List of releases using Dolby Pro Logic and other matrixed surround stereo tracks?

[captainsolo]

That's a heck of a resource. Thanks so much!!

[axeyou]

A few years ago I emailed the Dolby.com website asking for a list of all Dolby Stereo films. Surprisingly, the archivist took the time to scan the two official lists they have there, and emailed them back to me, giving me also permission to share them. So, here they are.

Thank you for this incredible resource!!

Interestingly, I think Dolby may have mislabeled the second pdf, Dolby Stereo international film list update 1990-1995.pdf. Its last page dates it to January 1992 and I found many films released before 1990 included on it.

[Hydra Spectre]

For Dolby Pro Logic Blu-rays, I noticed many Bandai Namco releases in Japan list Blu-rays in LPCM 2.0ch Dolby Surround.
These include films like AKIRA, Ghost in the Shell, Gundam Char's Counterattack, and the Patlabor movies are Dolby Surround.
Denoting Dolby Pro Logic on Blu-rays seems more common in Japanese Blu-ray releases, especially since they prefer to not upmix or remix audio tracks most of the time.

Lastly, Studio Ghibli's films from Castle in the Sky (1986) to Pom Poko (1994) (except for 1993's Ocean Waves) list having DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0ch Surround tracks. And these films were Dolby Stereo in cinemas in Japan. Weirdly, later films often were released with 5.0, 5.1 or 6.1 mixes in cinemas, and have those tracks on the Blu-rays, but they also have LPCM 2.0ch tracks that are plain stereo. Even when films up to Ponyo were released on VHS with Dolby Pro Logic tracks, and both Whisper of the Heart and Princess Mononoke had Dolby Pro Logic on the LaserDisc releases.

[Yarp]

For Dolby Pro Logic Blu-rays, I noticed many Bandai Namco releases in Japan list Blu-rays in LPCM 2.0ch Dolby Surround.
These include films like AKIRA, Ghost in the Shell, Gundam Char's Counterattack, and the Pat labor movies are Dolby Surround.
Denoting Dolby Pro Logic on Blu-rays seems more common in Japanese Blu-ray releases, especially since they prefer to not upmix or remix audio tracks most of the time.

Lastly, Studio Ghibli's films from Castle in the Sky (1986) to Pom Poko (1994) (except for 1993's Ocean Waves) list having DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0ch Surround tracks. And these films were Dolby Stereo in cinemas in Japan. Weirdly, later films often were released with 5.0, 5.1 or 6.1 mixes in cinemas, and have those tracks on the Blu-rays, but they also have LPCM 2.0ch tracks that are plain stereo. Even when films up to Ponyo were released on VHS with Dolby Pro Logic tracks, and both Whisper of the Heart and Princess Mononoke had Dolby Pro Logic on the LaserDisc releases.

A Dolby Stereo mix in a DTS 2.0 container doesn't mean it's a remix and shouldn't sound any different. All these matrixed formats get decoded the same way. There are even LDs that are listed as true stereo (not dolby or ultrastereo) that are actually matrixed encoded and Dolby Surround will still properly separate/decode.

Which Ghibli films have non-matrixed stereo tracks on them?

[Hydra Spectre]

For Dolby Pro Logic Blu-rays, I noticed many Bandai Namco releases in Japan list Blu-rays in LPCM 2.0ch Dolby Surround.
These include films like AKIRA, Ghost in the Shell, Gundam Char's Counterattack, and the Pat labor movies are Dolby Surround.
Denoting Dolby Pro Logic on Blu-rays seems more common in Japanese Blu-ray releases, especially since they prefer to not upmix or remix audio tracks most of the time.

Lastly, Studio Ghibli's films from Castle in the Sky (1986) to Pom Poko (1994) (except for 1993's Ocean Waves) list having DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0ch Surround tracks. And these films were Dolby Stereo in cinemas in Japan. Weirdly, later films often were released with 5.0, 5.1 or 6.1 mixes in cinemas, and have those tracks on the Blu-rays, but they also have LPCM 2.0ch tracks that are plain stereo. Even when films up to Ponyo were released on VHS with Dolby Pro Logic tracks, and both Whisper of the Heart and Princess Mononoke had Dolby Pro Logic on the LaserDisc releases.

A Dolby Stereo mix in a DTS 2.0 container doesn't mean it's a remix and shouldn't sound any different. All these matrixed formats get decoded the same way. There are even LDs that are listed as true stereo (not dolby or ultrastereo) that are actually matrixed encoded and Dolby Surround will still properly separate/decode.

Which Ghibli films have non-matrixed stereo tracks on them?

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and The Wind Rises are 2.0 dual-mono. Nausicaa has a 5.1 remix for the Russian and German dubs as well as a stereo remix done for a drama album in 1989, but none of these are included on the Japanese Blu-ray. Castle of Cagliostro has a non-matrix stereo remix in 2001, a 5.1 remix in 2014, and a 7.1 remix in 2017, with the 4K UHD also having a stereo downmix of the 2017 7.1 remix. I am not sure if the stereo downmix is matrixed or not.
Ocean Waves is plain stereo, and was never matrixed stereo at any point, since it was a lower-budget TV movie.
All films starting with 1995's Whisper of the Heart (except for The Wind Rises, which was mono) have 5.0, 5.1 or 6.1 mixes in addition to a stereo downmix. Again, I have not actually tested whether these are non-matrixed stereo or matrix encoded like the VHS/LaserDisc mixes. But Ghibli has listed them as stereo, and they encode matrixed surround tracks as DTS-HD MA instead of LPCM, I noticed.

As for other pre-Ghibli films, Panda! Go, Panda! and Sherlock Hound: The Movie have lossless 1.0, lossless 2.0 dual-mono and lossy 2.0 stereo mixes. The lossy 2.0 mixes are stereo remixes, but they sound really awful, to the point that they sound even more worn and less restored than the mono mixes. I don't have the 2001 DVD of Cagliostro, but since it's a TMS film that was part of the same collection, I worry that its 2001 DVD stereo mix sounds as awful as the Sherlock Hound and Panda Kopanda stereo remixes. The 5.1 and 7.1 remixes actually sound good for what they are, and so does the 2017 stereo downmix.