So theatrical 4.1 mixes are effectively L, C, R, LFE and a single mono surround channel (Cb).

If I want to sync and preserve one of these mixes, I'll eventually need to export it as a standard 5.1/6-channel file.

My current approach is to duplicate the mono surround channel and route the copies to channels 5 and 6, so that the exact same signal is sent to both SL and SR.

My question is: should each surround channel be attenuated by 3 dB in that case?

I can't remember whether the original mono surround channel in a 4.1 theatrical mix was already compensated for this, or whether modern AVRs apply their own level compensation when they distribute a single surround channel across left and right surrounds.

How do you usually handle this when converting a theatrical 4.1 mix to standard 5.1?

For the 1993 Special Edition LaserDisc and VHS release, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) received a custom home-video mix supervised by original sound designer Gary Rydstrom. Seven years later, for the 2000 Ultimate Edition DVD, the soundtrack was remixed for both the theatrical cut and the Special Edition.
 
I analyzed the various Special Edition audio mixes released across different home-video releases over the years. Here are the spectrograms:

• UE - 2000 Ultimate Edition DVD
  
• Extreme - 2003 Extreme DVD
  
• 2015 BD - 2015 Lionsgate Blu-ray
  

Hello, my name is Nick and I am heavily intrigued and interested in all of the projects that are shared here, especially ones involving audio.

With the 20th anniversary of Superman Returns on the horizon, it's fitting that I showcase and present another recolor project that I had been personally working on for quite some time. Superman Returns had a very unusual history when it came to its releases. The theatrical trailers and the film itself came out with color grades that are considered either too dim or concerning.

The 2006 home video releases (even the 2008 reissued Blu-Ray with a DTS-MA track) had recolored the picture, and made it look muddy and bland. While there were attempts to recolor the film over the years, I didn't see one where it looked like the original 35mm prints. There WAS a 35mm print for sale on eBay but it was sold and the one which is up now is concerning given the lack of photos.

And so I thought I'd take the matters in my own hands and do a 35mm regrade of the film. My intention for this project is to give this movie a more presentable and accessible outlook (with a better color grade) while giving back its 35mm look and feel. Hoping the film would fair better with fans and audiences than it is now.

Sources:
2006/2008 Blu-Ray Release
The open-matte version of the film
A scan of the trailer's 35mm print (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQEc89Z6dA)
DrDre's color matching tool

Hi everyone

I'm working on colour grading one of my favourite movies ever - ALIENS.

It's really an exercise in learning DaVinci Resolve, which is an incredible bit of kit by the way, as I'm a video producer here in the UK.

I'm after a little advice on posting screengrabs of the work so far. Can anyone advise me on a good place to post images? When I use the "Insert an Image" button I just get a broken image icon. I'm attempting here with a Dropbox link:



I'll post more if I'm successful!!

Thanks in advance

1991 LD [11398] PCM 2.0 decoded into 5.0 using a Shure HTS-5300.  Synced to the UHD and saved as FLAC.

The UHD stereo has been loudified and boosted, with clipping in several spots, and some noise reduction in the low end. In spite of all that, the UHD and LD are about the same in dynamic range. So, it is the same mix but they couldn't help but mess with it a little bit.

PM me for link 

Hi! I'm quite interested in learning more about restoring video's, especially old animation. So I might dive into this someday and if I do I'd share it here.

I just found out about this forum and I'm looking forward to what I can learn from the people here for improving some meager releases.

Hi everyone,
I’ve been lurking around the forum for a bit, and I finally decided to sign up and say hello. I just wanted to congratulate all of you—the level of dedication, technical knowledge, and passion for film preservation here is mind-blowing.
I’ve been a massive movie lover for as long as I can remember, but over the years, my passion evolved into something a bit more... "obsessive." I didn’t just want to watch movies; I wanted to experience them in the best possible way. This led me straight into the rabbit hole of Home Cinema, multi-channel audio setups, and video calibration.

For me, a great movie is a delicate balance of perfect visuals and an immersive, dynamic soundstage. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of unlocking the full potential of a film’s original mix on a properly tuned sound system.
Sadly, as many of you know too well, official home video releases (especially local European/Italian tracks) often let us down with butchered audio, compressed tracks, or revisionist video grading that ruins the theatrical experience. That’s exactly why I find this community so fascinating: you guys don’t just complain about bad releases; you actually roll up your sleeves and fix them.

I'm here to learn, discover some hidden gems, and hopefully, down the road, contribute to some awesome restoration projects.
Looking forward to chatting with you all!
Cheers,


Pablitho

Hi everyone,
I’ve recently started getting into the world of audio preservation and restoration, and after doing some research, I stumbled upon this forum. I have to say, the level of technical expertise here is absolutely amazing.
I was thinking about a specific approach to hybrid audio restoration, and I wanted to ask if this is something you have already experimented with, or if it's considered a standard practice here.
When restoring a local release (in my case, Italian), we often face the issue of great older mixes being trapped in lossy formats (like AC3 or standard DTS from old DVDs), while the modern Blu-ray/4K releases have an incredible, dynamic Lossless English track (DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD/Atmos).
Has anyone ever tried to build a "hybrid" lossless track by keeping the untouched English Lossless channels for everything related to M&E (Music & Effects) — meaning Left, Right, Surrounds, and LFE — and then extracting and sync-matching only the local dialogue from the lossy center channel onto the lossless English center?
Conceptually, this seems like the ultimate way to get the best of both worlds: the full dynamic range of the original lossless effects/score, combined with our local dubbing.
However, being new to this, I can foresee a few technical roadblocks, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on them:
1. Bleeding: How do you deal with dialogue bleeding into the Left and Right channels on older local mixes?
2. Center Channel M&E: Since the English center channel also contains specific localized sound effects and foley, replacing it entirely with the lossy local center might degrade the ambient quality. Do you use spectral isolation (like iZotope RX) to extract only the dry vocal track from the lossy source before mixing it into the English track?
3. Phase & Mix Differences: How painful is it to level-match and EQ the hybrid track when the original theatrical audio stems for the two languages come from completely different masters?
I would love to hear your experiences, tips, or if there are any specific threads/guides covering this kind of "vocal transplant" workflow.
Thanks a lot for your time and for this incredible community!