The mono track on Warner's UHD disc is either a downmix of the 5.1 remix or a new mono mix prepared from the files that ultimately created the 5.1 mix. The easiest-to-spot difference is Paint It Black during the end credits, which was always slightly sped and pitched up in the original mono mix but plays at the correct speed in the 5.1 and new mono mix.
Of course, if you compare the original and new mono tracks more closely and align their waveforms, you'll see that there are subtly different sound effects between them, usually in scenes in the second half of the film with more vehicles and gunshots.
I don't usually compare the waveforms or spectrals of different mixes, but I've done this below to give you an idea of how much less high-end exists in the new mix. It's a lot 'thicker' than the original mono (bassier, plenty of noise reduction) and even the 5.1. Someone at Warner clearly put in some effort to make it sound different enough to be disguised as the original mono mix.
There's some clipping in the new mono mix that's also (incidentally) visible in the centre channel of the 5.1 mix.
As noted previously, the Japanese LaserDisc sounds worse than the 1999 DVD.
my guess is it was a "new" mono track that was created before the 5.1 track was, because it sounds too "different" for it to be a regular downmix
ReplyDeleteHow does the UHD DTS HD MA 5.1 remix compares to the older BD LPCM 5.1 one ? Blu-ray.com claim the DTS HD MA track is a new encode of the same source, but they're usually not reliable on such a matter.
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