Dear David,
OK, then I'll write to you here.
Actually, I had the idea to write directly to Reelin' after watched these DVDs, but have decided, that you just do not pay attention to the someone's criticism of the 5-year-old release.
But when I saw, that at the forum has been discussed this issue, I decided to write and express my opinion.
I want to apologize for unwarranted conclusions about the professional qualifications, that appeared at the end of my post and explain what I meant in general. This was written after the big disappointments in the lip-synch clips, which was included on DVDs and written sincerely - I had absolutely no prejudices, to suddenly start writing unwarranted criticism.
With regards to some excerpts from your response here.
I'm quite familiar with various forms of archival material in which it exists before the official release. I had to investigate and evaluate digital transfers from 16/32mm, 2-inch sources, which I got from the tv-stations archives for my own research project (which is still running!).
Of course, I do not do it professionally, much less no claim to the laurels of an absolute expert in this area, but over time some common issues became clear even to such amateur like me - someone, who consistently deals with all this solely from his own enthusiasm.
First of all, I want to emphasize that I am criticizing mainly decision of the replacement the original audio in lip-sync material on the a similar track, but from the digital source.
Personally for me, any audio-visual material can not be decomposed into components. Accordingly, any change of one of these components (in this case - audio) looks like, if we speak with restraint, not valid.
The material was filmed, recorded, compiled and came to us through many years in its original form - and from my point of view, we have no right to interfere this finished work of producer, technicians and others tv-crew, which was done by them in their time.
It is a question more philosophical and even psychological, than technical.
In my understanding, archival video-document contains, except that he-is-in-itself, a some kind of spirit and a certain particle of the time, when it was filmed and shown on TV (and here I have totally different than your opinion, about the voicecover of the announcer, the audience applauses etc. - it is more than necessary to keep!). For audio, this particle is the
original mono (or stereo) audio track. Yes, on film or tape audio is poorly keep, and eventually it leads to appreciable loss of sound quality, but - nothing here to do - so it is - and any interference with the good intention to "do better" only hurts the whole audio-visual document. That's what happens - there does not improve the original "bad" audio (from an analog source) by some admissible cosmetic remastering, no - here it is
simply destroyed the original part of entire document and in replacing this destroyed part, puts a
completely (but similar)
extraneous audio track - a replica from the digital source. And after this declared: "Hey, look, what an amazing rare stuff we offer etc". As a result, we have a truly original and valuable video-only portion of the entire document, audio-part - alas, comes from an extraneous (albeit similar) modern digital audio source. Of course, I can understand the whole temptation dvd-publishers to make their product "better" - but not to the same extent and not by such methods! And even more I realize a lot of consumers, who buy these media-products, and enjoys them - they simply look at the image, listen the sound and do not reflect the actual line of what they see and what they hear.
This is a purely personal matter. As you know, I do not belong to this category of consumers.
As you know, sometimes it takes some corrections of video image (and is often used) - so why dvd-publishers, if they really want to make their product as the best - do not go in this way and regarding to the original audio - limited to some cosmetic remastering of the original (analog) audio track - it would be and honest and natural.
Again - this applies not only to live recordings, but lip-sync also, about which, in fact, we are conducting a discussion. So: from a philosophical and psychological points of view, would be (respectively) more honest and more natural to keep the components of audio-visual document untouched.
Well, go ahead. That is, the decision to completely overdub the lip-sync audio tracks. Okay, but did so difficult to predict and control the slightest de-synchronization, which likely arise in this case? On both DVDs there are some clips, in which there while watching becomes apparent that "something wrong" and that "something wrong" - just a little out of sync. It spoils all the pleasure of viewing.
Here is a detailed list of what I noticed when watching DVDs.
Dusty Springfield DVDPopspot 1966The original intro, breaking into a dubbed remastered sound - I'm sorry - but you feel like you cheated... In this clip, looks like that was changed speed of video in some moments, to achieve perfect synchronization with the audio.
Shivaree 1966Alas, the silent applauses looks depressing. "Dumb" Dusty opens her mouth and simultaneously sounds dubbed music..
Bandstand 1967Bad synch in Little By Little, singing, but dumb Dusty in the and... In general, the lack of originally included applauses attach to all Bandstand videos some decorative view.
Small Faces DVDBeat Beat Beat 1966Video looks less detailed and more blurry in comparison with the original copy (actually, copy, which is very close to the original - from 2007 digital broadcasts).
Reelin' In The Years source & digital broadcast source
(click on images for full viewing)
Tienerklanken 1967Re-sounded, noticeable out of synch in some aspects of audio and video. Nothing else to say because haven't seen this clip with original audio - is it was so bad?
Discorama 1968Horrible out of synch video/audio, but as I recall, was the same as the original. Unfortunately, cuted intro footage with voice of French announcer, but okay.
Popside 1968Apparent slight discrepancy of sound and iimage in different moments in a set.
Surprise Partie 1968 The clip begins soundless clapping by audience - shocking - during all the clip noticed inconsistencies of audio and video (eg, sounding some drums tunes when Kenney Jones does not perform them on video!). Clip ends with playing Small Faces without sound!
Beat Club 1968Well-known footage with excellent sound here appears again re-sounded, the video looks much blurred compared with a copy, that included in Beat Club box set.
Reelin' In The Years source & Beat Club box-set source
In general - when you watched re-sounded footage, immediately gets the impression that you look 16 mm silent video with dubbed audio. Sorry, but no pleasure from viewing. In my opinion, it looks unnatural and decorative.
About the merits of release, I'm not saying, because they are obvious to any connoisseur of archive footage - a wonderful selection of material and great picture quality (with the exception of German TV material) Thus, the main interest are the live stuff - they're gorgeous!
I just hope, David, that from this bad translation of my thoughts on the English you will understand my view on the policy of working with
some kind of material. Unfortunately, I do not have a production company to produce DVDs ;D, so I can only express my opinion.
best regards,
Sergey