Ed Sullivan's Rock 'n' Roll Classics: The Mamas & the Papas & other '60s... (2005)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	42:54
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Rajon Vision	Starring	None Given
Case	Alpha-Transparent
RPI	$19.95	Music	None Given

    The Ed Sullivan Show was a staple of American variety television for 23 years until 1971, and featured a wide range of performers from Elvis Presley to Senor Wences to The Muppets. I can vaguely remember watching some the shows when I was quite young, though these were possibly the one-off specials produced between 1971 and 1974 rather than the original series.

    This disc is one of a series containing two episodes of thematically-linked musical performances. Each episode lasts little more than twenty minutes and is made up of edited performances that were shown on the VH1 channel in the US in 2001.

    The first episode features The Mamas and the Papas, a hugely popular folk rock group of the 1960s. Not only do we get five of their performances on the show, but also linking material made more recently detailing the history of the group and including snippets of new interviews with band members Michelle Phillips and John Phillips and their producer Lou Adler.

    The second episode has a general selection of what is called Other '60s Greats, featuring The Band, The Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Lovin' Spoonful and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Again there is linking material about the bands.

    Each episode also features bits of Sullivan's eccentric introductions. Unfortunately most of the songs appear to be much shorter than their recorded versions, as they have been edited to fit into this TV programme. There is one obvious edit in one of the songs in the first programme. So if you are looking for definitive clips from the show then you need to look elsewhere. Even so this is a pleasant way to while away 40 minutes with some classic material.

Video

    The programmes are presented in what appears to be the original aspect ratio of 1.29:1.

    Considering the age of the television material this is probably as good as it will look. While it isn't sharp it is still reasonably detailed, enough to be watchable on a big screen. Colours are bright and garish, which suits the vibe of the 1960s. Flesh tones tend to be a little too reddish a lot of the time. The footage is bright under the studio lights and there were no issues with shadow detail.

    Aside from cross-colouration and some low level noise there are few artefacts. An occasional tiny bit of aliasing is present and some similarly tiny analogue video tracking errors as well.

    The disc is single-layered and no subtitles are provided. They aren't really needed, and probably would have cost money for the song lyrics anyway.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two audio options, being Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1.

    I started to watch this programme with the surround audio but found it too reverberant for my tastes, especially in the dialogue sequences from the original show. Surround activity seems to be just instruments at a lower volume level and studio sounds with the voices and instruments coming from across the front. I did not notice any subwoofer activity, and even when there were some deep bass sounds in the stereo mix, checking the same passages on the surround mix came up with nothing for the low frequency effects channel.

    The stereo sound is quite good, clear and with just a little sibilance. The stereo is noticeable on some songs and not others. As television was not in stereo when these recordings were made I suspect the original audio recordings were overlaid on the footage.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Audio and Animation

    Some of the music can be heard together with inset video clips.

    As far as I can tell the content of this DVD is the same as that on the equivalent Region 1 discs. However they are available only as a set of three discs each featuring four programmes rather than two, as far as I can tell.

    A good but slightly flawed compilation of 1960s folk rock.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is good on the stereo track, not so good on the surround track.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall