to simple stereo would be easy with eac3to.
And if it’s 24-bit sourced, convderting to MP3 or AAc would be equally beneficial in 48kHz over 44.1kHz.
Much more accuracy!
Studio accuracy, why they made DVD-Audio format for a limited time.

According to this guy it’s 24/48 (http://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?6554-SOUNDTRACK-Lord-of-the-Rings-Fellowship-of-the-Ring-The-Complete-Recordings-DVD-A&p=45935&viewfull=1#post45935). :confused:

My understanding was that there are separate layers on the disc for stereo/surround. The stereo is supposed to be high-res (24/48), while the surround is lossy ac3. I don’t remember the bit rate off the top of my head, but 192 doesn’t sound too far off the mark. Not exactly the "superior sound" that the disc is labeled as having, huh?

The minimum bitrate a DVD can have is 192kbps. If what you say is true it would certainly explain a lot.

With The Hobbit film series having ended, I wonder if these will see a reissue sometime in the near future.

Idk what you did but my CR disks are lossless in both stereo and 5.1, 24/48

What’s the file format of the 5.1?

Flac? I ripped it myself. Idk what’s on the DVD though, probably LPCM. I can check later.

Thanks. Mind posting a spectrogram of the first track (Prologue/One Ring to Rule ’em All) when you get a chance as well?

Thanks. Mind posting a spectrogram of the first track (Prologue/One Ring to Rule ’em All) when you get a chance as well?

Yeah after work. I’ll be home in 7 hours.

:thumbsup:

As requested:

Left Channel

Right Channel

Center Channel

Bass Channel

Back Left Channel

Back Right Channel

All Channels

*Notice how the 5.1 channel is mastered much louder than the 2 channel version.

2 Channel Stereo Counterpart

Verrryy interesting….

So the person who ripped the version I downloaded is just completely inept.

Verrryy interesting….

So the person who ripped the version I downloaded is just completely inept.

Probably. I found the transcode that you have. And it is very interesting.
it reminds me of the puss in boots bootleg. I boosted the higher frequencies,
they exist uncompressed up to 20kHz and then fade off so harshly that they
become quieter than white noise (-120db) You can also clearly see rounding error,
presented by the spikes above the white noise.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/68272387/Currently%20Listening/01%20-%20Prologue%20One%20Ring%20to%20Rule%20Them%20All. png

I am not sure why this happened.

Are the releases we’re talking about, really complete, as in everything that’s heard in the movie? Is it somewhat an equivalent to official RS but without alternates and stuff?

Are the releases we’re talking about, really complete, as in everything that’s heard in the movie? Is it somewhat an equivalent to official RS but without alternates and stuff?

There’s a lot of music but none of it is represented how it appears in the films.

There’s a lot of music but none of it is represented how it appears in the films.

Is that a bad thing? I dunno, I have the CD rips of the three, and they seem cool and full, both content and presentation, so I was wondering if it’d really be worth a retail buy sometime from me.

I was wondering if it’d really be worth a retail buy sometime from me.

Tracking them down at decent prices will be a challenge. They’re all out of print. Two Towers, I hear, is the hardest to find.

The Complete Recordings don’t necessarily match how the film presents the music… just check all this out, for example (http://www.jwfan.com/forums/?app=forums&module=forums&controller=topic&id=23818).

Tracking them down at decent prices will be a challenge. They’re all out of print. Two Towers, I hear, is the hardest to find.

The Complete Recordings don’t necessarily match how the film presents the music… just check all this out, for example (http://www.jwfan.com/forums/?app=forums&module=forums&controller=topic&id=23818).

Oh crap.

Ouch!

DAK called me foolish for attempting a film mix… but by God, I have to try!!

Well Maybe, If You Can Get The Proper Stuff, But It Does Look Damn Difficult.

DAK called me foolish for attempting a film mix… but by God, I have to try!!

Hi, I’ve downloaded another version, but I don’t know what is best:

First version:

Second version:

The first version, of course. :p Which thread did you get that from?

But all above 22khz is that noise? It isn’t bad?

First one is ffrom rutracker, second one is from here, but I don’t remember what thread, sorry :/

But all above 22khz is that noise? It isn’t bad?

No, quite the opposite. It means that there’s more sound content to be heard.

The cloudy area at the very top looks like dither noise.
It’s been resampled to 44.1kHz instead of original 48kHz.
I don’t see anything about the bit-depth either in the spek.
Given the white noise at the top, it’s probably dithered down to 16bit.
The bitrate is also significantly smaller, too. Another sign of dithering to 16bit.

Some software, when you resmaple bit depth, will add noise to it to mask any quantization errors that may occur in the process.

From what I remember, if this was all DVD-Audio (not the same audio format as DVD-Video with AC3, DTS or LPCM — but rather "MLP" which is a lossless DTS format for DVD-Audio discs), then the surround sound format should also be lossless.

DVD-V vs DVD-A is vastly different in terms of audio.
It’s like CD vs. SACD.
DVD-A players are expensive.

I wonder if Zaralyth would be so kind to up his rip to trump the others and remove all doubt of a lossy-processed rip? 🙂 :cryingbatman:

I should check the one I have because I downloaded it from here a long time ago and have no idea on the authenticity of the ripping process.