Porcupine Tree "Anesthetize" DVD/Blu-Ray

I dont get it? Is this the same concert thats supposed to come out on Bluray? So its just the bonus audio cd and packaging thats different?

The colour of the covers. The more I'm getting to know Steven Wilson's marketing strategy the less I like him. Seems to be terribly money driven.

And the sad thing is, both versions will sell out VERY quickly. PT fans are as rabid as it gets. If I decide to get this, I will take the cheapest Blu-Ray version I can find. Most of the time, the extras are a waste of money... unless you are a rabid, groupie-like fan.

Red is sold out. Pre-ordered the Grey one.

Afaik the Blu ray will be out individually in May.

Money driven maybe, but not caring about SQ or song quality? Absurd. The Incident is a masterpiece and the SQ is excellent.

This is just a Special Edition version of the dvd/blueray discs that will come out soon. It's for the diehards and of course to make money. I'm sure it will be of excellent quality as usual, but I'll wait for the much cheaper dvd.

I doubt it. There is no point in going through all the pains and financial risk of filming and authoring a concert in HD for 5,000 copies. Mark my words, there will be a standard Blu-Ray release.

I will be the first to admit that I am sucker for autographed extras and extra tracks, but these "special editions" from PT have not tempted me in the slightest. Why would I want to drop a good deal of money for stuff I will never look at and/or lossy surround versions (like on the uber expensive exclusive versions of the last few studio albums) when I can have what I want (in better quality for the studio albums) in a lesser expensive standard DVD-Audio/Blu Ray release?


I don't know, Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun are about as good as it gets in their catalog when it comes to DVD-Audio sound quality. It's even more amazing when you consider the fact that those albums were recorded at 24/48. They are outstanding albums. I have not heard The Incident DVD-Audio, but since SW is not even credited with the job, I very much doubt it will come close to the aforementioned gems.

Ok, maybe excellent was a stretch, but it's still better than most current recordings. Steve set such high standards that now if he slacks everyone thinks it's terrible.

The Incident on vinyl is superlative and sounds better than most albums in general.

I second that! I've not heard the cd version but the vinyl is excellent!

Meh, other than Anesthetize the setlist looks vastly inferior to the one on Arriving Somewhere, this feels like a blatant cash-grab from the fans.

Ouch.

I used to be a huge Porcupine Tree fan, and I still love to listen to a lot of their music, but... My disappointment grows more and more. To me it seems like they're trying to squeeze out as much money as possible out of their work, which wouldn't be that bad, but I've never seen any artist or band do this so avidly. For example, five out of ten of their LP releases were put out as a remaster. Okay, this is not so bad, considering that Up the Downstair, The Sky Moves Sideways and Signify were released as rather "special" packages with additional tracks that weren't easy to get before, furthermore drumming (replacing drum machines) from Gavin Harrison, but all in all I still dislike their strategy. Well, some of these packages contain multichannel DVD-A editions and this fact justifies the tag "remaster" (plus "remix"), but still... do you guys agree with me that there's too much confusion in their catalogue? To me it seems like they just know that "true fans" want to have anything there is, and this thought doesn't appeal to me. Many bands and artists come to mind which never remastered any of their records, like Radiohead and Tool. (because there's just no need to do so.)

Why does somebody put out remasters? My opinion: a remaster is justified if there was considerable change in the industry. For example, a record which was digitally recorded in the eighties (when digital gear was just not as good as it is today) might not sound as good as it could be, because it was probably recorded using DAT (48 khz sampling rate) and back then converters were just not as good as they are now, also resampling wasn't what it is today, let alone the fact that there was no dithering or noise shaping. In my humble opinion, such circumstances justify a remaster to be made. Well, they released these remasters mostly as DVD-A "high resolution" audio material, but also they remastered the Red Book versions. Why?

If I'll see "higher resolution" (well, higher than 24 bps and 48khz) releases of Fear of a Blank Planet and The Incident, I don't know what I'd think of that. And why do I just know that I'll see such releases eventually? Frankly, I assume that they released these albums not in full DVD-A resolution just to enable them to release the records again in "better shape". Anyways, seriously: who can hear up to 48.000 hz? (nyquist frequency of 96 khz sampling rate)

Side note: what is "high resolution" anyway? The Red Book standard covers the human hearing range completely, so differences one might hear in DVD-A releases are solely based on differences in the mastering, e.g. EQ. In the audio world, many people seem to be blinded by numbers. These media (CD, Vinyl, DVD-A, SACD) are nothing but a vessel, no matter how big it is. The question is, do the artists you like actually fill it up? One could even put something that was recorded by a mobile phone into a 96 khz file ... Slowly but surely it annoys me that the frequency range of headphones is a buying criteria, and many people think that DVD-A and SACD are SO superior. On a physical level, sure. But hey, what's the use if your ears just can't perceive it? Even most gear doesn't cover such high frequencies ... I dimly remember that once I posted something very similar to this, but I think it's obvious that this subject still busies me