[Folsom]

Is it me or is anyone sick of bad mixes that you can't hear shit on... all for a picture difference that doesn't seem particularly appreciable... and they just cost more. (some of don't have streaming options)

At this point I just don't think I'll choose a Blu-Ray over DVD unless the DVD is included.

[WGH]

Is it me or is anyone sick of bad mixes that you can't hear shit on... all for a picture difference that doesn't seem particularly appreciable...

It's you. 

But in reality it's probably a combination of your processor and center speaker. I can't think of any films with bad mixes although there are plenty of new films that will challenge even the best equipment, even Dune was clear as a bell from the softest whisper to the loudest explosion. The only way I can get theater quality surround sound with Dolby Atmos is with Blu-Ray.

If Blu-Ray disks knocks your system to it's knees then stick with DVDs, you don't loose that much soundwise and the movie's the same, it's all in the visuals anyway.

[Folsom]

Center speaker, who do you take me for?

[Mag]

I find Blu ray usually have a uncompressed Track, usually Stereo. I have mostly Blu ray Concert music, a few movies. The uncompressed Track is as good as it gets IMO. Okay some Blu rays the Tracks are as good or the same as the DVD version. I find that overall the vast majority of Concert dvd's are compressed to various degrees depending on the Codec you are using.

So I would suggest try other Codec tracks on a Blu ray. Also you may not have your system setup quit right. Like if I am using a dts track I have to down mix to stereo. And I'm no longer using 5.1 just listen in stereo, but my system is capable of 5.1 if I change my system setup.

One advantage dvd's have is you can copy them if you use software like Shrink. I don't know how to copy Blu ray.

[Carlman]

I am still trying to figure out all the best options to play Blu-ray DVDs or streamed movies on my system. I have a brand new Yamaha receiver doing 7.3 in a dedicated room. Upgrading my center and surrounds along with this receiver has made me somewhat of an HT convert... I would have also been mildly offended if someone asked me if I had a center channel a few years ago. . I disabled my balance control, and I have no tone controls in my 2-channel system. There, my two channel badge is intact.

Back to your point, it is you, or us to be more specific. :0
It seems every disc or movie has its own perfect mix of selected options.  When I put Johnny dangerously in, followed by dune, followed by Blackhawk down, followed by three amigos, things get crazy... I feel like a switchboard operator.

Plus, I'm still figuring out all the options on my receiver. I have AI auto, I have DTS Auto, then I have all these programs of different sounds and I don't know what's "right." The DVD player itself has output options, the disc sometimes has options too.

Without lots of experimenting and comparisons, it's hard to tell what is optimal.
I just want to watch the movie, and I want it to sound really great. And, I don't want to miss out on something better. There are so many standards and codecs and tracks, and on different devices.. I get pretty exhausted or frustrated trying to remember what's what.

I would say the chances of you getting it wrong are much higher than the chances of you getting it right. So I could see how some people would come to the conclusion that Blu-ray sounds sucks. 

I will say though, I've heard some incredible sounding stuff come off my Blu-ray player and then I'll hear it again and it won't be so great. That is the most frustrating thing, not knowing what I did to screw it up. 

I have used this as an opportunity to figure out what will be my best combination of settings, requiring me to spend more time in my room. Getting time like that is very difficult at this point in my life, so it's nice to force myself into doing something I enjoy.

So, I just look at this as part of the effort that will pay off later. Just like everything in Hi-Fi, you got to work for it.

[ctviggen]

Personally, I think the picture and sound is generally slightly better on bluray, but then again, I've never actually compared them.  I'm going solely based on what I believe to be true, not comparing the same movie in both DVD and bluray. (Maybe I should, as we have some with both DVD and bluray.)

I do find that I tend to get more DVDs, especially since most of our watching is done on a smaller screen from relatively far away.  But even on our 100 inch projector, DVDs really aren't bad.

It is possible to copy blurays, using MKV. You only get the movie, though, and the files are about 6 times bigger than a DVD.

[rbbert]

IME  Bluray concert videos and movies have both dramatically better sound and picture quality than DVD or streaming.  The 5.1 DTS-HD usually has the best sound when it is used. 

[Vince in TX]

I actually thought Dune on streaming was pretty decent.   That is, of course, until I picked up the 4K Blu-ray.   Wow!    I could never go back to DVD.   And for streaming releases, I'm not paying for them anymore (example:  Ghostbusters: Afterlife) and plan to just put that cost towards the 4K discs instead.   Some streaming movies that I'd probably never purchase on 4K (like Marry Me) are perfectly fine in the streaming world.   Special effects and ATMOS extravaganzas like anything Marvel or Star Wars will always get the 4K treatment.   That said, Book of Boba Fett, Mandalorian, Loki, Hawkeye, et al. were all excellent.

What player are you using?   That can also have an impact on quality.   When I built my dedicated theater room, I went with the no compromises approach, bit the bullet, and bought the Panasonic DP-UB9000.   That think is built like a tank and has some really impressive sound and video quality.

DVD and 1080p Blu-ray with upscaling aren't too horrible.   And I have to admit there were some purchases that didn't live up to expectations (Raiders of the Lost Ark, for instance - the 4K looks and sounds just like the 1080p version to me).   It really just depends on your sound system and whether it's capable of presenting all of the nuances.

[WGH]

IndieWire has an article about Christopher Nolan:

The sound design in Christopher Nolan’s movies is known to generate frustration among moviegoers, but it turns out Nolan’s fellow filmmakers have also expressed annoyance with being unable to hear the director’s dialogue. Most Nolan releases, from “Interstellar” to “The Dark Knight Rises” to this year’s “Tenet,” spark the question: are Nolan movies too loud? The director has defended his sound design in the past, and he says in Tom Shone’s new book “The Nolan Variations” that he’s surprised how “conservative” moviegoers are about cinematic sound.

“We got a lot of complaints,” Nolan said about the “Interstellar” sound design. “I actually got calls from other filmmakers who would say, ‘I just saw your film, and the dialogue is inaudible.’ Some people thought maybe the music’s too loud, but the truth was it was kind of the whole enchilada of how we had chosen to mix it.”

“It was a very, very radical mix,” the director continued. “I was a little shocked to realize how conservative people are when it comes to sound. Because you can make a film that looks like anything, you can shoot on your iPhone, no one’s going to complain. But if you mix the sound a certain way, or if you use certain sub-frequencies, people get up in arms.”

Nolan added “there’s a wonderful feeling of scale” that can come by experimenting with sound design and “a wonderful feeling of physicality to sound that on ‘Interstellar’ we pushed further than I think anyone ever has.” For “Interstellar,” Nolan and his team “tapped into the idea of the sub-channel, where you can just get a lot of vibration.”

“A lot of it was the music where Hans [Zimmer] had this organ and he used the absolutely lowest note, which would literally make your chest drop,” Nolan continued. “There’s certain low end frequencies that automatically get filtered out by the software. He took all of those controls off, so there are all those sub-frequencies there. And we did the same on the dub stage. It’s a pretty fascinating sound mix. If you see it particularly in an IMAX theater, projected, it’s pretty remarkable.”
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/11/christopher-nolan-directors-complain-sound-mix-1234598386/

So I understand why home theater enthusiasts complain about how Blu-ray disks sound, some films are intentionally mixed so dialog is obscured plus add in Blu-ray's wide dynamic range and higher bit rate that can cause amps and speakers to increased distortion levels can make movie lovers long for the simpler days of the DVD and Blockbuster.

A DVD is limited to Linear PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS (Core) Digital Surround. A Blu-ray has all the DVD codecs plus Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, DTS-HD Master Audio.
Dolby Digital (DVD) is 640 kbit/s, DTS Core is 1.5 mbps. Comparing those rates to Blu-ray with Dolby Digital Plus 4.736 Mbit/s, Dolby True HD 18.64 Mbit/s, and DTS-HD MA 24.5 Mbit/s plus add in a director's desire to push what is possible for state-of-the art sound makes putting together a home theater an expensive hobby. I know people with a sound bar that watch movies with the subtitles on, which drives me crazy, but subtitles are needed because the dialog is unintelligible no matter how loud because of the high distortion levels.

I started building my own computers back in 1997, one of my first computers had a Diamond Stealth 64 bit video card so I could play the latest games. Of course the next game I wanted wouldn't play smoothly or at all, thus starting an upgrade cycle. I never blamed the game. Blu-ray movies are the new game.

[Folsom]

I don't watch concerts on TV ever. I couldn't care less about them personally.

It's just infuriating when the Blu-Ray has one sound option and that option is where the volume you adjust to has no affect on dialog. 40 is the same as 100 out of 100... WTF? I can't hear them.

This is for normal TV's and or maybe a stereo speaker setup (all that one should need IMO).

[Tyson]

You probably need to go into the setup menu for your blu ray player and set the audio to default to stereo if you are running 2 channel or the TV speakers. 

[Freo-1]

Or, have the HDMI audio out to the TV, and run the optical out from the TV back to the stereo.  Some blu ray discs aren't mixed for 2 channels,  and the 2 channel downmix only works for SACD. 

[WGH]

You have a common problem. It is hard to offer a solution without knowing your setup but it sounds like you are running the Blu-ray HDMI directly into your TV then TV audio out into the stereo. You may need to add another box (receiver) that has something like the Audyssey Dynamic Volume and Dynamic EQ. These features compress that dynamic range to make the sounds coming from your speakers closer to the same volume level you have set, that means regular talking, shouting, and whispers will be closer in level and easier to understand. You’ll lose some of that impact from explosions and other loud effects.

A receiver/processor will have better software so you can set up stereo sound with a phantom center speaker. Almost 100% of dialog is in the center speaker so accurate mixdown to two channels from three should be a priority.

I use the line out from my processor into my preamp, set the preamp volume at 12:00 and control the volume with the processor remote, some preamps have a home theater bypass input. I have to remember to lower the volume before switching sources but I have been doing that automatically for 50 years and I live alone.

[Folsom]

You probably need to go into the setup menu for your blu ray player and set the audio to default to stereo if you are running 2 channel or the TV speakers.

Already done. A bunch of these Blu Ray's just don't have the track for it. Maybe an external processor could do a better job, but if you have one of those you already have surround sound... 

[WGH]

Probably not the direction you were thinking of when you posted yesterday but...

Acessories4Less has a Marantz NR1510 Slim receiver for $550 that will fix all your problems and will improve sound quality along with dialog intelligibility.



The receiver has:
L&R line level outputs to go into your preamp
Audyssey MultEQ, Audyssey Dynamic EQ and Audyssey Dynamic Volume
Center Image - Distributes the dialogue output from the center channel to the front left and right channels and widens the sound image in the front.
Dynamic Comp - Compress dynamic range (difference between loud and soft sounds)
Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD for much higher quality with more precise and clearer sound than you have now

No need to use or worry about the other unused channels, the amps in this receiver probably aren't anything special anyway.

https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/marnr1510/marantz-nr1510-slim-5.2-ch-x-50-watts-a/v-receiver/1.html

[Tyson]

Already done. A bunch of these Blu Ray's just don't have the track for it. Maybe an external processor could do a better job, but if you have one of those you already have surround sound... 

I have a Sony 4k bluray player that has an optical out that I use to plug directly in to my 2 channel DAC, I run stereo not multichannel in my setup and it sounds great. 

[Folsom]

A receiver would complicate literally everything for me in every situation. Buying the DVD is a much clearer answer.

[WGH]

I have a Sony 4k bluray player that has an optical out that I use to plug directly in to my 2 channel DAC, I run stereo not multichannel in my setup and it sounds great.

Running does optical not take advantage of the superior sound that a Blu-ray has to offer. The Sony optical output specs may be different than my Oppo, check and see.
As far as I know the optical output limits resolution to 640 kbit/s and DTS (core) to 1.5 mbps.

My OPPO BDP-103 manual states:

Due to bandwidth limitations, high resolution audio formats such as Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby
TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution and DTS-HD Master Audio cannot be sent through the
coaxial or optical digital audio output. A reduced resolution version of the same audio track
will be output instead. To listen to high resolution audio formats in their best quality, please
use the HDMI connection...



Keeping your setup simple is good too. Hopefully the info above will help someone else. Home theater and Blu-ray can be a confusing topic.

[rbbert]

I’m now very confused about the whole point of this topic.  If you don’t care about picture and sound quality why even post here??
With a few hundred Blurays and even more DVD’s it’s easy to say that DVD’s are noticeably lesser in both sound and picture quality.  Even streaming is almost always better than DVD in picture quality and at least equal in sound quality.  Obviously not all BD’s take advantage of everything the format offers but that is not a reason to ignore the benefits.  Audio dialog can sometimes be a problem with movies but most BD players offer options to compress the sound which almost always solves that problem.  OTOH, if picture and sound quality are not priorities then you certainly shouldn’t bother with Bluray.

[zybar]

I’m now very confused about the whole point of this topic.  If you don’t care about picture and sound quality why even post here??
With a few hundred Blurays and even more DVD’s it’s easy to say that DVD’s are noticeably lesser in both sound and picture quality.  Even streaming is almost always better than DVD in picture quality and at least equal in sound quality.  Obviously not all BD’s take advantage of everything the format offers but that is not a reason to ignore the benefits.  Audio dialog can sometimes be a problem with movies but most BD players offer options to compress the sound which almost always solves that problem.  OTOH, if picture and sound quality are not priorities then you certainly shouldn’t bother with Bluray.

Well said.

Blu-Ray is so far superior to DVD (in both picture and audio) that it really isn't even a great comparison.  It's like comparing standard def to HD...

The difference gets even greater when going to UHD.  In a properly setup system, the results are stunning!

George