Love Song Dedications-Volume 3 (2003)

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    Music compilation discs are always popular, especially at this time of year, when they make excellent Christmas presents for the music fan who has everything. Unfortunately, quite often the actual track selection leaves a lot to be desired with seemingly random tracks just thrown on in any order. Thankfully this selection revolves around a theme - that being they are all some of the most oft requested love songs. The second good thing about the collection on this disc is that they were not put together by some 'marketing' expert with little regard for the actual music, but were rather effectively compiled by the listeners on Richard Mercer's night time show on one of the Mix radio stations. Mercer is proclaimed in the sleeve notes of this disc as 'The Love God', and these songs have been requested by his listeners as signs of love, life, and relationships. They are songs that say something according to Mercer and all have lyrics that connect with people. They are all pretty well in the safe mainstream mould, but they do represent easy and pleasant listening.

    So just what do we get in this collection? Well, they cover a pretty wide period of time, starting with the 1983 Cyndi Lauper classic Time After Time and working through the next twenty years to everybody's favourite of the moment, Delta Goodrem, with Born To Try. In between there are the likes of Atomic Kitten with Whole Again, Gabrielle's Out Of Reach, You Gotta Be by Des'Ree, and Crush by Jennifer Paige. One of my all-time favourites in the under-rated Sway by Kiwi Bic Runga is there, as well as the smooth and wistful Even When I'm Sleeping by Aussie's Leonardo's Bride. There's also a couple of tracks that will provoke some argument about their merits and have some instantly reaching for the remote. For me it's tracks like The Power Of Love by Celine Dion (not the original Jennifer Rush version - thank god for small mercies), or the 1985 mega-hit for Whitney Houston in The Greatest Love Of All.

    All up this is a pretty solid listing of 25 tracks. My wife loved it and I guess that is the important thing.

    The full track listing is:

Video

    The individual video clips are of a mixed vintage, ranging from 1983's Time After Time to Delta Goodrem's Born To Try from 2003. The couple of 1980s tracks are pretty fuzzy (Time After Time and Greatest Love Of All), with the former exhibiting plenty of grain. The material from the last few years has scrubbed up quite well. Some are presented in a widescreen aspect ratio, others are in the original 1.33:1 aspect, but none of them are 16x9 enhanced. Grain is mostly absent across the board (except for the Cyndi Lauper track) and shadow detail is handled well. Colours are well rendered, with no real problems to report.

    I saw no MPEG artefacts. There is a little shimmer on a couple of surfaces during Atomic Kitten's Whole Again and Gabrielle's Out Of Reach, but other than that these are pretty well all clear of any artefacts.

    There are unfortunately no subtitles for you to sing along to.

    This is a single layered disc only so there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio soundtrack on this disc. It is a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at a bitrate of 384 Kb/s.

    Compared with some Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks I have previously experienced for video compilations this one is quite good. It's a solid performer, with some great low range and clear and concise vocals. Cranking it up really loud provided clean and powerful separation across both speakers with no signs of any hiss or distortion. This is virtually CD quality and you really can't ask for much more than that.

    There is no surround channel or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras on this disc.

    This disc is not available in Region 1.

    Thankfully this is a music video compilation disc that follows a theme. Unlike a few of the previous Sony Music titles I have reviewed, which just appeared to be a set of songs that were laying around all thrown together in haphazard order, this set features songs all chosen for a reason - they are all love songs. The quality and mix of artists presented here will appeal to many.

    The video and audio quality of the DVD content is excellent with few faults.

    With some twenty five songs, this is a very good value-for-money product, and a great Christmas gift idea.

Video
Audio
Extras
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Overall