Creepshow DVD mono

[The Griff]

That turned out pretty damn well. Certainly no worse than the looped line. Nice work!

[asterisk8]

So I just remembered again about this, so I decided to do a quick bare-minimum test. Using the Shout! Factory transfer of the movie, I just briefly ripped the uncensored audio from the deleted scene extra provided by the Blu-Ray (since my copy of the workprint is too noisy to be usable).

The result is surprisingly pretty decent surprisingly enough. The biggest issue though is since the original line is in mono, you can easily tell the difference as a result of that rather than the actual audio quality.

Awesome job, that turned out really great, LucasGodzilla! Any plans to share a complete stereo track with that mono line dropped in so we can mux it ourselves?

[LucasGodzilla]

So I just remembered again about this, so I decided to do a quick bare-minimum test. Using the Shout! Factory transfer of the movie, I just briefly ripped the uncensored audio from the deleted scene extra provided by the Blu-Ray (since my copy of the workprint is too noisy to be usable).

The result is surprisingly pretty decent surprisingly enough. The biggest issue though is since the original line is in mono, you can easily tell the difference as a result of that rather than the actual audio quality.

Awesome job, that turned out really great, LucasGodzilla! Any plans to share a complete stereo track with that mono line dropped in so we can mux it ourselves?

Unfortunately, I only did it for the one scene and nothing else, so I have to re-edit it all for it to work. Plus I'm sure there's someone else out there who'd be more capable at blending it in.

[bronan]

Of course that French DVD is super rare. This is best deal I could find on it:

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/DVD-Creepshow-1-...U#shpCntId

[The Griff]

Made some enquiries into the source of the workprint and just heard back from a fella who's a Pittsburgh local and a longtime Romero historian and prop curator:

"Shout Factory got all the clips from me, and I got them from a VHS master. Hopefully Mrs. Romero can eventually locate a better source, as mine isn't the best; I'm just glad I was as intrepid as I was back in the day (he said without elaborating further)."

[NeonBible]

Of course that French DVD is super rare. This is best deal I could find on it:

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/DVD-Creepshow-1-...U#shpCntId

So I thought I'd take another look for the French DVD and saw one on Amazon. Unfortunately the price is still a bit insane.

However I managed to discover a UK PAL R2 DVD (Universal) which advertised as having a Mono 2.0 track. Was affordable so I jumped on it.

Just had a quick listen and good news is it is indeed a dual mono track!

Now the question is, how do we determine if its just a downmix of the stereo mix? I have checked for the "Etiquette c___" line and its still the edited version (maybe not an indicator though).

Going to rip the audio later if anyone is interested in comparing.

Some other observations.

* The back cover indicates a running time of 1h55m to account for PAL speedup I would have guessed, but in fact it is 2hr4m. From a quick comparison to the R1 DVD, I don't notice any pitch differences. This could be a NTSC-PAL transfer.
* It is 1.33:1 open matte like the earlier R1 DVD. However the colour timing is quite a bit different.

[NeonBible]

I did a basic A/B comparison, nothing scientific, just lined it up with a downmix of the BD stereo to mono in Audacity and listened to them side by side. I'm not hearing any big differences really. Perhaps that's expected given they could not work from separate stems according to the video extra on the Shout BD.

Not sure there's anything really that interesting here. It was already mixed to stereo before wide release by Warner Bros so while not the first or originally intended mix, but it is the one everyone is familiar with.

What I find strange is, why release this DVD with a mono mix at all (sole audio track, no other options)? It was released in 2008, in UK where it already saw a 2 disc SE set in 2007 that contained both 5.1 and 2.0 stereo tracks. As mentioned in my previous post, the colour timing is quite a bit different and likely transferred from another source. Here is a comparison:

Shout:


R1 Warner DVD - Open Matte


R2 Universal DVD - Open Matte

[LucasGodzilla]

Not gonna lie, I really quite like the colors and contrast of the Universal DVD.

I do agree though, not sure as to why there's even a mono track included. I highly doubt this is the one talked about originally before Warner remixed it for theatrical release since I'm fairly certain at this point that the only way we could hear that mix is if we could somehow get a scan of the original cut print Mr. Rubinstein supposedly owns (so maybe sometime after his death if we're being honest if there's any remote chance at all even).