Faith Hill-Cry (DVD-Audio) (2002) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Booklet Featurette-Studio Sessions Featurette-Photo Sessions Music Video-Cry Featurette-Conversation With Faith Hill Web Links Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	60:37
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Byron Gallimore Marti Frederiksen Dann Huff Faith Hill
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Faith Hill
Case	DVD-Audio Jewel
RPI	$32.95	Music	Various

    Welcome to another immensely successful country-to-pop crossover album from Grammy award winner Faith Hill.

    Born in 1967, Audrey Faith Perry grew up in the appropriately-named small town of Star. Her first album, Take Me As I Am, quickly established her as one of the hottest new female country singers. After a string of Top Ten hits and millions of copies of her albums, she made the gradual transition to pop - initially with the album Faith, followed by Breathe, and the journey is finally complete with the latest album Cry, released late last year.

    Cry is about as far away from Nashville and the twang of guitars as you can imagine: this is a very slick, listenable and high gloss production that is designed for maximum appeal. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the album became an instant chart success and Faith even won a Grammy - curiously for "Best Female Country Performance."

    The album is a mixture of catchy pop tunes and ballads that hint at Faith's country roots. It makes an excellent DVD-Audio demo disc - not so much due to the audio quality (which, although excellent, I had a few minor issues with) but because it is a shining example that DVD-Audio releases don't have to be boring reissues from the 1970s.

Video

    Like most of the Warner DVD-Audio discs released to date, the video content on this disc is in full frame NTSC. We get one photo still per song that includes the song title.

Audio

    This is one of the newer batch of titles from Warner corresponding to the DVD-Audio Version 1.1 specifications, which means you can select between the MLP 5.1 and MLP 2.0 tracks using the Audio button on your player instead of fiddling around with Groups. Yay!

    We get a full complement of audio tracks on both DVD-A and DVD-V sections of a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL).

    The audio tracks on the DVD-Audio portion of the disc are:

• MLP 5.1 96/24
• MLP 2.0 96/24
• dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s) (available as Group 6)

    The audio tracks on the DVD-Video portion of the disc are:

• Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s)
• dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s)

    Stereo listeners get slightly short-changed: a DVD-A MLP 2.0 192/24 or DVD-V Linear PCM 2.0 96/24 track would have been nicer. So, if you are a stereo listener and want to listen to high resolution, you'd better have a DVD Audio player!

    First of all, I listened to the MLP 2.0 track in its entirety. As I would have expected from such a recent recording, the recording quality is superb from a resolution and frequency response perspective. Faith's voice comes through crystal clear with no trace of harshness or over-sibilance. Likewise, all the other instruments are well defined and sound crisp and clear.

    In comparison, the Dolby Digital 2.0 track sounds somewhat harsher and with greater sibilance in the vocals, though it is still an excellent sounding track by Dolby Digital standards as it is recorded at a higher bitrate (448Kb/s) normally reserved for multi-channel audio tracks.

    My only complaint with both stereo tracks is that the soundstage is rather shallow, often resulting in a "wall of sound" type imaging. I suspect this is inherent in the mixing technique from the original multi-track masters but I would have preferred a deeper soundstage.

    The MLP 5.1 audio track significantly deepens the soundstage as you might expect, but also diffuses the imaging. Faith's voice is mixed mainly to the front left and right channels, but also across to the other channels (at reduced volume) creating a enveloping but somewhat disembodied presence. There is some discrete positioning of instruments to rear speakers.

    The full bitrate dts 5.1 audio track (1536Kb/s) on the DVD Video part of the side sounds like a duller and more muffled version of the MLP track. However, unlike the Dolby Digital track, it does not sound harsh. I don't think you will notice any differences unless you compare the tracks side by side. For some reason, Faith's vocals seems a little more front-centric on the dts track than on the MLP track.

    Finally, the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track (448Kb/s) restores the brightness to the mix but sounds harsher than the dts track.

    Funnily enough, there is a high pitched sound reminiscent of a electronic "beep" or bell around 0:44 into Track 2 (Cry). I don't know whether this is an intentional sound, but it sounds rather annoying in Dolby Digital 2.0 and only mildly irritating in MLP 2.0. Funnily, on the dts 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks, the sound is barely audible.

    The LFE channel appears to be silent.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The extras are exactly the same no matter which part of the disc you select (DVD Audio or Video) which means there are two copies of everything (well, in reality maybe just the one as it is possible that both DVD Audio and Video portions can link to the same content on the disc).

Booklet

    This is a full colour glossy 16 page booklet that includes colour photographs, lyrics, credits and dedications.

Featurette-Studio Sessions (4:20)

    This is a featurette presented in a combination of full frame and 1.66:1 letterboxed and Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s). It has a number of interviews taken at the recording studio, including:

• Faith Hill
• Dann Huff (producer)
• Byron Gallimore (producer)

Featurette-Photo Sessions (1:46)

    This is a featurette presented in a combination of full frame and 1.66:1 letterboxed and Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s). It shows Faith being photographed for the album cover.

Music Video-Cry (3:54)

    This is presented in 1.78:1 letterboxed and Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s).

Featurette-Conversation With Faith Hill (4:03)

    This is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s). It has Faith talking about the making of the Cry music video. The audio track includes a number of instances of clipping distortion.

Web Links

    This is a single still containing instructions on how to access the web links on DVD-ROM (a single HTML file with 3 URL links and background image). It also includes the same URLs on screen just in case you don't have a PC with a DVD drive.

Credits

    This is a set of two stills listing the DVD Audio and extras production team.

    This disc appears to be identically featured across all regions.

    Faith Hill - Cry is a great contemporary pop album from a singer with country roots.

    This disc contains a full selection of audio tracks, including MLP 96/24 5.1, MLP 96/24 2.0 and dts 5.1 on the DVD Audio portion, plus full bitrate dts 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 on the DVD-Video portion. The quality of the audio is excellent although the multi-channel tracks sounded a bit diffuse in the imaging and the soundstage on the stereo tracks somewhat two dimensional.

    The extras include a number of featurettes.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall