Pioneer Laserdisc question

[Robo4900]

Are you referring to the English or Japanese track? The PCM tracks from Japanese LDs and 448kbps AC3 tracks from Japanese Dragon Box have the same parameters, excluding volume, which is bigger on Dragon Box: The Movies.

Yeah, but PCM is lossless. 448kbps AC3 is lossy. So the quality is better lossless. Volume doesn't matter, really.
Anyway, I was referring to the dub track, which is only 224kbps on the DVD.

[AnimeMaakuo]

Are you referring to the English or Japanese track? The PCM tracks from Japanese LDs and 448kbps AC3 tracks from Japanese Dragon Box have the same parameters, excluding volume, which is bigger on Dragon Box: The Movies.

Yeah, but PCM is lossless. 448kbps AC3 is lossy. So the quality is better lossless.

Prove it

[Kojiro Sasaki]

(..) nothing "essential" seemed lost with a center crop

You can pick any part of the picture and call it non-essential. What if I consider everything essential? What if I consider half of the picture non-essential? This is not an argument.

Yeah, but PCM is lossless. 448kbps AC3 is lossy. So the quality is better lossless. Volume doesn't matter, really.
Anyway, I was referring to the dub track, which is only 224kbps on the DVD.

If the original analog source was digitized with noticeably bigger volume, you benefit from this more than from lack of compression. 448kbps Dolby Digital gives no audible differences*. I would say unmeasurable differences**, excluding information above 20kHz, which is inaudible, and at EXTREMELY low level. For example, if we would say that our threshold of hearing is 0,3 - the difference is at 0,0002 level. This is +- the scale.

I've analyzed samples from both sources: Dynamic range, frequency characteristics, spectrogram, noise level and everything else was identical** (excluding volume and useless information above 20kHz).

By the way, lossless refers to compression - PCM is uncompressed


* - FLAC needs 313kbps to store monophonic audio track of DBZ Movie 5 without any information loss.
** - if you would use super-professional equipment, with extremely big display resolution and color representation, maybe you would see some extremely tiny differences on FQ char. and spectrogram.

[eledoremassis02]

Screenshots!


Clip: Compressed but gives an idea for the audio the screen shots represnt the video quality a lot better
https://youtu.be/OiHJI2QdUJE

[Danfun64]

Awesome! ...but how did you take those screenshots, other than with VLC?

[eledoremassis02]

Awesome! ...but how did you take those screenshots, other than with VLC?

I did take them via VLC my capturing squashed the picture to 16:9 so I had VLC put it back to 4:3

[Danfun64]

If your capture device is squashing the image to 16:9 and you have to reset it to 4:3...something is wrong with your settings, and the double aspect ratio conversion is probably reducing the quality somewhat.

[Metalwario64]

The fact that the "definitive" release is cropped into widescreen cements the idea that these full-frame movies should be exclusively viewed in 16:9, despite there definitely being detail missing in the animation of the theatrical format.

Beautiful-looking part of the artwork entirely removed. Sorry, but I do not buy it.

I really wish the Double Features had been 4x3. They'd be the best release of the movies had they been so. I'd prefer the old movie singles if the footage wasn't so terrible in all of them. All of the macroblocking, edge enhancement, rainbowing and overall ugly colors ruin them.

[TheQuazz]

Another misconception! They were actually 4:3 until DBZ movie 3, and then switched to widescreen from DBZ movie 4. At the same time, Toei video started releasing Laser Discs of DBZ movies, which were in 16:9 because LDs were for videophiles (as they preferred something "original", "intended" and "theatrical").

After that, they started using the same masters for VHS. They also re-released the first six movies in widescreen in the late '90s as widescreen CRT TVs were becoming popular. I know for a fact that they showed them in 4:3 at theaters. DBZ movies were often shown at small non-cinema facilities like local community halls which have only standard size screens, so from what I've gathered, they were meant to be seen in 4:3 since the beginning.

Sorry if I'm not understanding, but are you saying that Japanese home releases were in full-screen before Movie 4? Or that they were shown at cinema's in 4:3 until Movie 4?
Regardless, thanks for the info about how the movies where originally screened!

[Puto]

The fact that the "definitive" release is cropped into widescreen cements the idea that these full-frame movies should be exclusively viewed in 16:9, despite there definitely being detail missing in the animation of the theatrical format.

Beautiful-looking part of the artwork entirely removed. Sorry, but I do not buy it.

I really wish the Double Features had been 4x3. They'd be the best release of the movies had they been so. I'd prefer the old movie singles if the footage wasn't so terrible in all of them. All of the macroblocking, edge enhancement, rainbowing and overall ugly colors ruin them.

French DVDs for Z movies 7 through 13 have the best 4:3 transfers available for those movies, by far. For 1-6... Yeah, you're stuck with FUNi's singles, pretty much.

[AnimeMaakuo]

Beautiful-looking part of the artwork entirely removed. Sorry, but I do not buy it.

I really wish the Double Features had been 4x3. They'd be the best release of the movies had they been so. I'd prefer the old movie singles if the footage wasn't so terrible in all of them. All of the macroblocking, edge enhancement, rainbowing and overall ugly colors ruin them.

French DVDs for Z movies 7 through 13 have the best 4:3 transfers available for those movies, by far. For 1-6... Yeah, you're stuck with FUNi's singles, pretty much.

To be completely honest, I think the best would be perfectly remastered Dragon Boxes for consistency with not only the movies, but the rest of the entire series.

[Puto]

Yeah, but the movies Dragon Box is cropped :/

Like I said, the French DVDs are the best currently available 4:3 transfer of movies 7-13. Obviously some hypothetical uncropped Dragon Box transfer would be preferable if that actually existed.

[Robo4900]

Prove it

Don't be like that. Lossy vs lossless depends on the individual; sound is a very analogue thing, so some people can't hear the difference. To those people, there's no downside to an upgrade, because the filesize increase is nothing in modern terms. And if you can't hear the difference, and the filesize really bothers you, it's not hard to recompress an audio file on your computer. On a disc, this shouldn't even be on your radar.
But, to people with good ears and expensive audio setups, the difference is noticeable. Not so much using modern Blu-Ray encoding where you have 384kbps AAC, but on the inferior technology of DVD compression(Or in the complete god-awful mess that is MP3, which should have died out when OGG emerged, which is a better format in every way), the problems are noticeable. Maybe not to you, but to many people.

448kbps Dolby Digital gives no audible differences

Your argument is invalid. We're not talking about a 448kbps mono track, we're talking about a 224kbps stereo track. As I've said before, I'm talking about the Pioneer dub, not the original Japanese version.
224kbps AC3 stereo is missing information that PCM would include. Sure, some people won't hear it, and some sound systems wouldn't be able to output any difference between the two, but I'm an audiophile with expensive headphones. Many people are. The PCM track, in this case, is superior.

If we were talking about 448kbps mono, I'd concede my point, but we're not.

[AnimeMaakuo]

Prove it

But, to people with good ears and expensive audio setups, the difference is noticeable.

No, it just isn't. You have absolutely no technical data to show for this, and now you dare spoil the scientific purity with your anecdotal observations? The term "audiophile" means nothing to me.

448kbps Dolby Digital gives no audible differences

but I'm an audiophile with expensive headphones. Many people are. The PCM track, in this case, is superior.

Right, well I've got a $24,000 sound system, and I'm not even able to hear the difference. My hearing is still 20Hz - 20kHz range (confirmed by Audiologist on February 27, 2017).

[Kojiro Sasaki]

But, to people with good ears and expensive audio setups, the difference is noticeable.

Science proves the opposite. In ABX tests, ultra-audiophiles and other audio enthusiasts, including musicians, were unable to tell the difference between properly encoded MP3 320kbps stereo and original uncompressed source. They used all generes of music, with various frequency characteristics and dynamic range.

Even differences, which are easily measurable, are sometimes impossible to catch for our auditory perception. Some of our senses are dumb
Feel free to provide some latest articles about the issue, which would prove me wrong - I would start to enjoy my lossless archive better I cannot say that I've read EVERYTHING, so it would be great to see something new. Also, you can tell us, what equipment do you use.

Your argument is invalid. We're not talking about a 448kbps mono track, we're talking about a 224kbps stereo track. As I've said before, I'm talking about the Pioneer dub, not the original Japanese version.

I was referring to this part:

Yeah, but PCM is lossless. 448kbps AC3 is lossy. So the quality is better lossless. Volume doesn't matter, really.

My goal was to present the practical side of the issue.

(...) I'm an audiophile (...)

Now that explains everything “Audiophilism” is a religion, and I have no interest in taking your faith away from you. Enjoy your hobbies as you want to enjoy them.

The PCM track, in this case, is superior.

Of course!

I myself collect lossless or uncompressed audio and I am able to put EXTREME effort into get it, but I will not pretend that I hear any difference after all the experience and knowledge I collected during the last 12 years.
I am just a crazy purist, perfectionist, collector and technical fanatic. All bits in my files need to have proper 0 and 1 values

[Robo4900]

No, it just isn't. You have absolutely no technical facts to show for this, and now you dare spoil the scientific purity with your anecdotal observations? The term "audiophile" means nothing to me.

I'm not using anecdotal observations, I'm saying this isn't something you can quantify with facts. You can say for certain that 448kbps mono AC3 doesn't remove anything, and you can say that 320kbps stereo MP3 does, but you can't say for certain that everyone on the planet can tell the difference between 320kbps MP3 and lossless FLAC. Everyone's perception is different.
What I'm arguing is that loads of people say they can hear the difference. Since there's no way to hear things through someone else's ears, you can't dispute this. And anyway, why fight lossless audio? If you can't tell the difference, then the position to take is the position of not caring; loads of people can hear the difference, so they should use lossless commercially where possible; if you don't think the difference is noticeable, you can convert your music to lossy. For a DVD or BD, it isn't taking up space on your hard drive anyway, so there's literally no downside.

Anyway, what about the problem of lossy transcoding? Online bootleg traders* have been plagued by the problem of generational quality loss because of the use of lossy audio formats ever since the dawn of digital music storage.

*(As in, people who trade unofficial live music recordings. It varies, but many bands endorse it. And for those who don't, their fans generally oblige)

Right, well I've got a $24,000 sound system, and I'm not even able to hear the difference. My hearing is still 20Hz - 20kHz range (confirmed by Audiologist on February 27, 2017).

Dude, as I say, everyone's hearing is different. Perception is not something you can scientifically quantify. There's still a perfectly valid theory that everyone in the world perceives colours differently. There's no way to prove this either way because you can't see through someone else's eyes, hear through their ears, or smell through their nose.

Besides, as I say, there's no downside to lossless, so why are you even fighting this? If the space bothers you, this would only affect you with music anyway, which is easily converted to lossy, so it's a complete non-issue. And you have yet to refute this fact.

(Also, dude, please chill. I'm enjoying this discussion, but you're clearly getting very worked up about this. Please calm the hell down)

Science proves the opposite. In ABX tests, ultra-audiophiles and other audio enthusiasts, including musicians, were unable to tell the difference between properly encoded MP3 320kbps stereo and original uncompressed source. They used all generes of music, with various frequency characteristics and dynamic range.

Every test I've heard of that's tried to investigate this has turned up different results. You might as well flip a coin.

Now that explains everything “Audiophilism” is a religion, and I have no interest in taking your faith away from you. Enjoy your hobbies as you want to enjoy them.

Thank you.
Nice to know I'm not the only person on this forum who can have some manners while they have a debate such as this.

[AnimeMaakuo]

No, it just isn't. You have absolutely no technical facts to show for this, and now you dare spoil the scientific purity with your anecdotal observations? The term "audiophile" means nothing to me.

I'm not using anecdotal observations, I'm saying this isn't something you can quantify with facts. You can say for certain that 448kbps mono AC3 doesn't remove anything, and you can say that 320kbps stereo MP3 does, but you can't say for certain that everyone on the planet can tell the difference between 320kbps MP3 and lossless FLAC. Everyone's perception is different.
What I'm arguing is that loads of people say they can hear the difference. Since there's no way to hear things through someone else's ears, you can't dispute this. And anyway, why fight lossless audio? If you can't tell the difference, then the position to take is the position of not caring; loads of people can hear the difference, so they should use lossless commercially where possible; if you don't think the difference is noticeable, you can convert your music to lossy. For a DVD or BD, it isn't taking up space on your hard drive anyway, so there's literally no downside.

Anyway, what about the problem of lossy transcoding? Online bootleg traders* have been plagued by the problem of generational quality loss because of the use of lossy audio formats ever since the dawn of digital music storage.

*(As in, people who trade unofficial live music recordings. It varies, but many bands endorse it. And for those who don't, their fans generally oblige)

Right, well I've got a $24,000 sound system, and I'm not even able to hear the difference. My hearing is still 20Hz - 20kHz range (confirmed by Audiologist on February 27, 2017).

Dude, as I say, everyone's hearing is different. Perception is not something you can scientifically quantify. There's still a perfectly valid theory that everyone in the world perceives colours differently. There's no way to prove this either way because you can't see through someone else's eyes, hear through their ears, or smell through their nose.

Besides, as I say, there's no downside to lossless, so why are you even fighting this? If the space bothers you, this would only affect you with music anyway, which is easily converted to lossy, so it's a complete non-issue. And you have yet to refute this fact.

(Also, dude, please chill. I'm enjoying this discussion, but you're clearly getting very worked up about this. Please calm the hell down).

It doesn't matter whether you "perceive" music a certain way or not. Technical facts are technical facts! If you can hear 20kHz, then you cannot hear 21kHz, 22kHz, 23kHz, etc. I guess when an audiophile has no technical facts and cannot accept being wrong, they can still "perceive" things. OK. It seems that many audiophiles invest WAAY too much money, time and effort into believing that they hear EVERYTHING, without taking into account how inferior their ears really are.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

No, it just isn't. You have absolutely no technical facts to show for this, and now you dare spoil the scientific purity with your anecdotal observations? The term "audiophile" means nothing to me.

I'm not using anecdotal observations, I'm saying this isn't something you can quantify with facts. You can say for certain that 448kbps mono AC3 doesn't remove anything, and you can say that 320kbps stereo MP3 does, but you can't say for certain that everyone on the planet can tell the difference between 320kbps MP3 and lossless FLAC. Everyone's perception is different.
What I'm arguing is that loads of people say they can hear the difference. Since there's no way to hear things through someone else's ears, you can't dispute this. And anyway, why fight lossless audio? If you can't tell the difference, then the position to take is the position of not caring; loads of people can hear the difference, so they should use lossless commercially where possible; if you don't think the difference is noticeable, you can convert your music to lossy. For a DVD or BD, it isn't taking up space on your hard drive anyway, so there's literally no downside.

Anyway, what about the problem of lossy transcoding? Online bootleg traders* have been plagued by the problem of generational quality loss because of the use of lossy audio formats ever since the dawn of digital music storage.

*(As in, people who trade unofficial live music recordings. It varies, but many bands endorse it. And for those who don't, their fans generally oblige)

Right, well I've got a $24,000 sound system, and I'm not even able to hear the difference. My hearing is still 20Hz - 20kHz range (confirmed by Audiologist on February 27, 2017).

Dude, as I say, everyone's hearing is different. Perception is not something you can scientifically quantify. There's still a perfectly valid theory that everyone in the world perceives colours differently. There's no way to prove this either way because you can't see through someone else's eyes, hear through their ears, or smell through their nose.

Besides, as I say, there's no downside to lossless, so why are you even fighting this? If the space bothers you, this would only affect you with music anyway, which is easily converted to lossy, so it's a complete non-issue. And you have yet to refute this fact.

(Also, dude, please chill. I'm enjoying this discussion, but you're clearly getting very worked up about this. Please calm the hell down).

It doesn't matter whether you "perceive" music a certain way or not. Technical facts are technical facts! If you can hear 20kHz, then you cannot hear 21kHz, 22kHz, 23kHz, etc. I guess when an audiophile has no technical facts and cannot accept being wrong, they can still "perceive" things. OK. It seems that many audiophiles invest WAAY too much money, time and effort into believing that they hear EVERYTHING, without taking into account how inferior their ears really are.

Maybe I shouldn't be jumping in here, but you seem to be going out of your way to have a problem with this, and aren't actually addressing important points that are being made. There's no reason to believe that it's impossible to hear the difference between lossless and lossy audio. The objection you're presenting isn't taking anything into account but your own perception, that's not a solid place to argue from on its own. You can't effectively measure personal perceptions

[Kojiro Sasaki]

What I'm arguing is that loads of people say they can hear the difference.

Many audiophiles claim to hear BIG difference between speaker cables, which are proven to not indroduce any changes in the audio signal. What people say cannot be considered fact without proper research.

I remeber one discussion at audio forum, where audiophiles compared various lossless formats such as APE, FLAC, WavPack and WMA Lossless. Most of them said, that they hear differences between all of them

If you can't tell the differences, then the position to take is the position of not caring; loads of people can hear the difference*, so they should use lossless commercially where possible; if you don't think the difference is noticeable, you can convert your music to lossy. For a DVD or BD, it isn't taking up space on your hard drive anyway, so there's literally no downside.

101% agree! * - they cannot It's their imagination. During the ABX tests, many listeners said, that they hear the difference when they knew the source, but after blind tests, they were unable to determine the source correctly. Their selections were completely random.

Anyway, what about the problem of lossy transcoding? Online bootleg traders* have been plagued by the problem of generational quality loss because of the use of lossy audio formats ever since the dawn of digital music storage.

Now that's a true tragedy. Some great recordings are destroyed beyond help. Multiple transcoding introduces so much compression artifacts and information lose, that it can be easily heard, measured and it was proven by ABX tests.

Every test I've heard of that's tried to investigate this has turned up different results. You might as well flip a coin.

I will verify your arguments

Nice to know I'm not the only person on this forum who can have some manners while they have a debate such as this.

At your service.

We turned Kanzenshuu into an audio forum

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics - various factors like your mood or even attitude towards what you're listening to can change your perception)

Maybe I shouldn't be jumping in here, but you seem to be going out of your way to have a problem with this, and aren't actually addressing important points that are being made. There's no reason to believe that it's impossible to hear the difference between lossless and lossy audio. The objection you're presenting isn't taking anything into account but your own perception, that's not a solid place to argue from on its own. You can't effectively measure personal perceptions

Fell free to jump in everywhere! The more people, the better discussion!

[AnimeMaakuo]

I'm not using anecdotal observations, I'm saying this isn't something you can quantify with facts. You can say for certain that 448kbps mono AC3 doesn't remove anything, and you can say that 320kbps stereo MP3 does, but you can't say for certain that everyone on the planet can tell the difference between 320kbps MP3 and lossless FLAC. Everyone's perception is different.
What I'm arguing is that loads of people say they can hear the difference. Since there's no way to hear things through someone else's ears, you can't dispute this. And anyway, why fight lossless audio? If you can't tell the difference, then the position to take is the position of not caring; loads of people can hear the difference, so they should use lossless commercially where possible; if you don't think the difference is noticeable, you can convert your music to lossy. For a DVD or BD, it isn't taking up space on your hard drive anyway, so there's literally no downside.
Anyway, what about the problem of lossy transcoding? Online bootleg traders* have been plagued by the problem of generational quality loss because of the use of lossy audio formats ever since the dawn of digital music storage.

*(As in, people who trade unofficial live music recordings. It varies, but many bands endorse it. And for those who don't, their fans generally oblige)

Dude, as I say, everyone's hearing is different. Perception is not something you can scientifically quantify. There's still a perfectly valid theory that everyone in the world perceives colours differently. There's no way to prove this either way because you can't see through someone else's eyes, hear through their ears, or smell through their nose.

Besides, as I say, there's no downside to lossless, so why are you even fighting this? If the space bothers you, this would only affect you with music anyway, which is easily converted to lossy, so it's a complete non-issue. And you have yet to refute this fact.

(Also, dude, please chill. I'm enjoying this discussion, but you're clearly getting very worked up about this. Please calm the hell down).

It doesn't matter whether you "perceive" music a certain way or not. Technical facts are technical facts! If you can hear 20kHz, then you cannot hear 21kHz, 22kHz, 23kHz, etc. I guess when an audiophile has no technical facts and cannot accept being wrong, they can still "perceive" things. OK. It seems that many audiophiles invest WAAY too much money, time and effort into believing that they hear EVERYTHING, without taking into account how inferior their ears really are.

The objection you're presenting isn't taking anything into account but your own perception, that's not a solid place to argue from on its own. You can't effectively measure personal perceptions

If you can hear 20kHz, then you cannot hear 21kHz, 22kHz, 23kHz, etc. - This is not opinion. This is fact. Also, I'm referring to Dragon Box: The Movies versus DBZ Laser Disc.