Hi,

I am new to LaserDisc and am trying to understand the audio technology as well as the different audio mixes for "The Little Mermaid." I have listed my questions below. I would appreciate any information that can be provided about LD audio and the various "The Little Mermaid" LD releases.

1) Many of the "Mermaid" LD list digital and analog audio options. In regards to 14795 CS in the database, it lists Dolby Surround and some are Dolby Digital. Is Dolby Surround 4.0 (left, right, center, one rear) and Dolby Digital 5.1? Also, what does Analog Left and Analog Right mean?

2) The 14795 CS lists Dolby Digital under "Analog Right." Does this mean that Dolby Digital isn't the digital track?

3) Is the digital audio on LD (specifically "The Little Mermaid") better quality than DVD audio?

4) How many different LD audio mixes are there for "The Little Mermaid"? I've read that the 1997 LD features remixed audio. Which releases contain 5.1 digital audio?

5) In regards to spoken languages (other than English), are the additional spoken languages also in either Dolby Surround or Dolby Digital? How can you tell by looking at the database?

Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer any and all of these questions. I'm trying to understand what all these different terms mean and any help would be appreciated.

When LD was first on sale there were only analog stereo soundtracks, pretty much like video tape.

Later on Pioneer figure out how to add CD quality digital sound without taking anything away so most discs after 1989 or so have two stereo soundtracks, one analog, one digital.

Dolby Surround can be transparently folded into stereo, so with many movies released in theaters with Dolby Stereo soundtracks (such as The Little Mermaid) your two stereo soundtracks are actually Dolby Surround which can be made to play in surround with a Pro Logic decoder. There are four channels (L, R, Center, rear) but it isn't really "4.0" since its matrixed from 2.0 tracks.

Dolby Digital was new 5.1 tech in theaters in the 90s. Pioneer figured out how to cram that onto LD as well, but this time the analog right was sacrificed to hold an RF modulated version of Dolby Digital, which is usually 5.1. This made it possible for people who didn't have all the new Dolby Digital stuff yet to still enjoy the Digital Stereo tracks and Dolby Surround.

There are also movies released with DTS (like Dolby Digital, only higher quality) soundtracks. In this case the DTS tracks take the place of both L and R of the digital stereo tracks.

After typing up all that...you better not be that Star Wars guy again.

Thank you very much for the detailed response! I think you're in luck, while I'm a Star Wars fan, I don't think I'm THAT guy. Whatever that means.

Anyway, your post was very informative. So, let me make sure I got this correct... Dolby Surround is actually stereo, meaning only left and right channels and uncompressed 5.1 audio was only available on laserdiscs that were in DTS? Otherwise, the audio is compressed AC3 even though it may be in 5.1. In all cases, is the digital audio is uncompressed (regardless if it's 2.0 or 5.1) and the analog audio is compressed AC3?

well, the original mix featured echo whenever eric played his fife--he played it twice.
the echo is missing from all copies except the original vhs and laserdisc release--1990.

dolby surround is 4 channels, mixed down into 2. ac-3 and dts 5.1 are different

So, if someone were to rip a Dolby Surround track from a laserdisc, would you only get 2 channels or 4 channels? And how can you tell the bitrate of the audio?

You don't really "rip" it, you just record it.

Dolby Surround is 4 tracks hidden inside of two tracks using analog matrixing. This way you can listen to the same track in mono, stereo, or surround, depending on what gear you have. This was done so that one print would work in any theater and the same scheme was kept for the same reasons for the home.

The digital stereo from an LD is 44.1khz 16-bit uncompressed, same as CD, every time. It can't exist in any other way on LD. Even if its total silence it will still be 44.1 khz 16-bit. So you'd get two channels, but if you play it back through a Dolby Pro Logic Decoder it will extract the center and rear from the stereo.

Dolby Digital is another thing all together. It uses dynamic compression at all times so the bits go where they are needed. The sound is 5.1 channels. The bit rate is 384kbps, which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you hear it you won't be disappointed.

also known as left total and right total (LT, RT). not to mention the original surround channels are bandwidth limited to 100hz to 7khz.

It's worth noting that the ORIGINAL CAV edition was recalled because they had reversed the left & right channels. It also had the video flagged for 30 fps rather than the normal 24 fps for film, which resulted in jitter freeze frames every 2nd or 3rd frame.

Dts is aslo compressed at 1.4mbps(or 1.2mbps) on LD but it is in 5.1 discrete form. First 40 early dvds had DTS at 1.5mbps everyone afterwards is halfbitrate at 768kbps.
Only blurays and hd-dvds offer lpcm 5.1 or 7.1 in uncompressed and lossless.
LD digital track is uncompressed and lossless but it can accommodate only 2ch. Therefore center and rear mono surround is matrixed in.
It is quite simple if the same sound exist on both channels in phase then its directed to center. If left ch has independent sound it stays there. If right ch has independent sound it stays on right speaker. If both ch has the same sound but out of phase(one ch time delayed) then its directed to surrounds. Of course there is more going on beside this but this is the basics

I do know that "The Little Mermaid" saw a limited DTS soundtrack in theaters when it was released. I can't imagine that the mix was retained for any of the subsequent releases in any fashion.

There was so such thing as DTS when The Little Mermaid was released.

do you mean the 1997 re-issue?

Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Sorry.