This thread is for original audio on Hitchcock titles. This has been inspired by today’s discovery: certain Hitchcock films were released in Japan on LD with digital audio as the last part of the “Hitchcock library” collection!

I’ve been able to verify so far: Blackmail, Rebecca and...Vertigo. The latter two I just unboxed and checked out. Vertigo is the same master as the analog only pan n scan USA LD but with a pcm mono track that sounds like the dvd and bd track but so far to my ears better...

Now to fly and get a capture device stat...

Here's a small review/comparison of the blu ray/DVD sound of Rear Window: http://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/labe...%281954%29

According to him, DVD seems to be better, but still distorted in the heights. What about LD?

Awesome find, captainsolo

Interesting observations!

How would you describe the sound of the Japanese Vertigo LaserDisc? Would you say it's similar to the analogue US P&S LD but with less distortion (i.e. the result of being digital as opposed to analogue)? Or that it sounds radically different, as if transferred from better film elements (which I think would be unlikely, since as you say the video is the same)...

Because having now heard the US P&S LD, I'd still say the blu-ray DTS track sounds miles better.

(2021-01-02, 03:51 AM)Moshrom Wrote: Interesting observations!

How would you describe the sound of the Japanese Vertigo LaserDisc? Would you say it's similar to the analogue US P&S LD but with less distortion (i.e. the result of being digital as opposed to analogue)? Or that it sounds radically different, as if transferred from better film elements (which I think would be unlikely, since as you say the video is the same)...

Because having now heard the US P&S LD, I'd still say the blu-ray DTS track sounds miles better.

Interested to know this myself.

The Hitchcock stuff on LD is another thing I want to work on but I need to stop spending and go back to actually doing the editing for a while so it might not happen immediately.

I'm capturing the early 80s North by Northwest next. I've also got the Psycho Box Set from the late days of LD which I will be capturing sometime in the near future.

So the observation that the earlier Japanese LaserDisc of Vertigo sounds better than its US counterpart isn't without precedent:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/communi...st-2484258

(2021-01-03, 08:43 PM)Moshrom Wrote: So the observation that the earlier Japanese LaserDisc of Vertigo sounds better than its US counterpart isn't without precedent:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/communi...st-2484258

Well that's great news for the new year! Hope to hear the results if @captainsolo manages a capture.

Just to make sure, it's this LD? https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/51894/PILF-1091/Vertigo

Also curious about the analog-only predecessor: https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/44932/SF098-0092/Vertigo

I think the post refers to the PILF-1091 disc, yeah.

When I checked it still sounds like the same source track just as the picture transfer is the identical master of the US pan n scan disc but a little darker and a little noisier. The audio is without the distortion and noise of the US analog-but it seems to be the same track which also seems the same as the 2005 masterpiece coll. dvd audio.

Thanks to someone in the LD facebook group I've now gotten the matching discs of Rebecca and The Birds from the same line. From my experience with the early Universal releases on KLD and VHS I think what happened is that on this last run of Hitchcock titles with the black covers they added digital sound. However it's only on these certain titles which means you have to scrutinize like mad to figure out which have pcm and which don't.

I've now got a u24 and am trying to get up and running to at the very least get some audio captures done.