Hairy Maclary-10 Favourite Stories (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Main Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	49:37
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Evan Frizzell
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Miranda Harcourt
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Peter Haeder

    Ask any primary school librarian which is the most popular popular book on their shelves and they're bound to tell you Hairy Maclary. This classic series of children's books by Lynley Dodd was translated into an animated series back in 1996 and until now has only been available on VHS. The series of tales follows a group of friendly dogs that wander around the towns and countryside of New Zealand.

    The ten episodes on this disc have a runtime of roughly five minutes each and are titled as follows:

    The animation is true to the children's books and quite simple. Some excellent narration by Miranda Harcourt is also included, and makes the series of animated shorts great family viewing.

Video

    This video transfer is presented at an aspect of 1.33:1.

    The animation is nice and sharp, with plenty of visible detail. The transfer itself is bright and vibrant and very easy on the eyes. Colours are bold and well rendered, with no bleeding issues.

    There are no compression issues to be concerned about and aliasing is similarly absent. The smooth animation presents a few jagged edges now and then but it is not at all distracting.

    There are no subtitles on this single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack on this disc, presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and encoded at 224Kb/s.

    The narration is always distinct and easy to understand. Sound effects and the like appear to be correctly synchronised with the video and don't present any problems at all.

    The soundtrack music by Peter Haeder is melodic and playful and complements the nature of the stories well. I didn't notice any real examples of panning across the stereo field - in fact, the soundtrack had a decidedly mono feel at times.

    There was obviously no surround activity or subwoofer response in this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    None to speak of. The ten episodes are all we get on this disc.

Menu

    The menu page is static and includes direct access to each episode, with an audio clip of the theme music looping in the background. The menu is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The video transfer is colourful and easy on the eyes, with very few issues of concern.

    The audio transfer isn't very lively, but does the job.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall