Calling All Abba Fans!!! "New" Version of Abba - Gold on its way*

No Dolby digital stereo Rudof as I have Cd in hand. But sounds like that it as been remastered in 5.1 sound.

 

If you have the CD in-hand, as you say, then you would have a strictly 2-channel PCM (NOT Dolby Digital) copy of the album. Unless the DTS 5.1 CD's have made a surprising, and sudden, comeback for commercial album sales, there is NO WAY that this release is 5.1. Plus, that would be a re-mix, not a re-master!

Furthermore, considering all Abba music video DVD's to this point (Abba Gold, The Definitive Collection, #1's) have beeen 2.0 Dolby Digital (or 2.0 PCM where applicable), I doubt strongly that the powers that be at Universal would have commissioned a 5.1 re-mix, or a fake 5.1 mix, for this DVD release.

 

Tve
No as my soundcard in my pc is 5.1 that what I was refering to. The dvd sound is 5.1 sound as far as if you play it though an pc that as a hd video card and an hd soundcard you'll get the 5.1.

 

So, in reality, it isn't a 5.1 mix at all. Your sound card is just creating a 5.1 surround mix from 2-channel.

 

waveforms, please!

 

Okay. I've only looked at the box in store. The DVD is 2 channel stereo, region 0. I didn't think to check PAL or NTSC. Don't recall the main helping of videos, but I can tell you that bonuses include a cartoon version of Money... and a bunch of split screen videos, including Mamma Mia, whatever they are. The standard version of that video is on the main video tracklist.

 

Abbafan09: do be careful what you post as you are giving at least me the impression that you do not know what you are talking about, or at worst like you are being deceitful. There is no problem not knowing stuff, but it would be better to ask stuff and just pick up information than take what might be seen as a poor bluffer's route. Chat is great, unhelpful and misleading misinformation is not.

 

Someone had to say that !

 

I do know what I'm talking about but using old music info as I still work with old music stuff.

 

This doesn't make any sense. Even "old" stereo analogue is very different to 16 track analogue for example. Digital stereo and Digital 5.1 is simply the digital version of this.

 

Agreed!

 

Bad news. The Name of the Game hasn't been sorted. I think Universal used a different source tape alright but it sounds even more distorted than the previous one.

The new remastered DVD is pretty disappointing too - it's stereo NTSC and the restoration guys were a bit overgenerous with the saturation. Either that or Universal has included a rare 'heavy suntan' version of the Waterloo video.

On the videotape transfers, someone appears to be playing with the chroma throughout the playback. This results in repeated shifts in colour balance. Before anyone jumps on me, I now transfer 1" tapes as part of my academic research...

 

And just when you thought it was safe to go back to Sweden!

Thanks for this Kenny. I'm becoming convinced that the only way to have the catalogue reissued in proper sonic form (save for Voulez-Vous Deluxe) is to get Steve to do it, and then get the music videos reissued by Criterion!!!

 

No jumping from me: you're speaking my old language! Do you have to line up the machines at all?

What are the split screen videos? And what about the alternate Money Money Money?

 

Yep. I have to go through the television station's line-up procedure every time I make a transfer.

Anyway, here is the review I gave to the abbavillage mailing list. Apologies to any blind guys in the audience - I was trying to express how basic the errors involved were...

The Good:
* Firstly, you get more Abba for your money. The new film transfers
show quite a bit more picture area - nothing revolutionary but nice
nonetheless.
* The transfers are generally sharper and display more detail than the
previous ones - early videos such as Mamma Mia and SOS really benefit.
* Many of the old optical effects (such as the photos on Knowing Me,
Knowing You) have been tidied up.
* Extremely good transfers of the videotaped videos (One of Us,
Chiquitita and Thank You For The Music) [although I'll have to return
to that later]

The Bad:
* The colour grading was performed by a blind man. The red levels are
too high - the backdrop at the start of Waterloo is literally pink on
all my systems! Here's a couple of illustrations:
http://b.imagehost.org/0265/waterloo1.jpg and
http://b.imagehost.org/0051/benny.jpg.
* The blind guy also set the contrast levels. They are also too high -
obliterating detail on some videos and making the group look like they
have had a dodgy suntan on Waterloo.
* The blind guy also helped with the video transfers. In several
places on One of Us, the colour saturation momentarily jumps as though
someone is adjusting it live.
* I Have A Dream is taken from a dodgy video transfer (complete with
scanlines) rather than the original film.

The Ugly:
* The menus look dreadful.
* The split screen restoration features are merely there to occupy
sufficient space to make it into a dual layer DVD.
* Money Money Money (Cartoon version) hasn't been put through any
video restoration at all. This is unfortunate as many of the faults
would have been fixed with a quick pass through restoration software.

 

I've never seen the cartoon version of Money... What's it like? Standard mix? Btw, were any of the tracks mono mixed for the original video soundtracks?

 

It's the standard mix with an edit to the last chorus. No Abba tracks were mono mixed for video - even the long version of On and On and On began life with a now lost stereo mix.

 

Can someone discuss the CD audio in detail?

 

dammit!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-rev...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

"5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Buying...Just, 6 Dec 2010
By pethead (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Abba Gold: Special Edition (Audio CD)
...The CD contains the latest 2005 remasters which are a lot better than the previous POLAR remasters."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! TOO LOUD!

 

Maybe they are referring to the 2001 remasters and not the original Polar CD versions?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThTc0K49oVo

 

yeh, gold 2010 SUCKS- louder than 2005 (which is loud but it doesn't clip)