PREORDER IT

General		Extras
Category	Concert Video	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	114 minutes	Other Extras	Cast Biography Booklet
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Menu
Region	0	Director	David Mallet
Distributor	Polygram	Starring	Michael Flatley
RRP	$34.95	Music	Ronan Hardiman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) English (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	N/A
Macrovision	?
Subtitles	None

    This is the last time Lord Of The Dance was performed by Michael Flatley, and he wanted to go out with a bang, so he combined two Lord Of The Dance companies and created a huge outdoor stage for this finale. 25,000 Londoners saw this performance.

    The quality of the video and the audio on this disc far exceeds that of the original Lord Of The Dance. However, even though everything about this production is bigger and better than the previous one, there just seemed to be an element of rawness and of energy that was missing from this production. Eye candy, yes. Ear candy, yes. But, the original production DVD just had that edge, that energy, which this one didn't have. Admittedly, the original DVD was very ordinary in the audio and video transfer departments, but it still had something overall about it that was missing from this DVD.

Video

    This transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The 16x9 enhancement makes this transfer generally very sharp and clear, except for one particular camera, which appeared to be the one on a long boom. When this camera was in use, the picture was significantly less sharp. It was a very noticeable difference, and made me irritated whenever a long shot was presented. The greyscale of this transfer was significantly better than the original Lord Of The Dance. The original suffered considerably from oversaturated whites leading to a severe loss of picture detail. This only very rarely happens in this transfer. Shadow detail is also better in this transfer, and was acceptable, with no low level noise present, with the exception of shots involving the boom camera which were a little noisy.

    The colours were nicely rendered throughout, with vibrant colours, and no colour bleeding.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. There were no film-to-video artefacts, as this was a transfer taken from video, and aliasing was only present extremely rarely. Film artefacts were also non-existant since this was a video transfer.

Audio

    What dialogue there was was easy to hear at all times, as were the lyrics to the songs, and there were no audio sync problems.

    The music was an integral part of this production, and was spectacular and exciting.

     The surround channels were used often for music and for crowd ambience, placing you nicely in the audience. There were no split surround effects.

    The .1 channel supported the music superbly.

Menu

Cast Biographies

Booklet

    The video quality is generally good, only marred by a loss of resolution with a boom camera and some minor flaring towards the end.

    The audio quality is quite good.

    The extras are very limited indeed.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
7th May 1999