Status Quo-Anniversary Waltz (1990) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Review Featurette-Brit Awards and Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	73:36 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Chris Bould
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Rick Parfitt Francis Rossi
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	Status Quo

    Status Quo - Anniversary Waltz was made in 1990 to celebrate the 25 year anniversary of the band forming in England. Apparently founding members Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi met at Butlin's Holiday Camp in 1965 when they were performing for the campers in separate bands. They soon got together and formed Status Quo. The group would go on to sell over 100 million records, have 42 British hit singles and gain fame and fortune around the world (not to mention the royalties when their songs made it into a few television commercials).

    This concert special saw the guys travel back to Butlin's Camp to celebrate their anniversary. As well as the actual concert, we get a few interview segments with the guys, some rock critics, and a few assorted media types. The gang all travelled on a private train (hence the picture on the cover of the disc and the main menu). There is also a fair bit of archival footage of the band over the years thrown in for good measure throughout the concert. The actual set played by the band is not a complete list of songs, rather a couple of complete songs joined by a series of medley's strung together. This allows for many more songs than normal to be played, but I felt a little cheated by the whole thing.

    Also, this would have to be one of the most annoying concert shows I have ever seen. My annoyance stems solely from the way it has been put together. Whoever was responsible for the graphics, titles, and overall concept did not have any comprehension of the word 'restrained', so over-the-top were the large graphics used almost every few seconds (the word QUO filling the whole screen is a good example). There is also some really annoying scrolling text flying along the bottom of the screen that outlines a sort of chronology and some of the key moments in history and what Status Quo were up to during each of the years mentioned. I wanted to watch a concert, not get a history lesson.

    The following songs are performed in the concert, though be aware that many are as part of a medley and are not the entire song.

Video

    First up - this is an NTSC disc so make sure your player is capable of doing some NTSC to PAL conversion or your display device is capable of showing an NTSC image. Secondly, despite the NTSC format, it is not too bad in terms of clarity and sharpness.

    Presented full screen in an aspect of 1.33:1, the transfer is not 16x9 enhanced.

    This is not a top shelf video transfer by any means, but it is also not that bad either. It's sort of stuck between the two. It is reasonably sharp in the newer footage, though the archival material used is black and white and fairly soft. Also, the brief and annoying intro scenes that pop up when selecting the camera icon appear to have been recorded with a very ordinary video camera and are extremely dull and fuzzy. There is a little grain, though it is not overly annoying. Shadow detail is above average for the style of lighting used and there is no low level noise.

    Colours are a bit mixed, which is only natural for a concert. No problems with bleeding or posterization are evident. The scrolling text that frequently appears across the bottom of the screen often exhibits touches of bleeding and noise, but these aren't important.

    I noticed no MPEG artefacts. A tiny bit of aliasing pops up here and there, but is so minor I'm not going to even mention it in detail.

    There are no subtitles available.

    This is a single layered disc only. As a result there is no layer change to navigate.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The quality of the last couple of Dolby Digital 5.1 concert soundtracks that I have sampled have been a bit ordinary. This disc continues that trend. There are two audio tracks on this disc, these being Dolby Digital 2.0 and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. Both soundtracks lack any of that real punch that lifts the truly great soundtracks above the rest. They both do the job required of them, but in a rather unremarkable fashion.

    The lyrics are well positioned in the soundtrack, coming across clearly and well defined. There are no audio sync problems.

    I really did have trouble enjoying the music on offer simply because of the medley nature of the content. Just when you are enjoying a song it cuts over into something new or one of their big hits starts half-way through. Very frustrating.

    There was not anywhere near as much surround channel use as I was expecting, with only small amounts of audience noise popping up on occasions.

    The subwoofer does a bit to support the music, without being noticeable.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu Animation & Audio

    An almost static menu (it sort of wobbles a bit to represent movement) of the supposed Quo Express train complete with suitable train noise.

Featurette - Review

    Running for 5:00 minutes (though that is actually a misrepresentation of the facts as the credits take up over two minutes by themselves!), this is a sort of behind the scenes featurette that is hosted by some dork called The Rockmeister who is trying to teach a couple of "rock-chicks" about the virtues of the band. Pretty pointless really.

Featurette - Brit Awards

    Now this is much better. A rapid fire 5:31 minute performance from the boys for the 1991 Brit Music Awards. They basically perform another medley of some of their all-time most recognisable hits such as Whatever You Want and Rockin' All Over The World. Good quality video and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Not cluttered with all the additional graphics and text like the main concert - this is what the feature should have been like.

    I couldn't find any reference to this disc being available in Region 1, though the Region 2 is identical to ours.

    It is really difficult to recommend this disc to anyone but really serious hardcore Status Quo fans. Those of you with only a passing interest would be much better served by picking up a couple of the band's albums, or at worst a Greatest Hits CD.

    The video transfer, despite being an NTSC disc, is pretty good, with few flaws.

    The audio, available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 variants is not all that remarkable, though is also without any major flaws.

    The pair of extras are like night and day. One is quite good, the other truly awful.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall