Rickie Lee Jones-Live at the Wiltern Theatre (1992)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1992
Running Time	56:32 (Case: 58)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	L. Johnson
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Rickie Lee Jones Sal Bemard John Leftwich Mike O'Neil Keith Fiddmont Ed Mann Frank Morracco
Case	Click
RPI	$24.95	Music	Rickie Lee Jones Jimi Hendrix Richard Jones

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Screen, not known whether Pan & Scan or Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I am no expert on Jazz so I had best describe the content of this disc by analogy. The music on this DVD reminds me of a big armchair, a very big, very padded reclining armchair...very laid back and relaxed.

    Rickie Lee Jones released her first song in 1979 and has been entertaining audiences ever since. This disc features a live concert recorded at the Wiltern Theatre in 1992. The Wiltern Theatre is in Los Angeles and is supposed to be a fine example of art deco, though we see very little of the theatre on this disc. There are only a few stage spots in use and the majority of the picture is black...well, actually not quite black, which is one of the problems with this disc, but very dark nonetheless.

    Rickie Lee Jones' web site is very interesting and she has obviously embraced the online concept fully. On her site you can purchase CDs as well as MP3 including full CD compilations or individual songs. You can also purchase the sheet music to her songs. It is a shame more artists do not do this.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The image varies from soft to outright blurry. Shadow detail is also very poor and the black levels are terrible. If you look at just about any frame, outlines are very soft and blurred and there is a fair amount of video noise present as well.

     There are very few colours present due to the lighting and the dark clothing worn by the artists. Where there is some light from a coloured spotlight, the colour is rendered reasonably.

    There are a few MPEG artefacts such as some posterization on skin tones. An example can be seen at 34:42 on Jones' arm. There is also aliasing on some edges such as the white cloth behind Jones at 3:51. These artefacts are not obvious because they are mostly hidden in the blur.

    There are no subtitles on this single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The solitary audio track is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack with the surround flag set. This is strange as this is pretty much a mono soundtrack. Surround decoding it causes the audio to settle into the centre channel with little happening in either the mains or the surrounds. There really isn't a soundstage at all.

     The dialogue quality of the songs is pretty good. I could understand most of the lyrics. Some of the comments in between the songs were a little hard to catch sometimes. There did not appear to be any problems with the audio sync.

    If you are into modern Jazz then you may already have some of Rickie Lee Jones' songs in your collection and know her style of music. The rest can go to her website and listen to some of the sample MP3s to see if this is your kind of music.

    There is a very small surround presence, more by accident than by design, but it is barely audible.

    I was disappointed with the bass on this disc although this may be how it was intentionally mixed. The double bass is very quiet and there are only a couple of instances of the drums using the subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    There is a Region 1 version of this disc as well as a Region 2 version available but information is sketchy and reviews non-existent. Unless the video suffered during the NTSC to PAL conversion I have to assume the video is the same. The audio, at least in Region 1, may be PCM rather than Dolby Digital but even that is hard to confirm.

.

    The video is VHS quality or worse.

    The audio is pretty much mono.

    There are no extras apart from the subtitles feature at the start of each song.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall