Friday 18 September 2015

Thursday 17 September 2015

Beatles 1 Blu-ray / DVD trailer



THE BEATLES’ VIDEOS AND TOP HITS COME TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME

All-New Editions of The Beatles 1 Pair Beautifully Restored Promotional Films and Videos with Brand New Stereo and Surround Audio Mixes 

Preorder your copy at http://www.thebeatles.com

Beatles 1+ Deluxe Edition Celebrates the Sight & Sound of The Beatles in 50 Films & Videos


London – September 15, 2015 – After The Beatles stopped touring, and because travelling around the globe to promote new releases was impossible, the band increasingly made what could be described as “mini movies”. These pioneering promotional films and videos helped to define the way we have come to watch music, not least because The Beatles approached filming with the same ease and innovative spirit they brought to the recording studio, exploring new creative possibilities with infectious delight. Showcasing the band’s filmed work to accompany their 27 No.1, U.K. and U.S. singles, The Beatles 1 is newly restored and expanded in multiple configurations for global release on November 6 by Apple Corps Ltd/Universal Music Group.

The 27-track CD/DVD and CD/Blu-ray pairs beautifully restored videos for each song, with new stereo and 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS HD surround audio mixes. The brand new Beatles 1+ celebrates their career in over 200 minutes through 50 promotional films and videos. This includes the 27 No.1s, with the restored videos, along with a second disc of 23 videos, including alternate versions, as well as rarely seen and newly restored films and videos; all include new audio mixes in deluxe CD/2-DVD and CD/2-Blu-ray packages. The 27-track audio CD is also being made available with new stereo mixes. A 2 LP, 180-gram vinyl package will follow.

The new editions of The Beatles 1 have been made possible following extensive research, and restoration of the original promo films, classic television appearances and other carefully selected videos spanning the band’s history. Apple Corps dug deep into The Beatles’ vaults to select a broad range of films and videos for their rarity, historical significance and quality of performance. An 18-person team of film and video technicians and restoration artists was assembled by Apple Corps to undertake painstaking frame-by-frame cleaning, colour-grading, digital enhancement and new edits that took months of dedicated, ‘round-the-clock work to accomplish.

The result is a visual run down of The Beatles’ number one records, as well as the additional tracks on the bonus disc of Beatles 1+ that show the band in previously unseen standards of clarity and quality; many of the films and videos have never before been commercially released, in whole or in part.

Beatles 1 and Beatles 1+ offers the restored films, including 35mm negatives scanned in 4K and digitally restored with new stereo and 5.1 surround audio remixes, produced from the original analogue tapes by the GRAMMY® winning team of Giles Martin with Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios. For four of the videos, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have provided exclusive audio commentary and filmed introductions, respectively. The 1+ Deluxe Edition, presented in an expanded 124-page illustrated hardcover book includes ‘an appreciation’ of The Beatles’ ground-breaking films and videos by music journalist and author Mark Ellen and extensive, detailed track/video annotation by music historian and author Richard Havers. 

“These videos and films are spectacular reminders of the era we lived in. They also rock!” – Paul McCartney

I think it’s really interesting to see the videos we made, some of them incredible and some of them really incredible. How else would we have got to sit on a horse? – Ringo Starr

Between 1962 and 1970, The Beatles released 27 No.1 hit singles in the U.S.A. and the U.K. In 2000, these timeless songs were collected for The Beatles 1, which topped the charts in 35 countries and became that decade’s bestselling album worldwide. 15 years later, 1 is revisited for this entirely new, visually-inspired presentation.

It’s The Beatles, as you’ve never seen them before.

thebeatles.com

Beatles video restoration



2 versions



"Penny Lane" colour correction



"Strawberry Fields Forever" restored sample

Tuesday 8 September 2015

A Hard Day's Night - speed corrections

© Bettmann/CORBIS
You might recall that one thing the new edition of A Hard Day's Night DVD/Blu-ray didn't address, was the speed issue. The film was shot at 25 fps and played back at 24 fps, but they neglected to speed up the tracks during filming, and as a result the songs sound slower in the film than on the records.

Music Radar interviewed Giles Martin about the speed issue.

MR: I read that the mixes of the songs in the film were slower than the album versions. Why was that?

GM: “Yeah, and that’s something I asked them to change. When I was working on the Martin Scorsese-George Harrison film, I noticed it. And I Love Her was a semitone down. It’s got to do with frame rates. I asked them, 'Can you change the frame rate of the film?' and of course, you can’t because that would speed up the film. Pitching the music but keeping it at the same speed might have worked, but then you’re going into a digital world that’s kind of unpleasant. It’s a bit like plastic surgery, and you don’t want to be doing that, putting a new face on something. The thing about And I Love Her in the film is, it’s a different mix. It’s not a double-tracked vocal, whereas the original is.”

Now, a friend of WogBlog has released speed corrected versions on YouTube. Done in computer at 106% playback speed, these versions match the speed of the 09 remastered studio tracks, but with the audio from the film.

And I Love Her


If I Fell



I'm Happy Just To Dance With You


Finale Concert

Carl Perkins & Friends



Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session was a televised concert that was held on 21 October 1985 in London, England, and featured rock n' roll pioneer Carl Perkins and his house band, along with friends as guest stars, including Eric Clapton, former Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr, as well as Dave Edmunds who acted as musical director for the show. Most of the repertoire performed in the concert consisted of Perkins' classic rockabilly songs from the 1950s. It was directed by Tom Gutteridge. The concert special was originally broadcast on january 1, 1986 on Channel 4 in the UK and on Cinemax in 1986 with introductory comments by Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The concert is a memorable highlight of Perkins' later career and has been highly praised by fans for the spirited performances delivered by Perkins and his famous guests. It was the first live performance by George Harrison in front of an audience in nearly ten years.