[Scott Dorsey]

James wrote:
For example - the Batman series Blu-Ray release which I gather was given th=
e royal treatment - the original films were scanned and then digitally mass=
aged. While the release looks amazing the mono audio is decent but not as g=
ood as the mono hi-fi that had existed for some time as heard on numerous L=
P's. Presumably they used the best version available for the release.=20

What you heard was the original cues recorded on 1/4" tape, dubbed to magfilm
(probably 16mm magfilm, which runs a little slower than 7.5ips tape), mixed
with the dialogue and effects to a second magfilm generation. If you were
lucky.

If you weren't lucky, you heard a third generation mixed from second generation
stems.

If you were really unlucky, you heard an optical sound track cut from the
second or third generation mag track. IN a lot of cases, that is the only
thing left, the final optical release. 35mm optical sounds kind of crappy
but 16mm optical is awful.

Still, nobody cared because the end customer was listening to it on a 3"
TV speaker. In many cases, it was standard to just aggressively high pass
and low pass everything at every step in the mixing process in order to
make it come across better on a 3" speaker.

Was the gear used in the recording sessions any different than that used fo=
r album releases or is it a function of how it was subsequently treated/sto=
red?

The album release was often a totally different arrangement, recorded with
a different orchestra, with different recording procedures. In some cases
(like the Poseidon Adventure soundtrack album) even the vocal tracks were
sung by totally different performers with different styles.

But in general the whole production process was not hi-fi because it was
not necessary for it to be.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."