Silverchair-The Best of-Volume 1: Complete Videology (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Featurette-Emotion Pictures DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	104:25
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Robert Hambling
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	silverchair
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	$29.95	Music	silverchair

    This DVD draws its material from each of these albums, in the form of the singles from each, in descending order of release as well as live footage from their recent Neon Ballroom concerts at Melbourne Park in Victoria. There is also making-of footage from the recording of the third album and concert footage from a U.S. tour that took place in 1999.

    This is an excellent disc for fans although I would have preferred some biographical information to help those people who are familiar with the music but not the band members. The behind-the-scenes footage is somewhat interesting but is a little fragmented and quite light-on in terms of the information imparted.

Video

    This disc contains a video clip for each of the singles released from the studio albums and as such contains footage filmed at  different times, using different equipment. Overall the transfer is pleasing and very watchable. The sharpness is, for the most part, very good but does fall away during some of the in-studio and concert footage. For example, focus is lost for long periods of time during the live track, Paint Pastel Princess and footage of Daniel Johns at the mixing desk, during the Emotion Pictures feature, is also soft and noisy. Shadow detail is very good, except for the track Cemetery where it is poor. The black level is fine throughout.

    Colour saturation is very good although it does vary depending on the track being sampled. For example, the track Emotion Sickness has a rather washed-out, drab look to it. However, this is not a fault, rather it is a deliberate effect designed to match the theme of the clip. The live footage of silverchair performing at Melbourne Park has strong colours, too strong at times as there is a degree of colour bleeding. This causes a loss of sharpness which is distracting. Fortunately it only occurs during the track Paint Pastel Princess (see 48:41-49:14).

    As far as MPEG artefacts are concerned, there is some pixelization present particularly during the Melbourne Park footage - see 48:41-49:18 for an example. I also noted that some video noise is present during some of the on-tour and studio footage due to the very low light levels encountered while filming. See 9:13-9:18 of the Emotion Pictures feature for an example of this problem. I noted minor occurrences of aliasing during the song Cemetery and equally minor occurrences of moiré effects during the same track.

    Film artefacts are quite rare and only occur during the Videology part of the presentation. I noticed some quite minor white flecks during the songs Emotion Sickness, Miss You Love and Ana's Song (Open Fire), which were the extent of the problem as far as I could see.

Audio

    There is nothing technically wrong with the audio on this disc. Dialogue and vocals are always clear and I didn't notice any dropouts, pops, clicks or other blemishes. The vocals were almost always in sync, the exception being the very early part of the track Abuse Me where the sound is very slightly behind the video (see 23:00-23:04). I don't believe that this is a problem with the disc, rather I feel it is a problem with the source material.

   Personally, I was disappointed with the audio, not because it was only stereo or that it had faults, but for two other reasons. The first is that there is no subwoofer information at all. People with large main speakers will not have any issue with this oversight as the woofers in these speakers will counter this, but those of us who have smaller speakers will find the lack of bass noticeable. I have the analogue output from my DVD player connected to the CD input on my receiver. If I select this input, my receiver will  pass bass information to the subwoofer. In this way I could add the extra dimension missing from the digital signal. The second issue I have with this audio transfer is a slightly more subjective one. It is the lack of fidelity or openness that you hear from this audio presentation. The sound seemed somewhat lifeless to me, especially when compared to other music discs such as The Corrs Unplugged or John Denver, The Wildlife Concert. The Linear PCM track on the John Denver disc is easily superior to this disc. Don't get me wrong - the audio presented here is good, but it just isn't quite as good as some of the other discs I've sampled.

Featurette - Emotion Pictures

DVD Credits

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall