Ricky Martin

One Night Only


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Details At A Glance

General
Extras
Category Music Theatrical Trailer(s) None
Rating Other Trailer(s) None
Year Released 1999 Commentary Tracks None
Running Time 45:02 minutes Other Extras Gallery - Photographs
Menu Animation and Audio
Music Video - Shake Your Bon-Bon (3:04)
RSDL/Flipper No/No
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region 1,2,3,4,5,6 Director Bruce Gowers
Studio
Distributor
SMV Entertainment
Sony Music
Starring Enrique Morales
Carlos Santana
Jose Feliciano
Case Black Brackley
RRP $34.95 Music Enrique Morales

 
Video
Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame MPEG None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio No Dolby Digital 5.1
16x9 Enhancement No Soundtrack Languages English (Linear PCM 48/16 2.0, 1536 Kb/s)
English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio Full Frame
Miscellaneous
Macrovision ? Smoking No
Subtitles None Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

Plot Synopsis

    Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

    Yes, I feel much better now. Sorry, but listening to a bunch of women screaming at a bloke for doing nothing more than wiggling his way around a stage is guaranteed to reduce me to a state of severe frustration and anger. And just so I don't get accused of being sexist, if the roles were reversed I would still be frustrated and angry. Unfortunately, lost amongst all the hype and corporate machine dollars being flung at this gentleman is the fact that he actually does have something to offer musically - but from this effort you would not really know it. I suppose one day the bright boys who run record companies will wake up to the fact that the reason why the music industry is declining worldwide is because they forgot one damn important thing - the music. Hype and good looks may open the door, but the only thing that will keep people coming back is the music. Strip away the hype and the good looks, and what you have to have is the music. The sad fact is that at the core, this guy does have some talent, and his earlier slower stuff shows it, but it is slowly being subverted by the corporate hype machine, predominantly based upon one song and lots of screaming women. Hence the reason why the best stuff on offer here is nothing that has made the charts in the last two years!

    And if you have no idea who the heck Ricky Martin is, why on earth are you still reading this?

    Just for the record, this apparently was a concert recorded for television in Liberty State Park, New Jersey last year. And a very short concert it is too, comprising:

    Judging by the rapid change from afternoon to night, it would seem that this does not represent the full concert given. And the music is padded by short segments featuring Ricky at home, talking to kids and doing the usual hokey material that these "specials" seem to demand.

    I went into this reviewing experience expecting the worst, but actually found myself very mildly enjoying the earlier music (although still detesting the later stuff). But fans will no doubt lap this up, as it does give you lots of looks at Ricky Martin shaking various parts of his anatomy to the adoring crowd of women. The fact that the music does not translate well to the concert stage will remain of minor concern.

Transfer Quality

Video

    Since it was filmed for television, I am guessing that the source material is video tape and that partially accounts for some of the minor quibbles with the transfer. However, they are very minor quibbles and in general this just suffers the usual problems that all concert videos suffer: bright lights, occasional lapses in focus and so on.

    The transfer is presented in a full frame format, reflecting its origins and is not 16x9 enhanced. Somewhat perversely, some of the inserted non-concert material is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1.

    In general, this is a fairly typical concert video: reasonably sharp, barring the inevitable odd lapses in focus, and reasonably well detailed, although not quite in the league of a good feature film. The transfer is generally quite clear. Shadow detail is generally fairly good. There did not appear to be any problems with low level noise in the transfer.

    Whilst in general this is a nicely vibrant transfer, the odd washout due to the stage lighting as usual disappoints. The main problem though is the lack of depth to the darker colours at times - a good example is at the end of the concert with Ricky standing in front of the New York skyline: the colours, especially of his trousers, look a little grey. Still, the rich tones will please many, and this certainly looks better than many concert videos that I have seen. There was the one instance, during the songs with Carlos Santana and Jose Feliciano, where the transfer seemed to suffer just a little from oversaturation owing to the intense red stage lighting, but that was the only such problem in the transfer.

   There were no apparent MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There were no apparent film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. There were no film artefacts in the transfer.

    Overall, it is fair to say that any deficiencies in the DVD presentation, video-wise, are as a result of inherent limitations in the source material, and not a reflection on the mastering of this DVD.

Audio

   Whilst the video transfer gave me no real concerns, the audio transfer is a little different and I found the Dolby Digital 5.1 effort just a little underwhelming.

   There are two audio tracks on the DVD, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 sound track and an English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 soundtrack. I listened to both soundtracks.

   The vocals are generally clear and easy to understand throughout, although somewhat recessed in the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

   There did not appear to be any audio sync problems with the transfer.

   As usual, the Linear PCM soundtrack is very similar to the sound we are used to from compact discs and is very easy to listen to. There is certainly nothing inherently wrong with the soundtrack. The same cannot be said for the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack however, and it would seem that this suffers from some poor mixing. Nothing desperately wrong, but just a little lack of separation of the channels that results, at least in my view, in the overall sound being a little congested. With the vocals a little too recessed in the mix, the overall effect is not quite what I would expect from a recent Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The overall sound picture lacks a lot of space and perhaps needs a little tweaking of your normal listening levels on each channel to get this really nicely balanced. Had there been more separation of the channels, then this would really have shone as a concert. The bass channel was nicely present throughout, although seeming to lack just a little in variety and by the end of the disc it certainly was sounding very monotonous. Overall, I felt that this could really have been a lot better than it is, but as it stands it is not too bad an effort at all - just don't compare it to some of the real gems in the music video catalogue.

Extras

    Well, I suppose it is a slightly better package than usual for a music DVD, but remains hardly the most commanding package around.

Menu

    Fairly extensively animated with excerpts from the concert, which gives additional opportunities for the women to drool, and with musical accompaniment to boot. The menus are not 16x9 enhanced, presented in a full frame format and have Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 sound. Nothing that really gets me too excited, but far better than your average static menus.

Music Video - Shake Your Bon-Bon (3:04)

    Call me cynical, call me harsh, call me churlish, but this is hardly sufficient compensation for a 45 minute long concert DVD, especially as the song was also featured in the concert. At least this is a very nice quality video presentation, taken presumably from another concert, and would rate as one of the better looking music video clips I have seen: technically speaking nothing much to complain about here. Musically speaking is another matter however.... Mildly entertaining if you like the song, but I really don't. Is this really the way music is heading? Presented in a full frame format, not 16x9 enhanced and presented in Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 sound.

Gallery -Photographs

    Oh, brother. Just when I thought things could not get any worse, they did. Nothing more than 8 promotional photographs of the gentleman himself. Whoopee! As Michael says, cue sound of pre-pubescent girls screaming. As I say, cue sound of sane men puking in the nearest dunny.

R4 vs R1

    Since this is coded for Region 1 too, it is reasonable to presume that both regions have an identical release - and surprise, surprise, they are, which would make Region 4 the region of choice owing to the inherent superiority of the PAL system.

Summary

    Well, I could say this was the biggest load of manure out and fans would still flock to buy it their droves I guess. The sad fact is that technically there is nothing really wrong with the disc. However, ignoring the music question, the content leaves a little to be desired and $34.95 for a 45 minute concert DVD with minimal extras leaves me shaking my head in disbelief.

    A very good video transfer.

    A good audio transfer.

    A sadly deficient bunch of extras.

    And just a note of thanks to Sony Music - included in the disc case is a nice little booklet catalogue of their releases. A little unusual as we do not see it too often, but what makes this one a little different is that it also includes catalogue numbers - makes it a lot easier to walk into your local DVD retailer and order a DVD (if they do not have it in stock) when you have this information. I wish more distributors would include small details such as these in their packages.
 

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

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

Review Equipment
   
DVD Pioneer DV-515; S-video output
Display Sony Trinitron Wega 84cm. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder Built in
Amplification Yamaha RXV-795. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Speakers Energy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL