Athens: 2004 Australian Olympic Highlights (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Sports	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	195:39
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (94:55)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	IOC Warner Vision	Starring	Ian Thorpe Grant Hackett Jodie Henry Petria Thomas Suzanne Balogh Ryan Bayley Brad McGee Stuart O'Grady Sara Carrigan James Tomkins Drew Ginn Chantelle Newbury Anna Meares
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    A couple of weeks ago I reviewed a DVD featuring a compilation of highlights from the Athens 2004 Olympics. That disc was an all-too-brief look at all the highlights of the 16 days of competition for all countries. I found it just too short to do justice to all the superb moments that occurred in the Greek capital during August 2004 and hoped something a little longer might be forthcoming.

    Well it has. Athens 2004 Australian Olympic Highlights is obviously dedicated to just Aussie performances in what was the most successful games ever for our country. Thankfully the running time has been stretched out considerably and this disc clocks in at just over three hours.

    The main difference between this disc and the shorter international version is this disc uses footage taken from the Seven Network footage that we saw while watching the games on television. As a result the Seven watermark logos, graphics, theme music and commentators are all present. This means you will have to make do with Bruce McAvaney commentating on the swimming and the track and some of the more annoying issues associated with having logos all over the place. While many will see these as disadvantages, it does mean we get to hear the doyen of cycling commentators, Phil Liggett, do his thing, which for me is rather excellent.

    The disc is broken down into each of the 16 days of competition (there are no opening or closing ceremony highlights), with each Australian medal performance shown. All of the gold medal events are shown (swimming and a couple of others get the full races, while the rest such as men's hockey get substantial highlights). The gold medallists also get coverage of their medal ceremonies. As a result, all the classic Aussie moments in the pool such as Ian Thorpe's 200m and 400m freestyle golds, Grant Hackett's 1500m gold, Jodie Henry claiming gold in the 100m free and the Aussie girls claiming the two relay golds are shown in full. Cycling obviously was the success story of the games for Australia and both of Ryan Bayley's gold medals, plus all the others are shown. Other highlights include the men's hockey gold, the diving gold of Chantelle Newbury and Suzanne Balogh's trap shooting gold. Other non-Australian medals do at least have some footage. Classic moments such as the men's 100m and 200m track events, the men's 1500m and 5000m track finals and the men's marathon are shown. Kiwi readers should note that other than Sarah Ulmer's track gold (against Aussie Katie MacTier), no New Zealand events or medals are covered.

    All up this is a worthy compilation of highlights that will provide a great document for years to come showing just how good the 2004 Australian Olympic team was.

    One small thing worth mentioning though is the rather misleading claim on the front cover. A rather large gold label proudly proclaims this programme as being presented by Ian Thorpe. Well, apart from a 30 second intro and a 10 second summary at the end, the only time Ian Thorpe is present is during his swimming events. All the other presentation is handled by a voice over from Seven host Matthew White.

Video

    As with the shorter-length Athens highlights disc, this one features a video transfer of almost identical specifications, but with a couple of major exceptions.

    Firstly, unlike the shorter disc, which relied on the footage from the host broadcaster feed, this disc is made up of footage taken after the Australian broadcaster, The Seven Network, had seen it. This means we get the channel Seven logo and watermark over everything, we get their Olympic promo and graphics over everything and as mentioned we also get their commentary over everything.

    The second problem is a little more of a cause for concern. Squeezing more than three hours of footage onto this disc has resulted in many compression artefacts popping up on occasion (see below for details).

    One of the more surprising things about the television broadcast of the 2004 Olympics was the fact it was shown in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. This was thought a little odd considering so much sport in this modern digital era is broadcast in the widescreen aspect of 1.78:1. Obviously the Seven network here in Australia had no choice but to accept the feed from the host Greek broadcasters whose decision it ultimately was to go with the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. One can only speculate on the reasons for it, but one guess would be the need to satisfy the requirements of viewers in more than 200 countries, with a large percentage of them having no widescreen or digital television access. As a result, the old style format would have more than kept the masses happy and is the aspect we have been forced to accept. Maybe by the time Beijing rolls around in 2008 we might see a shift to proper widescreen for the major sporting event in the world, but then again don't be surprised if we don't.

    As a result this video transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is excellent, with clean crisp and clear images and no blemishes of any sort in the source material. There are no dark scenes to trouble the shadow detail and grain is absent.

    The colours are well rendered and bright, with no bleeding evident. Skin tones are spot on.

    Unfortunately, compression artefacts appear almost constantly throughout the entire programme. Presumably trying to fit more than three hours of quite high resolution footage onto a dual layered disc has caused a few minor issues. Large complex areas such as the green grass of the field competition and the water in the pool are the main culprits, with blocking popping up here and there. It is a little annoying and quite obvious. Other artefacts are thankfully absent in what is a generally clean source image.

    There are no subtitle tracks present.

    This is obviously a dual layered disc with the layer change occurring at 94:55.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    As expected a fairly basic audio selection graces this disc, but though it may be only two channels it is extremely dynamic and rich in delivery.

    The sole soundtrack is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 effort.

    Though dialogue is pretty much all this is about, with a little music thrown in between the highlights, it is delivered in clear and dynamic fashion. Considerably wider in range and fidelity than was offered on television, this is two channel audio at its best.

    There is no surround or subwoofer use at all.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras.

    This disc is not available in Region 1.

   Athens 2004 Australian Olympic Highlights is the big brother disc to the lighter Athens 2004 Highlights disc. Whereas that disc tried a little unsuccessfully to squeeze 16 days of competition for all countries into one 60 minute programme, this one easily accounts for 16 days of competition from only Australian medallists, plus a few other selected highlights, in one three hour plus programme. All up that is a much better fit, with everything of note (for an Aussie supporter anyway) being covered.

    All up an excellent document of the most successful Australian Olympic games ever.

    The video is only average, marred by a little compression blocking.

    The two channel audio is among the best stereo offering I have ever heard.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall