REO Speedwagon-Live Plus (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Game-REO Home Game Discography Biographies-Cast Web Links Interviews-Cast-11 DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	?
Running Time	65:35
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Kenneth Botelho
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Neal Doughty Kevin Cronin Bruce Hall Dave Amato Bryan Hitt
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    Please note that this is another NTSC format disc. If you don't have an NTSC capable display device or a DVD player capable of NTSC to PAL conversion then you might just as well stop reading here as you won't be able to watch this disc.

    The performance captured on this disc is REO Speedwagon's live performance in September 2000 at the St Louis Riverport Amphitheatre. The line-up of the band for this performance was Kevin Cronin as lead vocalist and playing rhythm guitar, Neal Doughty on keyboards, Bruce Hall on bass guitar and backup vocals, Dave Amato on lead guitar and backup vocals and Bryan Hitt on Drums. They provide us with renditions of some of the band's best known and other, not so well known songs, with the set lasting just over an hour.

    The band, which has been around for just over 30 years, has produced 20 albums and has had 13 Top 40 singles, including two number one hits. It has also been the source of some controversy with the current band line-up coming in for some criticism after some of the previous members left the group. Neal Doughty and Kevin Cronin comment on this point in one of the interviews that is included in the extras and you can find the whole chronology of who was in the group at any given point in time on their website at http://www.speedwagon.com/

Video

    Expect for very frequent aliasing and some edge enhancement, the transfer is quite good.

    This NTSC transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is therefore not 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness and shadow detail are both quite adequate. Edge enhancement is noted quite frequently although it is mostly not severe enough to be distracting.

    As expected for a rock concert, there is lots of colour which is mainly generated by the stage lighting. This looks quite vivid and realistic although it does tend to affect the naturalness of the skin tones by giving these a cast which is consistent with the lighting colour in use at the time.

    No MPEG artefacts or film artefacts were noted. Film to video artefacts consisted mainly of aliasing of which there were very many examples although these were mostly of a fairly minor nature. In general, you could pretty much look at any of the guitars and see aliasing on the edges of the instrument or on the strings.

    No subtitles are provided.

    As this is a single layered disc, there is no layer change to disrupt the concert.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Overall, this is a good audio track which faithfully captures the live feel of the performance.

    Two audio tracks are provided with the 2 channel track being the default.. I listened to the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio from beginning to end and made a number of short comparative samples of the Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded track. Without a doubt the 5.1 track is consistently better than the 2.0 track which sounds quite flat by comparison, lacking both the bass response and surround quality and frequency response provided by the 5.1 track. The 2.0 audio also appears to have been mastered at a slightly lower level than the 5.1 track.

    Kevin Cronin addresses the audience briefly on a couple of occasions and at these times his words are perfectly clear. With regards to the singing, it is true to say that not every word is enunciated well enough that all the lyrics can be understood, however this is consistent with the band's style rather than being a problem with the transfer.

    There were no apparent problems with the audio sync.

     The band performs 13 songs which have been recorded live. Fans will no doubt be familiar with all of these, however even those of us who are not fans will recognise some of their biggest hits including Can't Fight This Feeling and Keep On Loving You.

    The surrounds are used continuously, primarily to duplicate the acoustics of the live venue and this is achieved quite well.

    The subwoofer is used as expected in support of the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The disc contains a number of extras that will be appreciated by fans of the band. All are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The various text screens which make up the extras appear to be slightly out of focus.

Menu

    The menu, which features both animation and Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded audio, is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is therefore not 16x9 enhanced.

Game-REO Home Game

    This is trivia game and contains 50 multiple choice questions and answers about the band. If you want to know what REO stands for, this is the place to find out.

Discography

    A listing of all the band's albums from 1971 to 2000.

Biographies-Cast

    Four pages of text containing a brief history of the band.

Web Links

    Insert this disc in your drive and of course it wants to install interActual Player 2.0. Before it will install, it wants all your personal information including an address, telephone number and email address. The good news is that you can fill in any old junk in the required fields and it will accept it. Once installed it makes itself the default application to play DVDs. You can avoid all this and browse directly to the to web links provided on the disc: http://www.speedwagon.com/ and http://www.sanctuaryrecordsgroup.com/ . Now all I've got to do is uninstall the wretched thing.

Interviews-Cast-11

    A selection of 11 short interviews with Kevin Cronin and Neal Doughty that cover such topics as History of REO, Musical Influences and Kevin's Start As a Singer/Songwriter. In total these run for 20:07. Sharpness is lacking in all these clips.

DVD Credits

    This is an all-region NTSC disc so whether you buy it here or somewhere else you'll end up with the exact same content.

    REO Speedwagon Live Plus, was for me (considering that I'm not particularly familiar with the band), an interesting introduction to their music and certainly an opportunity to enjoy again those particular hits with which I am familiar.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are satisfactory.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall