Controversy around album...
Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:02 pm
At first, i found these on a forum...
…Presented on Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD)…
-We can read this on oxygene3d.com. And this is a mistake !!! From an official album site...
About the picture:
-Jarre likes to talk about HD expression.
In case of PAL , screen is 720*576 pixel, HD is 1920*1080. But this database could never fit on a DVD. Therefore HD-DVD and Blue Ray were released. So why do they need to announce HD picture and HD sound on albums, when albums are not released in this way...Albums like AERO and Oxygene3D.
"I was not involved in the editing and DVD authoring, but I thought you might like to know what happened and why there are some imperfections
It's mostly linked to the special conditions of 3D shooting, and was amplified by the lack of time due to the constraints on the TV studio availability, production delays, and the record company's own schedule.
JMJ himself is a perfectionist, and he was very unhappy that a few things slipped through...
1) About the shots that are out of place
Since the concert was shot in 3D, special pairs of cameras had to be used, and we could only have 4 of those pairs assembled. Plus, each camera pair had a very limited range, typically 1 to 3 meters for the close-ups, or 5 to 10 meters for the crane, and it's so heavy, cameramen had to take turns. So it happens that at times none of the cameras had a proper image: out of range, out of focus, trembling, not looking at something interesting, etc. We also had issues with light, as some colors did not produce enough green or blue to get a good 3D impression, and other technical problems.
So the editor had to go fishing for shots in other takes (there were about 8 takes, all of them live), but he obviously wasn't totally musically inclined. JMJ discovered the issues afterwards, much to his discontent...
Apart from those unfortunate edits, the whole show is indeed live, and you can actually hear the little mishaps in the music. People on the set actually had the privilege of hearing unexpected variations on the music. You can actually see JMJ at some point shouting something. He's just asking the sound mixer for more delay on an AKS he's playing. Gives you an idea of the ambiance. I had never seen JMJ so *in the zone*, he was really into the music for 3 days in a row. Very promising for the concerts at Marigny.
2) About the sound out-of-sync issue
It seems this only affects a limited number of DVDs, that came out of the factory with a constant shift of a few frames: the sound is constantly lagging behind the image. The master was perfectly in sync. No idea why this is, but it's pretty infuriating. If you're in this case, you might try to contact EMI for an exchange. The DVD I received has good sync
3) About the image quality
You can't shoot in 3D in the same ideal conditions as when you shoot in 2D. Essentially you have less light, you need more contrast, so you end up with a bit more noise. This is why the DVD is not as clean as Beijing for instance.
And the production chain is complex: the whole concert was filmed in PAL HD with excellent cameras. Since DVDs are SD, it was converted to PAL SD. Then for a worldwide release, it was converted to NTSC, but EMI back-converted it to PAL, inexplicably. This adds a bit of moire and jerkiness too, mostly visible on high-end equipment.
4) About the 3D effect
Every viewer has a different way of merging the left/right images, especially with red/cyan glasses. Some people only see the portion of depth behind the screen, some people only see depth before the screen. So we tried to have a bit of everything, so that everybody can see an effect of depth. You might not get it in all the shots, but you should still get it most of the time. We even had a few people jump back to avoid a synth. But it's hard on the brain to only receive red from one eye and blue from another eye, so you may get tired.
For those of you who remember the concert at Apple Expo 98, we had polarized screens, so the 3D effect was much easier to see.
The good news is we learnt a lot from those mistakes, next time will be just perfect. But then JMJ will probably want 4D."
/mod edit: Always quote your sources and please refer to the originator of your message, which is Thomas Alsina. with this text you copied, he reacted to the "criticism" of the "bad quality" of the DVD production ( on the SOF forum). Thanks
…Presented on Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD)…
-We can read this on oxygene3d.com. And this is a mistake !!! From an official album site...
About the picture:
-Jarre likes to talk about HD expression.
In case of PAL , screen is 720*576 pixel, HD is 1920*1080. But this database could never fit on a DVD. Therefore HD-DVD and Blue Ray were released. So why do they need to announce HD picture and HD sound on albums, when albums are not released in this way...Albums like AERO and Oxygene3D.
"I was not involved in the editing and DVD authoring, but I thought you might like to know what happened and why there are some imperfections
It's mostly linked to the special conditions of 3D shooting, and was amplified by the lack of time due to the constraints on the TV studio availability, production delays, and the record company's own schedule.
JMJ himself is a perfectionist, and he was very unhappy that a few things slipped through...
1) About the shots that are out of place
Since the concert was shot in 3D, special pairs of cameras had to be used, and we could only have 4 of those pairs assembled. Plus, each camera pair had a very limited range, typically 1 to 3 meters for the close-ups, or 5 to 10 meters for the crane, and it's so heavy, cameramen had to take turns. So it happens that at times none of the cameras had a proper image: out of range, out of focus, trembling, not looking at something interesting, etc. We also had issues with light, as some colors did not produce enough green or blue to get a good 3D impression, and other technical problems.
So the editor had to go fishing for shots in other takes (there were about 8 takes, all of them live), but he obviously wasn't totally musically inclined. JMJ discovered the issues afterwards, much to his discontent...
Apart from those unfortunate edits, the whole show is indeed live, and you can actually hear the little mishaps in the music. People on the set actually had the privilege of hearing unexpected variations on the music. You can actually see JMJ at some point shouting something. He's just asking the sound mixer for more delay on an AKS he's playing. Gives you an idea of the ambiance. I had never seen JMJ so *in the zone*, he was really into the music for 3 days in a row. Very promising for the concerts at Marigny.
2) About the sound out-of-sync issue
It seems this only affects a limited number of DVDs, that came out of the factory with a constant shift of a few frames: the sound is constantly lagging behind the image. The master was perfectly in sync. No idea why this is, but it's pretty infuriating. If you're in this case, you might try to contact EMI for an exchange. The DVD I received has good sync
3) About the image quality
You can't shoot in 3D in the same ideal conditions as when you shoot in 2D. Essentially you have less light, you need more contrast, so you end up with a bit more noise. This is why the DVD is not as clean as Beijing for instance.
And the production chain is complex: the whole concert was filmed in PAL HD with excellent cameras. Since DVDs are SD, it was converted to PAL SD. Then for a worldwide release, it was converted to NTSC, but EMI back-converted it to PAL, inexplicably. This adds a bit of moire and jerkiness too, mostly visible on high-end equipment.
4) About the 3D effect
Every viewer has a different way of merging the left/right images, especially with red/cyan glasses. Some people only see the portion of depth behind the screen, some people only see depth before the screen. So we tried to have a bit of everything, so that everybody can see an effect of depth. You might not get it in all the shots, but you should still get it most of the time. We even had a few people jump back to avoid a synth. But it's hard on the brain to only receive red from one eye and blue from another eye, so you may get tired.
For those of you who remember the concert at Apple Expo 98, we had polarized screens, so the 3D effect was much easier to see.
The good news is we learnt a lot from those mistakes, next time will be just perfect. But then JMJ will probably want 4D."
/mod edit: Always quote your sources and please refer to the originator of your message, which is Thomas Alsina. with this text you copied, he reacted to the "criticism" of the "bad quality" of the DVD production ( on the SOF forum). Thanks
