En Concert DVD Mega Discussion Thread

[heyamigo]

the question is can the average eye tell the difference. technically trained eyes are not what most people have. i really wonder if differences are noticeable.

[Leo Sonidus]

Originally Posted by The Cap

Just to clarify ... I DO own the French original DVD. If I re-authored the original, it would be in line with the "fair use" doctrine, essentially making a back-up copy for personal use only. Of course, if that back-up is also natively compatible with the format of my DVD players and televisions ... well, that's a bonus.

That's all good...but I was more hinting towards not supporting the piraters by purchasing their products.

[espire]

Originally Posted by heyamigo

the question is can the average eye tell the difference. technically trained eyes are not what most people have. i really wonder if differences are noticeable.

Heheh, RMJ likes making fun of us because we can't tell the difference. He has very strict policies for what quality audio and video he listens to and watches, and how he listens to and watches it. I know this about him:

He listens to FLAC (lossless) audio whenever possible
He watches the highest quality videos possible
He despises LCD monitors because they don't produce exact colours
He despises LCD TVs because the backlight "bleeds" on the screen in dark scenes
He listens with Sennheiser HD-595 headphones ($200, I hope to one day own them)

RMJ really does care about quality, he strives to get it whenever possible. It's something to be admired, along with his persistence (I can think of stronger words ).

However, going back to the actual question, it all depends on what you use to watch the DVD. If you're connected to a standard-definition TV using a composite video cable (the yellow one), you won't notice any difference at all. However, if you're using a DVD player that upscales content to HD and outputs to HDMI, and you're watching it on a 42" TV, then you need all the quality you can get, because non-HD content looks worse on an HDTV than on a regular TV.

And The Cap is absolutely right, LPCM is by far superior to Dolby 5.1.

[Ben]

Even by normal human tv watching standards I find the Mexican DVD crap. The main reason is because it's a cheap single-layer DVD5 instead of a dual-layer DVD9. 4.7 GB vs 8.5 GB - half the data! None of the extras other than the surround sound are actually stripped, so that means about a 50% loss in video quality across the entire disc. On top of that the image is matted letterbox, non-anamorphic, so is even lower resolution than the necessary PAL to NTSC conversion requires.

Really the thing is garbage tossed out to turn a quick buck, and you don't need to be a videophile to see it. I thought I must have received some bad bootleg when I first played it. Avoid at all costs!

[heyamigo]

thanks for putting it in the average person's perspective snatcher! i'll avoid the mexican version at all costs.

[Leo Sonidus]

Originally Posted by heyamigo

thanks for putting it in the average person's perspective snatcher! i'll avoid the mexican version at all costs.

Even if it's a penny ?!!!?

[RMJ]

Originally Posted by The Cap

Some of these effects are to be expected, under most conditions. 60 less lines of resolution

Yeah, 60 lines less in resolution (or 96 to be exact. PAL has 576 vertical lines, NTSC has 480 vertical lines). Too bad that they also made it letterboxed so the effective drop in resolution was closer to 200 lines... 218 lines smaller vertical resolution, to be exact...

If someone can't see that, one must be blind...

Originally Posted by The Cap

and the application of the NTSC color pallete are going to soften up the image a little,

Color palette doesn't soft the image. The resizing soft the image.

NTSC's worse color palette I didn't even bother to mention since you have to live with it anyways if your TV cannot input native PAL signal from DVD player. The colors is almost equal if they are native NTSC or converted on the fly from PAL. In both cases they are not up to PAL due to NTSC's smaller color space.

Originally Posted by The Cap

I know of a way to do re-mastered in-line 3:2 pulldown on 25fps video that gets the output to 29.995fps NTSC spec without any artifacts - no skips, stalls, jumps or other funky motion, so that wouldn't be an issue.

Why to do pulldown from PAL DVD when you have the original film material to use ? They could have done so much better NTSC DVD if they just wanted. But they had no will to do it. Instead, they took ready PAL DVD master and simply converted it to NTSC. And did that with the worst possible settings...

And there's no such thing as artifactless 3:2 pulldown... Even if the speed happens to be about right (it isn't exactly right) it will have interlacing artifacts in 3 out of 5 frames. That's far from perfect.

Originally Posted by The Cap

The 2.0 stereo is actually the best quality soundtrack on the orignal DVD - it's LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation, effectively lossless compression), but only 2 channels and a HUGE audio file, so I've been told. If I wanted to reduce file sizes, I'd likely choose the Dolby Digital 5.1 track - very compact but still high quality. DTS isn't particularly superior technically to DD 5.1, so I wouldn't feel cheated leaving it off.

True that the stereo track is the best sound track quality wise. But it's just two channels. This is live concert so obviously it would be much better to utilize the "all available" channels, to give more live feeling to it.

So of course they should have put multichannel track on it.

The difference between DTS and DD is rather small as you said, but if you have to choose one, it's of course DTS, for the little bit better sound. Altho, since it's slightly less support, you want to add also the DD on the disc.

Originally Posted by The Cap

That's a real pity about the menus - they're no harder to convert than the main "movie". The menus are just standard PAL videos, just like the concert footage. Rebuild a few video buttons and re-code the menu navigation during authoring and you could completly retain the original menus.

The menus could have been easily re-authorized if wanted. So why it wasn't done ?

Originally Posted by espire

He listens to FLAC (lossless) audio whenever possible

True

Originally Posted by The Cap

He watches the highest quality videos possible

True

Originally Posted by The Cap

He despises LCD monitors because they don't produce exact colours

True. But that's just one of the gazillion other faults in LCD techonology.

Originally Posted by The Cap

He despises LCD TVs because the backlight "bleeds" on the screen in dark scenes

False. Altho, backlight bleeding is one of the faults of LCD techonology. TVs & monitors does not differ, so both has same faults.

Originally Posted by The Cap

He listens with Sennheiser HD-595 headphones ($200, I hope to one day own them)

False. I have broken HD-570 headphones, and hope to get HD-600 or HD-650 someday soon.

Originally Posted by The Cap

RMJ really does care about quality, he strives to get it whenever possible.

And why wouldn't I ? If there's possible to get the highest possible quality then why not have it.

Only the best is barely enough for Alizée.

But even if you can't always have the highest possible quality, it's not a reason to accept crappy quality without any criticism. Universal did shit job with this Mexican release and I do not accept that. Even amateur would have done better job with it. It's simply unacceptable quality.

Originally Posted by The Cap

However, going back to the actual question, it all depends on what you use to watch the DVD. If you're connected to a standard-definition TV using a composite video cable (the yellow one), you won't notice any difference at all.

The real question is.... Why in hell would anyone use system like that ? It's known fact that composite cable is not up to DVD quality. The RGB is the lowest acceptable solution for DVD player. Either RGB or component for the analog signal. Or digital signal (HDMI). S-Video and composite is for kids and their game consoles.

Originally Posted by The Cap

However, if you're using a DVD player that upscales content to HD and outputs to HDMI, and you're watching it on a 42" TV, then you need all the quality you can get, because non-HD content looks worse on an HDTV than on a regular TV.

Simply because 99% of the HDTVs are LCDs or plasmas. Get a decent HD CRT or HD CRT projector and you'll find a new heaven. It does not have crappy scalers and shows the colors as should. DVD will look as decent as it always had. Only real HD material can beat it then, but only if shown from HD CRT TV.

[Tye]

Originally Posted by heyamigo

the question is can the average eye tell the difference. technically trained eyes are not what most people have. i really wonder if differences are noticeable.

When I watch something I can spot compression atrifacts, and othe signs of over-compression. Since I started watching HD-DVD and HD in general I have gotten even better at picking up compression artifacts when watching movies than I used to be.

But since I could re-author it and retain full quality I wouldn't have to worry about spotting any compression artifacts that weren't there to begin with. (This last bit sounds cocky, but is not meant to be.)

[Drake498]

I need to buy another Alizée En Concert DVD as a gift, however i have a question about the different versions:

I know as expressed many times that the Mexican Version is crap...
However whats the difference of the DVDs with the Extra material and the DVD without it? AND is there a quality difference between the two? Just a little explianation for the differentials please

Completely disregard the Mexican version in any response

[heyamigo]

do a search (it's not that hard), as this was discussed in depth just recently. RMJ and snatcher explained it pretty well.