An offer you can't refuse

[rlabarge]

Hi fellow HTGuide members:

As some of you may know I develop DVD titles for a living. During 2000 I released 20 classical music DVD titles, and I am planning to release 20 more during 2001. I am interested in getting feedback from home theatre enthusiasts on how we can improve our 2001 titles.

Toward that end I would like to find ten volunteers from among the HTGuide members. Each volunteer will get three Naxos Musical Journey DVD titles from the group that were released last year. Each title has a Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 6 channel and Dolby Digital Stereo audio track, and the video the accompanies each classical music selection is very high quality as well. If you want to see some of the titles released last year please check out my web site at http://www.alphadvd.com.

In return for these free classical music DVD titles all I ask is that you tell me what you think about them. How can we improve the next batch of releases? What did we do right? What did we do wrong? Is the suggested retail price of $19.98 with a street price of $15.98 too high, too low, or just about right?

I would prefer to have volunteers who have a DTS decoder and enjoy classical music, and I will take the first ten volunteers.

If you are interested in helping out please contact me at rlabarge@alphadvd.com

Thanks!




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Andrew Pratt]

Ralph I sent you an email offering my services.

[Joey Millison]

You have TWO emails now

[Gregg Loewen]

sign me up!!

Gregg Loewen

[rlabarge]

Three volunteers so far, seven to go!




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Jay Mitchosky]

Count me in. You have mail.




--Jay

My Home Theater Setup and Pronto CCF...

[ThomasW]

Ok, count me in

Should be interesting Naxos makes some very good sounding CD's. TAS uses one as a reference recording.

Thanks for the heads-up, Joey and Andrew




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[rlabarge]

Five volunteers so far, five to go.

If I get swamped with volunteers I can increase the total number to 15 participants, but that is my limit.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[ThomasW]

Although he currently out of town, please sign up our resident technical expert/moderator JonMarsh. He's a big classical music fan

I can't email in for him, but his email address is

JonMarsh@t-three.com




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[P-Dub]

You've got mail.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[Lexman]

Cool offer Ralph! Thanks for offering this to our members. Man, I didn't know they had DTS tracks. That's just cool!

So, does it pay to tune into In Tune or not?!?

I think we should reserve one for one of the "In Tune" Moderators to be determined by a slugfest. Don't you Ralph, guys? Our two Kens would probably be a good evaluators.

Lex





<A HREF="http://www.catcables.com" <IMG SRC="http://www.htguide.com/lexman/other/sm_logo.gif"

[Jeremy Santos]

You've got mail!!!!




Jeremy Santos

My Software
Santos Theater

Play It Loud, Play It Clean!!!!!

[rlabarge]

Eight volunteers so far.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

You have mail.

[Trevor Schell]

Sign me up,,Thanks




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Bing Fung]

I bet I'm a bit late for this party, However, if you have an extra, I'm Interested and would be more than happy to evaluate.




Bing

[rlabarge]

10 volunteers so far. That is all I need for now. I am pretty sure I will do another round of end-user feedback tests later in the year.

Thanks to everyone. By the way if I get any good suggestions (and I hope I will) I will let everyone know.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Greg Stone]

Ralph - I know this is late, but I would love to be in on this as well. If not, please consider me for the next round. Sent you an email. Thanks.




Greg's DVD's

[Lexman]

Ok, consider the Give Away closed. Thanks Ralph for giving some of us the opportunity to demo these discs.

Lex

[rlabarge]

Thanks to everyone who has offered to help out in this grass roots end user feedback test. I will be sending copies of the current Naxos titles out to the volunteers this week. I am sure I will get some good feedback so we can improve on the 2001 releases.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Andrew Pratt]

ralph I sent you an email regarding maximizing the winnipeg user community

[rlabarge]

A quick note to the HTGuide "Volunteers". The Naxos Musical Journey discs are on the way to each of you, along with a note providing some background information on the series, and an explanation of what I would like to get out of this survey.

Please let me know when you receive the discs. I am also testing out typical delivery times of packages sent by the US Postal Service.

Thanks!




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Greg Stone]

Ralph, I am very pleased to announce the arrival of the DVD's to my house. I am looking forward to popping one of these in and enjoying it!

Just wanted you to know they did arrive today in great shape. Again, thanks for letting me participate in this, will be posting reviews soon.




Greg's DVD's

[ThomasW]

Hi Ralph

Mine arrived today.

I'm going to combine the "Spanish Festival" and "Grieg" into a single review . At this point I'm sorry, but I can't muster up the energy to watch anything having to do with Christmas

Grieg:

Being of Norwegian descent, I wish I could wax enthusiastically about the visuals in this DVD. But for me, there was almost a complete ear/eye disconnect. The visuals were like watching a home movie. A very high quality home movie, but a home movie none the less. Long pans and zooms lacked an effective psychological relationship with the music. Frequently the tempo of the music was completely at odds with the pace of the visuals. I was tempted to turn off the projector and just listen to the music. My brain tried to create some connection between what I was hearing and what I was seeing. However this couldn't be accomplished, given the disparity between the two.

Spanish Festival:

Having toured extensively in Spain, this DVD was more visually interesting than the Grieg, but still visually less inspiring than the music. One item of interest was the short segment featuring the wonderful old windmills, juxtaposed with the music from El Cid. This is the one place where some of the potential interaction between the audio and video came to fruition. Another rather bizare visual was the opening sculpture of Don Quixote, surrounded by the red construction scaffolding. This created an interesting contrast to the florescent grafiti sprayed on the background of the monument.

General video comments:

What I realize as I write this is, that I'd just as soon have watched the orchestras performing the music, as opposed to the nature/city slide shows. That at least would have allowed the sharing of the passion and energy of the music between the audio and video.

Overall the video quality was quite good. High quality equipment was obviously used in the filming, and this is evident in the transfer.

Audio Comments:

I listened in Dolby Digital and DTS. The DD was ok. In the first chapter on the Grieg there was audible pumping; especially from the center channel. This occurred only in that chapter. The soundfield was 2 dimensional, with all 5.1 channels operating. The DTS sound was better than the DD, more dynamic range, better definition, but still 2 dimensional. Then I changed to "Virtual Matrix 6.1", using the DTS signal source. This was noticeably better than either the standard DD or DTS

On both recordings the reproduction of the instruments seemed variable. Stringed instruments were real and natural sounding. Woodwinds and brass were distant and less well defined. Generally the drums lacked impact transients.

Both orchestras and conductors seemed more than adequate to the task. The performances were most enjoyable.

General comments:

These are probably a good entry-level tool for those unfamiliar with classical music, and wanting a relatively painless way to get their feet wet. Or those with children, desiring an easy introduction to the classics. At $15.99 they represent a fair value for roughly 55 minutes of entertainment.

I was unable to assess some of the "E-Z Menu" functions via the WinDVD software player in my HTPC. When time permits, I'll hook up my Sony 7000ES and try those functions. That particular machine lacks DTS, so I'll compare the stereo vs DD sound.

I'm probably spoiled by true "moving" pictures. Films such as "Koyaanisqatsi", "Chronos", or "Baraka", all filmed by Ron Fricke. These have no doubt skewed my perception of what the interaction between audio/music and video should be.

I appreciate the opportunity to view these productions

Regards
Thomas




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Ken McDaniel]

This is what I get for being in the Army and missing on the really cool stuff. I'm very happy to see that everyone jumped at the chance. I expect full reviews from all.




Ken

[Andrew Pratt]

Ralph just wanted to let you know that all three arrived today (25th) but that one of the cases is damaged. The disc is fine but one edge of the case is crushed.

Ken send me your mailing address and I'll send you one of the three that I got so you can share in the fun.

[P-Dub]

I must leave work now to see if there's anything in the mail. I'm getting excited.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[Joey Millison]

I will have a review very soon, haven't had a chance to sit and watch all three yet. But I will soon, as promised Thanks again Ralph! i'm sure you will get some great feedback, as you have people on all ends of the HT spectrum with these discs now

[rlabarge]

Sorry about the damaged case. I can assure you all the cases were fine when I dropped them off at the post office. I can send you a replacement case if you need one, hopefully it wont get damaged in the mail .

I am looking forward to hearing everyones comments on the discs I sent out. ThomasW's comments are exactly what I am looking for. While there is not much I can do to improve on the video content since it has already been shot and edited, it is good to know what consumers think about the programs as a whole. When we are selecting the next 20 titles to release we can then use that feedback to choose titles with video content that is more in line with what our customers like.

I recently bought a high-end audio workstation (DigiDesign ProTools &#124;24 Mix system) that I will be using to create new 5.1 channel mixes for the next 20 titles. I was planning on creating the surround mix so that the surround channels sound like the typical reverberation from a large concert hall. There are lots of other ways to do this so if you have a preference please let me know.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Andrew Pratt]

ralph if you have a spare case lying around I could use it but if not don't trouble yourself. I'll spend a lot more time watching them this weekend but so far the audio and video seem top notch though not altogether connected as Thomas pointed out. Since the video is so good why not consider adding some snipts to the Avia disc like VE does?

[rlabarge]

Easier said than done adding video to the AVIA disc. Here are a few issues that would have to be dealt with.

(1) We pay a per disc royalty to Naxos for the use of their audio/video content, so we would have to work out some financial compensation issues.

(2) The distributor for the Naxos titles is DVD International, who is the exclusive distributor for Video Essentials. Needless to say they are not very interested in making AVIA any better than it is now.

(3) There is no room left on AVIA. We would have to go to a dual layer disc in order to add any more content. Not a big deal for me, but it essentially doubles the cost of goods for AVIA's publisher Ovation Software.

So as you can see nothing is ever as easy as it should be




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Andrew Pratt]

thats too bad re AVIA as thats the biggest complaint about that disc. Personally I don't miss it that much since I can just grab any one of the other reference level DVD's to do a check on video settings

[Gregg Loewen]

Hi!

I got my discs this week. Thanks!! I will be trying to spin at least one up by tomorrow. Ill post my thoughts.

Thanks!

Gregg

[P-Dub]

Finally got my discs. I picked them up this morning, so they actually arrived yesterday. Looks like they were held up at customs, as I got some "Opened by Canada Customs" yellow tape on the package. No problems, guess they were just checking on the contents, the dvd's were still sealed.

I quickly sampled a bit of the Beethoven Piano disc. Initial impressions are I liked what I saw and heard. I'll try and sit down and do a more detailed review later.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[rlabarge]

I have never understood Canadian Customs and their approach to DVD shipments. I have heard that if the cost of the DVD's is less than $20 there is no customs duty due. For the shipments of these disc to the Canadian volunteers I made sure I filled out the customs indicating that the discs were gifts with little or no value.

I ship at least five packages a week to Canadian customers and at least one out of every five gets held up in customs for a week or so.

Dont get me wrong I like Canada and Canadians, in fact we took a two week vacation to Quebec last year. However I think the Canadian Customs people just dont like people to import DVD discs from the US.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Andrew Pratt]

Ralph don't ask us to expalin Canada Customs b/c i need someone to explain it to us So far I haven't had to much trouble esp if the packet was marked as a gift under $20 but everynow and then one gets held for a bit...usually not long though.

[P-Dub]

Nobody can explain CCRA. I don't even think CCRA can explain it, cause the guy on the phone is different from the guy pulling the packages. This is my first package that has been held by CCRA. I've had others where it wasn't held, but I had to pay the handling fee and taxes. So this is the first time I've had anybody open up my package. Makes me think twice about what I order next.

CCRA = Canada Customs and Revenue Agency

BTW, nice flip Andrew.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[Greg Stone]

Ralph, here is my review of "Handel", which I have now watched and listened to 3 different times to try and help me on this review. I will list my likes and dislikes and then general overall comments. Anyone can click my profile to see what equipment was used to watch/listen to this DVD.

What I really liked about Handel:
DTS

Beautiful landscape and scenery shots

Crisp, clear music quality

Handel's style of music/composing

Very nice picture quality, the transfer is top
notch

Ability to watch with the entire family

Makes great "background" music for a relaxing
evening

Menus - I liked the menus, once I spent a little time there. I like how the "Top Menu" button reacts differently at a certain portion of the disc. Once I figured out where and what it would do, I really like the feature. I quit using the other menu button altogether once I discovered the advantages of the "top menu".

Dislikes:

Does not default to the menu first, goes straight into playing the music and video (almost an auto-play feature). I had to stop it each time I inserted the disc and go to "options" and change the default audio setting to "DTS" and change to "shuffle" if so inclined.

The first view of a new scene, or at the start of a song, I would like a subtitle or screen flash with just a little info concerning what images I am being shown. I.E. "Leed's Castle" just at the bottom or something. I found myself several times going into menu to the travel notes just to see the info on the images. Seems to me to disrupt the flow of the video.

The shuffle option or "random play" did exactly what you said it would, it disabled the chapter / time display on my player which bothered me a little. You have stated the newer titles do not have this option which I think is a good thing. I like the order of the chapters on the disc, which starts out with slower, relaxing songs and ends with a nice flourish with the "fireworks" section.

Overall thoughts:

Not having listened to Handel or much classical music at all for that matter, I enjoyed and am enjoying this disc. Each time I listen I find songs I am starting to like more than others, and some I repeat just to hear it again.

I feel the video and music match up pretty well on this disc, although this is the first music predominant disc I have listened / watched on my system. It has been used strictly for movies until this point, so I cannot compare it to others in a similar marketing area.

Retail $19.98 and street price of $15.98 seems fair, but for some reason I feel I would have been happier if I paid $14.98 for it. I know a dollar is not that much, but at $14.98 I would consider this a great deal where at $15.98 it just seems a good deal. Hope that makes sense.

I look forward to watching the other two, and posting my reviews then. I appreciate you including me in this program Ralph, and hope I helped provide some of the info you need.




Greg's DVD's

[rlabarge]

Hello everyone:

Just a friendly reminder to those of who who got review copies of the Naxos Musical Journey titles and have not had time to post your comments. I have received excellent feedback from ThomasW and Greg Stone, but just silence from the other volunteers.

I know that everyone is busy, and making time to not only watch these titles but to send me your comments is hard, but you did volunteer for this. Please send me your comments (good, bad or indifferent) on the Naxos titles as soon as you can. I received the Digital Beta masters for the next 20 titles in the series this week, so I will start work on them in the next few weeks.

Thanks




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[P-Dub]

Sorry Ralph. I wanted to do a really good review, much like Thomas and Greg.

So far I've only been able to listen to the Beethoven Piano Concerto's. This disc defaulted to the main menu, which I liked. I'm not a classical music listener, but I do have some compilation classical cds.

Sound

My system is strickly a DD system. Quite simply I liked what I heard. What was cool was as I turned up the volume, I could tell that my system had limitations, mainly different rear speakers, and speaker placement. You've mentioned about doing some mastering with reverb, etc. I don't know if this is really necessary, I've got a concert hall mode on my Yamaha, and it actually worked quite well. I've played with it on other DVDs, cds, and mostly it was just gimmicky. But on this dvd, I thought it worked quite well.

Video

I wasn't able to watch all the video right through, as I was listening and doing other things at the same time. But what I did saw I liked. In fact I had a nice chuckle with the cammera gag with the leaning tower of Pisa. Various tourists holding up the tower. However, there were some shots that were fast cuts and changes that didn't quite work. I'm more of liking longer pans. The timing of the cuts worked well with the music. Again, there may have been some bad edits, but I might have missed those.

Features

I did not get the chance to go through any of the other features.

Overall

I'm glad I had the opportunity to view this title. I think I would probably put this on as a filler before any movie, or just to get the 5.1 sound and not play the video. Pricing wise, in Canada, I would think it to be a bit on the high side. I've seen them for close to $30. If it was $20 or lower, it would be a good buy. I'd be interested in a best of, or compilation type dvd this would have more appeal and be able to justify the higher price.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[Lexman]

Ralph is right guys. It was clear going in, what was expected to participate here. Please make good on it or return the discs so that someone else might participate. Like me.

I do know that Ken is unavailable for 10 days. Beyond that, I don't know about the others.

Thanks Thomas and Greg for completing the mission.

Lex

[Andrew Pratt]

Very sorry about the delay ralph. I was talking last week with Jeff and Jay about the sets and our comments were all fairly similar about them. What we liked was the quality of both the audio and the video. On both accounts they are reference quality but we all felt that neither corresponded to the other. What I mean by that is while I was watching the video my ears "turned" off as I was to interested in the video...When I turned off the TV the lack of a visual stimulus allowed me to realy listen to the audio which IMO was very well done unlike a lot of the 5.1 audio tracks I've heard. What I would prefer is to have the audio available as a discrete track w/o video available from the main menu. Frankly as nice as the video is I don't have much use for it unless you're going to do a comentary exlaining what I'm looking at. If you want to show video and audio at the same time I'm much rather see the musicains playing the music since they would help espress the feelings in the music not just a pretty picture of a building while the music is playing a high tempo piece.

The menu's were ok though like the person said above I didn't like the auto play thing since I always wanted to switch it over to DTS.

Would I buy another? Maybe maybe not. I'm quite interested in your space DVD's and would consider buying audio only discs esp considering the quality you obviously put into these.

[Jay Mitchosky]

Sorry for the delay - I sent Ralph an e-mail directly but forgot to cc. here. I received Greig, Christmas Goes Baroque, and Bach.

Of the titles Bach is my favorite from a musical perspective. I very much enjoyed the selections. The other titles are also excellent. Audio quality was excellent in DTS 5.1, although for critical listening I will usually listen to two channel audio. While it's probably difficult to incorporate at such a low price point the addition of a 2-channel 24/96 track would be wonderful. With the current tracks the DTS 5.1 tracks were rich and full with a nice blend of ambience and direct cues from the front. I'm pleased that the "cheezy" multi-channel approach was not used where there are unusual and unexpected things constantly happening in the rear channels.

Video was good, and provided a nice backdrop to the music. What I really like about the video selections is that you can have the music playing in the background while entertaining and have something filling up the otherwise black space in the middle of the room. I would like to see more discs with this feature. I've also long been interested in a "screen saver" type of disc that had background music with super hi-res still frame images that cycled automatically every 30 seconds or so (user adjustable). For personal listening, however, I found I prefered just leaning back with my eyes closed and relaxing.

I like the layout of the menu system. Not a lot of fluff and unnecessary graphics or animations to slow things down. The Travel Notes section is particularly interesting. I also like the Repeat option, particularly for entertaining. The Credits section is well deserved - about time the folks who created the disc had that recognition without having to resort to hidden easter eggs. I also enjoyed the previews, and thanks to them I'll look more closely for Mars, Earthlight, and Aquaria.

Overall these discs represent excellent value for the money and more. The sound quality is excellent and the video montage is well-paired. A great alternative to the usual musical fare while relaxing or entertaining. Thanks again for the opportunity to review them.




--Jay

My Home Theater Setup and Pronto CCF...

[rlabarge]

Andrew:

Thanks for the comments. I dont actually have any control over the original video and audio. These programs were created for laser disc and I get the master tapes directly from the content owner. I take the stereo audio and create a new 5.1 channel surround mix that gets encoded into Dolby Digital and DTS, and I also create all the interactive menus and put it all onto a DVD. Based on some of the comments we have received so far we are going to try to add subtitles to the next 20 discs in this series. Unfortunately the people who shot the video are no longer available, so we cant be sure exactly what each scene really is. We do know the general area that the video was shot in, so we are going to include that information at the start of each chapter.

Many people have told us they want the main menu to come up when the disc is inserted into the player. Unfortunately just as many people have told us they want the disc to start playing automatically when the disc is inserted. This is simply a no win situation for me as a DVD developer. No matter what I do half the customers wont like it, so I decided to play the content automatically, but allow the end-user to press the Menu or Title buttons during the FBI warning, distributor logo, or the main program to jump directly to the menus. Many DVD titles lock these commands out during the FBI warning and other lead-in content, so in effect this is a compromise between these two positions.

I agree with you in regards to the video playback distracting from the audio. I have found that simply shutting off the TV monitor and listening to the music through my surround sound receiver is the most pleasurable way to use these titles. Seems a little crazy to say that since I spend so much time making sure the video is as good as it can be, but it is much easier to listen to music over and over than to watch the same video over and over.

Thanks again for taking the time to review these titles, and to provide me with valuable feedback.




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Greg Stone]

Tchaikovsky will be my second review, but will probably be shorter as Ralph has addressed some of the areas mentioned in my earlier review of Handel.

Tchaikovsky has two main themes, Ballet Music and video of various places in Russia. Featured are the Kirov Theater, the Kremlin, and Red Square. The DVD is divided into three sub categories, with chapters within each. They are: Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Swan Lake.

With Tchaikovsky, there was familiarity with his music and style of composing I didn't have with Handel. This added to my enjoyment of the disc, and has made me put this one in several times over our review period, when I have just listened to the music. Played at a low level with repeat engaged, it is great background music and does not interfere with conversation. Played at a higher level encourages listening and enjoyment with the feeling of being surrounded with music. Great for any occasion, as again, this is a reference sounding DTS disc.

The video is very nice, but not as great as the music (only because the music is top notch though). I did enjoy watching this one several times. You get three different themes on this disc:
1) People / Tourists walking through various areas of interest, such as the Red Square. I found it fascinating as I got the opportunity to watch people from Russia in very casual settings.

2) Ballet, such as brief shots of various performances being held in the famous Kirov Theater (one very nice looking prima ballerina might I add )

3) Buildings and ballet theaters, showcased for their beauty.

Briefly, the likes of the disc itself:

DTS
Rewatchability (hope that is a word!)
Travel notes, with excellent commentary on the chapters.
The clock and chapter display on my DVD player did not turn off like the Handel disc, which increased my enjoyment of this disc.
This one actually had the subtitles for two chapters, showing location and chapter title. Wished it had continued this throughout though. (Ralph, subtitles showed up for Rose Adagio and the Blue Bird under the Sleeping Beauty section).

Dislikes
Auto-play feature. I'll just have to resign myself to be in the half of people who do not like this feature.
Subtitles or brief chapter descriptions not available for all chapters.

General
I really enjoyed this disc. I believe the price is right as I have started looking at other retail stores for similar titles. For the music alone, this is worth purchasing this disc, and the video is nice as well.

The more I watch and listen to these discs, the happier I am that they are part of my collection. I will be purchasing the Christmas disc for my collection later this year, as my family and I love to listen to Christmas music during that season. What better way than with reference quality audio and beautiful video!




Greg's DVD's