damonrpayne Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 So, Larry's DVD demo of various classical performances has got me thinking of picking up a few things like this. However! Since high def video is looking so nice these days, and since the potential bitrates of high-def audio is astronomical (better than CD quality for every channel) I'm looking to get some musical performances on BluRay. Anyone have any experiences (standard def or high def) with any of these?http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_6333352_11?ie=UTF8&node=387547011%2C163420&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-2&pf_rd_r=119ZY7PY3GWREMGDSPVJ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=408328601&pf_rd_i=193640011 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndyKlipschFan Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 The Beatles "LOVE" cd is very scary.... In a very good way. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Roy Orbison "Black and White Night" is a must-have. $17 in Blu-Ray! No brainer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 The only classical ones are the Grieg piano concerto album, the intriguing Stoskowski transcriptions of Pictures and other Russian works, and Tchaikovsky's 1st, and rarely played 3rd, piano concertos. (I'm ignoring the synthesized Bach.) The Grieg does what I find very disappointing in some DVD's -- pretty photos of countryside instead of seeing a performance,. One must read the reviews (if any) at the bottom of a disc's webpage. Many of those filmings, btw, must have preceded hi-def, and I'm not familiar with what Blu-Ray adds to those. The Mussorgsky disc contains orchestral transcriptions by Stokowski, so its Pictures is NOT Ravel's famous orchestration. I wouldn't chance it as my only disc of the work. Believe it or not, the Tchaikovsky disc doesn't say who performs the work! It could be a pleasant surprise, but more likely only a frolic to buy it. I couldn't fault most of my DVD's, but you're the best judge for yourself of their quality. They also looked very good played through my Sony DVD player over my 32" hi-def Sony TV. However, I guess I'm concentrating more on the music and performers. Note that it takes decades to build a catalog of great classical performances, so one has to take what one can get. The Monteverdi you saw is almost 20 years old, for example, I think is the only DVD version I found, or at least the only worthy one. The Dvorak, OTOH, is only 3 or 4 years old, and it might be interesting to see it if it came out on Blu-Ray. I myself don't think it's worth it to get a mediocre performance just to look at it. Also, don't hold your breath on Blu-Ray releases of any of those, since sales of classical DVDs must be incredibly slow! I'd be surprised if we got a Blu-Ray of Abaddo and the Berlin doing Dvorak anytime soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted July 29, 2008 Author Share Posted July 29, 2008 Just a couple of comments on Blu-Ray Larry: Despite when these things were filmed or recorded, there's a 99.9% chance that they were recorded on film and tape. The film and tape then goes through a painstaking encoding and mastering process to create the digital copies. There's maybe 9GB of space on a DVD, meaning much of the visual detail on the film will be lost, and the audio codecs available on DVD are 2ch PCM (around CD quality), Dolby Digital at up to 640kb/sec, and DTS at 1.5mb/sec. This bitrate must be shared by ALL channels, meaning there is less than CD quality available for each channel. There is 50GB of space on a blu-ray allowing a much more true-to-the-film transfer of the video. On the audio side, the codecs available on Blu-Ray included uncompressed multichannel PCM (better than CD quality LPCM available for all channels simultaneously) Dolby Digital +, Dolby TrueHD (up to 18mb/sec!!), and DTS-HD Master Audio. The latter two are claimed to be bit-for-bit identical to the studio master. So, with all this potential improvement in audio and video quality, I'm looking for BDs of performances over DVDs. I agree that it takes a lifetime to build a collection of good performances, and I'm probably going to have to read reviews and just plain roll the dice on some of these. BTW I'm picking up Chronos and the Led Zeppelin BDs for now. {Edit: also, I'm watching on a 106" screen, so the video quality or lack thereof is very apparent to me!} Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 srobak says he is going to set up a partition for me in some space he has. I'll be uploading the Fox hi-res from LP, and a 1932 Kid Ory 78...which I promise will surprise you if you haven't heard first class vintage material, as well as some other things. Details as it happens... For the high res, you'll need a computer and DAC to play back. Space permiting I'll also upload whatever CD's of my own stuff I can. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Very interesting, Damon. Your reviews of what you get will be extremely interesting. I'd be reluctant to show mine on 106". As you heard at Indy, your Palladium system will do a tremendous job of showing off those babies! Did AquaHarp come out on Blu-Ray? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 >I'd be reluctant to show mine on 106". No, not gadda doit. Too much of a gentleman... [6] Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hifi jim Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Damon, check out Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds Live at Radio City on BluRay. Dolby TrueHD. The best audio and video in my collection, wish I could hear it on your system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 >I'd be reluctant to show mine on 106". No, not gadda doit. Too much of a gentleman... Dave [][] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 >I'd be reluctant to show mine on 106". No, not gadda doit. Too much of a gentleman... Dave Nahhh, probably wouldn't be room anyway.[A][bs] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelA Posted July 30, 2008 Share Posted July 30, 2008 +1 for Dave Mathews and Tim Reynolds. (If you like Mathews). Just the two of them minus the band, and a couple of Dave's political views[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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