Secret Policeman's The Big Three-0, The (Disc 7) (1991) |
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Secret Policeman's The Big Three-0, The (Disc 7) (1991) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Notes-Background Trailer-What's Up, Tiger Lily?; The Natural History Of The Chicken Trailer-Malcolm; The Secret Policeman's Balls Featurette-Amnesty International |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1991 | ||
| Running Time | 98:06 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | David Hillier |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Umbrella Entertainment |
Starring | None Given |
| Case | Click | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music | None Given |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
What happens when you throw a whole pile of comedians, actors, and musicians in with a great audience? A great show of course. The combination of musical pieces interspersed with comedic acts works very well and does not decay into boredom. If the show was purely comedy I would soon find it tedious, and running nearly 100 minutes this would be a "Very Bad Thing"™. Many of the acts presented I could not identify as they are British comedians, but there are many that I did recognise. It probably doesn't help that the show was filmed in 1991 so many of the comic acts would have been and gone by now.
Although not the most incredibly humorous set of acts, there are some genuine chuckles to be had, and the music really tops off the show. Besides that, it is for a great cause and Amnesty International can do with all the support we can muster. If you are a fan of comedy, and music (nothing like generalisation...) then you could do a lot worse than picking up this DVD.
Presented in the non-enhanced aspect ratio of 1.33:1 this transfer preserves the original recorded aspect ratio. Being 1991 there was no such thing as digital film and DTV, and it shows.
Sharpness never really exceeds being acceptable. For the majority of the feature, focus is really quite poor. The show was filmed over two nights (as far as I can tell) and on one of those nights the focus is considerably worse than the other - the switching between nights becomes quite obvious. An example of the softness can be found around 28:00 during the Jason Donovan song (just remember, this was the early 90s). Shadow detail is fairly poor throughout, although it could have been much worse. A lot of the feature is filmed in challenging lighting conditions but it holds up reasonably well. There is a bit of grain to be found, mostly in the stage lighting showing up the smoky interior of the stage.
Colour is rendered quite well throughout. Unfortunately, chroma noise is evident, particularly in the saturated blue of the host's suit. Barring the chroma noise, there is not a huge amount wrong with the colours.
There is some background pixelization on display, particularly noticeable in the crowd shots and long shots of the stage. This is certainly not helped by the soft transfer. Aliasing is consistent apparent. A few examples can be found at 10:39 (drums), 25:55, and 36:20 (crow's feet around the eyes!). There is a light spattering of film artefacts but these are not very obvious as the transfer is so soft that they mostly blend in to the background.
There are no subtitles present on this disc. This is a single layered disc so there is no layer change to worry about.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail |  |
| Colour |  |
| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
There is one audio track available on this disc, being a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track encoded at 224kbps. The package incorrectly states that the audio is only mono - it is most definitely stereo.
Dialogue quality is reasonable throughout. The singing comes out well and the comedic acts are very understandable. Audio sync is fine throughout and I did not notice any problems.
The musical acts do not have a lot of oomph (that is the technical term), and tend to be a little wimpy. But again, the job is adequately done by the audio transfer.
There is no surround activity whatsoever, which is not surprising, and the sub occasionally gets a little redirected bass.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use |  |
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| Overall | |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The video quality is quite poor.
The audio quality is quite poor.
The extras are limited.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer 106S DVD-ROM with PowerDVD 4.0 scaling to 864p, using RGB output |
| Display | Mitsubishi VS-1281E CRT front projector on custom 16x9 screen (270cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS787, THX Select |
| Speakers | All matching Vifa Drivers: centre 2x6.5" + 1" tweeter (d'appolito); fronts and rears 6.5" + 1" tweeter; centre rear 5" + 1" tweeter; sub 10" (150WRMS) |