Bad Audio on Season 2: Region2?

Aphelion

Project QL Intern
Dec 15, 2005
16
0
0
47
Syracuse, NY
I bought the Region 2 Season 2 set in a heartbeat after I read on Al's Place that the soundtracks are intact. Just watched "Disco Inferno", and noticed, sadly that the sound is irregular and warbly. It's noticeable during music pieces like the opening theme, and later when Al tells Sam that Tom was killed in Vietnam. That bites because I've always loved the music in that scene. To twist the knife into my wound, it comes back when Al shows Sam the photograph at the end. So I guess my question is: Do I have a bad disc or a bad player? Or does everyone have this problem with the R2s?
 
That really bites. It was too good to be true... QL in all its glory with no music replacement... BUT the audio may suck every 2-3 episodes. Universal nozzles.
 
Grimlock said:
Personally, i haven't experienced any audio problems with my R2 set.

Can you crank up "Disco Inferno" and try to notice any irregularities in the scenes I mentioned? For my own peace of mind. Thanks.
 
Al's Cigar said:
Some episodes have bad sound quality, but then the same applies to some episodes on the R1.

But not like what he described.
 
Aphelion said:
Can you crank up "Disco Inferno" and try to notice any irregularities in the scenes I mentioned? For my own peace of mind. Thanks.


The problems are there, as you describe. No idea what it is though. Some sort of audio fault with the episode. At least it has the proper music.
 
Al's Cigar said:
The problems are there, as you describe. No idea what it is though. Some sort of audio fault with the episode. At least it has the proper music.

Thanks. I noticed it on "Blind Faith" too. They did something wrong with the audio transfer on the DVD obviously. I had these on VHS from back in the day (original NBC airings), and there's no distortion.
 
Aphelion said:
Thanks. I noticed it on "Blind Faith" too. They did something wrong with the audio transfer on the DVD obviously. I had these on VHS from back in the day (original NBC airings), and there's no distortion.

Yes, the problems are there. I've got a genuine R2 player at home (as I come from Europe) and an All-Region player and the problem shows up on both players. It seems that only the music is affected - both songs and score. Dialogue and everything else is fine, but the music does have glitches and it is irregular and warbly on some episodes. I haven't watched all of the episodes on the Season 2 box set yet, but so far the glitches show up on "Disco Inferno", "Blind Faith" and "Good Morning Preoria" (although it's not so apparent on this episode). I'll post a complete list once I've finished watching the box set.
 
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OK, a little more information on the bad sound on the Region 2 Season 2 box set from this board:

http://www.zetaminor.com/roobarb/index.php?showtopic=5350&st=50

Here's a quote from the thread:
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Having had a closer look, yes I think they may be pitch corrected.

The reason you think the sound is dull an lifeless is because the pitch is lower (the correct pitch), something many UK people watching PAL coverted shows never hear. As normal USA PAL conversions run 4% faster and thus have a higher pitch. Pitch correction lowers the sound to how it should sound.

I'm guessing from what you say that the R2 release of season 1 was *not* pitch corrected, so now with season two you're actually hearing the sound (bar glitches) at the proper slightly lower pitch.

Problem solved Watson!

PS. there is a little side effect of pitch correction in that you can occasionally hear little pops in the sound.
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These are the problems I was talking about. There are very noticeable jumps in the music in some episodes, so it seems that Season 2 was indeed pitch corrected, therefore the littlle pops in the sound.

Annoying, but at least the songs haven't been replaced.
 
I posted that on the other board, I don't think that's the problem now.

I think there are problems with the master tapes on some episodes and a hamfisted attempt has been made to try and fix them. Hence the reason it's only on select episodes.
 
Al's Cigar said:
I think there are problems with the master tapes on some episodes and a hamfisted attempt has been made to try and fix them. Hence the reason it's only on select episodes.

But wouldn't these be the same master tapes that were used for Region 1? If so, the audio quality is fine, with the exceptions of "Jimmy" and "Last Dance Before An Execution." If both regions use the same master tapes, wouldn't the same episodes have the audio problems?
 
QL Nut said:
But wouldn't these be the same master tapes that were used for Region 1? If so, the audio quality is fine, with the exceptions of "Jimmy" and "Last Dance Before An Execution." If both regions use the same master tapes, wouldn't the same episodes have the audio problems?

R2 usually will have their own different master tapes they use to make the DVDs.

Hard to know what the problem is, probably somebody tried to 'fix' the sound on those episodes and made it worse? Perhaps it happened by a mistake when those episodes were being readied for DVD. Who knows.

Seeing how there is a problem on both regions but with different episodes, I'm lead to believe it might be some kind of DVD mastering error, either by the same people making both sets (making the same kind of mistakes) or something to do with the equipment they both use. We all know Universal aren't the best studio at putting out TV shows on DVD without faults.

I haven't come across any similar problems yet on the R2 season 3 release.
 
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I did have a close listen to the S2 episodes and the popping in the sound is there on most of the episodes - it's just more apparent in some than it is in others. After a little online research I've come to the conclusion that this phenomenon is most definitely due to the messed up/non-existent pitch correction. I have the same problem with a few of my other R2 discs ("Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring" comes to mind), but it's nowhere near as apparent as on the QL S2 R2 box set.

Here's another posting that deals with the matter from http://www.thedvdforums.com/

"So no-one else has noticed the drop-outs in the audio on certain episodes (like Disco Inferno and Blind Faith)? It sounds like the pitch-correction artefact I've heard on other PAL DVDs (e.g. Futurama R2), and the voices of the actors (for example) are indeed lower.

As far as I can tell the episodes have been properly transferred to PAL in terms of video, so why would the audio be so messed up (and then only on certain episodes)? Instead of removing chunks of the longer-running NTSC audio track to make it fit with the PAL video, surely it'd just be sped up accordingly?

It's nice to have Quantum Leap S2 with the licensed music intact so I shouldn't moan, but to have the music affected by those bloody drop-outs is hugely annoying."
 
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Hi.
Season 2 has just came out in France. I'm really happy 'cause we have the original music just like the uk edition... (for the english track anyway).
I am less happy about the audio quality, it looks like the french dvds have the same problem... drop-outs in the audio on several episodes...
I'm happy to have the music intact but it is a little anoying.

My question is, is there the same audio problem on the others seasons ?('cause it looks like region 2 dvd uses the same material).

Thanks