[Released] Ace in the Hole [1951] R2 Paramount DVD synced to Criterion Blu

[M A]

I have now finished syncing the 2008 R2/R4 Paramount DVD's audio to the Criterion Blu-Ray

See comments I previously wrote:

I have now had a chance to compare the audio from the 2014 Criterion Blu-Ray, the 2014 Eureka! Blu-Ray, the 2007 Criterion DVD, and another track which I found online. It has PAL speedup, so I presume it is the audio from the 2008 R2/R4 Paramount DVD, which is what I will be referring to it as from now on.


2014 Criterion Blu-Ray

The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from a 35 mm optical soundtrack print. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube's integrated workstation.

This track is very bad. Heavy noise reduction and so everything sounds extremely dead and muffled.
Spectrum: https://i.imgur.com/gdSVXtf.png
Spectogram: https://i.imgur.com/ZFTFjfM.png


2014 Eureka! Blu-Ray

Eureka's booklet makes no reference to the audio.

This track is certainly better than the one found on Criterion's blu, but is still very muffled and dull.
Spectrum: https://i.imgur.com/kYpyChc.png
Spectogram: https://i.imgur.com/hnvctEu.png


2007 Criterion DVD

The soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from the optical soundtrack negatives, and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle.

Once again, this track is an improvement. Not amazing, but acceptable. Less muffled than the blu-rays.
Spectrum: https://i.imgur.com/ypP73OV.png
Spectogram: https://i.imgur.com/suUfbe6.png


2008 Paramount DVD

Note that the source I found for this had re-encoded the audio at 128kbps

Even better still. It sounds more lively than the criterion DVD and much more so than the blu-rays. It sounds good, but I still think that it could sound better.
Spectrum (speed adjusted): https://i.imgur.com/3iYdRP5.png
Spectogram (speed adjusted): https://i.imgur.com/ocVog3k.png


I am planning on getting started syncing the paramount DVD's audio to the criterion blu at some point.

[axeyou]

Thanks, M A!

2008 Paramount DVD

Note that the source I found for this had re-encoded the audio at 128kbps

(Sorry I meant to look into it when you initially posted the above, before you started syncing, but it had totally eluded me.)

I assume you had found the DVDRip with a 2.0 mono transcoded into 128kbps MP3 on Rutracker? Looking at the spectrogram, there's a cutoff at ~11 kHz. AFAIK that's not a coincidence:

A big part of MP3 compression is cutting off high frequencies. The threshold depends on bitrate. 2.0 @ 128 kbps means 64 kbps per channel (not sure if MP3 features inter-channel compression, probably not?). According to https://thesession.org/discussions/19642, encoding into 64 kbps MP3 effectively applies a low-pass filter at 11 kHz. Here's another post with spectrogram illustrations at different bitrates: https://www.reddit.com/r/trap/comments/3...ity_of_an/

How difficult was the sync? If it's easy to retrace the steps, it may be worth it to seek out the original AC-3 encode and see if it sounds noticeably better. It's possible that the original won't sound any different because the spectrogram you had already showed there was little activity as we approach 11 kHz, but I'm also not sure whether compression affects that.

I'm trying to download a few random DVDRips and see if they are PAL. If anyone lives in Australia though, here's the cheapest eBay listing currently: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185845995389 Sadly shipping to the US is 3x the cost of the DVD itself, otherwise I would've ordered one.

Anyways, this is already a win when it sounds better than all other editions. Nice work!!

EDIT: Reading the two source I cited above more closely, their bitrate to cutoff threshold mappings are based on 2.0 tracks, not 1.0. For 2.0 @ 128 kbps, it would be a 16 kHz cutoff instead of 11 kHz, so this is probably fine judging from the spectrogram.

[Yarp]

so this is probably fine judging from the spectrogram.

that spectrogram is ugly and definitely was retranscoded. i have access to this dvd though and can probably share tomorrow.

[Yarp]

This is definitely a nice upgrade over the Criterion. These aren't level matched but you can get the idea:
https://slow.pics/c/mpREfZcu

Sorry I didn't see your request earlier. Looks like it's not that hard of a sync though.

[annaruvin]

can i have a link please