DVD Conspiracy?
Two letters from Gregory G. Stangal follow which address what he believes is a “DVD Conspiracy.” Dear Gary: I have enclosed a letter dealing with DVD. Your publication is the only one that even hints at this inferior product. I don’t believe you would publish it, not with all your advertisers buying space to promote this scam, but I just wanted you to know that not everyone is being fooled by DVD. Whatever happened to truth in advertising? All the stores here in Phoenix, have stopped handling LaserDiscs. I can’t believe that as soon as DVD came out everyone who used to buy LaserDiscs suddenly stopped buying them. I can’t be the only one to notice the bad sound and digital artifacts that goes along with DVD. Like I said before, your magazine is the only one that addresses the issue of DVD, but even you contradict yourself with the side by side reviews of LaserDisc vs. DVD. Widescreen Review will say that the sound is identical on both formats, then in the same sentence say the sound on DVD has less dynamic range and fleshtones appear on the orange side. This is a great product? Dear Gary: When I first heard about DVD I thought it was too good too be true. An entire movie on a CD-size disc with Dolby Digital surround sound and multiple aspect ratios. Now the first thing I asked myself is, what is going to be compromised to achieve this wonder? Several years ago, at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronic Show, they had a demonstration of DVD. The picture looked fantastic, as did the wonderful sound. The dual-layer capabilities of the DVD were also shown. At a certain point the demonstrator said, “Here is where one layer changes to the other.” There was no detectable break in the picture or sound. Incredible! What the demonstrator failed to tell the audience, I later found out, was the fact that “they” did not have any DVD software to show and were actually using a LaserDisc! I finally got to see a real demonstration of DVD when a friend brought his player over to my house. After hooking up the unit we played A Hard Days Night and synced it with my VHS copy to compare the two. Yes, the picture looked sharper on DVD, but the big shock was the difference in the sound. While the VHS Hi-Fl track sounded full and rich, the DVD version sounded dull and lifeless. Alright, that was an old film, so we put on, The Fifth Element. Again the picture was O.K., but there was some video distortion at the bottom of the screen and again the sound was lackluster. Upon putting on the LaserDisc version of the same movie, the picture was perfect; no distortion, and the sound shook the room; it was so dynamic! The great amount of compression to the picture and sound makes DVD an inferior format, so why do I keep hearing about the superiority of DVD? LaserDiscs were considered the jewel of the video industry. Not enough praise could be said about the LaserDisc format, but as soon as DVD came out, LaserDiscs were referred to like some bastard child. I read letters, in video magazines, how LaserDisc owners were scrapping their disc collection for DVD. Even Siskel & Ebert were taken in by DVD. On their program they had a split screen showing a scene from Singin’ In The Rain. On the left side was VHS and DVD on the right. The VHS version looked like a third generation dup, while DVD was sharp and clear. I never saw a VHS commercial copy look that bad. Than LaserDisc was compared to DVD and the LaserDisc looked soft while DVD looked noticeably sharper. Siskel & Ebert said they would buy DVD over LaserDisc anytime. So, here is DVD, a system that has lack luster sound and where some background scenes may be freeze framed to save on the limited space available on the five-inch disc, which causes digital artifacts. And DVD is already obsolete, when high-definition television comes out. Let’s not forget DVD’s Divx discs which won’t play in any of the current players that were sold to the unsuspecting public. Better run out and buy yet another DVD player. Even Pioneer, who virtually saved the LaserDisc format, has abandoned it. Why? Was Pioneer pressured, by the electronic industry, to not come out with a next generation LaserDisc, knowing full well that one revolution of a 12-inch digital disc would blow DVD out of the water. What Pioneer has done is come out with a duea player that plays both LaserDisc and DVD, but the player demises the quality of the LaserDisc in favor of DVD. Was that done to make DVD look better than it really is? Walk into any video store and there is a big DVD display hitting you right in the face. Most stores have gotten rid of their LaserDiscs in favor of this inferior format. As for me, if DVD kills off the superior LaserDisc format, which is the main intention, I’ll stick with the established VHS tape. JVC has come out with a digital video recorder, which will also play any VHS tape; making one’s collection not obsolete like LaserDisc is going and DVD will soon follow. As for DVD, it stands for DISAPPOINTING VERY DISAPPOINTING.
Gregory G. Stangal, Atlanta, Georgia
Editor Gary Reber Comments:
I have to disagree with you on the issue of DVD quality. DVDs produced in the widescreen anamorphic format are superior to ANY LaserDisc current or past. There just is no debate about this reality. If there are differences, the cause is due to differences in source elements, telecine transfers, colorist processing, noise reduction processing, and mastering. Also, there may be differences in the mastering: a composite master is required for LaserDisc mastering and a component master is required for DVD mastering. Even component masters for DVD can actually be sourced from composite masters. In such cases, the DVD will suffer due to the NTSC composite picture limitations and artifacts, but still produce better picture resolution. Then too, when making DVD/LaserDisc comparisons it is essential that the display device is the same, that it be calibrated, and that it support two separate component and composite inputs with independent memories. This is important so that the display can be calibrated for each input. If there is only one memory then either LaserDisc or DVD can be optimized on the display, not both. The display will favor the format it is optimized for, though resolution will always be superior on the DVD, if all other factors leading up to mastering are identical. Sound is an entirely different issue and I partially agree with your position. In the beginning, Dolby Digital coding, even DTS Digital Surround to a lessor extent, sounded very thin, harsh, strident and bright, whether on LaserDisc or DVD. Matrix PCM was definitely superior in terms of fidelity. A good part of the early fidelity problem was with the original printmaster mixes for the new 5.1-channel discrete format. DTS Digital Surround did not have the fidelity problems of Dolby Digital from the start. Over time Dolby Digital AC-3 coding has been improved and the initial bright and harsh character of the sound has been tempered to the degree that Dolby Digital’s fidelity can sound virtually as good as PCM 16bit/44.1kHz, which is what Laser Disc soundtracks are mastered in. We have heard significant improvement to the Dolby Digital coding over time. Today, Dolby Digital can sound superb, though not all newly released AC-3-encoded DVDs or LaserDiscs sound as good as they can using that format. This has to do with who’s encoding. Matrix PCM and DTS Digital Surround does continue to be superior to Dolby Digital in their ability to resolve low level ambience. And DTS Digital Surround is also superior at inter-channel resolution and dynamic range. In our comparative reviews we often point out that the Dolby Digital version does not resolve low level ambience as well as the other two formats. The matrix PCM (and the DTS) version is virtually always dramatically more effective in this regard. Thus, some material actually sounds more impressive mastered in matrix PCM than Dolby Digital. But sometimes these differences are the result of mixing decisions, not always the digital compression codec technology itself. Differences between Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround are the result of bit rate allocation. The DTS format is nearly 4 times more powerful in bit rate allocation and resolution compared to Dolby Digital’s low bit rate date reduction compression. This affects sound quality and perceptions of fidelity, spatial dimension and dynamic parameters.That being said, when a Dolby Digital soundtrack is really optimized and the mixes have fully utilized the discrete 5.1 palette, there is simply no question that the Dolby Digital (and DTS Digital Surround) experience is preferred. Finally, now that DTS Digital Surround DVDs are beginning to appear, audiophiles should rejoice. While I believe that DTS Digital Surround sounds better than Dolby Digital, readers need to know that most studios are not supporting putting DTS soundtracks on their DVDs and much is still to be done to convince them to do so. As to future high-definition disc (or tape or laser ribbon) formats, well, there is no telling what form they will ultimately take nor if and when they will be introduced. Much of this technology is entangled in copy protection issues. In the meantime, do you want to deny yourself what is currently “the best that it can be” in a disc form?
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