Something is going on

Something is being counted down to over at thebeatles.com. Is it just a new website design, or could it be that we are finally getting that "1"- themed collection of The Beatles' promotional films (aka music videos) that we first wrote about in December 2013, and which was then scheduled for release in October 2014? If it is, it'll be interesting to see if some of our suggestions have been listened to!
Word is, all will be revealed on Tuesday, September 15th.


The news about a "1"- themed video collection was first revealed in an internal memo which was accidentally published online in December 2013, and then removed again. According to the memo, the DVD was supposed to be out in October 2014, alongside a reissued vinyl edition of the "1" album. Even though the vinyl album reissue came through (only about a month later than anticipated, it was released on Nov 24, 2014), the video collection release didn't happen in 2014.

In 2015, The Beatles' YouTube account so far has released two full promo music videos, "A Day In The Life" in February and "Ticket To Ride" in April. Both films have since been removed again.

In 2007, Apple Corps Ltd put together a music video for "Old Brown Shoe", for an unknown purpose.

Other people's uploads of promotional films by The Beatles have also been removed from YouTube lately. The reason is usually that the films contain content belonging to Apple Corps Ltd.

The first sign of things to come was tweeted by George Harrison's account.

One promotional film that was uploaded this August and that's still (at the time of writing) available on YouTube, is a 2007 music video for George Harrison's song "Old Brown Shoe", which you may or may not find here. Since it was uploaded, fans of The Beatles have been discussing this film on social media sites. What was the purpose of this film? Why did Apple Corps Ltd have it made? Did anyone catch this on TV? There was no particular product released in 2007 to tie this film in with, and it has gone by fairly unnoticed. As you can see from the photo above, it was leaked from an inside source and not from a TV broadcast, as it has the clock slate present before the actual film starts. The song was on the B-side of the "Ballad of John and Yoko" single, and it hasn't had a music video before this. Could there have been plans to make a video compilation of singles A- and B-sides?

Over at the Steve Hoffman forum, someone noted that notice that the three Beatles music videos formerly for sale on iTunes ("Hey Bulldog", "Get Back", "Don't Let Me Down") no longer are available.

Another person says that Universal Music in his country has listed a new version of the "1" album coming up, remixed for 5.1 surround sound and with an accompanying Blu-ray of the music videos due in November. High Fidelity Pure Audio (HFPA) is a marketing initiative, spearheaded by the Universal Music Group, for audio-only Blu-ray optical discs. Launched in 2013 as a potential successor to the Compact disc, it has been compared with DVD-A and SACD, which had similar aims.

Mock-up, based on the look of the countdown.

HFPA is encoded as 24-bit/96 kHz or 24-bit/192 kHz linear PCM ("high-resolution audio"), optionally losslessly compressed with Dolby True HD or DTS-HD Master Audio. Some of the earlier releases in this program have been multi-channel, like Tears For Fears'"Songs From The Big Chair" in a new 5.1 mix, released last December. Last February, a Blu-ray disc of John Lennon's "Imagine" album was released, although in stereo only. As you'll know, a quad mix of the "Imagine" album was made in the mid-seventies, which they could have either have used as is, or used as a basis to remix the original album tracks accordingly. They chose not to, though. Perhaps "1" will be a first?

Since Giles Martin did do some work on the Beatles' multitracks to make them useable for The Beatles Rockband, surround sound mixes can be made (also witness "Love"), and with modern day equipment, amateur audio wizards have managed to make listenable stereophonic versions of songs where only the mono recordings are available, songs like "Love Me Do" and "She Loves You". It remains to be seen if they can make a 5.1. channel surround mix of "She Loves You", though.

Love Me Do in stereo