Jethro Tull 'Benefit' - New Steve Wilson stereo and 5.1 remixes*

Lossless HiRez fortunately - DVD-Audio MLP. Same goes for the upcoming XTC. All in line with the magnificent King Crimson 40th Anniversary series.

 

Thanks, just wish they would have done the same with the "Benefit"reissue.

 

I saw something on Amazon that CTTE will be offered in Blu-ray as well?

 

Yes, ordered weeks ago.

 

Yep, both options available. Why couldn't they do this with Benefit or TAAB for that matter?

 

True, but I'm not losing sleep over it and dwelling on it colors this thread with an air of negativity, imho. Let's be excited for what we are getting!

 

Oh I'm excited about the upcoming Benefit release, I'm just curious about the Blu-Ray option for one but not the other. Wasn't trying to be negative. All is good.

 

Cool. Well, there wasn't a BR for TAAB either. I think since Aqualung was the "big" commercial success for JT, they went all out on that one and did a BR. Kind of spoiled us, I guess, although I didn't like having to buy the vinyl too which also made the box really huge in size.

 

Agreed. 2 yrs. later my Aqualung vinyl sits unplayed.

 

I'd gladly sell my vinyl lp but since all the discs are housed in it's cover, it screws up the box.

 

For anyone after the vinyl reissue I presume that this is it on Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Benefit-VIN...e=UTF8&qid=1379445196&sr=1-2&keywords=benefit

although they dont mention the artist the release date matches up.

 

Yep,looks like it. At least we're not forced to buy it.

 

For the ELP reissues last year that Steve Wilson worked at, the initial plan was to make them DVD-V, but there was enough complaining online that they were convinced to make them a true DVD-A.

Is it really that much of a difference from a production/cost standpoint that the labels prefer to make them just DVD-V?

 

Wouldn't it be a matter of compatibility at this point? I'm not going to buy a DVD-A player at this point. But I much appreciate a good transfer to DVD or BR.

 

Don't be surprised if IA says no Blu-Ray right now but later we can get double buyers. IA does like the $$$$.

 

The great news for me is that included in this issue is the US version which I prefer in addition to the UK track order version!

 

There's a difference on the authoring side - you need to create an entirely separate DVD-A layer, which involves encoding a MLP track, transcoding the menus/overlays/etc. (the resolution of DVD-A video assets is different than DVD-V assets, even though the authoring software outputs NTSC or PAL content at the end), and doing the actual DVD-A authoring and QC.

Replication costs are exactly the same as you deliver your master to the replication house and they duplicate whatever you want; it could be 4.7GB of zeros, as long as you pay them, they'll make the discs.

I think the reason large labels don't bother with DVD-A is that the installed player base of DVD-A is a tiny percentage of DVD-V. I can only find 2003 data, but in that year there were 33 million DVD-V units sold in the US, and only 1 million DVD-A units. Even if DVD-A saturation doubled or tripled in the following years, increasing your authoring time and costs substantially just to reach a fraction of your DVD-V audience probably doesn't make sense on paper to a huge multinational conglomerate. There's also the fact that very few authoring houses do DVD-A authoring any more - a friend of mine is one of the few remaining and told me that all the DVD-A authoring software doesn't work with newer versions of Windows, so many authoring houses simply 'upgraded' themselves out of the DVD-A authoring business.

Also, every DVD-A ever made is compatible with all DVD-V players. The DVD spec mandates that all DVD-A's must have a DVD-V layer with either a minimum of either Dolby Digital or stereo PCM track for compatibility, and most commercially released DVD-A's have a DTS track as well. So from a compatibility standpoint, including a DVD-A layer increases compatibility rather than decreasing it.

 

That was my point. Why make it only DVD-V, when they can make it DVD-A and it will have hi-res for those capable and still get the DVD-V content for those who aren't? Sounded to me like the way to satisfy everyone with one disc.

Thank you very much for your long explanation. It answered my question perfectly and helped me understand

 

I think I'm being dim here, so please forgive me - are you saying that any DVD-A disc will play back on a standard DVD player? If so that's new to me.

 

That's always been my experience. But you can't play back the Hi Rez layer just the lossy Dolby Digital or DTS or stereo layer.

 

When I bought my first DVD-A, the player I owned wouldn't play it.

 

You have to have a player that says it plays dvd-a. The owner's manual of any deck lists what formats it will play in the first couple of pages. It doesn't always say on the deck itself.

 

I've often wondered if Ian is a business man who plies his trade as a musician or vice versa. I think, perhaps, it's about 50/50.

 

A standard DVD player should be able to play the DTS and Dolby Digital content of a DVDA disc, but the MLP content requires a more sophisticated player.

 

What Lord Hawthorne said is absolutely correct, but I would say 'must be able to play' and not 'should be able to play'. Any DVD-A without a DVD-V layer (which is what standard DVD players read) is out of spec for the DVD standard, and should/would fail Quality Control testing.