BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	123:57	Other Extras	Menu Audio & Animation
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (59:37)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,3,4,5,6	Director	Marty Callner
Studio Distributor	HBO Warner Vision	Starring	Bette Midler
Case	Super Jewel
RPI	$39.95	Music	Bette Midler

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None	Dolby Digital	None
16x9 Enhancement	No	Soundtrack Languages	English (Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 , 1536Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, credits roll during the encore

    Bette Midler is a unique talent. Her talent spans a wide array of styles, beautifully showcased on this DVD of her 1997 live show, Diva Las Vegas. I am totally unaware of anyone else that could sing Macarthur Park whilst dressed in a mermaid suit and be taken seriously. A very large range of styles is on offer here, from the loud, bold, and brassy numbers that Bette Midler belts out as only she can, to her trademark ballads. From A Distance is absolutely stunning here, as is The Rose. The Rose, in particular, stunned me. It's a great song, but it has been done to death by virtually every female vocalist on the planet. Remarkably, Bette makes it sound fresh and vibrant again, something which I did not think was possible.

    If you have any interest in Bette Midler at all, I can highly recommend this performance to you - you won't be disappointed. The tracklisting is as follows;
 

1. Viva Las Vegas 2. Opening Fanfare 3. Friends 4. I Look Good 5. Miss Otis Regrets 6. Las Vegas 7. Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most 8. Bed Of Roses 9. The First Wive's Club 10. You Don't Own Me 11. The 70's 12. The Rose 13. Burlesque - Pretty Legs (& Great Big Knockers) 14. Burlesque - Rose's Turn

15. Las Vegas Interlude 16. Drinkin' Again/MacArthur Park/Infomercial/Call Me 17. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy 18. Bigotry/Bridge Over Troubled Waters/In The Navy/The Greatest Love Of All 19. New York. New York 20. Ukelele Lady 21. From A Distance 22. Do You Wanna Dance 23. To Comfort You 24. Stay With Me 25. Wind Beneath My Winds 26. Cast Introductions 27. The Story Of Us and Closing Credits

Video

    This transfer was generally quite sharp and nicely defined, particularly in close-up. Some of the distant shots were marginally lacking in detail, but this really was a minor problem. On occasion, this transfer had some minor problems with blacks, with blacks often not being deeply black, but rather a very dark grey. It was unclear whether or not this was a lighting issue or a transfer issue, but I was inclined to blame a specific camera for this as it seemed to come and go, often quite abruptly. Because of this minor black level issue, shadow detail was subsequently not quite as good as it could have been. There was, fortunately, no low level noise in the transfer to mar the blacks and the not-quite-blacks.

    The colours were typical of a live production; vibrant and highly saturated at times, and muted at other times. As with many live productions, there are a number of heavily blue-lit sequences which fortunately exhibit no chroma noise at all, and there is certainly no colour bleeding marring the image at all.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen in this transfer, as you would rightly expect given that only around 60 minutes of programming is encoded onto each layer of this DVD. This is a music DVD done properly, with no signs of overcompression at all. There were no video artefacts seen at any stage.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change occurring at 59:37, which is in Chapter 14. This is mid-sequence, and is quite noticeable. It is actually quite a surprising placement, as the end of Act One of the show is a bare few minutes after this point, and would have been a much better place for the layer change to be placed.

Audio

    The sound was a tad problematic for the first few songs, but quickly settled down to be a superb, fundamentally stereo, soundtrack. There were a few minor audio dropouts between 66:14 and 66:15, and the occasional pop was heard from the soundtrack due to the live nature of the recording.

    Early on, Bette Midler's vocals were very up-front and disconnected from the musical accompaniment. This may sound strange, but they sounded both too loud and too soft at the same time. They were also very slightly distorted. Fortunately, the overall mix improved substantially as this DVD progressed, and the sound was superb from Track 8, Bed Of Roses, onwards with Bette's vocals being far more distinct and well-integrated into the overall sound mix by this point in the programme.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The surround channel had very little to do. Compared with the strong front channel information, there was little signal presented to the surrounds. The only noticeable surround activity occurred whilst Bette was chatting with the crowd, when some subtle vocal reverberation could be heard in the rears. I listened directly to the rear speakers during one of the full-on vocal numbers, and can verify that there was some signal emanating from the rears, but this was at such a low level that nothing was audible in the central listening position.

    The .1 channel was not specifically encoded. However, signal was diverted to the subwoofer by my processor when appropriate. The first few numbers were a tad bass-light, but this improved as the programme went on.

Menu

Menu Audio & Animation

    The video quality is very good, with only some minor black level lapses.

    The audio quality is good, apart from the early numbers.

    There were virtually no extras.
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (read my bio)
8th July 2000