[Rich]

A while ago someone posted about not getting 5.1 sound out of his BD player. Most folks who replied said something like "all BD discs have 5.1 sound". I know that was my reply. This week I got two BD discs from NetFlix and neither had 5.1 sound available on them. Both were poorly filmed and, while not really old, were obviously B movies. Or perhaps C movies, if there is such a classification. Watched a few minutes on each one and sent them back. Both simply sucked. No 5.1 on both BD flicks. I was wrong again...:nono2:

One of the movies was All Hell Broke Loose with David Carradine. Can't remember the name of the other one. Both had nothing but "Play Movie" on their menus. Both looked like standard definition flicks, nothing you'd expect from a BD.

Rich

 

[Stewart Vernon]

I don't have Atonement on Blu-ray... but I looked it up and a review of it says it has DTS-HD MA 5.1 on it...

Also, as for "only PCM"... PCM is a good thing, it is raw digital audio uncompressed. You would want PCM if it didn't take up so much space... Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD MA are essentially compressed PCM with a lossless algorithm.

But... to your original though... Not all Blu-rays have 5.1 though... I have several movies with mono or 2.0 sound, usually older movies that didn't have multi-channel mixes.

 

[Rich]

I don't have Atonement on Blu-ray... but I looked it up and a review of it says it has DTS-HD MA 5.1 on it...

The copy I got only had "Play Movie" on its menu. Same thing with All Hell Broke Loose, the movie with David Carradine. NetFlix seems to put out copies of movies "For rental purposes only" that do not have the same features as the original movies. If you look up All Hell Broke Loose, you'll probably see it has 5.1 on it in its original form, too.

But... to your original though... Not all Blu-rays have 5.1 though... I have several movies with mono or 2.0 sound, usually older movies that didn't have multi-channel mixes.

First time I've ever seen this and both came on the same day.

Hold on, I just looked up Atonement and it's not the movie I saw, that was a Western with nobody I recognized and I've already sent it back and don't remember the name. Atonement was a pretty bad movie, I thought, but not as bad as the Western. Now I have to fix my OP. Nuts.

Rich

 

[pfp]

There are definitely Blu-rays without 5.1 audio but Atonement (at least my copy of it) is not one of them. It actually has three 5.1 audio tracks: English, French and Spanish with the English one being DTS Master Audio.

A few from my collection that are not 5.1

The Tie That Binds [1995]
VI Warshawski [1991]
Bound [1996]
A Christmas Story [1983] - this one is actually 1.0

 

[Rich]

There are definitely Blu-rays without 5.1 audio but Atonement (at least my copy of it) is not one of them. It actually has three 5.1 audio tracks: English, French and Spanish with the English one being DTS Master Audio.

A few from my collection that are not 5.1

The Tie That Binds [1995]
VI Warshawski [1991]
Bound [1996]
A Christmas Story [1983] - this one is actually 1.0

Fixed my OP, sorry about the mix up.

Rich

 

[Rich]

I don't have Atonement on Blu-ray... but I looked it up and a review of it says it has DTS-HD MA 5.1 on it...

Also, as for "only PCM"... PCM is a good thing, it is raw digital audio uncompressed. You would want PCM if it didn't take up so much space... Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD MA are essentially compressed PCM with a lossless algorithm.

But... to your original though... Not all Blu-rays have 5.1 though... I have several movies with mono or 2.0 sound, usually older movies that didn't have multi-channel mixes.

Fixed the OP, thanx for catching that.

Rich

 

[P Smith]

Rich, you could go to Netflix site, get your account and check your history to find the tittle.

 

[Rich]

Rich, you could go to Netflix site, get your account and check your history to find the tittle.

I did that. Still couldn't find it. I've got a 5 disc plan and my history is really long. And I'm lazy... :lol:

Rich

 

[CCarncross]

I don't believe every movie on BD is going to be 5.1......what about a movie that was originally mono, or 4.0, etc....? Unless its a movie with a multi-track sound track to begin with, it seems kind of ridiculous to try to falsely create one after the fact just for a BD release.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

There are some situations where stripped down copies exist for the rental market... but I hadn't encountered any that were *that* stripped down.

Red, for example, had a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track on the regular edition... but the rental and single-disc version had 5.1 Dolby Digital, so still 5.1 but very lossy encode.

I don't honestly know of a movie that was 5.1 but less than that for a rental copy... but there's a first time for everything.

I do have some mono encodes, though...

Barbarella,
Soylent Green,
Twilight Zone Seasons 1-5

I also have some 2.0 encodes... but those weren't as easy for me to remember.

 

[Rich]

I don't believe every movie on BD is going to be 5.1......what about a movie that was originally mono, or 4.0, etc....? Unless its a movie with a multi-track sound track to begin with, it seems kind of ridiculous to try to falsely create one after the fact just for a BD release.

Seems equally ridiculous to put All Hell Broke Loose on a BD and rent it as a Blue Ray offering. The thing looked like it was in SD. Very disappointing.

On top of that, I've been getting BD rentals from NF that state that there are no extras, the disc is only for rental and comes "stripped down". I've been seeing a lot of them.

Rich

 

[MysteryMan]

As I posted on another thread there are many factors that determine how well a movie looks and sounds on BluRay. Director's intent, type of film used, studio's efforts in making the transfer to BluRay, type of video codec (VC-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC) and of course, audio. 1958's The Big Country was released on BluRay on 1 November 11. 1959's Ben Hur was released on BluRay on 7 February 12. While both film's picture quality looks stunning on BluRay their audio quality is as different as night and day. The Big Country was released on BluRay with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track while Ben Hur was released with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Big difference between 2.0 and 5.1. If the OP were to rent The Dirty Dozen on BluRay he would be very disappointed. Filmed in 1967 and released on BluRay on 17 April 07 using video codec VC-1 and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack both it's picture quality and audio quality leave a lot to be desired. At times the picture looks grainy and dirty while other times it's crisp and clean. And while it has a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track you'll be straining your ears trying to hear your rear speakers. Not all BluRays are equal.

 

[Rich]

As I posted on another thread there are many factors that determine how well a movie looks and sounds on BluRay. Director's intent, type of film used, studio's efforts in making the transfer to BluRay, type of video codec (VC-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC) and of course, audio. 1958's The Big Country was released on BluRay on 1 November 11. 1959's Ben Hur was released on BluRay on 7 February 12. While both film's picture quality looks stunning on BluRay their audio quality is as different as night and day. The Big Country was released on BluRay with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track while Ben Hur was released with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Big difference between 2.0 and 5.1. If the OP were to rent The Dirty Dozen on BluRay he would be very disappointed. Filmed in 1967 and released on BluRay on 17 April 07 using video codec VC-1 and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack both it's picture quality and audio quality leave a lot to be desired. At times the picture looks grainy and dirty while other times it's crisp and clean. And while it has a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track you'll be straining your ears trying to hear your rear speakers. Not all BluRays are equal.

Yup, I'm finding that out. Glad I didn't buy them. First time I've really rented BDs like these. Usually stick with newer releases.

Rich

 

[dpeters11]

And rentals can be different from retail, and not just special features etc. Sometimes audio differences as well.