BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Documentary	None
Rating
Year Released	1992
Running Time	61:23 Minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	3,4,5	Director	Alan Deakins
Studio Distributor	Lifetime Vision Limited  Warner Home Video	Starring	Andrew Stanway
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$39.95	Music	Malcolm Ironton

    By now, I'm sure you're asking what exactly possessed me to volunteer for these titles, and I am asking myself that very same question. The manner in which the information is presented is not very interesting, and the style of the visuals has me believing that the producers couldn't make up their mind whether they were shooting an educational film or an elaborate porn flick.

Video

    The transfer is presented Full Frame, and is not 16x9 Enhanced.

    Once again, we are treated to a sixty-odd minute film on a single-sided, single-layer disc that should by nature look a lot sharper than it really is. While the sharpness and definition of this transfer are an improvement over the previous Lover's Guide DVD, this transfer overall doesn't look any better than a recently duplicated VHS cassette. The shadow detail of the transfer is still vague, with blacks being only slightly more than blacks, with the occasional patch of discernible detail. Low-level noise is a slight problem with some shots of this transfer, with some large expanses of colour being quite noisy and uneven.

    The colour saturation is still quite a problem with this transfer, although it is improving somewhat. Once again, at about 0:44 this time, we see the Lifetime Vision Limited logo make its way onto the screen, with a red, green, and blue bar across the screen that exhibits dot crawl to an extent I've never seen on any other main feature, even when using composite inputs. Once again, I checked my settings quite thoroughly, and I can say that I most definitely viewed this transfer through the S-video input, just as I did with the previous disc. Thankfully, the transfer does settle down somewhat from the rampant dot crawl and noise in order to look acceptable.

    MPEG artefacts are less of a problem for this transfer, although the bitrate is still unusually low for a programme of this length. Some posterization is apparent in skin tones from time to time, but otherwise, this is a much more natural looking transfer than the previous disc in the series. Film-to-video artefacts are not a problem in this transfer, although the slightly better resolution of this transfer leads me to believe that this particular episode may have been captured on film due to having a larger budget. Film artefacts consisted of some flecks and scratches on the transfer, but these were occasional and mostly slight.

Audio

    Once again, there is only soundtrack on this DVD: the original English dialogue, encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo at the higher bitrate of 256 kilobits per second.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, within the limits of the thick British accents used by some of the people who speak in interviews that also comprise the narration at certain points. Thankfully, Doctor Andrew Stanway always speaks clearly and is very easy to understand, if a little dull. Audio sync is not a problem because it was very rare to see the person who was doing the talking, and the one passage where this did occur had no subjective problems.

    Have you ever viewed a series of films where two composers sound so remarkably alike that they might as well have been the same man? You will have after you've finished with this Lover's Guide and Malcolm Ironton's score, at least if you've bothered to indulge in the previous effort. Of course, the score is like the rest of the soundtrack in that it is meant to serve a strict purpose aside from entertaining the viewer. To be perfectly frank, you could have edited the music out of this film and it would have had the same effect upon me.

    The surround channels were not used by this soundtrack, although tweaking the settings in the Pro Logic modes on your amplifier might result in something of a pseudo-surround experience. There seems to be little in the way of stereo activity, either. While I would certainly like to see a well-acted, well-scripted piece of erotica (yes, I am aware it doesn't exist) with a DTS 5.1 soundtrack, this film and its transfer doesn't qualify as either.

    The subwoofer was used in mild amounts to support the lower end of the soundtrack, but its overall activity was really quite minimal.

Menu

    The video transfer is a slight improvement over the previous episode, but still of poor quality.

    The audio transfer does its job without having any problems or being too inspiring.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (my bio sucks... read it anyway)
November 23, 2000.