Manchester United-The 90's (1996) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Sports	Menu Animation & Audio Notes-90s Overview Biographies-Cast Active Subtitle Track-Links to bios
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	59:34 (Case: 62)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	None Given
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    The period from the start of the 1990s until the present day has seen a transformation unparalleled in English Football history. Throughout the 70s and 80s, Manchester United had to sit back and admire the brilliance of their greatest rivals, Liverpool, who boasted a hatful of league championships, F.A. cups, doubles, European Championships and other major trophies. All the while they had to be content with second place and minor pickings. Since the advent of the 1992/1993 season, that has all changed around. Now it is Liverpool who stand in the shadow of United while they go from strength to strength and garner championships and major trophies almost without effort.

    This is the third disc in the series, covering, unfortunately, only until the 1995/1996 period, although in less than half a decade all the frustrations of the 70s and 80s are forgotten in an unique style of flair and power football that sees them sweep all before them. With former players Mark Hughes, Dion Dublin, Lee Martin and Paul Parker, they set about ploughing through a plethora of brilliant players which mark this period in United's history, to cull eleven of the best (and some surprise omissions, which they explain away) for your delectation.

    Unlike the other two disc in this series, this has by far the best video and audio. Details on three premiership titles, three F.A. cups, a league cup and other titles accompany the details of each of the players selected by the panel and many memorable goals are on offer.

    The final team chosen includes some fabulous players, of this or any other era, many of whom are still playing professionally today. The team is: Peter Schmeichel (Goalkeeper), Paul Parker (Right Back), Denis Irwin (Left Back), Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister (Centre Back), Andre Kanchelskis (Right Wing), Ryan Giggs (Left Wing), Paul Ince and Bryan Robson (Midfield), Mark Hughes and Eric Cantona (Centre Forward/Strikers). Names like Beckham, Butt and Keane might look to be missing, but they were only just coming on the scene at the time the team was being picked, so their exclusion is acceptable. All-in-all though, that is a list of players that would rank with any in the modern game and a couple are without peer.

Video

    Special Note: This disc is encoded in NTSC format, regardless of what the packaging states. As a result, unless your equipment is capable of NTSC playback this disc may be unviewable.

    Unlike the other two discs in this series, this one has much better video material from which to select from. A lot of the footage shows typical film artefacts more so than the video artefacts of the other discs. For the most part, this is a lot more watchable, but again the problems with the video are plain to see and do detract from an otherwise much more enjoyable viewing experience.

    Made for TV, this is presented at 1.33:1 and not 16x9 enhanced.

    Unlike the other presentations, this one offers a modicum of sharpness, but nothing like you are used to on normal DVDs. Think of this as like watching live sport on TV - that's as close as it comes overall. There is no problem with low level noise and shadow detail is fairly good considering. Grain isn't particularly a problem, only being seen on the odd occasion. One reason for this is that the background often changes so quickly you miss it in the action. The only real problem is the typically overbright and blooming backgrounds.

    Colours are much better presented this time around. The bleed of the other two discs has disappeared, although a much closer examination might find a spot or two here or there. There is a much more natural feel to the colour, although solid colours still fare the best.

    For the most part, there are plenty of little interlacing glitches on show, but most are fairly inconsequential. There was one moiré artefact I saw at 2:36 on a cap in the crowd and the usual pixelization and macro-blocking can be seen, but with much less frequency. There are surprisingly few film artefacts on offer and none worthy of adding in red.

    Again, no subtitles and a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Only one soundtrack is available on this disc, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 track at 224 kilobits per second. For the most part, this is only stereo for the menus and chapter breaks, with the football footage being restricted to the centre channel. The interviews are fairly clear but everything (apart from the menu) is restricted to the front channels. There is a notable echo (sort of a reverb to be more accurate) at 39:15 and a definite click in the audio at 46:43.

    There was no problem with the dialogue and syncing was fine

    The music is the same as on the previous disc and only noted on the menus and the opening and closing credits.

    The only surround work is on the main menu when the crowd noise is cut into the rears (which could be more of a product of my system than intentional as no surround encoding can be determined). The subwoofer again is totally inactive.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu Animation & Audio

Notes

Biographies-Cast

Active Subtitle Track

    This is a multi-region disc. No other reviews have been found to compare if there is any difference in regions.

    The best of the three discs with decent video and much cleaner audio, except for a couple of notable glitches. Still strictly for the rabid fan.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall