Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse - two versions

[Frank Cox]

I got this last week:
SpidermanATSV_FTR-1_S_EN-EN-CCAP_OV_51-HI-VI-DBOX_2K_SPE_20230523_DLX_SMPTE_OV
SpidermanATSV_FTR-1_S_EN-EN-OCAP_OV_51-HI-VI-DBOX_2K_SPE_20230524_DLX_SMPTE_VF
SpidermanATSV_FTR-1_S_EN-EN-CCAP_OV_51-Atmos-HI-VI-DBOX_2K_SPE_20230524_DLX_SMPTE_VF

I got this this morning:
SpidermanATSV_FTR-7_S_EN-XX-CCAP_OV_51-HI-VI-DBOX_2K_SPE_20230606_DLX_SMPTE_OV
SpidermanATSV_FTR-7_S_EN-XX-CCAP_OV_51-Atmos-HI-VI-DBOX_2K_SPE_20230606_DLX_SMPTE_VF
SpidermanATSV_FTR-7_S_EN-EN-OCAP_OV_51-HI-VI-DBOX_2K_SPE_20230606_DLX_SMPTE_VF

FTR-1 vs FTR-7.

Does anyone know what the difference is or why it would matter?

[Frank Cox]

I just got an answer.

Sony has just informed us that they are shipping/e-delivering a new version of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse to be played on all screens starting Friday.

There were complaints about some dialogue in the film being difficult to hear/understand. Sony has taken this feedback and updated their sound mix to ensure this issue is fixed.

Use the new one.

[Jon Dent]

Same response I got. Haven't heard any complaints from our audience but I'll roll the new one in tonight.

[Frank Cox]

The keys are different. Check the dates before you delete version 1.

[Mark Strube]

Much of the narration was very low in the mix (immediately evident during the opening where the character is narrating over a drum solo), in addition to dialogue being mixed low during the action scenes. This was a common complaint all over Reddit and Twitter. I noticed it at my theater which uses a properly balanced Ovation, and these complaints came from all different screen types.

[Daniel Fredrickson]

Ah, good news! I had to create a special audio cue to bump up the fader 1.0 for the feature, and another to take it back down for the credits. There are definitely a few scenes where the dialogue is drowned out by the action and music.

[Frank Cox]

Don't delete the V1 dcp before you ingest V7. They seem to share a lot of files so ingesting V7 over top of V1 just goes zip-bang and it's done in a couple of minutes.

[Jon Dent]

I just checked the new DCP and its a complete OV package with 7 reels of audio and video files so it shouldn't need anything from V1.

[Frank Cox]

It doesn't actually need anything from V1. It does contain (many of) the same files, so if you have already ingest V1 and you ingest V7 over it, you don't have to wait while it copies the same files back in that you just deleted a minute before.

If you delete V1 and ingest V7 you will get exactly the same thing. It will just take twice as long to get there.

[Jon Dent]

Watched the 'updated' version tonight. I still ended up bumping the volume a few notches over our usual setting due to the dialog. Even then it was still a bit difficult to separate the dialog from the frantic punk drumming in the first few minutes. To me it sounds more like an EQ issue, as the drum volume really isn't that crazy. It's just so upfront in the mix that it causes some masking on the dialog.

Watching the credits, I see that the re-recording mixers are the same guys that have done most of the Marvel movies of the last few years, and those too have been largely underwhelming for one reason or another outside of Guardians 3 and Shang-Chi.

[Frank Cox]

I watched V7 this afternoon and the sound mix didn't seem to be anything too extraordinary in either a good or a bad way. Nothing really spectacular but not awful either.

I could understand most of the beginning narration with the drumming. And the rest of the movie dialogue was pretty much average in terms of intelligibility as well.

Now, I was sitting alone in an otherwise unoccupied theatre so maybe if there had been a bunch of people around me crunching popcorn and whatnot it might have been different.

I haven't seen V1 so I can't compare it to this version.

The drawing styles made some of it kind of hard to watch. I think my eyeballs were spinning around a few times when they suddenly switched from one style to another.

[Mike Blakesley]

They screened the first 20 minutes or so of this movie at CinemaCon. I remember the sound mix being very underwhelming. It didn't jump out at you at all. I attributed it to the movie just not being done yet, because they told us it was still unfinished. But the trailers are the same way, kind of blah sounding in comparison to others.

[Mark Strube]

Don't delete the V1 dcp before you ingest V7. They seem to share a lot of files so ingesting V7 over top of V1 just goes zip-bang and it's done in a couple of minutes.

Definitely not the case here, it's doing a full load. Doremi server. Are you sure you didn't just use the Atmos VF or something?

[Frank Cox]

I have a GDC server and it loaded to some fairly low percentage number that I forget at the moment, and then went ZIPPPPPP and showed 100%.

I've seen this many times before when loading a scope and flat version of the same trailer. It gets to 80-something percent on the second one and goes ZIP to 100%. My theory in that situation is that the soundtrack is the same.

[Mark Strube]

Watched the 'updated' version tonight. I still ended up bumping the volume a few notches over our usual setting due to the dialog. Even then it was still a bit difficult to separate the dialog from the frantic punk drumming in the first few minutes. To me it sounds more like an EQ issue, as the drum volume really isn't that crazy. It's just so upfront in the mix that it causes some masking on the dialog.

I think the narration would've benefitted greatly by being constrained to the center channel only (it's spread over L/R, as is tradition), and bringing the drums (and other fx) down a few more notches. The opening narration also has some passages where she uses a lower octave voice that gets muddied by the drums. Seems all they did was raise the dialogue level, but changed nothing else. Oh well. Still running it at 7.