BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1995	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	87:39 minutes	Other Extras	Achievements Discography Interview
RSDL/Flipper	FLIPPER (51:44)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Jim Brown
Studio Distributor	Columbia Music Video Sony Music	Starring	Mary Chapin Carpenter
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Mary Chapin Carpenter

    Recorded live at Wolf Trap Farm Park near Washington D.C. in 1995, this is a rather enjoyable return to music from a number of her albums that to my regret I have been unable to indulge in recently. The tracks on offer here are: Why Walk When You Can Fly, Passionate Kisses, I Feel Lucky, Jubilee (recorded at a rehearsal, not in concert), Shut Up And Kiss Me, A Keeper For Every Flame, That's The Way Love Goes, Come On Come On, The Last Word, John Doe No. 24 and Only A Dream (all on side one) with I Am A Town, Can't Take Love For Granted, Stones In The Road, The Hard Way, Quittin' Time, He Thinks He'll Keep Her, and Down At The Twist and Shout (all on side two). As you may have gathered, this little effort is one of those blighted efforts known as a FLIPPER (or in technical parlance a DVD10), a format that I thought I had gladly seen the back of.

    I know that I am not the most unbiased person on earth to review this disc, but even I admit that some of the songs are not exactly top drawer. However, in general, this amply demonstrates why Mary Chapin Carpenter is one of the better country music songwriters around. And, when it is appropriate, she can rock a little to demonstrate how country is evolving away from its "hick" origins.

    Overall, this is a reasonably enjoyable concert experience, although severely hampered by the need to get up and turn the disc over.

Video

    The concert is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and of course it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Even allowing for the fact that this is presented in the inferior resolution of NTSC, this comes up as quite a sharp and detailed transfer, with very little to complain about. Sure, there is the inherent lack of the sharpness that we would expect from a PAL disc, but this never descends into anything ugly in that regard. Detail is very good, and shadow detail is quite respectable even though it is noticeably less brilliant than we would expect from a newer feature film. There did not appear to be any low level noise in the transfer. This is a clean and clear transfer.

    The colours have come up very well in the transfer, with a very nice richness of tone. The saturation was nicely handled throughout, even though the preponderance of red did at times border on pushing the transfer into oversaturation.

    There was no hint of MPEG artefacting in the transfer. There was a minor problem with shimmer on a couple of occasions during the transfer, most notably in the background, but nothing too serious and even on a big screen I doubt that it would be too noticeable. There were no problems with film artefacts in the transfer. Overall, this is a very nice transfer hampered only by the slight lack of resolution inherent in the NTSC format.

    Unfortunately this is a dual sided, single layer disc with the transfer split across both sides. Accordingly, we have no option but to grant this effort that accursed appellation of FLIPPER. The changeover comes at 51:44 and it is bad in every respect. It interrupts the concert most unnaturally and the disc simply stops playing without any animation or notice to indicate that you need to get up and turn the damn disc over to watch the rest of the concert. For an 88 minute effort, this is patently unacceptable formatting that should not be inflicted upon the DVD buying public. Even if there are sound reasons why this could not be mastered onto a single layer, single sided disc, it should have been mastered onto an RSDL formatted disc. Compounding the situation is the fact that the review copy of this DVD that we received had the sides mislabeled. To watch Side 1, I had to insert the disc with the Side 2 label facing up - this is at complete variance to all other flipper discs that I have seen. Very sloppy stuff indeed.

Audio

    The music and vocals came up very well in both soundtracks.

    Audio sync did not appear to be a problem with either of the soundtracks.

    There is not really too much to say about the surround presence in this soundtrack. This really does sound quite unidirectional rather than all-encompassing, and to be honest the use of the surround channels is not the best. There is simply not enough ambient detail. However, the soundtrack does get some nice impetus from a nicely aggressive bass channel that really adds a bit of spark to the sound. Overall, I would have to say that this is not the most convincing sound picture that I have ever heard. The Linear PCM soundtrack sounds much like CD-quality sound, although this time the transfer level is much higher than the Dolby Digital soundtrack for some reason.

Menu

Discography

Achievements

Interview

    A very good video transfer.

    A good, if not especially memorable, audio transfer.

    A rather forgettable package of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
21st April 2000