DVD Talk review of 'Crime Story - Season One'

[Josh Z]

I read Scott Weinberg's DVD review of Crime Story - Season One at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=18901 and...

Scott, can you double check that the audio was really stereo? The original release (in the police-report packaging) was Dolby 2.0 mono because the original stereo tracks had been lost after the network broadcasts. I'm assuming that this rerelease is just a repackaging of the same discs, but if Anchor Bay really managed to dig up the stereo tracks and remastered the discs, that would be quite something.

[X]

The information from the disc implies that it is stereo...

Audio Attributes:
Audio Coding mode: Dolby Digital
Sampling Rate: 48kHz
Audio application mode: Not specified
Number of Audio channels: 2
Bitrate: 192 Kbps

when compared with an obviously mono older movie...

Audio Attributes:
Audio Coding mode: Dolby Digital
Sampling Rate: 48kHz
Audio application mode: Not specified
Number of Audio channels: 1
Bitrate: 192 Kbps

but I'm not sure that the sound is different on the two channels.

I'll try listening to one channel at a time to see if there's a difference.

BTW, I just got Season 2 of this set and there's a coupon in it for $10 off the purchase of both seasons if purchased between 9/20/05 and 3/20/05.

[Josh Z]

Mono audio can be encoded either as DD 1.0 (all audio is specifically directed to the center channel) or DD 2.0 (an identical signal directed to the front Left and Right channels, which will matrix into the center with ProLogic decoding). The fact that the disc data says there is a signal in 2 channels doesn't necessarily mean that it's stereo.

The easiest way to tell with this show is to make sure that ProLogic is engaged and then move up close to the speakers and play back the opening credits. If all the music comes from the center speaker, the track is mono. The song "Runaway" was originally recorded in stereo and should have an obvious stereo presence in the left and right speakers.

The Season 2 box set has a legitimate stereo soundtrack, but the old Season 1 box unfortunately used the mono downmix from the show's 1980s syndication masters. I asked Anchor Bay about it at the time and they told me that the stereo master tracks had been lost.