Teletubbies-Meet the Teletubbies (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Menu Animation & Audio Bonus Episode-Teletubbies Everywhere Featurette-Talking About Teletubbies - Parents' View Game-Jigsaw, Whose Favourite Thing Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	61:43
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Vic Finch David Hiller
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Rolf Saxon John Simmit Nikky Smedley Pui Fan Lee Tim Whitnall Sandra Dickinson Jessica Smith Rudolph Walker Alex Pascall Penelope Keith
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Andrew McCrorie-Shand

    Teletubbies is a children's program produced by the BBC that has now been in production for over six years. The series follows four lovable, colourful aliens - the purple Tinky Winky, green Dipsy, yellow Laa-laa and the red Po. Each of the characters are unique in a certain way and are defined as individuals. This makes for great familiarity with young children and is likely to encourage open-mindedness when it comes to foreign cultures and customs. The cover slick informs us that portions of this DVD were previously released as Here Come The Teletubbies, which I have not personally seen.

    The feature on this DVD is a compilation of ten minute episodes strung together to form an hour long program. In the short adventures on this DVD we see the Teletubbies discover a big puddle, make copious amounts of Tubby toast and Tinky Winky solves the mystery of who spilled the Tubby custard. There are a number of interesting live action sequences included, as well as nursery rhymes and games involving shapes and colours.

    My toddler loves the Teletubbies and found the long run-time to be no problem at all. The bright, bold colours and many rude noises kept her entertained for an extended period and even gained a loud chuckle now and then, so I would certainly say that the show has her utmost approval and would be the ideal way to introduce the Teletubbies to young kids of preschool age and under.

Video

    The feature is presented in an aspect of 1.33:1, full frame.

    The level of sharpness is not the best I have seen from a new television series, but is adequate for a children's program. The entire program is very bright and well lit with virtually no dark scenes to speak of. There are no problems with low level noise in this video transfer.

    Colours are of the brightest and boldest variety in this series. My toddler was mesmerised by the constant variances in bold, bright colours and the action on screen. The bright colouring did not lend itself to any bleeding or oversaturation of any kind.

    MPEG artefacting popped up intermittently, most often around picture fades and dissolves. These instances only resulted in some slight blocking for a few seconds and were certainly not too noticeable. Moments of aliasing were only very mild and similarly unobtrusive.

    There are English subtitles available for the Hard of Hearing. In fact, they were activated by default on my Pioneer player. The font is very easy to read and is paced well with the dialogue and noises on screen.

    This disc is DVD5 formatted, and doesn't contain a layer transition.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio stream on this DVD, a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix encoded at 192Kb/s.

    The voices and characterisations of the series are always easy to discern, however I did find it difficult to understand their babyish dialect at times. There are a few sentences of narration during the feature and these moments are the easiest to understand by far. There are no issues with audio sync at all.

    There are many examples of panning within the stereo field, most of all at 46:00 as the Tubby Toast flies across screen.

    The soundtrack score is wistful and electronic. I noted that the music on this disc seemed a lot more varied and pronounced than on the previous Teletubbies disc I reviewed.

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

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The disc includes a couple of little extras, all of which have the same audio and video specifications as the feature.

Menu

    The main and scene selection menus are cleverly animated with the Teletubbies characters, accompanied by some simple sounds and effects. The feature plays automatically after two rotations of the main menu. The menu system is not 16x9 enhanced.

Games (2)

    Two games are included, playable via your remote control. These include a jigsaw puzzle and My Favourite Things. These are very simple and should prove entertaining to the average toddler, although some dexterity is required when it comes to using the remote control.

Bonus Episode - Teletubbies Everywhere (10:04)

    This short episode features more colourful counting from the four friends, as well as a trip to a carnival. English subtitles are available here also, but don't translate a large amount of French dialogue.

Featurette - Talking About Teletubbies - Parent's View (7:28)

    In a vox-pop style of interviewing, an assortment of Mums discuss their children's reaction to the series and what they think makes these characters appealing to kids. There are English subtitles available, but sadly no input from Dads at all.

DVD-ROM Content

    This disc includes Interactual software and features a link to the official Teletubbies webpage.

    This DVD is not currently available in Region 1, however this title appears to be identical to the Region 2 release.

    Teletubbies is a colourful, entertaining program for children. Meet The Teletubbies is an ideal disc with which to introduce these characters to a child. My toddler certainly gives it the thumbs-up!

    The video transfer is bright and colourful, with only some minor compression issues.

    The audio transfer is generally problem free.

    There are a couple of little extras included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall