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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Feng Shui: Environments for Success and Well-Being (1999)

Feng Shui: Environments for Success and Well-Being (1999) (NTSC)

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Released 1-Apr-2002

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category New Age Booklet-The 9 Feng Shui Remedies; Feng Shui Bagua
Biographies-Cast
Web Links-Feng Shui Web Sites
Notes-DVD Newsletter
DVD Credits
Rating Rated E
Year Of Production 1999
Running Time 56:11 (Case: 60)
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Programme
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Deborah Gee
Studio
Distributor

Wild Releasing
Starring Grand Master Lin Yun
Deborah Gee
Case Alpha
RPI $39.95 Music Dan Kuramoto


Video (NTSC) Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

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Plot Synopsis

    Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese philosophy of adapting your surrounding living spaces to optimise the flow of the magical life-force or Chi energy. It is based on the assumption that Chi not only permeates every living thing but is also influenced and channelled by the natural and man-made structures around us. Feng Shui philosophy falls into four broad schools or methods:

  1. The Compass Method: Where the Feng Shui orientation is determined purely by magnetic north.
  2. The Eight House Method: Where the Feng Shui orientation is determined by a combination of magnetic north and the front entrance of the building or house.
  3. The Flying Star Method: Where the Feng Shui orientation is determined by a combination of magnetic north and the ”Birth Date” of the building or house.
  4. The Form School Method: Where the Feng Shui orientation is determined by the lay of the land and the front entrance of the building, house or room.
    Master Lin Yun belongs to the Form School and hence that is the only focus of this video.

    The DVD starts by first convincing you that Feng Shui will bring increased wealth, happiness, wealth, success, wealth and improved health to the occupants of a Feng Shui’d environment and their relations. If you think I mentioned wealth a few too many times, it’s because I have just been through 56 minutes and 11 seconds of having it rammed down my throat by a DVD that felt more like an American infomercial than the educational resource I was expecting it to be. This DVD was clearly aimed at an American audience, with the first twenty minutes devoted purely to selling the benefits of Feng Shui to corporate USA whilst paying no attention to what Feng Shui actually is.

    The latter two thirds (45 minutes) does provide some tangible and useful information, however even this content is very thin, of limited usefulness and is continuously interspersed with the aforementioned sales pitch material along the lines of better grades, more intelligent children, improved sleeping and the list goes on. If you can turn off to all that you will learn a little about how to use mirrors, crystals, plants, lights and water to improve the aesthetics of your home. You will also receive some good guidance about locating furniture, beds and tables that is fairly commonsensical.

    If you are looking to understand more about Feng Shui in general or detail then this resource does not come recommended - the local library or even Internet may serve you better. If you like the US infomercial-styled sales pitch approach then please, be my guest.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The video transfer of this DVD was clearly derived from a composite video source, displaying almost every single composite video artefact possible.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 fullscreen (NTSC) and is not 16x9 enhanced. This reflects both the source materials and target audience, being video and US television respectively.

    The presentation lacked the sharpness that you get used to with DVD as a direct result of its video sourcing. White levels were frequently overexposed causing several scenes (1:29, 4:16, 29:47, 23:12, 49:05 and 45:20) to become washed out and indistinct. Black levels were surprisingly good, however as expected with video, shadow areas suffered from enormous loss of detail (2:21 and 2:58 are good examples). The transfer was also plagued throughout by very noticeable and annoying chroma noise that afflicted almost every scene. I could have picked any number of examples of this, however the following are some good references; 2:21, 3:20, 3:35, 9:43 and 35:09.

    Colours were mostly vibrant, crossing the line into oversaturation several times, with 1:41, 4:26 and 28:24 being the worst offenders. Several additional artefacts, mostly due to the composite video sources, also affected colour reproduction throughout the presentation. These included dot crawl in text and titles at 0:39, 11:25, 34:56, 52:13-52:57 and surrounding a chandelier at 3:04, 18:03 and 64:50. Some cross colouration can be seen in a variety of scenes including 0:13 (Master's beads), 0:51 (grasses), 1:29 (chess pieces several times), 19:42 (house roof), 25:37, 33:32 (lounge stripes) and any time text such as that at 3:17 appeared. Likewise, some colour bleeding can found at 1:41 (Neon Sign), 13:22 (border of inner circle) and a particularly interesting example at 19:19 (red roof of house in valley). I say interesting because it was so extreme.

    MPEG artefacts were present but relatively minor compared to the other artefacts. The vast majority were subtle macro blocking due to the substantial chroma noise present in the source materials, however some other specific examples included Gibbs Effect (1:21) around some leaves and excessive macro blocking in the background (12:53) and in the foreground (10:16). Aliasing is present in almost every scene and reflects the use of video as a source. Clear examples of this artefact can be seen at 1:46 (buildings detail), 2:16 (chrome car trim), 2:24 (desk edges), 5:50 (glasses rim), 16:58 (building edges), 50:22 (stove trim) and the worst example, that shimmers so badly as to give you a headache, at 25:54 (map detail). Moire effects were also spotted a few times including 5:09 (blinds) and 50:22 (stove grill). There were some additional source artefacts including some minor wobble (37:44), a video glitch (11:09) and a halo effect (35:37) just to keep things interesting.

    There were no subtitles on this DVD, and being a single layered disc no layer change was present either.

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

Audio

    There was only one audio track on this DVD, that being a Dolby Digital 2.0 track which was very ordinary. There were some problems with static or clipping at 0:00 – 0:18 which thankfully dissipated and a few seconds of sound level oscillation at 0:13.

    The dialogue was clear and understandable most of the time although there was significant variability between different scenes. As expected with this type of material, pretty much all sound was fundamentally mono in nature and thus when Dolby Surround decoded, was concentrated in the centre channel.

    There were no problems with audio sync.

    The background music was by Dan Kuramoto and was simple and appropriate to the material.

    There was no surround or subwoofer activity and the material isn’t the type to call for it anyway.

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

Extras

    There were some very basic extras on this DVD.

Booklet

    Included is a single card as a pocket reference for applying Feng Shui remedies. On one side is an octagonal Bagua with instructions and on the other is a summary of the nine remedies discussed in the video.

Menu

    The menu was simple and functional. Navigation was very straightforward.

Chapter List

    The eight chapters were reasonably well placed albeit oddly labelled.

Biographies-Cast

    Detailed biographies on both Master Lin Yun and Deborah Gee are provided.

Web Links, DVD Newsletter

    Web links that allow you to find more information or sign up for an electronic newsletter.

DVD Credits

    A short list of credits for the production crew.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    This release is a Region 0 NTSC DVD and the same disc is available in all regions.

Summary

    Feng Shui, Creating Environments For Success And Well-Being was a disappointing introduction to the art of Feng Shui.

    The video quality is very poor.

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are average.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael S Cox (to bio, or not to bio?)
Monday, July 01, 2002
Review Equipment
DVDSony DVP-S525, using Component output
DisplayJVC Interiart Flat 68cm Display 16:9. Calibrated with AVIA Guide To Home Theatre. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with AVIA Guide To Home Theatre.
AmplificationDenon AVR-3802
SpeakersFront LR - NEAR MainMast, Center - NEAR 20M, Surround LR - NEAR Spinnaker DiPoles, Rear LR - NEAR MainMast-II, Subwoofer - NEAR PS-2 DiPole

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