Better get your earplugs ready for the Beatles Anthology DVDs in 5.1 sound...

Well, mehopes they leave the original stereo mix on there as well.

 

Throwing a useless 2 cents in:

I do not own a video copy of Anthology; my recollection was that there were very few - IF ANY - complete performances in the series. As most of the audio was snippets - and the point of the series was the visual - I doubt that I would ever play this DVD for it's audio content alone. I surely do NOT play the Yellow Submarine DVD to hear Lucy in the Sky, but I am not offended nor distracted by the re-mix in the context of the movie. As much of the live material and television appeararnces were mono only, I would hope those would not be tampered with to create a mock surround (sort of like fake stereo - 5 times worse). If hearing 30 seconds of All You Need is Love in a surround re-mix beneath a voice over explaining the Maharishi years is offensive to you - then avoid the DVD. The purpose of the Antholgy series was the story, I highly doubt that anyone would use these discs as reference Beatles music, even if it met the HIGHEST standards.

 

I'm beginning to get used to this ****!

Let's hope they add a few extras to make it more enticing:

Videos for "Free As A Bird" & "Real Love" would be nice, as would the footage of the boys recording "Hey Bulldog" with the original soundtrack intact - I still haven't seen this!

 

Whoops! Please ignore this second post

(Hey HZ or Claviusb - feel free to delete this waste of space.....)



.

 

The 10 hour VHS & Laserdisc releases of the Beatles Anthology contained most of the performances of songs in their entirety. The TV series was 6 hours long including ads which probably brings the actual running time down to about 4 1/2 hours when you eliminate all of the ads. The video release has at least double the content that was shown on TV

 

Did the Video Anthology contain the Hey Jude/Revolution promo clip with the original soundtrack? I realize they just used the backing track with the vocals added live, but everytime I see these clips (Hey Jude especially), they just substitute the record for the audio.

 

Well, the reality of the DVD market is that a lot of people won't buy DVDs unless they're 5.1. It's a "feature check box" sort of thing, where the technical specs are more important than the content.

I agree with the above poster that I'm not terribly concerned about the sound format on Anthology, since watching a documentary is a different sort of activity for me than listening to a record. The 5.1 stuff on the Yellow Sub DVD doesn't bother me -- it's kind of fun to hear a more "cinematic" version in the context of the movie.

But I fully agree that elimnating the stereo versions of the regular albums in favor of 5.1 DVD-As or whatever would be a travesty of Biblical proportions.

Ryan

 

There's no flippin' reason to take Anthology (video) and mix it to DTS or DD. It's got music, yes, but the most of it is mono originally, but the existing video AND Lazers (now OOP) were Dolby Surround (matrix) encoded. I don't think I've had to be THAT curious. It's a wonderful documentary with lots of extras, all of which will NOT get better using surround.

If you want to give people a woody, include bonus video material.

I feel the same for Let It Be, if that happened. Stereo and original mono. No 5.1 please. Maybe some visual extras. So, so silly and the people who get paid to do it shoulnd't deserve the money for doing it to DTS/DD.

And I like dts©. I just think it's stupid for this application. Sounds like a feed-bag to pay AR engineers.... grrr.

 

I hope they include the original mix but somehow I don't think they will. I also hope the pricing's fair...

Todd

 

I bought the VHS series and was really hoping that it would include something on the Butcher Covers. Nothing (as I recall) mentioned about it. Did I miss something by going to the bathroom?

 

Sam,

I don't recall that subject being discussed in the film but they have "coverage" about it in the book.

Todd

 

Re: I'm beginning to get used to this ****!

Malc, I have the video version, and I think it does have the video for "Free As A Bird". I'll have to double check.

All,

As far as it being a documentary, I don't thinbk i'd mind so much if it were done in 5.1, even though it would pain me to hear stuff like the full "Hello Goodbye" video remixed.

 

"Free as a Byrd" was included in the video collection but not "Real Dove". I mean "Love"... Is it me or was Lennon really into birds (and byrds)?

Todd


P.S. I hope they include as an extra a documentary of the making of a documentary...

 

I would just like to like to have the Anthology series just for the best picture quality alone. Hopefully the stereo audio tracks will remain.
Missed out on the laser disc version.

 

Has there even been a release of Anthology in stereo/mono (as opposed to Dolby Surround)?

Ryan

 

Weren't all the studio tracks remixed for the Anthology videos anyway? In Dolby Surround or something? I know they used to be people on the Beatles newsgroup who would rave about the various remixes in the videos...

 

It would be cool to hear those outtake segments in surround sound and extended. I hope they will present those segments in clean and well separated mixes and not the echo-ey mono-ish sound as on the VHS tapes.

The Yellow Sub DVD 5.1 mixes were interesting but unlistenable IMO. I hated how all the music tracks bled into each other and jumped around. Stupid. I wonder if this was done to discourage home remixing or just their idea of good sound.

If you listen to the Anthology CD's vs. the music video clips in the Anthology videos you will notice the music video segements are noticable cleaner and more modernly mixed than the music on the CD's. I'm talking about the videos of "We Can Work It Out", "Day Tripper", "Paperback Writer", "Rain", "Penny Lane", "Hello Goodbye", "Get Back", "Don't Let Me Down", and some of the White album outtakes. I think these music video segments were mixed by someone other than George Martin. The brief "Ticket to Ride" and the opening segments with "Help!" drowned out by applause are also clean, modern mixes. I know the "Ticket To Ride" mix was done before the Anthology CDs. The person who did those mixes should have done the Yellow Submarine remixes.

Lance Hall

 

Are you sure?

After YS came out, Apple issued a statement to the effect of "no future releases will be remixed, and YS was just done to tie in with the film"...

 

Shudder. I can only hope for a stereo track as well...

Ryan

 

Let's look at it this way. Remixes were done in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. I think somehow that press release will be ignored, forgotten or written-off...

Todd