Cliff Richard-Live: Castles in the Air (2004)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Documentary Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	131:16
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Cliff Richard Cilla Black
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This release from Sir Cliff Richard was recorded live at Leeds Castle in England, with a nice informal look at Leeds Castle before the concert. Cliff is perfectly at home up in front of his audience in this wonderful concert. It is beautifully choreographed and the Jive dance group on stage do an amazing job of keeping the audience wanting to see more. The music is as spectacular as always - Cliff Richard is the perennial performer. I swear he doesn't seem to be ageing at the same rate as the rest of us.

     This concert was an absolute treat to watch. Set with the backdrop of Leeds Castle it just looked magical as the late afternoon turned into evening. The audience was obviously enthralled by the whole spectacle and I am sure they will remember it for a long, long time.

Video

    This transfer is OK for displays up to 42" in size but tends to show too many faults at larger screen sizes.

    The transfer is mastered at an aspect ratio of 1.75:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    There are some flaws in the transfer in the supporting material, such as the lead-in look at Leeds Castle. As for the concert video itself, it suffers from MPEG compression artefacts and there is definite aliasing noticeable on the scaffolding around the stage. There is a lack of shadow detail and near the end of the show when Cliff is escorted back to his dressing room there is a lot of grain present.

    There is a lot of colour bleeding to be seen throughout the concert, exacerbated by the coloured spotlighting used.

    There were no film or other video artefacts present.

    The layer change occurs at 53:22 and is cleverly concealed in a fade to black screen during the intermission. The only thing I noticed was a slight disturbance in the audio at the layer change to indicate that it had occurred.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    This is a very nice audio transfer, offering an immersive sound field that correctly apportions the concert and audience sounds so that you are made to feel as though you are actually sitting in the audience.

    There are three audio tracks available on this DVD; English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s), English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), and English DTS 5.1 (768Kb/s). I listened to all three tracks with my favourite being the DTS soundtrack. The DTS track was the most immersive of the three offerings.

    I did not notice any dialogue or audio sync slips. There were no crackles, pops or hissing in the audio.

    The music on offer in this concert is very much like a Cliff Richard anthology. We are lead on a musical journey spanning Cliff Richard's career from the early days when he was influenced by American Rock and Roll sounds through to his latest releases.

    The surround channels were used extensively but were mostly restricted to audience sounds, hence they imparted a feeling that you were actually part of the audience.

    There was nice use of the subwoofer without it becoming boomy and overpowering.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu Animation & Audio

    The main menu is animated behind a still shot of Cliff Richard and Leeds Castle and is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. A short segment of the song Good Golly Miss Molly plays as underscore, synced with the background video. The main menu offers the following selections:

• Play All - As this infers this selection starts the playback of the entire DVD starting with the Leeds Castle documentary.
• Play Concert - Starts playback at the start of the actual concert.
• Play Documentary - Only plays the Leeds Castle documentary
• Song Selection - Takes you to a submenu containing a listing of all the concert songs. When a song is selected from this submenu you are taken to that point in the concert.
• Website - gives direction on how to access the Cliff Richard website on the internet.
• Audio Setup - Allows you to select one of three options: DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, or Stereo.

    I have not seen the R1 version of this DVD but doing a search on the 'net does not show any differences between R4 and R1 so I will favour R4 for the PAL transfer which I believe will handle the colours better under the stage spot lighting, but I will add that this is only a personal preference without actually having viewed the R1 version.

    This is a wonderful Cliff Richard concert, well worth watching, and if you are a fan of Sir Cliff then you will undoubtedly be happy with this purchase.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall