Blondie-VideoHits

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	?
Running Time	21:55
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Various
Studio Distributor	Capitol Records EMI Music	Starring	Blondie
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$9.95	Music	Blondie

    This release is an abbreviated version of Blondie - Greatest Video Hits, featuring six of the thirteen tracks on that DVD. This is part of a low-budget series from EMI Music where for the recommended retail price of $9.95 you effectively get a sampler of a particular band or solo performer. Blondie of course are remembered as one of the few groups to appear in America in the late 1970s and remain popular over an extended period in the pop music arena. They had an individual sound, due mainly to lead singer Deborah Harry, but were not pigeonholed in a particular style. Everything from hard rock to reggae to rap music seems to have been an influence.

    In Australia they were quite popular even before they gained American success, thanks probably to a certain TV programme which screened on Sunday nights. And also thanks to Deborah Harry, who was quite easy on the eye - one should never underestimate this factor in the sphere of popular music. Or indeed unpopular music. In The Flesh was a big hit in about 1977, and was followed by a string of hits such that they could release a Best Of album as early as 1981.

    Having just six video clips running a little under 22 minutes on a DVD seems like short measure, even at this low price. I would think that anyone with an interest in this band would be better off with the Greatest Video Hits disc instead.

    Included on this disc are:

Video

    The video material is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    As you would expect, these old promotional clips don't look that good when compared to their current equivalents. There are all sorts of video artefacts, from loss of detail to false colour, flaring, comet trails and the like. They look like they were all shot on video, and colour quality is average. The transfers are quite sharp, all things considered, and it is difficult to imagine that better transfers are possible.

    No subtitles are provided. Not all of the lyrics are immediately intelligible, and this sort of omission always irritates me.

    So is there a layer change? Well, you could fit the material that's on this disc four times over on a single-layered disc and still have some room left over, so no, there isn't.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The sole audio track is Dolby Digital 2.0.

    The audio is good without being spectacular. All of the material sounds much as it would have sounded on television in the late 1970s or early 1980s. While the audio is not up to the quality of this material on CD, it is satisfactory for casual viewing. The song lyrics can be heard and are mostly intelligible. There is no hiss, and as the audio is stereo I expect that the original soundtracks were replaced with fresh copies of the original recordings at some stage - possibly when this material appeared on VHS. Either that or it was done for the original DVD release and the compression to Dolby Digital has degraded the music quality.

    These were promotional clips lip-synched to the original recordings, so audio sync varies as a result.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Audio and Animation

    The main menu is static but we do hear an extract from Atomic.

Menu Animation

    The scene selection menu is animated with visuals from each track but there is no audio.

    The content of the equivalent release in other regions is the same.

    Six video clips reasonably well transferred to DVD.

    The video quality is satisfactory.

    The audio quality is good.

    There are no extras of any substance.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall