Jeremy Butler writes: >Leo's comment reminds me that several of Hitchcock's British films have >been released on DVD with digitally enhanced audio tracks. I was watching >the DVD of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934) recently and was stunned at how >much clearer the dialogue was. The signal-to-noise ratio has been much >improved. > >Normally, I'd advocate seeing films in their original condition, but I >think this is one case where the manipulation of a film is truly an >improvement. Hmm, there are some thorny ethical questions here An 'improvement' when judged against what criterion? If it is 'improved' from the way that soundtrack would have been heard in 1934 then what implications does that have for the recording's status as a historical artefact? In fact, I don't think this has happened. 1930s optical soundtracks played back through 1930s thermionic valve (tube) amplifiers and doped paper cone speakers will sound subjectively a lot 'better' than if they are reproduced through modern equipment without any re-recording, because the 30s equipment 'looked' for a much smaller frequency range than transistor-based stuff. A transistor amp will produce hiss when it can't find a signal in the higher frequency ranges, which is why many types of early film soundtrack, especially variable density ones, can sound horrendous without archival re-recording. In the case of this DVD, I'd guess that the track has been re-recorded digitally, placing a flat signal over those area of the frequency range which MPEG-2 can reproduce but 1930s Western Electric cannot. I don't have any problem with this, because the end result is to make the film sound closer to what it would have sounded like when played in a typical cinema in 1934 (minus the reverb you got in those huge theatres, admittedly). But when you get re-release such as the recent re-issues of 'Vertigo' and 'Jaws', in which the soundtrack has been totally remixed for 5.1 channel surround when it was only ever played in mono for the original releases... L ------------------------------------ Dr. Leo Enticknap Director, Northern Region Film and Television Archive School of Law, Arts and Humanities Room M616, Middlesbrough Tower University of Teesside Middlesbrough TS1 3BA United Kingdom Tel. 01642 384022 Brainfryer: 07710 417383 ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu