[Released] Terminator 2 CDS mix

[pipefan413]

So, my brother and I have been looking into a bunch of different T2 video transfers and corresponding audio in the past couple weeks. There's definitely some strange discrepancies between different releases that makes syncing up audio without editing very difficult. As you stated, the 2008 FR BD is missing frames, not just in the "She's not my mother, Todd" scene, but throughout. There's even an extra frame from the director's cut that wasn't cut out towards the end. I can share timestamps if anyone else wants to work on it. I've done what I can to sync up the 2008 "CDS" BD DTS-HD audio to other theatrical releases. The result isn't too bad, but it's definitely not perfect. Still working on it.

This makes it even more difficult to sync up to the latest theatrical "remaster", because the remaster seems to be the only release that actually includes an additional 3-4 frames when Arnie rides off on his bike before cutting to Sarah Connor's interview recording at the asylum. This film is a frustrating one Within the next week I'm hoping to be able to share a collaborative effort of what I would like to call as definitive a version of T2 as we can get, with a bunch of high quality audio tracks muxed in.

Pretty much, yep. I was intending to use an approach similar to jonno's and was doing exactly that up to a certain point until I reached a particular moment with like 40 missing frames in a row and noped out. I've been doing various other things since then and haven't gone back to it in a while. Good luck with it, in any case!

[Stamper]

At this point I would just enjoy the Japanese DTS or the original 1997 DVD release, and call it a day regarding anything with StudioCanal logo on it.

It's not worth wasting time with these crap releases.

[pipefan413]

At this point I would just enjoy the Japanese DTS or the original 1997 DVD release, and call it a day regarding anything with StudioCanal logo on it.

It's not worth wasting time with these crap releases.

Tbf although I agree that the StudioCanal French disc is a bit of a riot, maybe surprisingly, the "40 missing frames in a row" was actually the Japanese DTS. I'm describing it poorly there though because it wasn't just straight up missing that amount of frames, they'd duplicated one frame in the video a whole bunch of times, and looped a chunk of the audio as well, but they didn't loop the audio to line up with the video properly so it was kind of a nightmare. My plan from the outset was to try to limit my edits (partly as a challenge, partly to avoid any re-encoding whatsoever) to nothing other than duplicate very carefully chosen DTS frames. The problem is, that doesn't work very well when there is a GIANT hole in the video and audio *and* they don't line up with each other very well, like there is in that spot on the Japanese DVD. And that's on top of the whole "Arnie on bike cut to Sarah in the facility" missing frames problem and all the other discrepancies.

The bit I'm referring to with the giant hole is where there's a knife stuck in a table and it gets pulled out. In the film there are a bunch of frames of the knife sitting there not moving very much but on the Japanese DVD from which the 1509 kbps DTS track was pulled, it's missing a massive chunk of frames from the start so they just took the first one that they *did* have and duplicated it more than 30 times or something. I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head any more.

I basically decided I didn't have the energy to deal with that sort of a problem while self-imposing that I keep one arm tied behind my back and would come back to it eventually, which I still intend to do, but haven't yet found the will to do it since I'm also trying to do a bunch of other things and still don't have enough disk space free to work without having to keep stopping to delete or move things. Plus, the existing sync is great, the only reason I was redoing it was to see if I could keep it encoded while resyncing it rather than decoding and editing the raw PCM, which is obviously easier because you have more freedom to do whatever edits are required to sound natural and don't have to keep doing sample/frame/time calculations constantly. And you're right, there are probably better things to be doing than redoing something that's perfectly fine as it is (existing resync of AC-3 using frame-chopping method I was using for the DTS, and existing resync of DTS decoded to FLAC).

[Stamper]

The knife was a change of reel.

The original reel change was probably with some extra leader on it, hence the difference in frames.

[pipefan413]

The knife was a change of reel.

The original reel change was probably with some extra leader on it, hence the difference in frames.

Yeah, I gathered! But knowing that doesn't make it any less annoying to fix without doing a decode, edit, re-encode job.

[Kreeep]

To any of you gentlemen who have the Japanese CDS DTS mix, may I please request it? I want to include as many quality audio mixes into the latest T2 "remaster" release regrade that my brother and I have been working on. I know it will require syncing. Would love to have a crack at it. PM if you can please

[borisanddoris]

I am super late to this discussion but thought I’d chime in.

I’ve seen T2 in 70MM mag. No home video release I’ve ever heard from VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, or Blu-ray competes with it. It’s on a whole different level. Just a stunning mix.

That being said, I’d say the US AC3 LaserDisc release is about as close to it as you can get. Is it better than the 97 DVD? Never did an A/B so I couldn’t scientifically say. The 97 DVD is certainly faithful though. Better than any remix in terms of faithfulness.

I’m more of a history and precedent kind of fellow so I’m almost always going to argue that LaserDiscs are going to have more faithful elements used for audio before revisionists started coming in and mucking about. Early DVDs are more likely to be less prone to this phenomena. But I recall a marketing benefit of DVD back then was that one AC3 track could work for home theatres and televisions using tricks/features in the Dolby encoder. I highly doubt any studio in the laserdisc AC3 heydays were even thinking about encoding tracks and considering a downmix. It was all about the big loud experience and competing with DTS.

As someone said earlier, it’s all about the mix. And to my ears over the years, LaserDisc almost always wins.

[Stamper]

Completely. It's amazing how sloppy Cameron as gotten over the years, and damaged his past work with remasters and remixes and digital fixes.

[Swift S. Lawliet]

Trying to clarify all this but I'm missing some info (mostly around the sources used for the TeamBlu version). I'm making some assumptions here that I would like to make sure are correct before I get deeper down the wrong path, if they're not. There's a lot of info in this thread at this point, and a lot of info that isn't (as far as I can tell), so I thought it might be good to try to summarise everything (I think) I know about these to see if it's helpful to anybody else as well.

What I *think* is as follows...


CINEMA DIGITAL SURROUND MIX (5.1)

There are at least three encodes of the original 5.1 Cinema Digital Surround (CDS) mix repurposed for home video releases: a Dolby Digital one from that same 1997 US DVD, a 1509 kbps DTS one from the 2003 JP DVD, and a slightly more processed / cleaned up DTS-HD Master Audio one that was featured at least on the French HD-DVD and 2-disc French BD from 2008 (this was later restructured into a single-disc version with seamless branching that formed the basis of the 2008 JP BD and 2009 Skynet Edition BDs, which necessessitated replacing the theatrical audio with remix audio because of the special edition / extended edition branching; the UK got a single-disc version that only had disc 2, the special edition, without the theatrical cut and therefore without theatrical audio).

The version used by TeamBlu was synchronised by jonno to the Skynet Edition then given to TeamBlu to use with their release. However, I'm not certain which video TeamBlu used, so I couldn't know without checking if they did any resync / delay. Comparing the files, it seems not, so either they used a Skynet Edition (which seems unlikely) or they used the slightly earlier 2008 JP BD (less DNR etc.) and it happens to have the exact same sync as the Skynet Edition (which would not be that surprising given it appears to be the case that the Skynet Edition was extrapolated from that same master).


SURROUND REMIXES (variously either 5.1 matrix, discrete 6.1, 5.1, and in the case of some dubs, 7.1)

The surround remix was initially created for the 2000 US DVD ("Ultimate Edition") and was mixed in 6.1, then encoded as both Dolby Digital 5.1 EX and DTS-ES Matrix 5.1 (in other words, Dolby and DTS versions of matrixed 5.1 that decodes to extrapolate an extra mono rear surround channel from the 5.1 encode, so you get L, C, L, Ls, Rs, and Cs). Both of these encodes were also later included on the 2006 US BD.

A couple of years later, the 2008 JP BD got the remix in 5.1 TrueHD while retaining the "EX" moniker so this should theoretically decode back to 6.1 as well. This seems to be the TrueHD mix that TeamBlu used, since it's the only one I'm aware of existing... which again feels like further evidence that they used the 2008 JP BD video track as well, and just included the audio it came with alongside jonno CDS mix resync and the commentary tracks (which I'll get to in a minute).

Later still, lossless DTS-HD Master Audio versions of the remix were done for the "Skynet Editions" including the 2009 US BD (which also had the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 EX one from before) and 2009 UK BD (which didn't, because it had more audio dubs to include). Curiously, it appears that the US version's DTS-HD MA track keeps the same matrixed 5.1 encoding as before, but the slightly later UK version goes for discrete 6.1; whether this mix is actually better or worse overall, I've yet to check. The 2015 US BD, which seems like a less processed version of the Skynet Edition master (and therefore I'm assuming is probably very very similar, if not identical, to the 2008 JP BD encode) uses the 5.1 DTS-HD MA remix, but there's no mention of this being matrixed so I presume it's not, meaning that the audio originally intended to be matrix decoded to a separate centre surround channel is probably just left sitting in the L and R surrounds instead.

The most recent releases off the new scan and remaster for 3D and 4K, such as the 2017 UK 3D BD and slightly later 2017 US/UK 4K BD, appear to again use a discrete 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio version of the remix for some reason (not sure why when they could have either kept the 6.1 discrete or matrixed down to 5.1 as it was originally remixed, or even done a new 7.1 mix, but there you go).


DOLBY STEREO / DOLBY SURROUND MIXES (2.0 matrix)

There is both an original "2.0 Dolby Stereo" (4.0 matrixed to 2.0) and a remixed "2.0 Dolby Surround" (which I think might actually be 6.1 or 5.1 encoded to 2.0, depending on which Pro Logic version it is). The former was available on the old 1997 US DVD, the latter was on the 2008 JP BD (possibly others too, can't remember at this point). Of these, I only have whatever was included on the TeamBlu release, which having checked with my own ears turns out to be the remix. I'm guessing that this is off the 2008 JP BD and if Pro Logic IIx existed back then, I'd guess it's likely meant to be decoded back to 6.1 given that the remix was done in 7 channels to begin with.


TWO COMMENTARIES

I'm not sure what release these first appeared on, but they're referred to as "archival" commentaries on the first US BD from 2006 so presumably they were on an earlier DVD and/or LD. The first one is basically a collection of interviews with cast and crew (which may be the same as what I've seen on the back cover of one of the Special Edition LDs), and the second is a commentary by James Cameron and William Wisher. Both are Dolby Digital 2.0 in all BD releases they appear on, in straight stereo rather than flagged as matrixed / surround / Pro Logic / whatever you want to call it (though that doesn't necessarily mean they're not meant to be decoded that way, I suppose). EDIT: thanks to MrBrown, I think I now know where these first appeared on DVD, which I've added below.


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To summarise all that chronologically, here's what I think is available thus far, at least from DVD and BD (not going to complicate further with LD releases). I'm not currently listing any foreign language dubs for the time being to avoid making this any longer or more confusing but some of those are kinda interesting too (there's a German 7.1 mix, for example).

1997 US DVD (THX digital remaster of theatrical cut):

• Home version of original 5.1 Cinema Digital Surround mix as Dolby Digital 5.1
  
• Home version of original Dolby Stereo (2.0 matrix, intended to be decoded to 4.0) mix as Dolby Digital 2.0 (Pro Logic)
  

2000 US DVD ("Ultimate Edition" with all 3 cuts of the film):

• 6.1 remix as Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (can be decoded back to 6.1)
  
• 6.1 remix as DTS-ES Matrix 5.1 (can be decoded back to 6.1)
  
• Cast & crew commentary, Dolby Digital 2.0
  (I think this is possibly the first appearance of the cast & crew commentary on DVD but not necessarily ever because it's not marked as "NEW!" on the back of the box like other features, so I'm guessing that was possibly off some LaserDisc or another. MrBrown or someone else may correct me if I'm wrong!)
  

This also thanks to MrBrown's info, which I can now see on the back of the box... turns out this seems to be where the James Cameron / William Wisher commentary first appeared...

2003 US DVD (Extreme DVD MetalPak):

• 6.1 remix as Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (can be decoded back to 6.1)
  
• James Cameron / William Wishart commentary, Dolby Digital 2.0 (new for this release)
  

2003 JP DVD (theatrical cut):

• Home version of 5.1 CDS mix as DTS 5.1 @ 1509 kbps
  
• Home version of 5.1 CDS mix as Dolby Digital 5.1 @ 384 kbps
  

2006 US BD (theatrical cut):

• 6.1 remix as Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (can be decoded back to 6.1)
  
• 6.1 remix as DTS-ES Matrix 5.1 (can be decoded back to 6.1)
  
• "Archival" (LaserDisc?) cast & crew commentary, Dolby Digital 2.0
  
• "Archival" James Cameron / William Wishart commentary, Dolby Digital 2.0
  

2008 FR BD (Special Edition + theatrical cuts):
Disc 1 (Special Edition cut): Some version of remix, presumably same as 2008 UK BD 1-disc version of this release which has DTS-HD MA 5.1
Disc 2 (theatrical cut): Home version of 5.1 CDS mix with additional cleanup (partially to remove 16 kHz interference from studio monitor or similar) as DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

2008 JP BD ("Premium Edition" with Special Edition + theatrical cuts):
Disc 1 (Special Edition cut):

• 6.1 remix as Dolby TrueHD 5.1 EX (so matrix encoded after all, intended to decode back to 6.1)
  
• 6.1 remix as Dolby Digital 2.0 matrix (I'm guessing this is intended to be decoded to 6.1 if it's Dolby Pro Logic IIx, but haven't checked yet)
  
• both commentaries
  

Disc 2 (theatrical cut):

• 6.1 remix as Dolby TrueHD 5.1 EX (so matrix encoded after all, intended to decode back to 6.1)
  
• 6.1 remix as Dolby Digital 2.0 matrix (I'm guessing this is intended to be decoded to 6.1 if it's Dolby Pro Logic IIx... not sure if it existed yet, but I think it might've)
  

2009 US BD ("Skynet Edition" with all 3 cuts via seamless branching):

• 6.1 remix as Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (can be decoded back to 6.1)
  
• 6.1 remix as DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 matrix (can be decoded back to 6.1)
  
• commentaries as on 2006 US BD
  

2009 UK BD ("Skynet Edition" with all 3 cuts via seamless branching):

• 6.1 remix as DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 (discrete, it seems)
  
• same 2 commentaries again
  

2015 US BD (Lionsgate/StudioCanal barebones release but has little to no DNR):

• 6.1 remix as DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (no mention of matrix, so possibly not explicitly flagged as such)
  

2017 2D/3D/4K restoration BDs:

• 6.1 remix as DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (again, no mention of matrix, so may not be matrix encoded for the addition extrapolated Cs channel, although you could use the current gen Dolby Surround or DTS Neo:X decoders to try different things I suppose)
  

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I'm quite sure there's at least something I've got wrong in all that, but I hope I've got the gist for the most part.

Here are some things I'd like to confirm:

1. Is whatever source TeamBlu used (I think it might be the 2008 JP BD) already exactly frame-matched and in sync with the 2009 Skynet Editions? I can confirm whether it is now but that doesn't mean it was in the first place. I don't have the JP BD and it's now old and extortionate, even 2nd hand.
   
   
2. I was under the impression that DVDs and BDs up to and including the 2015 BD were from the same scan so would theoretically have the same missing frames and could be synchronised by just applying delays, but it seems like jonno (and whoever synced the DTS, maybe Chewtobacca?) have had to do a lot more than that in terms of knocking out audio frames to make it sync in certain places (in jonno's case, with the AC-3) or decoding to PCM then editing in the lossless realm (as with the DTS version). Is this due exclusively to missing frames at reel changes, or is there more to it than that?
   

Essentially, I'd like to either obtain or create syncs of pretty much every mix I just mentioned that can be used with as many releases as possible, which probably means the pre-2017 ones for the most part. It might be possible to sync stuff with the 2017 without it sounding too terrible / noticeable but since it has fewer (no?) missing frames than the theatrical audio sources, audio would presumably have to either be patched in from the remix off a 2017 disc, stretched, or left as a gap (which depending on where the missing frames lie in the earlier releases could all either work or not). The key thing there would be knowing where the frames are missing, which I can theoretically figure out by de-telecining the DVDs and comparing them frame by frame (particularly around reel changes) to the BDs, but I'm guessing that somebody may already have worked that out who may have notes they could share. If so, please do gimme a shout!

It's possible for 6.1 matrixed tracks to be muxed as plain 5.1 tracks but have the original 6.1 mix decoded back using Dolby Surround or DTS Neo:6.
One of the most popular cases of this is with Die Another Day.
The DVDs were both 6.1 matrix (the only Bond movie to be so and the only Bond movie to have a mix higher than 5.1 until 2015's Spectre) but the Blu-ray was just 5.1.
What is interesting, however, is that they are the exact same mixes.
It's apparently the same case with the first Terminator movie, which was just muxed as 5.1 for the all the Blu-rays when it's the same 6.1 matrix track on the DVD.
They're both MGM releases but this has also happened with some Disney films as well.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and apparently Treasure Planet all had 6.1 mixes for their DVDs but they were just 5.1 on Blu-ray, but the 5.1 audio tracks were the same mix as the 6.1 so they could still be forced to be decoded as 6.1.
Even some earlier Pixar movies like Cars, Ratatouille and Pixar Short Films Collection Vol. 1 had this issue, but the issue with Cars was fixed for the 3D re-release.

The Disney DVD release of Ponyo had a 6.1 matrix track for both Japanese and English but the English dub was only 5.1 on the Blu-ray despite using the same mix as the DVD. It can be forced to be decoded to the original 6.1. Ironically enough, the Japanese audio track, which was downgraded to Dolby Digital EX, is still 6.1.
The later Miyazaki Box Set Disney Blu-ray and the GKIDS Blu-ray have both English and Japanese audio tracks muxed as 5.1 even if they're the exact same 6.1 mixes from Studio Ghibli's archives (before being slightly altered by Disney, as is the case with some of their releases).

This has also happened with Shout! Factory's release of Howl's Moving Castle and Tales from Earthsea, which used the same Japanese 6.1 matrix track as the Japanese Blu-ray release rather than the 5.1 mix on the Disney Blu-ray, but it was still muxed as 5.1.
As for Earthsea, I know the English dub was matrix 6.1 on both the Disney and GKIDS Blu-rays but every single release except for the "upgraded" GKIDS version was in discrete 6.1 for the Japanese audio.
I'm not sure if the Japanese 5.1 mix on the GKIDS Blu-ray is a plain 5.1 mix or a matrixed 5.1 mix that was also on the Asian DVD releases.
Spirited Away had a matrixed 6.1 audio mix for both the Disney and GKIDS Blu-rays in both Japanese and English but the Japanese Blu-ray had a discrete track.

Also, it is possible for 5.1 or even 6.1 to be in 2.0 matrix.
Many PS2, GameCube, Xbox and Wii games were in Dolby Pro Logic II.
Most of the heavy-hitter AAA titles in these consoles were Dolby Pro Logic II.

A handful of them like Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2 (both stereo-only in Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster), Resident Evil 4 (7.1 at least in the Ultimate HD Edition on PC), Sonic Riders (true Dolby Digital EX 6.1 in the Xbox version, 7.1 in the PC version), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (true discrete surround in the HD remaster), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort were even Pro Logic IIx.

The GameCube even had two games that were both in QSound and Dolby Pro Logic II at the same time: the Sonic Adventure ports from Dreamcast (they were just QSound on the Dreamcast but the GameCube versions added Pro Logic II on top of that).
And they were upgraded to discrete surround for their PC ports, with DirectSound3D for SA1.

[pipefan413]

It's possible for 6.1 matrixed tracks to be muxed as plain 5.1 tracks but have the original 6.1 mix decoded back using Dolby Surround or DTS Neo:6.
One of the most popular cases of this is with Die Another Day.
The DVDs were both 6.1 matrix (the only Bond movie to be so and the only Bond movie to have a mix higher than 5.1 until 2015's Spectre) but the Blu-ray was just 5.1.
What is interesting, however, is that they are the exact same mixes.
It's apparently the same case with the first Terminator movie, which was just muxed as 5.1 for the all the Blu-rays when it's the same 6.1 matrix track on the DVD.
They're both MGM releases but this has also happened with some Disney films as well.

Unless I'm completely missing your point, yeah, that's just because the matrix encoding thing is not to do with digital codec encoding/decoding but to do with processing of the actual audio samples and placing them into channels. Lots of Blu-ray Discs (and LaserDiscs) have 2-channel linear PCM tracks that are obviously not explicitly encoded as 2.0 matrixed ("Dolby Surround") in any way but do indeed contain 4:2 matrixed audio, so the correct way to decode them would be using a Dolby Surround / DTS upmixing/decoding mode. You can take those 2 PCM channels and encode them to something like DTS-HD Master Audio as Lt+Rt (effectively instructing the encoder that they're matrix encoded) and this will signal explicitly to the decoder during playback that it's matrixed. So it follows then that it is indeed possible to encode a digital 5.1 DTS-HD MA / Dolby TrueHD track where the surrounds are actually matrixed channels (in the sense that the analogue audio samples they contain were matrix encoded), meaning that the proper way to decode them during playback is as 6.1 matrixed. It doesn't necessarily surprise me to hear that some "5.1" tracks are actually incorrectly encoded 6.1 matrixed tracks, given how many other issues are so often seen on modern releases.