I got this movie from netflix & was blown away by the awsome 5.1 DTS ES surround sound mix! Does anyone have any info on this, cause I don't even think this surround sound format was available in the early 80's when this movie was done@! Wast it remixed or remastered & by whom?? I would LOVE to check out more older movies with the audio redone like this, heck even more current movies like this would be great!
Steve
In the 1980's many films, at least those with a decent budget, were being mixed in 6 track Dolby surround for theatres. The resulting soundtracks were on 35mm Mag tape and sounded amazing in the mix room.
At the time, the transfer process left much to be desired in the theatre experience - it was passable in the few theatres that had Dolby 6 track, but most throughout the country were still mono (one big speaker behind the screen).
You got lucky, whomever mastered the DVD had access to the original soundtrack mags and had the brains to send it to DTS first - DTS sounds better because they give more bandwidth to the sound - but Dolby has a better marketing department.
So to recap, you're just hearing what the director intended. BTW, the frustration of hearing your masterpiece destroyed on a crappy system is what inspired George Lucas to establish the THX theatre standard - so it sounds and looks the way the director wanted.
Alot of films are actually just redone, soundwise. They'll keep the original voices and sometimes add more foley work and/or engineer the original stuff. This is more common in well-loved older movies, like Star Wars, where the money spent is justified since it'll be a big seller. The version of The Osterman Weekend I saw was a double disc edition, so they just redid that one. I've seen alot of older "forgotten" movies that had crappy sound, even in mono.
Pierre