[versions] Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

[Chewtobacca]

It sounds as if LD 12646 is likely to remain the best bet when it comes to audio fidelity.

LD 12646 does indeed have mono surrounds.  I confirmed this by inverting one of the surrounds and playing them together; the result was silence.  The information on LDDb is accurate: it's the 70mm, faithfully transferred by Chace.  Both the 2.0 PCM and AC-3 5.1 sound much more exciting than the anemic tracks found elsewhere on home video.  We're lucky that this one made it through.  Accept no substitutes.

[Stamper]

Is the LD 12646 version the same edit as available on DVD/Blu/UHD?

[commandrbond]

FWIW, the Collector's Edition DVD AC3 also has mono surrounds.  It appears to be the same mix as the LD AC3 but the shape of the waveforms are slightly different, perhaps from slightly different levels or eq mastering.  The UHD DTS-HD surrounds are slightly stereoized and volume-boosted; in fact, they even peak higher than the LCRs.  The UHD also appears to have a good amount less low frequency energy than either the LD or DVD (on paper, I did not include it in my listening tests, as I disqualified it from consideration due to the surrounds).

On paper, the DVD is slightly more dynamic than the LD but I couldn't really tell during listening tests.  I feel like maybe the LD has a tiny tiny bit more deep bass but its difficult to tell, even with direct A-B testing.  One thing that did stand out was during the initial musical communication with the mothership at the end: the ambient background noise is a lot louder on the DVD for whatever reason.

Which is more theatrically accurate?  Who knows

[commandrbond]

I forgot to mention that the LD AC3 metadata includes “Roomtype: Large” and “Mix Level: 105db”. The dvd ac3 is missing those specs.