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The Low Frequency Content Thread (films, games, music, etc)


maxmercy

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You can see here that TDK only clips in one channel, at only two points in the movie:

TDKEntireMovie.thumb.png.e858d657f1f767c0e0991ac7c089f1af.png

This is the entire movie, all channels, L/R/C/LFE/SL/SR in order 1-6.  Just after the one hour mark, the center channel clips in one place (marked in red), and once at the end.

TDKR, however, is a different story:

TDKREntireMovie.thumb.png.0efff80fdaaf8dc72746cbdb802cfeb9.png

As you can see, the screen channels clip nearly throughout the film, followed by the surrounds, then the LFE.  It is an utter disaster, and the soundtrack is very loud because of it (one of the loudest I have measured).

JSS

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So TDKR was kind of a mess, fidelity-wise.  Lots of clipped tops make for a harsh soundtrack.  Watching the movies back-to-back and with a surround system (down-mixing to 2.1 unless your AVR is doing it from an LPCM source will introduce dynamic compression by your AVR) is enlightening.  I think TDK is one of the best soundtracks around, and TDKR could have been, if someone didn't just turn the gain up until every loud effect clipped.

Another reason TDKR got such bad reviews here is this: 

TDKR.thumb.jpg.b58f3e349e07e1954d395c7f899de026.jpg

This is the entire PvA for TDKR.  But if you isolate the first 10 minutes:

TDKRbeginning.thumb.jpg.ff831667a47344462b2429c75da4b891.jpg

You can see it is a full bandwidth presentation with effects into the single digits.  The rest of the film, however, is different:

TDKRRest.thumb.jpg.d3c3da447ad31a2d49a6889006caf171.jpg

With a significant rolloff under 30Hz.  The difference was easily heard and felt in a system that can reproduce under 20Hz.  It is as if the ultra low bass knob was simply turned down.

If you remember when TDKR was initially in theaters, a special 'Prologue' was released in IMAX theaters 6 months before the movie was released.  It is my theory that this prologue was mixed independently and that mix was kept for the final film, and the rest of the film got highpassed when mixed.  Unfortunately ALL of it is clipped.  One of the worst cases of clipping in a movie I have seen, and heard.  The first time I became aware of clipping was in Tron:Legacy, when I saw the BluRay and it was definitely different compared to the theater presentation.  The effects dug deeper, but the sound was clipped in many places, confirmed by looking at the waveforms.

JSS

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