BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	60:02 minutes (not 75 minutes as stated on packaging)	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection, then Movie
Region	0	Director	Roger Pomphrey
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision Australia	Starring	Jimi Hendrix
Case	Amaray
RRP	$39.95	Music	Jimi Hendrix

    Another DVD release from the Classic Albums series, obviously the contribution by Jimi Hendrix is limited to archival material. Most of this episode is recently recorded interviews with former band members, musicians who contributed to the recording of the album, managerial members and assorted others, all interspersed with archival video footage of The Jimi Hendrix Experience in concert, and in lighter moments.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

    The more recent, interview portions of the transfer come up pretty well indeed, sharp and quite well detailed. Unfortunately, the archival concert footage is generally not as good, most of it lacking significantly in definition and contrast (some also lacking any sort of focus too). Whilst some of the footage is amongst the worst concert video footage I have seen, the age of the footage is such that you do allow it some leeway.

    The colours come up quite rich in tone, although not over saturated, in general, This is not an especially vivid transfer, but the results are quite reasonably natural and very consistent in the rendering. Indeed, in general this seems to be very similar in style to the previously reviewed Fleetwood Mac - Rumours DVD. Naturally, the archival concert footage suffers in both the lack of contrast (the footage in general again being quite dark) and lack of colour tone. The detail in the concert footage is at times extremely poor.

    There did not appear to be any MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There did appear to be some film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, mainly some minor aliasing in the recording studio scenes: nothing too intrusive, but definitely noticeable. Again it must be noted that there are inherent problems in the archival footage, which cannot be blamed upon the DVD transfer. There did not appear to be any film artefacts present in the transfer.

    It should again be noted too that there are no chapters on the DVD, which is unusual and mildly annoying.

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on the DVD, all MPEG 2.0 soundtracks: German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. I listened to the English soundtrack. It should be noted that the languages are not flagged to your player, as we are used to with most DVD releases, but rather are flagged to the player as 1-5; for instance, the German soundtrack is flagged to the player as 1 rather than as German.

    The music and vocals came up reasonably clear and understandable throughout.

    Audio sync did not appear to be a problem with the soundtrack.

    The MPEG 2.0 soundtrack does make some limited use of the surround channels, although the bass channel is still unused. Whilst I would have much preferred a 5.1 soundtrack, the resultant sound suits the style of production quite well and gives a slightly more naturally balanced soundscape than on the Fleetwood Mac - Rumours DVD.

    A good video transfer, even with the inherent flaws in the archival material.

    A good audio transfer.

    No extras at all, which some may see as a concern.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
10th November 1999