Image Entertainment has announced that they will be bringing Roy Orbison’s classic concert entitled Black & White Night out in two new editions. One edition will feature the concert recording in a package with a DVD Video and a Surround Sound SACD while the other edition will feature a DVD Video and a DVD Audio disc of the concert.

Black and White Night was a tribute concert from 1988. It featured Orbison performing his best known hits backed by an all star band made up of many artists who credit Orbison as an influencer of their musical styles. Included in this band are artists such as Jackson Browne, T Bone Burnett (who also producted the music on the album), Elvis Costello, K.D. Lang, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, J.D. Souther, Tom Waits and Jennifer Warnes.

The Original DVD Video Release
Orbison fans will recall that Black and White Night was released in 1999 on a DVD Video disc that featured a 5.1 Surround Sound mix done by Surround Sound producer and engineer Elliot Scheiner. This edition featured the concert with both 5.1 DTS and 5.1 Dolby Digital (then known as Dolby AC-3) tracks.

New Editions of Black & White Night
Recent recording studio news articles mentioned that Scheiner was back in the studio last Fall working on Black and White Night. So there was speculation that we would see a new DVD Video edition of the album, perhaps with a 5.1 new Surround Sound mix. Now it is clear that Scheiner was working on the new DVD Video plus High Resolution audio editions of the album.

The DVD Video/SACD edition will feature the concert in DVD Video on one disc and on a Hybrid Surround Sound SACD on a second disc. The Hybrid SACD will feature Stereo CD, Stereo SACD and 5.1 Surround Sound tracks. The DVD Video/DVD-A edition will feature a similar package with the DVD-A including 24 bit/192kHz Stereo, 24 bit/96kHz 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks. Both editions feature sound remastered from the original analog master tapes by Elliot Scheiner.

A New Trend?
It will be interesting to see what the market reception is on the new editions of the DVD Video. While we’ve seen prior releases with a CD and DVD Video and a CD with a DVD Audio disc in the same box, I think this is the first time a company has tried a release bundling a DVD Video with both an SACD and DVD-A in different editions.

If it proves successful, I suspect we may see more classic DVD Video Music Concerts reissued in a similar fashion – namely with both the DVD Video and with a High Resolution audio disc in the same box. It could be an interesting development indeed.

Roy Orbison’s Black & White Night – to Appear in Dual DVD Video/SACD (Image ID2770OBDVD) and DVD Video/DVD-A (Image ID2779OBDVD) Editions on February 8th