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General		Extras
Category	Concert Video	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1996	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	92 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Menu
Region	0	Director	David Mallet
Distributor	Polygram	Starring	Michael Flatley Bernadette Flynn Daire Nolan Gillian Norris Helen Egan Anne Buckley
RRP	$34.95	Music	Ronan Hardiman

    There is a story here, to do with who is the Lord Of The Dance, and good versus evil (I think), but don't ask me to describe it, since I just sat back and enjoyed the music and the visuals. I'm not very good at working out stories when there are no words.

    There are heaps of very spectacular special effects, lighting and sensational dancing to enjoy. The energy recorded in this performance is palpable, and makes it a real treat to watch.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (4:3). It is not 16x9 enhanced. Interestingly, a lot of the shots of this production are long shots, framed by the stage, so it has an almost widescreen appearance at times.

    The transfer varied from being quite sharp and clear to being a little blurred. A number of the higher lit scenes were washed out with excessive levels of brightness which led to a loss of picture detail, however, I felt that this was a problem with the source material simply running out of dynamic range to capture this production adequately rather than a specific DVD mastering problem. This was more pronounced in the last third of the production. Bear in mind that a great deal of this production would have had to have been shot in very low levels of light, with highlights in very high levels of light, and you can imagine the difficulty this would present to the original video source. Black levels were excellent, with no low level noise marring the picture.

    The colours were generally vivid and well-rendered, but some of the more extremely-lit scenes tended to bleed slightly. This was most noticeable in one of the last ensemble dances where they are all wearing bright and colourful costumes. Generally, however, colour bleeding was not an issue. A small amount of chroma noise was present in the extremely blue-lit scenes.

    A few MPEG artefacts were seen, generally presenting themselves as loss of picture detail or increased graininess in the image. The most noticeable area where this occurred was from 52:45 - 52:52. Overall, I felt that the compression done on this title was very good. I watched the bit rate meter at times, and it fluctuated wildly, depending on picture content at the time.
Video artefacts were few and far between, but there was some minor aliasing present in a few shots, and this was particularly noted in some scenes showing the footlights only and in a few shots of the audience.

Audio

    Dialogue was essentially non-existant, so I will not comment on it. Some audible distortion is present at times, and some minor break-up in the sound is evident on a few occasions.

    There were no audio sync problems with the few tunes that were sung.

    The music was exciting, vibrant, and stirring. In short, I loved it!

    The surround channels were not used by this stereo soundtrack.

    The .1 channel was not specifically used, but the subwoofer often received signal to actively support the music.

Menu

Cast & Crew Biographies

    The video quality is acceptable, given the source.

    The audio quality is of acceptable quality given that it is a stereo source.

    The extras are very limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
28th January 1999