1035 Come and See

[OldBobbyPeru]

I watched parts of both the French BD and the new Criterion last night. To my ears, the 3.1 track is way better, and after listening to it, the mono on the Criterion sounds small and flat.

I tried to mux the 3.1 track into the Criterion, but I had trouble syncing it up. I delayed the track 20 seconds to adjust for the addition of the Criterion and Janus logos, and it was in sync for the first scene with the Uncle yelling at the kids, but when I went further in the film it was out of sync again. The French cut is a minute shorter than the Criterion, but I don't know what the differences are to throw off the sync. The logos yes, but are there other small cuts? It's a drag, because the Criterion subtitles have a much better translation.

For now, I'll just keep both on hand.

[Soothsayer]

I watched parts of both the French BD and the new Criterion last night. To my ears, the 3.1 track is way better, and after listening to it, the mono on the Criterion sounds small and flat.

I tried to mux the 3.1 track into the Criterion, but I had trouble syncing it up. I delayed the track 20 seconds to adjust for the addition of the Criterion and Janus logos, and it was in sync for the first scene with the Uncle yelling at the kids, but when I went further in the film it was out of sync again. The French cut is a minute shorter than the Criterion, but I don't know what the differences are to throw off the sync. The logos yes, but are there other small cuts? It's a drag, because the Criterion subtitles have a much better translation.

For now, I'll just keep both on hand.

PAL/NTSC frame rate differences perhaps? Forgive my ignorance on this subject, not sure if this is present with Blu Ray but I know it does in DVD.

[MichaelB]

That shouldn't be an issue, unless for some strange reason the French disc was encoded at 1080i50. Also, that would go WAY out of sync from a very early stage if that was the difference.

What might be worth investigating is whether one disc is running at a perfect 24fps and the other at 23.976 fps, because that would have the soundtrack a few seconds out by the end.

[Dr. Zaius]

According to caps-a-holic the French disc runs at 24fps.
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=14354&d2=13525&c=3492

[MichaelB]

Well, I don't have the Criterion disc, but a quick spot check of three Criterions that I have to hand reveals that they were all mastered at 23.976fps - so if that's standard across the board (and it most likely is), there's your answer. The soundtrack is running slightly faster than the picture, so that sync drift doesn't become particularly obvious at first, but by the end they'll have diverged by a few seconds.

[tenia]

Not taking into account the 24 vs 23.976 speed, the French disc actually only is 29 sec shorter than the Criterion, not a full minute. Without the Criterion/Janus logos which are about 20 sec long combined, that only leaves 9 sec of difference.

Taking into account both the logos and the different frame rate, there are only 24 frames (ie about 1 sec) of difference between the 2 discs, which are likely not to be coming from the movie itself, but rather from the logos not being exactly 20 sec long and 1 additionnal sec of black screen at the very end of the movie.

[therewillbeblus]

Seeing this film restored to perfection after viewing the old Kino DVD maybe ten years ago, is like night and day. Although the visuals were a drastic improvement, I was mostly fascinated with the use of sound throughout my watch tonight, which Klimov and co. use immaculately to convey the atmosphere of this realist nightmare. I had remembered the post-bomb deafness but

SpoilerShow

the last act involving the Nazis slaughtering the barn of people was unlike anything I've seen, or rather heard. The clapping and screams don't so much force a contrast to drown each other out, but instead the howling ghost-wind score creates an ominous rhythm by which both the horrifying screams and laughter/clapping feed into, and it grows throughout that extended scene to create a sustained crescendo of sheer terror.

I love how this incubus is so wholly planted in corporeal grit, only for a few moments of magical realism to slip in, like the villager blaming the protagonist with his last breath, which feels like it could easily be an internalized perception, and of course the fabulous ending.

[MichaelB]

But it hasn’t been “restored to perfection” if it only has mono sound. You even praise the film’s use of sound, but you’re not hearing it as originally intended.

Sadly, this is a deal-breaker for me, and Criterion really does seem to have screwed up here.

[swo17]

So what are the odds of one of the UK labels making this right?

[Calvin]

So what are the odds of one of the UK labels making this right?

Zero. Criterion own the UK rights, which is why they're comfortable encoding it A/B.

Has anybody e-mailed Criterion regarding the mono issue yet? It would be interesting to see what evidence they were working off when labelling it original.

[therewillbeblus]

But it hasn’t been “restored to perfection” if it only has mono sound. You even praise the film’s use of sound, but you’re not hearing it as originally intended.

Sadly, this is a deal-breaker for me, and Criterion really does seem to have screwed up here.

The jump in quality between my experiences was enough to make me feel that way without such knowledge or a bar to compare to- I can't imagine it getting much more haunting, but I believe you.

[OldBobbyPeru]

That shouldn't be an issue, unless for some strange reason the French disc was encoded at 1080i50. Also, that would go WAY out of sync from a very early stage if that was the difference.

What might be worth investigating is whether one disc is running at a perfect 24fps and the other at 23.976 fps, because that would have the soundtrack a few seconds out by the end.

This is most likely the problem. Just to be sure, I tried again to sync the 3.1 to the Criterion. It's guesswork, really, but I timed the duration of the logos, and then delayed the 3.1 track by 20 seconds. That puts it in perfect sync with the cranky uncle shouting in the first shot. I let it play rather than jumping ahead, and it seemed fine up until the older officer is addressing the partisans at 24:46. At this point it's off, and I can't really tell if it's ahead or behind, just that it isn't matching.

I wonder if you could convert the frame rate of one of them? I just checked, and the French version is indeed 24 fps as opposed to Criterion's 23.976.

[OldBobbyPeru]

Well, I converted the French version to 23.976 with MKVToolNix. I then extracted the 3.1 audio and muxed it into the Criterion with a 20 second delay. Same problem. It's out of sync later in the film, although is perfect at the start.

Either I'm not getting it exactly lined up, or the two versions have some slight difference where an edit occurs earlier or later than the other. At any rate, I think I've done all I can do on my amateur level. I wish Criterion would weigh in, and discuss why they used the mono track.

[EddieLarkin]

Instead of judging when it's out of sync by viewing the combined video and audio, it's easier to rip both soundtracks and line them up in a program like Audacity.

You'll be able to tell by the waveforms where they are going out of sync. Once you've removed the big differences like opening logos, just follow the waveform and trim a few frames worth were needed at points where the waveform is completely flat (i.e. silent), or similarly extend by duplicating a few frames worth. As long as you're only doing this at completely silent moments it won't affect the viewing experience.

Once the French track lines up with the Criterion track all the way through, you know it'll line up with the video.

[OldBobbyPeru]

That's a good idea--I'll give it a try.

[Finch]

Have Criterion ever recalled a film and reissued with additional audio tracks?

[TheKieslowskiHaze]

My only squabble re visuals is with dimmer, "foggier" scenes. It may be my set-up, but, in motion, those scenes strike me as very blurry. See when Flyora is first in his home, talking with his mother about joining the partisans. Or when he and a few other soldiers, carrying a fake HItler, flee from nazis into the woods. I felt the same way with Stalker, which also had this blur. It's exacerbated when my eyes are distracted by subtitles. This may not be a flaw, just an unavoidable thing that happens.

UPDATE: I watched First Cow the other night and noticed the same problem. After some tinkering, I discovered my TV had digital noise reduction turned on. So I turned that off, and it completely fixed the problem. The DNR setting seems to interpret film grain as noise and thus smooths it out. This doesn't greatly harm bright scenes, but dark scenes with movement look almost underwater. Dark, grainy movies look terrible overall with the setting turned on. After fixing the setting, I tested out some blu-rays I remember looking bad. I'm surprised by how much better they look now. I feel I have to re-watch First Cow, Stalker, and Come and See with my new and improved TV settings.

The danger of digital noise reduction is probably not news to many of you, but I am very happy I fixed the problem.

[MichaelB]

I gather new televisions are being introduced with a "Filmmaker" mode, which basically turns all the digital crap off in a single straightforward operation. Which really begs the question as to why all this had to be done setting per setting in the past.

[dwk]

Have Criterion ever recalled a film and reissued with additional audio tracks?

Not that I can recall. White had an exchange due to the audio, but that was an issue where the sound was only coming out of one channel when played with pro-logic on not because the audio was mono when it should've been stereo.

[domino harvey]

Carlos had new discs made to correct a channel audio issue with an exchange program as well. This is different though, since the Mono mix appears to be a deliberate choice from Criterion, not an error. I also haven’t seen any actual evidence offered by this thread that they did make a mistake in using this sound mix

[yoloswegmaster]

Has anyone even emailed Criterion about this?

[OldBobbyPeru]

OK, get out your grains of salt, because as always, I could be totally wrong about everything. I brought both soundtracks into the Audacity audio editing program, and before I even started to try to edit them, I noticed that the French track didn't seem to have any big differences in the left and right channels to indicate a stereo program. There's left, right, center and LFE, but the stereo playback meters always move completely in tandem, no variance whatsoever like you would see in a normal stereo source. Indeed, I muted the left and right channels, and there wasn't much difference.

So, it appears to me that the French disc did use a mono track that they extrapolated to a 3.1 mix. Why did it sound better to me? It's LOUDER, and louder stuff always is perceived as being 'better.' Plus, the created LFE track makes it sound deeper, because the Criterion mono track isn't sending anything to the subwoofer unless your system sends a bit of everything to it.

I still would like to hear from Criterion THEIR side of the story, now that I and others have cast doubts and dispersion upon their fine product. Seriously, I would like to know if this really was ever a stereo film, and why they chose the mono track. My guess is that it was never a stereo film to begin with. The French soundtrack shows no evidence of being anything but a mono track spread across the LCR soundstage.

The Criterion track is fine, I'm sure that no mistake was made, but it would be nice to hear from them more of the history of it, as it has been intimated in this thread that it was an early Soviet stereo film. This may not be correct. Who do we email?

[EddieLarkin]

Is there a reference to Dolby Stereo, or another stereo format, in the film's on screen credits?

It does appear that many of the previous DVD releases featured 5.1 tracks, and the IMDb does list the film as having a Stereo track, but that's barely evidence of anything.

[MichaelB]

Well, much to my annoyance (for purely selfish reasons, as the news is otherwise good), I’ve been unable to find any actual evidence that the film had multichannel sound - I don’t count the IMDB, and a contemporary Sight & Sound review, while it mentions the aesthetic impact of then comparatively new technologies like the Steadicam and Dolby Stereo, is too vague to be a clincher.

I was absolutely convinced that I saw it in Dolby Stereo back in the mid-80s (either that or screened a stereo print during my rep days), but none of the ads from the time that I was able to dig up mention this, and you’d have thought it would be quite a strong selling point.

So mea culpa, and I’ll order the Criterion as a penance. (The exchange rate is eye-watering right now!)

[OldBobbyPeru]

I seriously doubt that Mosfilm was paying for Dolby licenses in the mid-80's. I had an offer to record a Soviet rock band during that time, and declined not only because the band sucked, but because they had to offer to pay me in caviar. No, I am not kidding.