Mariah Carey-#1's (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Biographies-Cast Music Video-Heartbreaker (Remix)
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	73:58
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Various
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	Mariah Carey
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$29.95	Music	Mariah Carey

    This disc opens with a good intro sequence featuring various video clips from the disc, set to the song My All. Mariah Carey then briefly talks about her music and what it has meant to her.

    At the end of each song, Mariah Carey talks about the next song on the disc. These narratives are usually around 30 seconds in duration.

    For those people who haven't seen many or any of Mariah Carey's video clips (like myself), I would strongly recommend you keep it that way, as she mostly flaunts those large breasts of hers, and shows off her body in various tight-fitting outfits. This may sound great, but for me it just seemed cheap and tacky. If you want to get an idea of what I'm talking about without having to buy the DVD, just have a look at the DVD cover.

    For me, this disc has tarnished my image of Mariah Carey somewhat. I guess we all have to lose our illusions at some point.

    The songs included on this DVD are:

Video

    The transfer is presented in a non-16x9 enhanced format. There are four video clips presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, with the rest being 4x3 (1.33:1). All interview sequences with Mariah are presented at 1.33:1.

    The picture is extremely clear, and the sharpness is very good for most of this disc. Most of the more noticeable problems with this transfer occurred during the live performance video clips. The close-ups of Mariah are fine, but I felt the wider, more distant shots of the stage were lacking in a little detail. There is also some red edge bleeding present in I'll Be There and Someday, which is probably caused by the stage lights rather than being a transfer problem. I checked these instances of low detail and red edge bleeding on my TV to confirm that my projector wasn't causing them, but alas, they were still present, just not as obviously. Excessive edge enhancement can also be seen on several occasions but it is not overly detrimental to the picture quality.

    There is no low-level noise present, except in One Sweet Day where footage from a hand-held video camera has been used. Shadow detail is excellent throughout.

    The colour, well what can I say, it is excellent - beautifully saturated, rich and vibrant, whilst keeping skin tones natural.

    Surprisingly, the Money, I Don't Want To Cry and Dreamlover video clips have a couple of small black film-like artefacts, though nothing of any real significance.

    Apart from the introductory scene, I did not notice any aliasing, although when viewing a non-16x9 enhanced picture at 90” the line structure of the image becomes apparent, which hinders spotting any minor occurrences of aliasing.

Individual Video Clip Quality Ratings

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two English audio tracks on this DVD; Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 1536Kb/s and Dolby Digital 5.1 448Kb/s. The default is the Linear PCM soundtrack, but I listened to the Dolby Digital 448Kb/s soundtrack.

    The vocals are extremely clear and easy to understand throughout the entire disc.

    No audio sync problems were noticed with this transfer. There are a couple of instances where Mariah is not actually singing the words and thus the sound does not match the picture, but this not a transfer problem.

    The song Dreamlover has a low but audible click running through it. This click comes and goes with the flow of the music. The PCM soundtrack also contains this clicking, so I have concluded that it was probably in the original soundtrack material. Regardless of where it has come from, it does degrade the audio quality of this video clip.

    The overall use of the surround channels is disappointing, even though there is plenty of sound continually coming from the surround speakers. The entire disc suffers from being a front-heavy mix. Only once was I actually aware of the presence of the surround channels.

    The .1 LFE channel is continually used to subtly enhance the bass of all the songs without disrupting the overall sound balance.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Biography

Video Clip - Heartbreaker

    The video quality is very, very good, and only just falls short of being reference quality.

    The audio transfer is very good.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall