Macca watches A Hard Days Night for the first time in 40 Years

Bless you, Ken, for bringing up this issue which so often gets overlooked, yet is important for historical accuracy reasons. I don't know of any publicly released versions that have the original mono track throughout the film with the foleyed effects during the songs (glasses clinking, etc) although I have read that Turner Classics did a 1990s restoration which was aired on TV and included that mono track but that they never "released" it for purchase.

 

Yup, that's what I meant by

, kind of assuming someone would get it. Of cource, I had it absent-mindedly (or by default) on Pro Logic decoding and didn't realize it until the songs were screwed up.

AFAIK, no release of AHDN has been close to correct.

 

Howdy Folks!

Yes,..Paul Rutan did the picture restoration,..&,.I did the audio restoration!,..I delivered a pure MONO master!,..what Mirimax did to it afterwards I cannot & will not endorse!


Most of the comments posted here are WRONG!,.

FYI,....I think every version ever released on any home video format since day one is WRONG audio wise,..meaning,..wrong mix's of the songs are used,..actual audio sound affects are missing,.&,.or are now heard in places where it doesn't belong!,...this mess all started in 1979 the rights reverted back to Walter Shenson & Universal re-released the film to theatres,...the sound has pretty much had problems since this was done!

The version on the current DVD is CORRECT,....again,..its CORRECT!!,..I am told if you mono your amp,..or,..do whatever,..you can hear my true to 1964 restoration!,...I don't know this for sure,..I don't have it!,.(yup,.they never sent me one!)

hope this helps!

play it LOUD!

Ron F

 

Thanks!

FWIW, my Denon receiver has every mode but MONO (pure one-speaker mono), and I like the lazy SOB I am, I default everything to DPL, which usually works on mono sources, but not when two-channel-stereo music is thrown into the pot...

 

Just for fun, I put the DVD through an old mono TV, and voila! The futzed-up sound on the music disappeared!

Evan

 

Forget that the new DVD is 5:1....Say it was DD 2:0, since it is "mono" it would still come out of the L/R speakers. So all they did was put the vocal track in the center speaker and when a song started it would go to the 2 front speakers. I wish it could be a true 5:1 mix but I'm not that upset with the sound considering what they had to work with. I don't think it would sound better if the put everything in the center channel. And I know I'm just about the only one who thinks the concert at the end sounds good....I like the fact a song like "And I Love Her" is the single tracked version which never was released in true stereo.

 

In the DVD I do not hear the film audio overlay (sound of amp falling over, glasses clinking) during the songs which were in the original mono prints.

 

Hi Ken & the others!

YES!!,...thanks for pointing this out,..some viewers here must have the MPI DVD!!,.......its ONLY the Mirimax (current release) DVD that is CORRECT!!,...the earlier released DVD versions on MPI ONLY utilized the restored visuals,..NOT the audio!

SO,..the MIRIMAX is IDENTICAL to what played in theatres in its original release in 1964!,..In fact,..I utilized a mint original first printing UK 35mm print for the restoration!,..as ALL master audio elements do NOT exist anymore!,..this WAS & IS the BEST it can & will ever be!,..but,..you gotta mono it out!,..remember that,..((MIRIMAX screwed it up with a fake 5.1)),..when doing this correctly it transfers to perfect MONO,..if you do it RIGHT!

Please try to enjoy!,..as it can NEVER get better than this!

Ron F

 

Thanks for that bit of info Ron!! I'm glad I got to see the re-release of "A Hard Day's Night" in a movie theater with the restored mono optical soundtrack. It sounded great!! I'll never understand why Miramax decided to take your work and butcher it by trying to fabricate a 5.1 soundtrack. They should have least give people the option of the original mono soundtrack on the DVD. Strange also since Disney(which owns Miramax) has done this with Snow White several of it's other classic films on DVD.

 

I'm confused about the release of this. I've owned the Miramax DVD since last year, yet amazon.com lists the release date at 7/09/04. Is this a NEW release, a re-release, or a different release (new mix or film transfer). My apologies for being behind the curve here, but what's the deal?

 

So after all of the bashing the Miramax DVD has received it DOES have the unfutzed with film mono soundtrack after all? I assumed that the mono was just folded down from the fake stereo 5.1 mix. Is there a way to select the mono film soundtrack from the DVD menu? I never even bothered to buy this after all of the bashing the title has received. 5.1 fake stereo is unforgivable but if the original mono soundtrack is accessible I'm going to have to pick this up.

 

How does the end user "do it right" to get the correct mono sound in this situation???

 

Ok. Thanks for clearing that up Ken!

 

And how exactly does one sum them?? My Pioneer 563 does not have that function

 

So what is Ron talking about..."doing it right"???

 

Howdy all!

Yikes!,...this is pretty confusing!,..huh?,......first, I have to tell you..I DO NOT have the Mirimax DVD!,.....

I read Evan's post & then made my later comments that it would, could, or does work!,..he played it through a mono tv & liked it, so,.I figured it would work through a large set-up also,...so,..I figured that with the simple old fashioned "Y" cord hookup,...or combining L & R channels to mono on your sysyem whatever way you can,..it will or would work!


So,..kind sir Evan & any others here that want to experiment,..please get out your wires & help me out here to try to answer all of the fine folks' questions!,..I'm just as confused now,...now I really wish Mirimax didn't mess with my final mix!,....yikes!!,...sorry & thanks!

Ron F

 

Ron,

All I can say is this: the only real complaint I had about the new DVD edition was the sound...and couldn't believe your name was on it, given your history....obviously someone diddled around with the sound, and not for the better, since original mono was the only way to go with this one, at least for the main track...

Friends who have played it on their TV or small home systems apparently don't notice the faux stereo 5.1 effect that much, though upon listening, there is a volume increase during the songs, as one would expect. Why the original mono mix of the film wasn't put on a separate track is what's so vexing...that, and someone's misguided idea of a faux 5.1 soundtrack at all, let alone as the only option.

I'm not inclined to fiddle with RF lines to get an impure(fake 5.1 folded to mono cannot possibly be true to the mono source), so I guess we're stuck with this....sigh....

 

ED,

All I know is that when I put the sound through a mono source it sounded like it should, like it used to sound in the original film. Try it yourself and see what happens.

Thanks, kind Ron!

Evan

 

I recently purchased the Criterion laserdisc on ebay.


I haven't watched the movie in years... last time was
probably late 80s on a rented VHS copy with HI-FI stereo.

Back then, I remember the songs being in stereo - but
I didn't remember being horrified at the dialogue.

By "horrified," I mean very echoey... I'm not sure if
this is because the VHS tape was fundamentally different
than the laserdisc - or if it was because I only had two
speakers - and only ONE WAY to play the sound... or
if I was just less fussy...

My guess is the laserdisc and the VHS copy used identical
stereo tracks.


Now, however, armed with 5 speakers, a more sophisticated
Harmon Kardon amp, and an external Sony AC-3 processor,
I had MANY different ways to play the sound.

I think I tried each one of them - ALL - but one sounded
horrible... and the one that worked surprised me.

The HK amp has the following options:

"surround off" , "dolby digital", "prologic", "DTS", "VMAX" ,
"logic7 cinema" , "logic7 music" , and "enhanced" (which
is what I believe they recommend for a mono source - but
is pretty stupid since I think it throws all of the sound
into all of the speakers).

In this case, "dolby digital" and "DTS" are not an option
(and they can't even be selected since the source isn't
either). All of the other modes, however, sounded bad.


My Sony AC-3 processor has even MORE modes:

"Dolby" (Dolby Digital, Dolby Surround, Enhanced Surround)
"Movie" (Cinema A, Cinema B, Cinema C, small theater, medium theater,
large theater, mono, night theater)
"Music" (small hall, large hall, jazz club, opera house, church, et. al)
"Sports" (arena, stadium, et. al.)
"Games" (not even sure what these are called - LOL)

What's interesting about the Sony processor is it seems to have
more choices than a Sony Receiver of the same vintage. It's
also interesting because the modes all work on a Dolby source.
With my Harmon Kardon, if the source is Dolby 5.1, the fancy
modes (like Logic7) aren't even an option...

The film modes are all interesting except I can't really figure out
when one would want "night theater" since the effect is a bit
radical. I tend to choose Cinema A, Cinema B, or Cinema C
often. The effect I prefer often depends on the film. And
in some instances, I prefer none of them and will listen to
an unprocessed mode...

And for what it's worth I noticed last year that the Sports
modes worked well with Monday Night Football and are horrible
with every other sports broadcast. The reason seems to be
that ABC mixes Monday Night Football in 5.1 with the announcers
in the center channel. The sports modes add echo to the other
speakers but leave the broadcast booth untouched. Other
broadcasts like ESPN tend to supply a 2.0 feed and if you
turn the sports mode it sounds like get the announcer in
a tunnel - LOL


In any case, armed with all of this processing power, I tried
to figure if ANY of the various choices would prove to provide
a more natural listening experience.


The ONLY one that worked was the "Movie - mono" choice
on the Sony processor. It was the only choice I had that
eliminated the horrible 'echoey' sound that most of the other
options made worse. This surprised me because the laserdisc
is most certaintly not mono.

What was wierd, however, was this mono mode seemed to
eliminate the echo during the dialogue portions BUT the songs
were definetly still in stereo (quite NICE stereo by the way)...


The only thing slightly off kilter was that the now cleaned
up dialogue portions came out of BOTH the L and R speakers -
not the C speaker (as I expected)


Anyway - I'm starting to think that the audio track for the
laserdisc might have been mastered with the left and right
channels accidently reversed. The reason being it seems
to be horribly out of phase... and most of the normal
Dolby modes seem to make it worse...

Maybe I can try reversing the analog outs from the laserdisc
player and repeating the experiment (I was using a TOSLINK
fiber connector that doesn't allow for this)

More importantly, other movies of that vintage don't
seem to have a similar problem. Dolby Stereo (which
is what the 80s version of the movie claims to be) wasn't
exactly a one-time Beatles-only experiment...

 

Oooooooo. Thanks, I was thinking about that watching a DD1.0 DVD recently.