Bambaloo-Over the Moon (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Menu Animation & Audio Additional Footage-Jakes Makes (1) Additional Footage-Storytime - Noodle Beeps Music Video-Everything Around Us
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	59:45
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mark Barnard Colin Bromley
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Rachel Spratt André Eikmeier Angela Kelly Roslyn Oades
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	Dave McCormack

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Over The Moon is the second Bambaloo DVD release, and is very similar in content to the first disc Squeak, Squawk, Woof! As I stated in my previous review, "Bambaloo is an Australian made children's series, co-produced by the Jim Henson company. The basis for the story follows a group of characters that live together in a Bambaloo tree house - the owner Sam, Fidget the dog, Jet the fish and Portia the bird. All of the characters besides Sam are puppets, and the puppeteering is up to the well renowned standard of Jim Henson's team."

    Two episodes are included here, including regular segments such as Storytime, Make with Jake and Mailtime. The dancing and musical portions are very catchy and entertaining, with plenty of colour and action to keep kids interested.

    1. Jungle Japes (30:33) - Sam is worried when a friend invites her to perform a ballet, which she has never attempted before. Her friends help her to overcome her nervousness and she manages to gain some degree of confidence in time for the show.

    2. Fly Me To The Moon (29:12) - Sam and the animals suffer a terrible night's sleep, all because of Fidget the Dog's restlessness. Fidget likes to howl at the moon and as a result begins to ponder why dogs find the moon so fascinating.

Video

    This is an adequate video transfer for a recent television series. Bambaloo is broadcast in widescreen digital, and the transfer is presented likewise, at 1.78:1 with 16x9 enhancement.

    The picture is pleasantly sharp and exhibits a good level of detail. Most of the show is recorded in a studio environment, which is bright and very well lit at all times, so there are little to no dark scenes in the feature. There is no low level noise present in the transfer.

    The colour palette is always bold and bright, as you would expect for a children's program. Skin tones appeared true and there were no signs of bleeding or oversaturation in the transfer.

    There are some obvious MPEG compression issues, with noticeable macro blocking popping up during dissolves and fades between scenes. Interlacing problems are also present, but only become noticeable when there is fast motion on screen. I also noticed a few minor instances of aliasing, but again they weren't at all distracting. Being shot in widescreen digital means that no film artefacts were present in the transfer.

    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 audio track on the disc, Dolby Digital 2.0.

    Since the program was recorded in a controlled studio environment, the dialogue quality is very good. All of the character voices are easy to understand, in conversation and song - so kids of all ages shouldn't have a problem understanding the spoken word at all. There are absolutely no problems with audio sync in this transfer that I could see.

    The music of the series is very lively and positive. Besides the show's theme, there are many songs on the DVD that tie in with the plot of each episode. As with the previous disc, there are several musical contributions from Dave McCormack, formerly of Australian rock group Custard.

    The stereo soundtrack contains a good degree of depth and brings across the lively nature of this show well. The stereo soundfield is well used and contains many examples of wide panning, particularly during songs.

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

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    All menus are accompanied by music from the show. The nicely designed and cleverly animated menus do not contain a 16x9 enhancement flag.

Additional Segments (3)

    The menu pages contain many direct links to the songs and games within the feature, and these are misleadingly presented as 'extras'. Of all the various links to extras only three are genuine.

• Jakes Makes - Wild Guitar (3:28)
• Storytime - Noodle Beeps (4:40)
• Bonus Song - Everything Around Us (2:15)

    Bambaloo is a great television show for pre-school or early primary school kids, with lots of music, dancing, stories and games to keep them interested.

    The video transfer is good, but it suffers from some noticeable compression issues.

    The audio transfer does an adequate job presenting the many songs during the feature.

    A couple of small extras are included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall