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Post by copperpipe on Feb 13, 2016 13:30:16 GMT -5
I've been watching a lot of recently released movies lately; (2000's and up). Then saw my bluray copy of "Ben Hur" on the shelf and thought "Hey, haven't watched that in a few years". Loaded up VLC and ... the sound quality is brutal. It's like all the sound is one level, nothing gets louder or softer, and it's not very clear either. Like a solid wall of glare / sound coming at me.
What can I do to improve the sound on this? I remember some older Bond movies that I own are the same problem. The video quality is quite good, I'm just surprised by the sound and hoping there might be some filters or something that can help with this? Any ideas? Did I grab the wrong sound track off the bluray when I copied it to my NAS?
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Post by Talley on Feb 13, 2016 13:49:23 GMT -5
live with it.
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bootman
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Post by bootman on Feb 13, 2016 14:16:29 GMT -5
I've been watching a lot of recently released movies lately; (2000's and up). Then saw my bluray copy of "Ben Hur" on the shelf and thought "Hey, haven't watched that in a few years". Loaded up VLC and ... the sound quality is brutal. It's like all the sound is one level, nothing gets louder or softer, and it's not very clear either. Like a solid wall of glare / sound coming at me. What can I do to improve the sound on this? I remember some older Bond movies that I own are the same problem. The video quality is quite good, I'm just surprised by the sound and hoping there might be some filters or something that can help with this? Any ideas? Did I grab the wrong sound track off the bluray when I copied it to my NAS? One sure way to find out. Load up the actual bluray on your system to compare. |
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 13, 2016 14:41:24 GMT -5
My guess is that the sound is in a codec not supported by your AVR?
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Post by copperpipe on Feb 13, 2016 15:10:18 GMT -5
Talley, yeah I could live with it, point of this post was to ask if I had to... bootman, Boomzilla; I don't have a bluray player wired into the computer I use for watching media, the bluray player is in my headless server. But I can definitely try re ripping. Also I'm not using an AVR, it's just VLC media player (same idea as JRiver) playing the ripped ISO straight from disk and then over the LAN. I'd be surprised if the error was with VLC though, it is very good and always current / up to date. I would almost think if it was a codec issue then I wouldn't hear any sound at all? I'm hearing sound, but it's like listening through a $20 speaker from a garage sale.
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 13, 2016 15:23:33 GMT -5
My understanding (may be wrong) is that if a player lacks the codec needed, it converts (best it can) to what it DOES have.
And I've had some AWESOME $20 speakers from garage sales! LOL
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stiehl11
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Post by stiehl11 on Feb 13, 2016 15:27:56 GMT -5
My understanding (may be wrong) is that if a player lacks the codec needed, it converts (best it can) to what it DOES have. And I've had some AWESOME $20 speakers from garage sales! LOL Picked up the PC-1 speakers in my HT setup for $40 each. Nothing like getting $1,300 worth of speaker for $80.  |
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stiehl11
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Post by stiehl11 on Feb 13, 2016 15:37:14 GMT -5
I've been watching a lot of recently released movies lately; (2000's and up). Then saw my bluray copy of "Ben Hur" on the shelf and thought "Hey, haven't watched that in a few years". Loaded up VLC and ... the sound quality is brutal. It's like all the sound is one level, nothing gets louder or softer, and it's not very clear either. Like a solid wall of glare / sound coming at me. What can I do to improve the sound on this? I remember some older Bond movies that I own are the same problem. The video quality is quite good, I'm just surprised by the sound and hoping there might be some filters or something that can help with this? Any ideas? Did I grab the wrong sound track off the bluray when I copied it to my NAS? Is this the 1959 version or one of the newer versions? If it's the 1959 version you may be experiencing the way the sound was recorded. Having a Blu-Ray edition does not always mean better sound. I've owned Fantasia on VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray and, unfortunately the sound hasn't improved as the media has. The picture has, but not the sound. The reason for this is the both the technical abilities of the time to record audio and the state of the media used to transfer that sound to the home media of choice. Soundtracks and Foley effects can be recreated but vocals are impossible. Unless you have either an edition that has been restored AND remastered from the original tapes, you may not get what you were hoping for. [/my opinion] |
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Post by copperpipe on Feb 13, 2016 16:41:59 GMT -5
I've been watching a lot of recently released movies lately; (2000's and up). Then saw my bluray copy of "Ben Hur" on the shelf and thought "Hey, haven't watched that in a few years". Loaded up VLC and ... the sound quality is brutal. It's like all the sound is one level, nothing gets louder or softer, and it's not very clear either. Like a solid wall of glare / sound coming at me. What can I do to improve the sound on this? I remember some older Bond movies that I own are the same problem. The video quality is quite good, I'm just surprised by the sound and hoping there might be some filters or something that can help with this? Any ideas? Did I grab the wrong sound track off the bluray when I copied it to my NAS? Is this the 1959 version or one of the newer versions? If it's the 1959 version you may be experiencing the way the sound was recorded. Having a Blu-Ray edition does not always mean better sound. I've owned Fantasia on VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray and, unfortunately the sound hasn't improved as the media has. The picture has, but not the sound. The reason for this is the both the technical abilities of the time to record audio and the state of the media used to transfer that sound to the home media of choice. Soundtracks and Foley effects can be recreated but vocals are impossible. Unless you have either an edition that has been restored AND remastered from the original tapes, you may not get what you were hoping for. [/my opinion] It's the 1959 (50 year anniversary) version. You're probably right; I figured "bluray = high quality" but that's not a guarantee (garbage in / garbage out). While the video looks great (considering the age) the audio is definitely poor. Going to take another stab at ripping it just in case there is something better there. |
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bootman
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Post by bootman on Feb 13, 2016 22:06:18 GMT -5
You are not getting access to the HD audio tracks that way without an AVR.
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Post by garbulky on Feb 14, 2016 2:34:53 GMT -5
yes but thats not the reason for your sound.
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Post by yves on Feb 14, 2016 5:08:41 GMT -5
After having ripped the Blu-ray disc to your harddrive you can use MKVToolNix (free) to extract the audio stream of your choosing as a separate FLAC file, for example, the audio content of which you should then be able to load into your favorite audio editor/analysis software package to inspect the digital waveform. If they have used a strong form of Dynamic Range Compression on it, you will see it because then it will look like all the peaks have been shaved off (and then the engineer who did that deserves to be shot a number of times). The latest Windows/Mac version of MKVToolNix can be downloaded (no ads, 100% clean) from here: www.fosshub.com/MKVToolNix.html (same link as the "for download from fosshub.com" that can be found under "Windows" near the bottom of the official page here: mkvtoolnix.download/downloads.html ). P.S. - Oops! Sorry, here is what you need: forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=141829 |
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Post by bluemeanies on Feb 14, 2016 10:01:59 GMT -5
I've been watching a lot of recently released movies lately; (2000's and up). Then saw my bluray copy of "Ben Hur" on the shelf and thought "Hey, haven't watched that in a few years". Loaded up VLC and ... the sound quality is brutal. It's like all the sound is one level, nothing gets louder or softer, and it's not very clear either. Like a solid wall of glare / sound coming at me. What can I do to improve the sound on this? I remember some older Bond movies that I own are the same problem. The video quality is quite good, I'm just surprised by the sound and hoping there might be some filters or something that can help with this? Any ideas? Did I grab the wrong sound track off the bluray when I copied it to my NAS? Is this the 1959 version or one of the newer versions? If it's the 1959 version you may be experiencing the way the sound was recorded. Having a Blu-Ray edition does not always mean better sound. I've owned Fantasia on VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray and, unfortunately the sound hasn't improved as the media has. The picture has, but not the sound. The reason for this is the both the technical abilities of the time to record audio and the state of the media used to transfer that sound to the home media of choice. Soundtracks and Foley effects can be recreated but vocals are impossible. Unless you have either an edition that has been restored AND remastered from the original tapes, you may not get what you were hoping for. [/my opinion] stiehl...you hit the nail on the head. It has nothing to do with the processor. Movies as well as music are recorded with limitations of the times and also the recording engineer. I have a copy of Ben Hur in blu-ray and have played it on my 12 year Outlaw 990 and the latest Integra processor with no difference in sound quality. As mentioned I have to live with it and appreciate the movie for its classic moment in movie history. Music may be a little different but not all recordings engineered the same. |
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Post by ocezam on Feb 14, 2016 10:12:53 GMT -5
I've been watching a lot of recently released movies lately; (2000's and up). Then saw my bluray copy of "Ben Hur" on the shelf and thought "Hey, haven't watched that in a few years". Loaded up VLC and ... the sound quality is brutal. It's like all the sound is one level, nothing gets louder or softer, and it's not very clear either. Like a solid wall of glare / sound coming at me. What can I do to improve the sound on this? You're not imagining things. Most music and movies back in the day had actively compressed sound. Almost no dynamics. This made it easier to reproduce on the junk audio built into tv's and radios of the day. The only component I've owned or heard that can help is the old analog DBX dynamic range expanders. These came in several models. I wouldn't consider any less than the DBX 3BX. You can do some research online to educate your self about how they work. And they do work well I owned a 3BX in the early 80's and it really helped older recordings. However, you will be adding another component in the chain, therefore another opportunity for distortion and noise. Also you will be using a component that is anywhere from 25 to 35 years old. If it hasn't been recapped, it likely will sound terrible. There are a lot of "vintage guys" that are rebuilding and using these. |
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Post by copperpipe on Feb 15, 2016 19:17:50 GMT -5
From doing a little leg work on the 'net today, I think Boomzilla and bootman are correct. There is a "core" track which is lossy audio, and pretty much any receiver / software player in existence can decode this. The HD track contains the lossless data (or rather what is needed to create a lossless track by combining this stream with the core stream), and only licensed AVR's can decode this, with the addition of a few paid software programs. VLC can't decode the lossless HD stream (because it's free and they don't have a license to do this), so it falls back to the lossy stream. So whenever I've been playing my bluray's through VLC I've actually been playing the lossy track the whole time. And worse, since in MakeMKV (the ripper software) I had selected both HD and the Core streams, I was wasting data since there is no need to save both the HD and the Core; that results in two audio streams in the output mkv file, an HD stream (which can be decoded as lossy) and the second stream is a copy of the lossy / core stream. The core stream was wasted space to the tune of 1.5 to 3 gigs per bluray. Ouch. I might just re-rip them all. Actually what's interesting is that MakeMKV can convert the HD stream to FLAC if you tell it where the dll is (this dll comes with a purchased copy of some other media software, forget the name). But I have yet to figure out whether the flac audio now contains the HD or Core audio data  I do believe though that the others are also correct; the poor audio quality is due in this case to the original recording being poor (compared to today's standard) rather than being a result of listening to the core stream instead of the hd stream. |
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Post by Boomzilla on Feb 15, 2016 20:44:35 GMT -5
Thanks for the update.
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Post by MusicHead on Feb 15, 2016 22:14:02 GMT -5
If you want an example of modern no dynamics sound, just watch the Grammys rigth now :-)
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Post by copperpipe on Feb 17, 2016 19:06:22 GMT -5
You are not getting access to the HD audio tracks that way without an AVR. Hmmm... So you were right in that I was doing it wrong, but you are wrong in that it IS possible to do it right without needing an AVR  (I only mention this "for completeness" and in case it's of interest to you) MakeMKV has a "Flac" profile, and after looking into it a bit more, when converting DTS-HD stream to flac then it's possible to have lossless high def audio. You can also choose to add the core stream as well in case you still want s/pdif capability. Then it's just a matter of playing the mkv back in VLC and making sure it uses the flac stream. www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5710 |
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bootman
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Post by bootman on Feb 17, 2016 21:08:02 GMT -5
You are not getting access to the HD audio tracks that way without an AVR. Hmmm... So you were right in that I was doing it wrong, but you are wrong in that it IS possible to do it right without needing an AVR (I only mention this "for completeness" and in case it's of interest to you) MakeMKV has a "Flac" profile, and after looking into it a bit more, when converting DTS-HD stream to flac then it's possible to have lossless high def audio. You can also choose to add the core stream as well in case you still want s/pdif capability. Then it's just a matter of playing the mkv back in VLC and making sure it uses the flac stream. www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5710Thanks for the info. |
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Post by Bonzo on Feb 18, 2016 13:48:16 GMT -5
Oh yeah, this modern world is just so convenient. NOT.  I'm dizzy just reading all this crap you need to "just do this" and "just do that" and then "convert this" and "download that."  You can have it. ------------------------------------------- What I was actually going to say is that it's Blu-rays and DVD's like this that make for a perfect case of why something like the XMC-1 SHOULD in fact have surround effect "modes". When ever I bump into an old movie, or just something in mono (like my DVD of Stripes), or something that sounds like crap, I give flipping through the surround modes a try. Many times the mono mode clears things up right away and makes it much more listenable. Of course my other argument for the same thing, but totally off topic here, is for live music performances. Many are recorded via soundboard and use the usual codecs to put back surround sound into the mix. I much prefer to hear live shows they way they sounded in that particular venue, not straight up sound board. For example, I bought the String Cheese Incident CD from Red Rocks last year that I attended. Only with one of the "fake" surround modes (like Stadium etc) was I able to make it feel like I was actually back in Red Rocks seeing the show. Now I certainly don't use these effect modes very often, but when I choose or need to, they certainly make the entire experience much better. |
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