AFL-Sensational Seventies

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General		Extras
Category	Sports	Menu Animation & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	?
Running Time	106:58 (Case: 108)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Aust. Football Video Visual Entertainment Group	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$32.95	Music	None Given

    Just watching the vintage footage you can get a feel for how far the game has come in 30 years. The players today are just simply more skilful and disciplined, and the game is far more free-flowing and easier to watch. What hasn't changed is some of the amazingly athletic marks and hard knocks. In fact, there are so many hard knocks I am not sure how anyone survived playing footy back then. Each season has a highlights package of the best marks and the worst brawls (of which there are many indeed).

    The highlights of each season include:

    1970: Showing classic footage of Ted Whitten giving a pep talk to his team before the final quarter.

    1971: Vintage highlights of Peter Hudson and Peter Knights, and the many brutal tackles.

    1972: A mad spectator attacking the umpire on the ground after the siren.

    1973: Trial by video introduced, resulting in an obvious increase in the number of reports (the way these guys flung their fists around back then it is no wonder they introduced this concept).

    1974: The infamous Windy Hill brawl that had the police cite a number of team staff and players.

    1975: Introduction of colour broadcasts of football matches, and the tragic bump that left Neil Sackse a quadraplegic.

    1976: Introduction of the 2-umpire system, which resulted in some confusing chaos during early games.

    1977: Malcolm Blight kicking a huge torpedo punt to win the game after the siren, and the famous drawn Grand Final between Collingwood and North Melbourne.

    1978: Highest ever score by Footscray, kicking 213 points against St Kilda.

    1979: The classic footy theme song "Up There Cazaly" was introduced by Channel 7.

    The feature does get a little tedious towards the end - you can only watch so much of guys giving each other clotheslines during a game and decking each other. The vintage footage of players such as Barry Cable, Alex Jesaulenko, Peter Hudson, Peter Knights, Malcolm Blight and the interviews with coaches such as Ron Barassi are still great to watch. It's great to know that football has come so far, and it's these players and coaches that we have to thank for that.

Video

    When the disc is inserted, a disclaimer is shown proclaiming that the best efforts were made to provide satisfactory video quality, but due to the age of the footage, some deterioration has occurred. The lack of quality is evident throughout this feature, but is still acceptable for its age.

    Since we're talking about footage from the 1970's before the introduction of live colour broadcasts, all of the footage from the early 1970s is in black and white. The footage is also a little soft and grainy, with some sections displaying a significant number of black and white flecks. Black levels are not too bad though, although they do appear a little grey on a few occasions.

    When the colour footage starts, it is amazing what depth a little colour provides. I found it a little hard to orientate myself when watching the players on the ground during the black and white footage,  but for some reason colour provides an extra dimension. The colours do appear a little muted at times (particularly during the interview segments between seasons), but on some occasions the colour of the guernseys also appears to be oversaturated and colour bleeding is evident.

    There were no MPEG artefacts that I could detect, and no aliasing or edge enhancement. No subtitles are provided.

    This is a single layered disc and thus has no layer transition.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    An English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kb/s) soundtrack is provided that is satisfactory.

    The feature is a television programme taken from the early 1980's and so the sound quality is not great. The commentary sounds a little muffled and hollow at times, but is suitable for simple commentary.

    The actual audio from the commentators during the game is quite a deal worse, with the speech hard to hear on many occasions. The music throughout the feature appears to change with the times. The music begins with traditional guitar music in the early 1970's and transitions to a more disco style of music towards the end. I thought the use of the Rocky theme song a little amusing (not the famous opening score by Alan Silvestri).

    There is no surround or subwoofer usage throughout the feature.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu Animation & Audio

    Traditional guitar music (very hippy 70's type) and football highlights are shown when viewing the main menu.

Ladders of the 70s

    Provides the ladders at the end of each season. Good for all the trivia buffs out there.

   Sensational Seventies is a great bit of football history, and should be in every football fan's DVD collection. The marks are amazing, and the tackles and brawls totally brutal. Football has certainly changed a lot since the 1970's, but the foundation that the players and coaches of this era laid has enabled the game to be so great today. Go out and get it footy fans.

    The video quality is satisfactory for the age of the footage.

    The sound quality is satisfactory for the age of the source.

    The extras are nothing to write home about unless you're into memorising league ladders.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall