Are there existing home video releases of A Hard Day's Night and Help! in Mono?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by afterm.ath, Aug 17, 2017.

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  1. Larry Geller

    Larry Geller Surround sound lunatic

    Location:
    Bayside, NY
    The very first AHDN LD, MPI MP 1064D, has the original mono mix, but reprocessed (and just CX, not digital). The Criterion LDs had the stereo songs, flown in from LP (and were digital).
     
  2. Regarding what I bolded, I've got to wonder why he bothered to do this. Billable hours? Would allow him a production credit? Who knows... but the general public watching this film wouldn't care, and the hard core Beatle fans would find it annoying. If nothing else, it's insulting to Richard Lester.
     
  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I have been told that some (but not all) of the mag tracks for both films are missing. As a result, for the past 25 years they've had to use a mixture of optical track and mag track for home video versions. I believe Criterion mentioned this on the "Making of" on their Blu-ray of Hard Day's Night.

    I have no explanation as to why somebody would go in and change the mix after the fact, which to me is very dangerous and very wrong, particularly if they're adding new things. I'm not so adverse to them removing an obvious problem, like fixing a bad edit or editing out a click or a thump or something like that.
     
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  4. chacha

    chacha Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    mill valley CA USA
    Yes - and I hate that.
     
  5. Derek Gee

    Derek Gee Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit
    This info is correct. The entire reel one mag audio is missing and was supplied from the optical audio on Reel one by the BFI.

    The Blu-ray mono mix is a) not the original mono audio and b) not Ron Furmanek's restoration either. It's a brand new re-creation of the mono mix done in collaboration with Richard Lester.

    According to the set's "About the Transfer" page:

    "In consultation with Lester, the monaural soundtrack was restored from digitally archived optical elements. These sources include fragments of surviving production stems and the print master that yielded much of the dialogue and effects material for the new 5.1 surround mix. This restoration would not have been possible without the generous contributions of archivists and engineers who evaluated a vast range of surviving audio elements in Hollywood, at Abbey Road Studios, at the BFI, and in Lester's personal collection. Most of the digital transfer of these elements were done at NT Audio Video Film Labs in Santa Monica, California. Unfortunately, the most complete sources were unusably overmodulated, and the cleaner sources were incomplete. By combining different elements of similar character, a new master was carefully reconstructed. As some sources exhibited dramatically different tonal character and even alternate effects mixes, Lester's participation was critical in determining which version was the correct one. The track was assembled and synchronized with the new video master in Pro Tools HD. Chronic overmodulation, with resultant distortion and sibilance was gently mitigated, and hum not common to all sources was attenuated. Dropouts and other indications of decay were repaired on a case-by-case basis, taking care to preserve the documentary character of the film."

    Derek
     
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  6. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I still don't like the idea of a film being remixed, even when the director approves it, and especially when the director is 85 years old.

    I don't have a problem if they take a mono film and make a new 5.1 surround mix out of it, provided they also provide the original mono. But they'd also need to really compare it very, very carefully to make sure they haven't deviated too far from the original. I'm reminded of the terrible stereo remixes of some of the 1950s Hitchcock films, which were all over the place (particularly Vertigo).
     
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  7. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    So the Criterion Collection laser disc (of AHDN) with Ron Furmanek's restoration of the original mono soundtrack, plus (flown in) stereo master mixes of all the music, is the most authentic to the original theatrical print version. And it's simply good looking and good sounding.

    The Criterion BluRay has true 5.1 mixes of the music by Giles Martin, how are those mixes?
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2017
  8. With the stereo music it’s anything but authentic imo. Going from mono to stereo and back to mono multiple times throughout the film is jarring, distracting and takes me ‘out’ of the movie.
     
  9. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I've seen it enough times that I am really waiting for the next song when I see this movie. I like the jolt of sound quality, and love the songs more than the film. And this Beatles album is such a hot recording and mix to begin with. I'm coming at it as a fan of the music first.
     
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