If you read what I said at all, I do give credit to THX for what they have done, however I also pointed out that what they have done is now common practice in a lot of products. This is just technological progress.

Whatever papers you may want to cite (and a lot has changed with mixing and recording technology since the dates on them), I am just relaying what I observe first hand in working on film dubbing stages and working with the engineers who are currently performing DVD mastering - and yes, it is now routine to re-equalize, rebalance and sometimes compress the film soundtrack stems for DVD release. Most of the time this is done in a mastering suite that resembles a home environment for the express purpose of optimizing the DVD sound to it's intended listening environment. Sometimes this is done on the film dubbing stage.

This thread describes one such DVD mixing session - you even have a post in it:
http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000262.html

To me, THX is just a company that has done some good things, and some questionable things. Not everybody in the film industry agrees 100% with THX's mandates, and in fact, many of the major "world class" mixing stages in Hollywood are not officially THX certified. There are a lot of companies and people that have contributed to the state of the art in film post production. THX is just one of them, but they are the only one that people seem to get all worked up over if you don't show them proper "respect". It gets very old after awhile....


[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited June 07, 2004).]

Soundhound

I just saw that "bulldog defense" thing and it was awesome. Why you have to modify it? You should release your feeling.

By the way, do they pay a lot for sound engineer position? What is required if I want to apply?

I'm sure the pay is excellent...

As for requirements...Well I've read a lot of soundhound's words and it doesn't take long to realize that it takes a combination of experience and brains (don't let this go to your head soundhound )
I've been a member here about as long as soundhound and his post count is an indication of this man's devotion and willingness to share his experiences and knowledge while mine shows a lack of both

LQQK (AKA Husker @ S&V)




[This message has been edited by LQQK (edited June 07, 2004).]

The pay is excellent but the work is all freelance, and within the last couple years with 9/11 and the general economy, very little to go around. There are colleges that tech audio recording and engineering in many large cities. A lot of people here in L.A. attend USC film school, but when I got into it these types of audio engineering programs didn't exist.

Hmmmm..... I would have never known! From what I've seen over there lately, it's more peaceful here....well, generally....somewhat...

My perception, from the edges of, but not within, the film industry is that one will find some DVD’s largely maintaining original theatrical mix characteristics while at other times a DVD-specific re-mix was done with home theater as the goal. What is done with regard to audio for DVD is a production choice, made for a mix of artistic, budgetary and philosophic reasons. There are no DVD release audio police to make sure there is consistency. One person may think, “I’ll change the emphasis to help the home listener.” Another person will think, “I don’t know in what type of environment this audio will be played. I’ll leave it up to the user to address his or her system/environment needs.” And, regardless of whether a certain type of frequency emphasis is or is not included in the audio of a DVD release, it is only one of many variables in the way the audio mastering turns out. In another post there was even a mild bit of ranting over people with authority in a production who are not fully talented in audio making decisions that adversely affect the audio mastering outcome.

In any case, a THX-certified receiver I was using prior to the 950 had a compensation for ‘theater emphasis’ that could be turned on or off per the user’s preference. The 950 has a ‘theater compensation’ option for much the same reason. See page 34 of the 950 user’s manual. I haven’t noticed any specific labeling on any DVD’s to help me know in advance whether the DVD’s audio still contained ‘theater emphasis’ or not. Maybe I just don’t have the energy to ‘fight’ the system and hope for some standard labeling that will let me know, but it basically comes down to this: if I play a DVD and certain things should too brash, I’ll try engaging the compensation to see if I think the playback sounds more realistic or not.

Regardless of what techniques may or may not be used in forming a surround mix, I, for one, have had the experience of finding some mixes so convincingly realistic that it is unsettling – I think I’m hearing things that might be happening in reality instead of sound from my HT. My applause and appreciation for the sound engineers on such a release. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve also heard mixes that were merely causing ‘sound to come from that box over there.’ The time and talent available or allowed in certain productions makes a huge difference both in using technology to enhance the listeners experience, and/or in the skill of overcoming the limitations of the technology.

As listeners, we can only do so much. Do what you can, within reason, or at least not too far outside of reason, then hopefully you can relax a bit and enjoy!

The DVD specific mastering is a relatively new thing which I have only seen in routine practice in the last few years. The first film I saw that had a DVD specific mix by the original film mixing engineers was "Avita" (I was working on a film that was setting up to be mixed as they were finishing up the DVD mix). Mix magazine did a pretty good piece several months ago which detailed the mastering procedures that each studio uses for their DVD soundtrack masters. It can be read here:

http://mixonline.com/internet/newformats/audio_mastering_dvd/index.html

Certainly all major films released now get this treatment. Of course there still is variability in the relative brightness of certain films and this is due to individual choices made by the people who did the original film mix and the person who is doing the DVD mastering. My original point however was that the brightness that may be present because of the "X" curve or any of several reasons is compensated for in the DVD mastering stage now. If a film is still too bright in the home, then the Re-EQ or "theater compensation" of course can come in handy. The Outlaw 950's theater compensation is a good example of the general adoption by manufacturers of features which were once THX excusives, while lessening the need for THX certification now.

Just as an aside, at the CES show this last January, I was literally shocked at how generally "bright" the current crop of home theater speakers are - subjectively more bright than almost all monitor speakers I have heard in dubbing theaters and mastering stutes. Speakers with voicing like this will make almost any movie sound too forward and bright, no matter how it's mastered.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited June 07, 2004).]

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I'm a little surprised by this comment after reading your post before saying that most mixes were done on Genelecs. Any pair of Genelec speaker I've listened to has just about torn off my head. They have to be the brighest sounding speaker I've ever heard!

The specific Genelecs that are used (they are referenced in the Mix magazine article I posted below) sound to me to be pretty well balanced on the top end. By contrast, many, many of the home theater speakers I heard at CES were off-the-map bright compared to these Genelecs. I don't have any direct experience with the home versions of Genelec speakers, so there might be some variability in how they voice their professional monitors verses their home products.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited June 07, 2004).]