The Who-Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970: Special Edition (1970)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Bonus Track-Substitute, Naked Eye (Previously Unseen) Interviews-Cast-Pete Townshend
Rating
Year Of Production	1970
Running Time	85:17 (Case: 134)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (61:11)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Murray Lerner
Studio Distributor	Rajon Vision	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/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	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    This great slice of rock history has been previously released on Region 4 DVD. You can read the original review here. This new issue is a huge upgrade over the original release. The main differences are as follows

	Original Issue	Special Edition
Video	Full Frame, non-16x9 enhanced. Decent but not fully restored. Single layer.	1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, fully restored. Dual Layer.
Audio	PCM Stereo only (1536Kb/s)	DTS (768Kb/s), DD 5.1 (448Kb/s) & DD Stereo (448Kb/s) options. Remixed by Pete Townshend.
Extras	Insert only	40 minute recent interview with Pete Townshend hosted by Director, Murray Lerner + two bonus tracks which were not included in the original film

  

    This is an excellent concert of a great rock band during their peak. Keith Moon needs to be seen to be believed. Pete Townshend shows some amazing chops on guitar. If you are a fan of The Who , this DVD needs to be in your collection. If you bought the previous release you should definitely consider an upgrade. My only criticism of this material is that the camera work is quite erratic. One assumes it was meant to be artistic but it is not up to the standard of other concert films you may have seen.

    Highly Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is surprisingly good. Based on reviews, this release is a significant step up from the previous one, especially in terms of artefacts, clarity and shadow detail. Obviously, it is still restricted by it's 1970 origins.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced. Previous editions of the concert locally and even the new release in Region 1 were presented at 1.33:1. I have no categorical information as to the original aspect ratio of this film, although since it was directed by an academy award winning director as a film rather than say, shot for television, I would be inclined to think that a widescreen aspect ratio might be a possibility. It certainly does not obviously look wrong to me in this aspect ratio and therefore I will not be deducting points.

    The picture was not overly sharp and clear but better than you might expect for a 2am concert in a field in 1970. There was no evidence of low level noise. There was some film grain to be seen, but overall I would not describe it as a grainy picture.

    The colour was reasonable considering the origin of the footage however there was some colour bleeding and colours were somewhat washed out, most probably due to harsh concert lighting. Blacks were solid and quite dark.

    Artefacts were minimal but there were occasional spots and lines, plus a vertical blue line which appeared a few times such as at 10:34 and 17:20.

    There are no subtitles in the main feature but they are available on the interview extra.

    The layer change occurs at 61:11 and was well placed.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is excellent.

    This DVD contains an English dts Surround soundtrack encoded at 768 Kb/s, a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s. All things taken into account, this is a great soundtrack and a very impressive and immersive surround remix. Pete Townshend supervised the remix himself. Obviously, you cannot expect the clarity of a more modern digital recording, however, it still sounds great with some thumping bass especially on the dts track. Having said that, there is little difference between the Dolby Digital 5.1 track and the dts other than the bass.

    The instruments were reasonably clearly defined and nicely spread around the channels (in sympathy to the stage location of the players) to try to give a concert experience type sound.

    The surround speakers were well used to add to the concert-going experience with some instrumentation and crowd noise being most prevalent..

    The subwoofer was used extensively to showcase John Entwhistle's marvelous playing.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included motion and music from the show.

Bonus Tracks

    Two bonus tracks are included, which were not on the original disc and are not included on the Region 1 release of this special edition. They are

• Substitute (2:13) - A odd version of this classic song by the band, which doesn't really do it for me, but is certainly worth having for completeness.
• Naked Eye (6:43) - A hard rocking tune with some great guitar work from Townshend.

Interview - Pete Townshend (38:56)

    A fascinating recent interview with Townshend where he discusses how much he hated being in The Who , working with the other band members and this show in particular. He talks about art, music and the festival in general. Great extra.

     This new Region 4 version of this concert (when compared to the new Region 1) misses out on;

• Full frame video transfer in NTSC

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• 1.78:1 16x9 enhanced video presentation PAL
• Two bonus songs

    Region 4 is the pick here, unless you are convinced that full frame is the right aspect ratio.

    The video quality is surprisingly good.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    Three top quality extras are included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall