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FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: The Complete Recordings - RE-ISSUE now available (3CD/1BD or 5LP)


Jay

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Paging @thx99!  We're looking for the best way to tell if a 24/48 DTS-MA track on a Blu Ray is real 24/48 or fake up-converted 16/48 - what is the best way to test that?

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6 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

Now something that sounded perfectly fine to everyone before will suddenly be inadequate..."I can TOTALLY tell the difference!"

True. I tried one of those tests where you need to guess which clips are of the highest quality. I guessed some and failed at others. Yeah, "guessed" is a key word here. ;)

 

Karol

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20 hours ago, Jay said:

Paging @thx99!  We're looking for the best way to tell if a 24/48 DTS-MA track on a Blu Ray is real 24/48 or fake up-converted 16/48 - what is the best way to test that?

 

I'm not @thx99, but you could look at FLAC encodings of both versions and check for wasted bits?

 

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,97746.0.html

 

Alternatively, the quick and dirty method is just to look at file sizes.  If they've been upsampled, the files will compress more due to the redundant data caused by upsampling. 

 

These are the FLACs I have of the 2018 '24/48' release:

 

image.png

 

This is the 2005 24/48 DVDA in FLAC format:

image.png

 

Note the roughly double file size (apart from May It Be, which may warrant further examination).

 

For reference, here are FLACs of the 2005 CD (16/44) release:

image.png

 

 

 

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So the reissue is screwed up then? 

 

Will corrected discs be offered to those who purchased the faulty ones? 

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On 4/21/2018 at 11:15 AM, Jim Ware said:

 

I'm not @thx99, but you could look at FLAC encodings of both versions and check for wasted bits?

 

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,97746.0.html

 

Alternatively, the quick and dirty method is just to look at file sizes.  If they've been upsampled, the files will compress more due to the redundant data caused by upsampling. 

 

These are the FLACs I have of the 2018 '24/48' release:

This is the 2005 24/48 DVDA in FLAC format:

 

 

Note the roughly double file size (apart from May It Be, which may warrant further examination).

 

For reference, here are FLACs of the 2005 CD (16/44) release:

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I'm not clear on this...are your 2018 FLAC's from HD Tracks, or did you rip them from the BD?

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42 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

 

Sorry, I'm not clear on this...are your 2018 FLAC's from HD Tracks, or did you rip them from the BD?

 

Mine are from 7Digital (and seemingly have the same issue as HDTracks) - I don’t have a physical copy.  

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Ah, OK then.

 

Well I think in comparing all these files, it's useful to remember that there are multiple versions of the high res audio, to say nothing of the FLAC files, floating around.

 

There's the 24/48 stereo and surround tracks on the original DVD-A, and the same on the new BD. Then there are the FLAC's of the DVD-A that have been available on various file sharing sites for a while. Then there's the HD-Tracks stereo versions, which may or may not be the identical to what's on the BD, which may or may not be identical (but probably is) to what's on the DVD-A.  So it's important to compare apples to apples...e.g. the surround tracks could potentially be twice the size of the stereo tracks.

 

FWIW, I found this discussion (which doesn't shed much light I'm afraid) over at Blu-Ray.com:

 

Quote

I compared decoded DTS HD to the decoded MLP from the original DVD-A (both are 24/48). Here's a summary of what I've heard or seen so far:

stereo:
.Loudness levels and range match
.A bit more masked treble content above 3kHz in the Blu-Ray DTS-HD
.A tad bit of peak limiting in the Blu-Ray DTS-HD (not really noticeable)
.Audibly identical in short AB test

5.1 (audio comparison of L/R tracks, visual/numerical comparison of others):
.DTS-HD is ~0.7dB hotter than MLP
.Loudness range is the same (21.2LU)
.Same minor peak limiting on DTS-HD
.Same extra treble above 3kHz on both tracks
.Some significant spectral difference in last track in certain sections
*Found the cause: seems to be some splicing causing misalignment here and there. Aligning each section, I find extra content much like in the stereo mix, but instead of just being above 3kHz, there is a 'hole' around 3k, with low-amplitude content that modulates with the rest of the content. ABing of each section didn't pop up anything obvious.
.MLP subwoofer track is 16-bits padded to 24-bit
.DTS-HD subwoofer track appears native 24-bit

 

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As to that filesize comparison: when ripping a CD, foobar has settings for FLAC, you can set a slider on a gradient from fast convert but big filesize to slow convert and small filesize. Granted, I never tried them both out to see the actual difference or compare the contents.

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19 hours ago, Holko said:

As to that filesize comparison: when ripping a CD, foobar has settings for FLAC, you can set a slider on a gradient from fast convert but big filesize to slow convert and small filesize. Granted, I never tried them both out to see the actual difference or compare the contents.

 

I don’t think that has that drastic an effect, but I did warn that this was a quick and dirty comparison!

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I don't even have a Bluray player, so for the time being, to hell with all that, let's give the CDs another spin!

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5 hours ago, Incanus said:

So is anyone actually just listening to this music for like...enjoyment? All I see is a heated debate on the bit rates. 

 

Or is the brilliance of the music so obvious that most focus on just examining the quality of the Blu-ray disc compared to the DVD-audio? :) 


Might not be too far off the mark there! We all know how amazing the music is and there's not too much more discussion to be had about it from a re-issue of the same album.

Almost sorry I posted what I saw on HDtracks about the third disc, especially if it has thrown peoples enjoyment of the re-issue into question. I just thought it was an interesting note and was curious if it was a long-standing issue from the 2005 release or an error introduced recently.

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9 hours ago, Incanus said:

So is anyone actually just listening to this music for like...enjoyment?

 

Me! :)

 

I haven't given my vinyls a spin yet since I don't have the turntable component of my setup (fairly vital), but I play my Complete Recordings literally every day for sheer enjoyment.

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9 hours ago, Incanus said:

So is anyone actually just listening to this music for like...enjoyment?

 

My friends and I put on the Howard Shore LotR OSTs while we play War of the Ring (4-player variant). We measure how long the game has run by how many movies we’ve gone through!

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10 hours ago, Incanus said:

So is anyone actually just listening to this music for like...enjoyment? All I see is a heated debate on the bit rates.

 

Why does someone have to chime in like this every time there's a decent bit of tech talk? It's not like determining and noting the differences between releases detracts from the quality of the music in any way. Some of us just want to know these things. In this case, the majority of us already know the music intimately and have probably discussed it at length on this forum if not others as well.

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1 hour ago, Pellaeon said:

My friends and I put on the Howard Shore LotR OSTs.

 

The original releases are amazing in their own right. An absolute essential.

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1 hour ago, Holko said:

At least we have them from somewhere. As alternatives for the CRs, the OSTs are amazing and a breath of fresh air.

 

A lot of the tracks also work very well as "suites". Concerning Hobbits, The Black Rider, etc...

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3 hours ago, mstrox said:

If you held a gun to my head and said "you can only listen to one Lord of the Rings score release," I would choose the Fellowship OST in a heartbeat.

 

The Fellowship OST is the best OST of the century .

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19 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

 

My friends and I put on the Howard Shore LotR OSTs while we play War of the Ring (4-player variant). We measure how long the game has run by how many movies we’ve gone through!

 

That game is awesome. Never played the 4-player variant, though.

 

Last time we made it well into side A of the Return of the King DVD.

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Well, that was not a very deep interview, and the interviewer clearly did no research beforehand.  Asking Shore if he was familiar with LOTR before being offered the movie!

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16 hours ago, Jay said:

Well, that was not a very deep interview, and the interviewer clearly did no research beforehand.  Asking Shore if he was familiar with LOTR before being offered the movie!

 

Actually, I found this bit to be somewhat revealing...

 

Quote

 

Was there ever any point when you were working on it when Peter asked you to tweak something or didn’t particularly like the musical direction in which you were heading?

We worked well together on Lord of the Rings. It was a very good collaboration. Also, I had a good friendship with the other screenwriters, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. So we set out on this journey, and sometimes Peter was holding the light for me, and sometimes I was holding the light for him. We proceeded through Tolkien’s world. We started in the Mines of Moria, a 26-minute piece, that was created for the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001. And when we finished Fellowship of the Ring in the fall of 2001, we went on to The Two Towers and Return of the King. It was a lengthy and very intense few years!

 

 

Notice he mentioned only LOTR...but not The Hobbit.  Some may think this was an inadvertent omission, but I think there's clearly more going on here.

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Well of course we all know there was tension between Jackson & Shore on The Hobbit, but this is the first time I can recall it being alluded to by Shore, even indirectly.

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17 hours ago, Jay said:

Well, that was not a very deep interview, and the interviewer clearly did no research beforehand.  Asking Shore if he was familiar with LOTR before being offered the movie!

 

Eh, as far as its intended purposes (promotion for a reissue of the LOTR set), it's good enough.  You get into too much of a deep dive, you don't draw in the people who don't already have that set, TBH.

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It's just bizarre to me that there would exist an interviewer tasked with interviewing Shore about FOTR, who wouldn't have done the bare minimum of research that would reveal quite obviously that Shore was already a Tolkien fan long before being hired to score the film

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Interviewers ask questions they know the answer to all the time.

 

The point is to inform whoever the audience for the interview is, not the interviewer. I'd guess there are a lot of people reading who didn't know that.

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22 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

Interviewers ask questions they know the answer to all the time.

 

The point is to inform whoever the audience for the interview is, not the interviewer. I'd guess there are a lot of people reading who didn't know that.

 

Exactly!

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Good question, probably not TOO long from now.  I would guess all three will be out this year.  Hopefully Doug's Hobbit book and Hobbit CRs this winter?

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31 minutes ago, Jay said:

Good question, probably not TOO long from now.  I would guess all three will be out this year.  Hopefully Doug's Hobbit book and Hobbit CRs this winter?

Probably not, I should think that it would be a bit more spaced out than that.

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Still looks like Amazon US sold out of the vinyl - $241.96 is the cheapest price. So glad I bought mine when I did. I haven't seen it available and in stock at the retail price of $108 or so in a couple months.

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