Juvenile & UTP-Live from St Louis (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Additional Footage-Behind the scenes Gallery-Photo
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	59:53
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Charley Randazzo
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Juvenile UTP
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    I can only apologise to fans of the band up front for my brief coverage of this brief DVD, for I find it very difficult to say anything worthwhile about this disc. The constant expletives and repetitive beats are not my idea of quality music. Rap performers Juvenile and his band/collaborators UTP perform before a live audience in St. Louis. Whilst this is not my favourite genre of music, and I have never heard of the performers before, the crowd seem to be well into the performance and they clearly have some supportive fans.

    Apparently St. Louis is Juvenile's home town, so this set which is effectively his "greatest hits" is enthusiastically welcomed by the (seemingly largely female) audience. It is strange that so many women find the tunes so appealing, when there appears to be a heavy element of sexism (if not misogyny) in several of the songs.

    The DVD presents a relatively short musical set, with the following tracks available.

Video

    The overall video transfer of this disc is acceptable.

    The footage is presented full frame at 1.33:1 which I assume is the original aspect ratio. It is not therefore 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is free from film grain, and I am assuming it was shot originally on video. The transfer is slightly soft throughout and suffers from loss of focus from time to time. Shadow detail is pretty good but blacks suffer from frequent low-level noise. Colours are quite vivid due to the coloured lighting and clothing of the performers. Skin tones look fine.

    The transfer does have some MPEG artefacts and suffers from frequent pixelization of backgrounds. The image occasionally breaks up into a grainy mess (for example at 27:04). There is evidence of mild aliasing throughout, and particularly on the opening street scenes of St. Louis. Edge enhancement was apparent on occasion - particularly on the black T-shirt of one of the band members.

    The transfer is generally free from scratches and flecks.

    There are no subtitles present.

    This is a single layered, single sided disc (DVD 5).

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The overall audio quality of this disc is acceptable, but is difficult to listen to.

    There are two audio tracks available. I listened to the Dolby Digital 5.1 track (encoded at 448 kbps) in full and sampled the lesser Dolby Digital 2.0 track (encoded at 224 kbps). The 5.1 track provides more ambience, with the crowd's screaming placed appropriately in the surround channels.

    The lyrics were frequently indecipherable, but this is more due to the accents of the vocalists than the transfer. Audio sync was fine. There was some distortion evident but generally the audio transfer seems reasonable. My biggest personal gripe with the audio is how similar many of the tunes sound. Although occasionally catchy, there is a very repetitive feel to the set.

    The surround channels are used to provide a more enveloping soundstage, but it still sounded pretty frontal most of the time. The subwoofer is used to support the bass, but I was surprised at how meek it sounded overall, even when turned up past normal listening levels. I had expected a heavy bass beat, but instead the sound seemed to be focused on the vocals - perhaps this reflects my limited experience of hip-hop / rap music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are a few extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is functional, featuring an animated amorphous image backed by a loop of one of the band's tunes. It allows the selection of individual tracks, playing the concert, choice of audio track and the selection of the following extras:

Bonus Scenes

    Running for 15:21 this footage is a peek behind-the-scenes at the set-up of the concert, some chatting by the band and some quite catchy musical ditties. The opening song (with a sample from the Halloween soundtrack, if I'm not mistaken) is rather tuneful. The footage is presented in varying aspect ratios, both fullscreen (1.33:1) and letterboxed at 1.78:1 and displays frequent vertical scratches. These are so frequent that I suspect they have been added intentionally to provide a more "street" feel.

Photo Gallery

    This consists of a series of stills from the concert, played as a slide show running for 4:18 with musical backing from the band. Presented at 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps.

    This Region 4 disc appears to be identical to the Region 1 release.

    Juvenile & UTP - Live from St. Louis will probably be of interest to existing fans of the band, or to gangsta rap / hip-hop fans looking for something different. There is nothing remarkable about the band from what I could see, the performance covers what seem to be standard themes and the sound quality is not particularly impressive. There is some excessive swearing in the lyrics, so if you are easily offended or choose not to listen to frequent swearing, then you may wish to give this a miss. One for fans of the genre only.

    The video quality is acceptable.

    The audio quality is acceptable, but not overly impressive for a music DVD.

    There are a couple of extras available - just as well given the short run-time of the main feature.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall