Flash Gordon (1980)

[tjmackey]

hahahah good point

[NeonBible]

I had to review it and not turn up to my normal volume levels so at first a few bits sounded weird but it was nice to have the original 2.0 mix back. Later on I got to do a closer comparison and found that there is indeed leakage into the surround.
It’s a consistent murmuring of all dialogue with certain pieces coming out much louder. So it affects certain scenes worse than others. The 5.1 had the same issue surprisingly. If you turn your system to low and put your ear to a surround you’ll hear all the leakage-but it’s not one of those truly awful leaky tracks that happened on bad mixes back in the day.

Ultimately this leakage should not be there. The letterbox LD is the same 2.0 audio but has everything locked to the center and fronts. I did extensive  comparisons and the 2.0 audio is the same track doesn't have that full lock to the front. It also has a little high end roll off so the LD has some slight hiss and high end distortion. He LD is a touch more dynamic too as the new audio is a bit louder.

As otherwise this is an astounding release and one I dreamed of I wrote into arrow to ask about the audio issue. I’m sure this was all provided by Studio Canal who did the new master so I don’t know how this happened.

Hmm surround leakages aside, there appears to be other issues.

1. Dialogue seems to have a weird "fuzzy" quality to it on the new release. I can't really explain it, maybe like a robotic voice. It affects the male actors mostly when they speak at lower pitches. No such issues on the LD.

2. There are mixing differences between the LD and the 2.0 track on the new release.

Here is a sample - https://mega.nz/file/lr43FL7J#MRwFtocTjv...MvcRXDh2PQ

The first clip is LD, second is from the 2.0 track of the 4K remaster. Listen to the difference between Flash's dialogue; the LD is more pleasing. And then listen to the mixing differences between the plane noise and the meteors hitting the water.

[BDgeek]

Excellent comparison NeonBible!

The LD audio absolutely crushes the 4k (as usual I guess).

It's impressive how a format from 30+ years ago is still the reference for sound quality. It shows how lazy and/or misguided techs at studios and authoring houses can be.

[NeonBible]

As for dialog coming out of every channel (even on the 2.0), that could be how it was mixed. Arrow said they restored the 2.0 stereo from the Dolby Stereo LRCS element and pitch corrected the StudioCanal supplied 5.1 remix.

Why did the 5.1 need pitch correcting? I thought it was a new mix created from the stereo.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

The StudioCanal 5.1 mix that was used on the eariler SC/Optimum BD was poorly converted from a 25fps source.

Double checked and both SC's and Arrows US releases use the new 5.1 mix made from an upmix of the LRCS.

[NeonBible]

The StudioCanal 5.1 mix that was used on the eariler SC/Optimum BD was poorly converted from a 25fps source.

Double checked and both SC's and Arrows US releases use the new 5.1 mix made from an upmix of the LRCS.

Oh right. I thought if it was pitch corrected, it would explain some of the weirdness with the voices. Not the leakage into the surround but the fuzziness with vocals which sound like a result of poor time stretching.