Sugar Ray (Music in High Places) (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Featurette-Interview Featurette-One Last Shoot TV Spots Featurette-Location Footage Biographies-Cast
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	58:48
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Alan Carter
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Mark McGrath Stan Frazier Rodney Sheppard Murphy Karges Craig Bullock
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$39.95	Music	Sugar Ray

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	French German	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This DVD is part of a series called Music in High Places. In this series, musicians are shown doing their stuff in exotic locations all over the world. Here the American group Sugar Ray is in Australia, or to be more precise, northern Queensland. In between tracks they clown around and you see the artists playing tourist in the regions they are visiting. Now I must admit at first I thought when I put up my hand for this disc that I was going to be in for a DVD of dance music from a DJ called Sugar Ray and therefore was in for some trance etc in 5.1. Not so - Sugar Ray has instead a pleasant mix of vocal harmonizing, positive pop music with a bit of hip-hop. Thus, I was unfamiliar with the group. Despite not hearing their stuff before, I ended up enjoying the music. It is not at all hard to listen to and contains some 'catchy' tracks with my favourite being Stay On. The footage taken at places like the Johnstone River Crocodile Farm was also often interesting - I saw the biggest croc in my life on this DVD when the band visited that farm. It should be noted that the footage of the band visiting the various tourist spots in northern Queensland is placed in between the music tracks.

Video

    The picture was only of average sharpness. There was little in the way of blacks in the picture as both the songs and tourist footage were normally shot in bright sunshine.

    This is quite a colourful DVD with many beautiful locations chosen. Colours were strong and presented no problems for this transfer.

    MPEG artefacts were not problem here. This is a great transfer in this respect. There was a major but momentary flaw in the videotape source that can be seen at 34.28. It is hard to describe except to say it resulted in horizontal break-up of the image into about five bands across the screen. It is the probable result of a big bump to the camera as the hummer in which the group are travelling negotiates a wickedly challenging outback trail in a 4x4 'ride'. Apart from this, there are no real problems with the picture.

    This was a Dual Layered disc with  no observable layer change. Presumably the layers separate the programming from the bonus materials.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

   There was constant but gentle use of the surrounds. They appeared to contain mostly out of phase sounds that added atmosphere rather than going for the location of individual elements of the soundtrack in the back speakers. i.e. There are no bongos in the back channels on this DVD.

    Sub use was constant throughout the disc but was gentle in nature and never called attention to itself.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    None of the menus were animated, 16x9 enhanced or scored.

Featurette-Interview

    A fifteen minute interview with the band members about their time in Australia.

Featurette-One Last Shoot

    A ten minute featurette on the logistics of shooting and recording in remote locations. Various sound and lighting people are interviewed along with the band members. It is reasonably interesting.

TV Spots

    A series of promo spots recorded for channels like MTV. These lasted in total for just under a minute.

Featurette-Location Footage

    The best feature is the 'On Location' footage which lasts just over 20 minutes. This gives you a more in-depth look at the places that the band visited while in Australia and is genuinely interesting and informative.

Biographies-Cast

    A history of the band that you can read via on-screen text.

    If you like Sugar Ray's music you will like this DVD because not only is it well-recorded and pleasant to listen to but the backdrop locations are special and the atmosphere is very friendly and positive.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall