Godzilla vs Biollante EB DVD/BD Release Discussion

[Goji 84]

[king_ghidorah]

[Henry88]

[canofhumdingers]

[canofhumdingers]

[John Schuermann]

[Heiseigodzilla425]

A user on TohoKingdom has reported that EchoBridge's Miramax catalog is going out of production and advised the users there to pick up a copy of the Biollante DVD or Blu-ray if they haven't already. I haven't seen confirmation of this elsewhere, but I thought I'd pass the message along here since Godzilla releases tend to sky-rocket in price once they go OOP.

Also, at the end of last month I emailed EchoBridge and asked about getting a replacement BD for Biollante to fix the 5.1 audio (I remember hearing that someone got a corrected disc, but never saw anything else on the matter). They replied about a week later and apologized for the inconvenience. They offered to ship a replacement at no charge and requested the following information from me: UPC Barcode from the back of the DVD package, UPC Barcode from the defective discs, Date and location of purchase, and Shipping address. They said it can take up to 8 weeks to receive a replacement, so I have not received mine yet. I wanted to hold off on posting this here until I could confirm that the audio had been fixed, but I thought I'd mention it now since these discs are apparently going out of print.

[KaiserGhidorah]

I might buy a couple more copies on bluray or dvd just for safe keeping.....and possibly to sell later on down the line.

[Dr Kain]

[Heiseigodzilla425]

[Heiseigodzilla425]

So I got my replacement disc in the mail today. The UPC and product code are the exact same between the discs.

Also, I feel like a complete idiot. I got my receiver a few years ago for free from a friend who was moving, and couldn't take his surround sound system with him. It only has optical inputs, and does not support DTS-HD. As it turns out, my system will not output the original surround sound at all, everything is basically a downmix that the receiver handles. My plan was to put in the old Biollante Blu-ray and set up the surround sound so that the left rear speaker didn't have any audio, and then put in the new disc and test the audio under the same setup. Obviously, I can't do this.

I do have a Blu-ray drive on my computer, does anyone know of some software that I could use to look at the audio channels? Its going to be months before I can upgrade my receiver.

On a completely unrelated topic, could I interest anyone in a lightly used receiver? It's 7.1, has 3 optical inputs, and supports a wide range of DVD codecs

[The Shadow]

Audacity may be of some help. I haven't used it all that much, but it may allow you to see the different channels and whether they're all active at least.

I should do that myself, I picked up a copy on blu-ray a few weeks ago but I don't have a surround set-up so I can't listen when watching the movie.

[GodzFire]

[Goji 84]

[Heiseigodzilla425]

So I took The Shadow's advice (thanks!) and ripped the audio from my original Blu-ray and my replacement Blu-ray, and imported the resulting DTS files into Audacity. Interestingly, it looks like the old disc not only had an empty channel for the left rear speaker, but another channel as well (I'm guessing the subwoofer/LFE channel). That may have been previously reported, but that I only remembered that the left rear channel was blank. The good news is that it looks like the replacement disc does in fact correct the audio issues that the old discs had. I've included links to images of the audio tracks in case you'd like to see them. Also, I'm no A/V expert, but from my reading online it looks like DTS-HD has two audio tracks so that BD players can still be compatible with old receivers, which is why there are two DTS files from each Blu-ray. I have included screenshots from both DTS files from each disc, even though the audio files for each disc look identical (granted, this could have been an issue with the software I used to rip the audio).






I also noticed a difference in the packaging between my new disc and old disc. My replacement disc has the "Dolby Digital" and "dts-HD Master Audio" logos located on the back cover, to the right of the rating and above the Blu-ray Disc logo. The release date disc lacks these logos. Its possible that this could indicate which disc you have, but I can't be certain of that.



EDIT: After taking my photo and editing it to point out the differences, I noticed another change between the covers as well. On the release date disc, on the back cover under the film information (MIRAMAX PRESENTS A TOHO PRODUCTION...), there is copyright information that says "© 1992 MIRAMAX - http://WWW.MIRAMAX.COM". You can see that line from my original cover in the photo that I posted. My replacement disc instead says "© 2012 MIRAMAX - http://WWW.MIRAMAX.COM". I may post a revised picture later showing both differences in the covers.

tl;dr: My replacement disc from EchoBridge does have corrected audio. Contact them to get your replacement now!

[JimPV]

Sent my info in to Echo Bridge according to Heiseigodzilla425's post (thanks, dude!). Kinda nutty, 'cause I don't even have a 5.1 system, but what the heck. See if they reply...

[Dr Kain]

Thanks, I just sent them a message. Hopefully they actually respond this time.

[John Schuermann]

[Dr Kain]

Hey, can you look to see if they fixed the subtitle timing issues? The biggest scene I can tell you they were jacked up was when they were in Shirogami's lab after the break-in incident and Shirogami was holding the vine.

[Heiseigodzilla425]

[Dr Kain]

[JimPV]

[XvGojira]

[JimPV]

^^^
Yep, got the very same email today. And I'm not gonna send in my "defective" disc, either. I don't even have 5.1 sound, so... pppffffttttt! It'd be just my luck that I send it in, it gets lost in the "system" & I never get a replacement, and the blu-ray goes oop and starts going for insane prices on amazon(!). A bird in the hand...

[sachiel]

Huh? I'm kind of confused here. I thought Millcreek was the only company to have issues with its Gamera 3 blu ray release? What's wrong with the Godzilla vs. Biollante blu ray release? Did I miss something?