Star Wars: TPM DVD - is my copy a lemon?

[Harman]

I recently bought the R4 DVD for The Phantom Menace from www.ezydvd.com.au -- a fine shop, by the way -- and it has been perfect except for this one glitch.

On the commentary track, some of the voices (Rick McCallum's, John Knoll's and one other one) are very faint, almost too far away to hear at all. (If I turn up the volume a lot, I can more or less make out what they're saying, but then another person starts speaking and the "normal" sound blasts out, way too loud.)

Has anyone else had this problem? Is it just the region 4 DVD? My multi-region player (I live in Holland) has never given me any trouble, so I don't think it can be the problem.

Thanks for your help!

[RichB]

Personally I think anyone who bought TPM on DVD on any region got a lemon :D

Seriously though, try borrowing another region and see if it does the same thing, or ask for a replacement (R4) and see that way

[Damonc]

I watched some of the commentary about 2 weeks ago, so I might be wrong, but I think that George's voice is coming out of the centre front channel and is louder than the other commentators, while they come out of the front left and right channels and are softer to help distinguish between voices. Probably George just showing everyone who's boss.

IMO of course.:)

[Robby]

I think Damon is right. I watched this comm on a stereo TV when i had my surrounds fixed, so i'll have to check and comfirm later but it did sound that the comm was in some pseudo stereo effect. I noticed George firmly in the centre channel and the other panned left and right.

I'll check when i get home on my proper set-up and post back.


EDIT I just managed to have a listen on a 5.1 set-up and the commentators are panned left and right whilst Lucas remains in the centre channel. It's a little disracting at first but i huess it's to make you feel like your in a middle of a conversation with them.

So if your listening to this through a stereo TV you may have to keep turning it up and down to hear everyone.

[Winner]

Same thing happens with my R2 copy on my player. You can't hear McCallum at all, not really a bad thing seeing as his comments are limited to 'this is my favourite scene' or 'me and george loved this scene', and the effects guys are almost silent. Seems to be a surround problem as already mentioned, with the various commentator being in the left, right or central stereo panning, as the commentry is fine on my PC DVD-ROM.

Another example of Lucas trying to be too clever for his own good (what with the DVD only trailer fiasco and all).

[Raigmore]

I have an R4 disc and had similar problems, but I thought my DVD was a lot better than my friend Ron's R1. Overall, the sound could have been better.

[Harman]

I, too, noticed the left-right thing. In fact, you'll see that the names on screen, indicating who is speaking, mimic this effect by being placed in either the middle or on the left and right. I already tried to compensate by upping the volume on the L and R front speakers individually, but this doesn't help. I guess this is just a bug in the audio coding for that track.

Since I got most of the low-volume commentary when I watched it truning the volume up and down all the time, I guess I'll stick with the copy I have.

Besides, Lucasfilm is sure to release a monster box set when the series is complete, and I'll probably be buying that, too. So I hope they get this fixed by then.

[SqueakyG]

I only have a crappy portable TV, so I don't have any kind of home cinema setup. The only way I can even hear something in stereo is to listen with headphones plugged into the DVD player. My findings are:

Stereo headphones: Lucas is centered, all other voices are either totally to the left or totally to the right. (Quite annoying actually, because it feels unnatural listen to conversation only in one ear).

Headphones switched to mono: Lucas still clear, all other voices inaudible.

So my advice is, listen to the commentary track in at least stereo, because it won't woek in mono.