The Ice Dream with Roy and H.G. (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Sports	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Dave Grohl (Foo Fighter) Interview Featurette-Steven Bradbury Interview Featurette-Alisa Camplin Interview Featurette-Katarina Witt Interview
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	215:35 (Case: 214)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (105:53)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Roy Slaven H.G. Nelson
Case	Click
RPI	$39.95	Music	None Given

    Roy and H.G. are at it again, this time at the winter Olympics. The Dream was always going to be a very hard act to follow - two Aussie larrikins at exactly the right time and the right place produced a fantastic look at the Sydney Olympics.

    The Ice Dream is very good but it is a little hard not to compare the two, and there is no doubt that this is not as good as the first. There are probably a couple of reasons for this, including the fact that Winter Olympic sports do not provide the same grist for the Roy and H.G. humour mill as Summer Olympic sports do. The Ice Dream is also a single disc and substantially shorter than the original.

    The Ice Dream seems to contain humour that is a little cruder than the original with several fart jokes and comments about the chaps in the two man luge standing out as examples of this. On the other hand, one running joke that I particularly enjoyed was their pitch for the 2010 Winter Olympics to come to Smiggin Holes.

    Yet again we get a tour of various sports with Roy and H.G. commentating in their inimitable style, interspersed with behind the desk commentaries and some great interviews. The interviews were a highlight for me. We get to meet some really nice people. Not only our two gold medallists, who are humble and very funny, but we also get to meet Katerina Witt who not only comes across as a fantastic person but manages to completely steal the show from Roy and H.G.

    Overall, this is still a classic Roy and H.G. show with some classic humour, and a smattering of replays from some of the events of the Winter Olympics. It includes the two most important events where we won gold and some great interviews with some great athletes.

Video

    Whilst overall the sharpness is not too bad, it could have been better. Shadow detail is good and there is no low level noise.

     The colours are well saturated but again lack sharpness and detail. There is no chroma noise.

     There are quite a few artefacts indicating overcompression. There are examples of posterization of skin tones such as in the close-up at 10:53. Scene changes also exhibit the classic loss of resolution and bleed through of the next frame. A very clear example of this can be seen at 10:54. There is also a distressing amount of edge enhancement. All objects have a halo around them. The figure skaters at 10:50, in particular the male skater's pants, show this clearly. Obviously shot on video, there are no film artefacts.

    There are no subtitles included on this disc.

    This is a dual layered disc with the layer change at 105:53, just as the bob sled team is starting their push and shove. Fairly obvious but there is no storyline to interrupt.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The dialogue quality is excellent throughout and there are no problems with audio sync.

    There is not much music on this disc other than the theme music and music that accompanies events like the figure skating.

    The surrounds and the subwoofer were not active at all.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    A static background picture with animated snow falling, accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack with the surround bit set. You can select Play, the Full Interviews or Chapters. There appears to be a small authoring error with the chapter selection menu. If you step through to the last page of chapters and then decide to return to the main menu using the 'main menu' entry at the bottom, strange things happen. My Skyworth says that it is an invalid selection and my Panasonic crashes out to 'stop' mode.

Interview: Dave Grohl

    Presented at 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced and accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, this runs for 10:01. Dave Grohl is a member of the Foo Fighters. This is the first of four great interviews.

Interview: Stephen Bradbury

    Presented at 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced and accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, this runs for 10:15. Both our gold medal winners come across as very down-to-earth people with great senses of humour. For those who were living in a cave during the Winter Olympics, Stephen won our first ever gold medal at a Winter Olympics in short track speed skating.

Interview: Alisa Camplin

    Presented at 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced and accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, this runs for 11:24. Less than 36 hours later, the nation that had never before won a Winter Olympics gold was suddenly on the winner's podium again. Alisa Camplin had won the freestyle aerials event. This interview with a very nice young woman makes you proud to be an Aussie.

Interview: Katerina Witt

    Presented at 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced and accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, this runs for 10:22. This young woman completely steals the show. Roy and H.G. are just left in the dust with her humour and wit (sorry). One of my favourite sections of the whole disc.

    Reading back over this review, I see that I have mentioned how much I enjoyed the interviews and how nice the athletes interviewed were. Compared with some of the 'professional' sports people you see interviewed and their actions, it is a joy to see athletes that you would be very proud for your children to have as role models. If, like me, you probably missed most of the Winter Olympics then this is a great evening's entertainment and a great record of our most successful Winter Olympics ever.

    The video was a bit of a disappointment.

    The audio is very good.

    The interviews are great.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall