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Porcupine Tree - Anesthetize - Page 2

post #31 of 75
6/30/10 at 11:28pm
I was hoping there were gonna be just great, objective (but great) PT fans here not defensive apologists.
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post #32 of 75
7/2/10 at 6:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nil View Post

Received the regular DVD with DTS-HD 5.1 sound this weekend. It is an excellent video of the FOABP tour, and the sound ain't too bad. While not as pristine or fully multichannel audio as the DVD-A FOABP album, there are many treasures here, especially the second half of the concert with tracks from Signify and Deadwing. One gets to hear and appreciate the subtle keyboard soundscapes from Barbieri as well as Edwins' tremendous bass playing, along with the quieter acoustic moments and vocal harmonizations, which made up for the distorted sonic assault I had experienced live at the Warfield during this tour. The surround-sound mix did not particularly stand out for me, but all-in-all this is a great visual and audio record of a superb concept album (with nearly half the concert containing less "heavier" songs from earlier releases) played live by a band that is at the top of its game.

The DVD menu does say DTS HD 5.1, but it is in fact DTS.
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post #33 of 75
7/3/10 at 11:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by croseiv View Post

The DVD menu does say DTS HD 5.1, but it is in fact DTS.

DTS 5.1, as my ears tell me. I have not paid attention to DTS HD; how does it compare acoustically to MLP ? I may need to consider a Blu-Ray player if more releases come out in DTS HD.

Regarding the live sound at PT's concerts, I'm listening to a soundboard recording of their 2002 concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco; and it is fantastic! This was one of the worst sounding concerts I had attended, with really terrible acoustics. Which is why I am taken aback by how great the recording sounds. The discrepancy between soundboard recording and what the audience actually heard may explain why the sound at so many PT live concerts has been abysmal; at least to my ears. I wonder if it would help if the sound engineer took off his headphones?
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post #34 of 75
7/3/10 at 11:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nil View Post

The discrepancy between soundboard recording and what the audience actually heard may explain why the sound at so many PT live concerts has been abysmal; at least to my ears. I wonder if it would help if the sound engineer took off his headphones?

Make the bastid suffer like the rest of us...I like it.
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post #35 of 75
7/3/10 at 6:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nil View Post

DTS 5.1, as my ears tell me. I have not paid attention to DTS HD; how does it compare acoustically to MLP ? I may need to consider a Blu-Ray player if more releases come out in DTS HD.

Regarding the live sound at PT's concerts, I'm listening to a soundboard recording of their 2002 concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco; and it is fantastic! This was one of the worst sounding concerts I had attended, with really terrible acoustics. Which is why I am taken aback by how great the recording sounds. The discrepancy between soundboard recording and what the audience actually heard may explain why the sound at so many PT live concerts has been abysmal; at least to my ears. I wonder if it would help if the sound engineer took off his headphones?

Go stand by the sound mixer board. You will get the best sound there, or at least what the sound engineers are hearing during the show.
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post #36 of 75
7/3/10 at 8:29pm
The audio on this BD is spectacular. I don't think I've ever heard such complex music recorded and mixed with such clarity and separation. Every instrument is distinct at all times. The bass in particular is never lost in low-end mud; you hear every note he plays, but it's still full, deep, and loud. The intricate cymbal work comes through all shiny and detailed.

You can even understand the words a lot of the time!

I love the camera work and editing. Lots of unusual shots, angles, impressions (shots from under, then over, then under the drums; a shot from behind Wilson's unattended microphone in sharp focus with the blurry mass of the audience looking to the stage waiting for him to step up and sing; momentary details of a drum pedal or a foot keeping time or a young girl in the audience mirroring the expression of the girl in the video).

The color issues didn't bother me, even though I recognized that something might not be right. This is not mainstream entertainment-industry style video, and it seemed consistent with the immersive immediacy of the rest of the imagery.

A+++ - One of the best concert videos I've ever seen.
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post #37 of 75
7/4/10 at 4:25pm
Quote:


A+++ - One of the best concert videos I've ever seen.

Heck yeah! It's truly a great mix. Reference quality all the way.
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post #38 of 75
7/5/10 at 4:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rdclark View Post

The audio on this BD is spectacular.

...

The color issues didn't bother me, even though I recognized that something might not be right. This is not mainstream entertainment-industry style video, and it seemed consistent with the immersive immediacy of the rest of the imagery.

A+++ - One of the best concert videos I've ever seen.

I agree. Once I switched the video out to PC RGB, the picture looked fantastic. Annoying that I have to do that, and annoying that I have to remember to switch it back for other movies, but at least it is a recoverable mistake. Hopefully PTree's BD authoring "system" has learned not to do that again. (You'd think that would be already known...heck, I knew about it, but that is mainly because you hear about the details of all authoring mistakes here at AVS.)

The audio is great, the songs well performed, and excellent camera work. I want more of the underside of Gavin's drums!

shinksma
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post #39 of 75
7/6/10 at 10:57pm
I received my Burning Shed copy this morning and tonight I cranked it up. Forced PC RGB in my Oppo SE and away I went. I saw that show at the Warfield in SF, however, they changed the playlist slightly for the Euro crowd. It sounded and looked fantastic. A band at the top of their game and while the bass wasn't quite as hot as Arriving Somewhere, that's fine, because there was no loss of detail between bass, midbass, midrange and treble. Gavin Harrison was featured prominently in AS too, but this time the camera angles and hi def really stood out to show just how much of an influence he has on their sound. I think he joined the band in 2002 and prior to that the drummer was good, but didn't light it up like he does. I thought John Wesley's performance improved too, though there's no doubt who the star of the show is. SW is a phenomenal artist and performer.
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post #40 of 75
7/7/10 at 8:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron Temple View Post

I received my Burning Shed copy this morning and tonight I cranked it up. Forced PC RGB in my Oppo SE and away I went. I saw that show at the Warfield in SF, however, they changed the playlist slightly for the Euro crowd. It sounded and looked fantastic. A band at the top of their game and while the bass wasn't quite as hot as Arriving Somewhere, that's fine, because there was no loss of detail between bass, midbass, midrange and treble. Gavin Harrison was featured prominently in AS too, but this time the camera angles and hi def really stood out to show just how much of an influence he has on their sound. I think he joined the band in 2002 and prior to that the drummer was good, but didn't light it up like he does. I thought John Wesley's performance improved too, though there's no doubt who the star of the show is. SW is a phenomenal artist and performer.

Interesting how the editing of "Arriving" seemed to almost go out of its way to avoid featuring Wesley; "Anesthetize" highlights his contribution to the live show.

The difference in the bass between the two discs is interesting, given that SW mixed them both. Yes, it's much heavier in the earlier concert, with a blooming bottom end that sometimes shakes the room. Yet it doesn't muddy the clarity of the rest of the spectrum.

The new disc's bass is just as well balanced, distinct, and full-range; it's just more contained and analytical-sounding, more like direct feed to the board and less like the product of a PA system. I like it better.

As for Harrison, he's a wonder, all right, and I'm sure that live (I've never seen them live) he energizes the room. And the recording of the drums on this disc is fantastic. But every now and then I want to whisper in Harrison's ear, "less can be more."
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post #41 of 75
7/7/10 at 11:24am
Hey everyone,

I'm the guy who started that original "mastering mess-up" thread about the black levels on the Mike Portnoy forum. I've been talking about this with the customer service of Burning Shed and so far they haven't admitted there's anything wrong, instead lecturing me on how to setup my TV correctly. I admit it was a mistake to post pictures from two different inputs originally, but my Plasma (a Pioneer PDP-LX5090 2nd generation Kuro) is running at near-calibrated settings and there's never been an issue with black levels. And yes, I am picky about those - why else would I have bought a Kuro?

I have attached a bunch of new photos, this time taken using the same input and the same player (a PS3). I think the brightness difference between the supposed "blacks" of the PT Blu-ray Disc and the overlay menus (both the player's and the TV's) is quite telling. The DVD does not suffer from this, which leads me to believe this was an error and not intentional at all. I also included a photo of a different Blu-ray Disc to show that it's not just my Blu-ray playback settings, either.







I hope they do something about this, because other than the black levels it seems like a fine disc.
LL
LL
LL
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post #42 of 75
7/7/10 at 6:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyo6JM View Post

Hey everyone,

I'm the guy who started that original "mastering mess-up" thread about the black levels on the Mike Portnoy forum. I've been talking about this with the customer service of Burning Shed and so far they haven't admitted there's anything wrong, instead lecturing me on how to setup my TV correctly.

...

I hope they do something about this, because other than the black levels it seems like a fine disc.

I doubt BS will do anything about it - the only thing they could do would be to remaster the disk (= $$$) and repress it (= $$$$). It is unfortunate that they messed up, and BS/PT has been good about replacing faulty discs before, but usually because they are bad pressings - i.e. the replacements are at the cost of the pressing plant, not BS/PT.

I don't see them willingly eating this cost, since most folks won't notice, and those that do (like me) will simply adjust accordingly and not make much of a fuss.

It is disappointing, for sure, but since the big studios don't replace many "bad" encodes (Gladiator, Patton, where bad can equal way too much DNR, or Ghost, which suffers from the same PC RGB issue), I don't see BS being any easier to convince.

IMHO, hope they do remaster and replace them, but not holding any breath...

shinksma
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post #43 of 75
7/7/10 at 6:23pm
can someone please check something for me regarding the DVD disc (not Bluray)

during playback, does it show the title/chapter/time on the player display?
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post #44 of 75
7/8/10 at 2:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SiriuslyCold View Post

can someone please check something for me regarding the DVD disc (not Bluray)

during playback, does it show the title/chapter/time on the player display?

Glad that you brought this up. I recall that when I first played this, I wanted to know the track number of a song (Dark Matter) so that I could look it up against the listings on the case... and was puzzled because my player (Denon 2900) showed only track 1 throughout. However, I didn't bother to research this, and soon forgot about it since the other (remote) controls worked fine. Some poor quality control this time around, methinks.
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post #45 of 75
7/8/10 at 4:05am
Nil, thanks - I was just afraid my DVD player was showing its age
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post #46 of 75
7/8/10 at 5:02am
I'm getting the BD soon and will be able to play around myself with video settings but I'm a little confused as to how the disc video was mastered. If you set your BD player to output PC RGB, then it takes the video stream (supposedly using 16-235 studio levels) and expands them to 0-254 for output. If it looks ok on a display expecting studio levels (16-235) then the disc has "elevated" levels", i.e. when the display sees 16 (black) it was really higher on the disc but the 0-254 conversion "lowered" it to 16. I'm assuming this is the case because if you set the display to expect PC RGB when the player has expanded to PC RGB, nothing has really changed except clipping BTB and WTW values and non-linearly expanding the video level range.

If the disc was mastered with PC video levels, then you should not have to change the BD player. A (properly functioning) BD player will output what is on the disc. And if the display is expecting studio levels the picture will look too dark. e.g. 16 on the disc is "above" PC levels black but the display shows it as black. This doesn't seem like the case given what's been said and the pics.

(I said 0-254 because IIRC 255 is a special value, but could be wrong. Doesn't matter for this discussion).

Anyway, too bad they screwed up the mastering (so it seems).

larry
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post #47 of 75
7/8/10 at 5:55am
This is my all time favorite concert video. I've seen PT live three times and this BD is so much better than the sound at the shows.

It seems that the person mixing the sound at PT concerts likes distorted overbearing bass, to the point that it is so distracting because you can't hear the other musicians.

This disc has amazing sound, the louder I play it the better my experience.

On a side note
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post #48 of 75
7/8/10 at 9:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PooperScooper View Post

I'm getting the BD soon and will be able to play around myself with video settings but I'm a little confused as to how the disc video was mastered. If you set your BD player to output PC RGB, then it takes the video stream (supposedly using 16-235 studio levels) and expands them to 0-254 for output. If it looks ok on a display expecting studio levels (16-235) then the disc has "elevated" levels", i.e. when the display sees 16 (black) it was really higher on the disc but the 0-254 conversion "lowered" it to 16. I'm assuming this is the case because if you set the display to expect PC RGB when the player has expanded to PC RGB, nothing has really changed except clipping BTB and WTW values and non-linearly expanding the video level range.

If the disc was mastered with PC video levels, then you should not have to change the BD player. A (properly functioning) BD player will output what is on the disc. And if the display is expecting studio levels the picture will look too dark. e.g. 16 on the disc is "above" PC levels black but the display shows it as black. This doesn't seem like the case given what's been said and the pics.

(I said 0-254 because IIRC 255 is a special value, but could be wrong. Doesn't matter for this discussion).

Anyway, too bad they screwed up the mastering (so it seems).

larry

I'm an audiophile, not a videophile. Don't get me wrong I like a nice saturated black level, but I'm more drawn to the performance and/or movie and rarely distracted by what's on the screen, usually assuming that's what the director is going for. That said, I did force the player into PC-RGB before watching and it seemed fine to me. There were alot of lights on the stage and above the audience. Couldn't the added pixel content on the BD be picking up more light than the DVD? Just a thought.
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post #49 of 75
7/9/10 at 5:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron Temple View Post

I'm an audiophile, not a videophile. Don't get me wrong I like a nice saturated black level, but I'm more drawn to the performance and/or movie and rarely distracted by what's on the screen, usually assuming that's what the director is going for. That said, I did force the player into PC-RGB before watching and it seemed fine to me. There were alot of lights on the stage and above the audience. Couldn't the added pixel content on the BD be picking up more light than the DVD? Just a thought.

That's why it's odd because the DVD and BD look different. Added resolution wouldn't add "brightness". It's understandable that when recording a concert that may be in somewhat poor light conditions they would raise the "pedestal" too allow darker things to be recorded at a level higher than they normally would and therefore be easier to see when viewing. This would make blacks look somewhat green when digital displays dither. But if this was the case, both discs should look the same. I'm just curious as to what happened and why. I have quite a few concert discs where the video is somewhat crappy but it doesn't matter because the performance is main focus.

larry
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post #50 of 75
7/10/10 at 11:05am
PT is coming to SF again on the 11th...the Warfield again. Anyone ever tried the upstairs seating...is it better or worse sounding?
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post #51 of 75
7/15/10 at 11:31am
I saw the Warfield announcement, but I think I'll regretfully pass this time. My ears are still ringing from an earlier PT concert at the Warfield; and I was sitting upstairs. However, the problem is not with the Warfield as I have heard wonderful shows there, including King Crimson at its heaviest, and the sound was well balanced and clear.
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post #52 of 75
7/15/10 at 1:35pm
Well then perhaps I made a mistake. I did get center balcony seats. The floor wasn't great the last time, but it was much better than the Fillmore and I didn't need ear plugs. There was seating in the back near the bar and it was better there than near the stage.
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post #53 of 75
7/15/10 at 4:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron Temple View Post

Well then perhaps I made a mistake. I did get center balcony seats. The floor wasn't great the last time, but it was much better than the Fillmore and I didn't need ear plugs. There was seating in the back near the bar and it was better there than near the stage.

I've always shot for the rail just above the pit at the Warfield. The sound could be better, but this is probably the best place to view the band since you're close and near the same elevation. Plus you have a place to lean and set your drinks . I'll be skipping this show since it's on a Wednesday and I live about 3-4 hours drive.
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post #54 of 75
7/17/10 at 7:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by john barlow View Post

This is my all time favorite concert video. I've seen PT live three times and this BD is so much better than the sound at the shows.

It seems that the person mixing the sound at PT concerts likes distorted overbearing bass, to the point that it is so distracting because you can't hear the other musicians.

This disc has amazing sound, the louder I play it the better my experience.

On a side note

I've never seen these guys live, but this BD has the absolute best sound mix out there right now (the video "issue" doesn't bother me in the slightest).

It seems as if it sounds better and better the louder I crank it. I've had the system at -7 db from reference nd it sounded fantastic. The drums are just out of this world.
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post #55 of 75
7/17/10 at 8:18pm
Watched this BD, my impressions are:
Video contrast is poor. Black levels are too high. PQ is excellent, just no blacks.
Audio is slightly lacking in bass, LFE channel has very little information.
Surround mix is excellent and realistic.
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post #56 of 75
7/18/10 at 3:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rdgrimes View Post

Watched this BD, my impressions are:
Video contrast is poor. Black levels are too high. PQ is excellent, just no blacks.
Audio is slightly lacking in bass, LFE channel has very little information.
Surround mix is excellent and realistic.

Totally agree.

The contrast to the DVD-A in the bass is night and day.
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post #57 of 75
7/18/10 at 8:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonFo View Post

Totally agree.

The contrast to the DVD-A in the bass is night and day.

True. But I think this one sounds better. As a bass player, if this were me (as if!), I'd be happier with the Anesthetize representation of my playing -- you can hear every note, every nuance; it's like a clinic) -- than with the Arriving Somewhere sound, which is loud and soupy and sometimes overbearing.

On Anesthetize, you can hear the interplay between the low end work of the bass player, the drummer, and occasionally the keyboard player much more clearly, and it provides a much more complete palette from low to high -- on most recordings you can hear how guitars and keyboards and voices and cymbals work and blend together, but it's rare to be able to hear the corresponding complexity in the low end (assuming there is any).
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post #58 of 75
7/18/10 at 11:07am
Curiosity got the best of me, so I set up an A-B comparison of the DVD and BD, using 2 identically set up Oppo players through the same signal path via AVR and display.

Both the DVD and BD have significant contrast issues.

On the DVD, there are many shots with blown out (blooming) whites and considerable loss of details in bright scenes. Blacks are sometimes crushed with a similar loss of detail.

On the BD, there's none of the blown out whites and a lot more detail in both bright and dark scenes, but there's no blacks either. I can see some rationale for the changes on the BD, but really both BD and DVD presentations are wrong with respect to contrast. There should have been something in between that would have worked better.

Audio on the DVD vs BD is too similar to judge. The lossless sounds cleaner and better DR, but in terms of mix and bass content they are the same.
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post #59 of 75
7/18/10 at 12:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rdgrimes View Post

Curiosity got the best of me, so I set up an A-B comparison of the DVD and BD, using 2 identically set up Oppo players through the same signal path via AVR and display.

Both the DVD and BD have significant contrast issues.

On the DVD, there are many shots with blown out (blooming) whites and considerable loss of details in bright scenes. Blacks are sometimes crushed with a similar loss of detail.

On the BD, there's none of the blown out whites and a lot more detail in both bright and dark scenes, but there's no blacks either. I can see some rationale for the changes on the BD, but really both BD and DVD presentations are wrong with respect to contrast. There should have been something in between that would have worked better.

Audio on the DVD vs BD is too similar to judge. The lossless sounds cleaner and better DR, but in terms of mix and bass content they are the same.

I found the audio to be noticably better on the BD. I found the bass drums (and the drums in general) to be punchier (tighter probably due to the better DR), and the instruments had better separation. The other attributes you describe are there, but it is a better presentation than the DVD IMO.
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post #60 of 75
7/18/10 at 2:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by croseiv View Post

I found the audio to be noticably better on the BD. I found the bass drums (and the drums in general) to be punchier (tighter probably due to the better DR), and the instruments had better separation. The other attributes you describe are there, but it is a better presentation than the DVD IMO.

I wasn't trying to start a discussion of whether lossless audio is better than lossy. Obviously it is. But in terms of mix and bass content, the 2 are the same AFAICT. They appear to be from the same master. There were some posts about the DVD having more bass, it does not.
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