Doug - there is something funky with compatibility here. I thought this, too, until I updated my Toshiba HD DVD and the bad opening narration went away. It then sounded like it always did. Why this weird bug pops up, I have no idea.
First impresssions of remastered Trek (on HD DVD)
- Thread starter Ovation
- Start date
I still know people who complain that the opening music with female vocalist should never have been redone. They've been bitching about it for almost two solid years now.
That's one thing I think Paramount/CBS-D was not very sensitive about, and it kind of surprises me. The actual drama in the remastered eps remains the same, and the original background sound FX and music with it. The re-mastering crew might try to clean up the sound a bit, but they obviously could not re-invent it. As far as the dramatic scenes are concerned, taking "Where No Man..." remastered as an example, it's still 1965.
Shoehorning in scenes of the Enterprise in space is one thing, but replacing the audio obviously invites controversy. I'm not saying that kind of thing can't be done, but you really have to chose your battles and watch how it affects the presentation. I'm not terribly fond of the first version of the TOS theme that was used in "Where No Man..." and many eps from Year One, but you have to remember: the dramatic scenes lay it down in spades... it's 1965/66/67. Tinkering with the theme music is bound to upset people, just as colorizing old black-and-white movies did. (Imagine if someone took "Gone With the Wind" and tried remastering some of the music... oh, we'll use the exact same score, exact same instruments, but we'll make it sound brand-new... I wouldn't want to stick my head in that noose.) The theme music must be wed to the presentation; you can't have a teaser for "Where No Man..." screaming in your face with that bombastic, wonderful music "It's 1965!", then have a highly refined, restrained theme that says "No! It's 2005!", then go back to the 1965 drama again. The theme just repudiated the context of the episode.
Paramount/CBS-D should've been more careful with the theme music. The jarring shift in the music sounds unprofessional. Remember: a television or motion picture production of any kind is best when you can ignore it.
I wonder if the remastered theme video could be matched with the "later" Year 1 theme music... I wonder if they would flow together... That would be interesting...
I'm bitstreaming TrueHD audio from my Samsung 5000 to the receiver, and the receiver doesn't apply any changes to advanced audio, so I'm hearing what's on the disc.
After seeing a few more episodes, I'm thinking they just mixed Shatner's voice too loud over the new music. Maybe your player is decoding the audio, and your center channel speaker is not as loud as mine? If it weren't so loud, maybe the reverb wouldn't bother me so much.
Anyway, it's a small quibble. I think the newly-recorded music sounds pretty good.
Doug
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