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.
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.
Michael Ball-Live at the Royal Albert Hall (1999)

Michael Ball-Live at the Royal Albert Hall (1999)

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Released 11-Apr-2001

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Music Featurette
Biographies-Cast-Michael Ball
Gallery-Photo
Rating Rated G
Year Of Production 1999
Running Time 89:15 (Case: 111)
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Steve Kemsley
Studio
Distributor
Banana Split Prodctn
Universal Pictures Home Video
Starring Michael Ball
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI $36.95 Music Various


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Full Frame English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/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 Yes, in the featurette
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits Yes, closing credits over applause and farewell

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Michael Ashley Ball was born on June 27 1962 near Stratford-Upon-Avon. Although trained initially as an actor, his singing talent was soon recognized and he began appearing in musicals such as "Godspell" and operettas such as "The Pirates of Penzance." His big break came when he was cast as "Marius" by Cameron Mackintosh in the West End production of the phenomenally successful "Les Misérables." He then starred in a number of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals including "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Aspects of Love." Michael has since expanded his career through a number (nine on last count) of successful solo albums and even a self-titled television series featuring famous popular music artists.

    He has won several awards including second place in the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest, 1998 Variety Club of Great Britain Award for Best Recording Artist, and in 1999 was presented with the Theatregoers Club of Great Britain's award for Most Popular Musical Actor.

    His 6th UK tour went on sale at the close of 1998 and sold out within weeks. During the months of April and May 1999, he entertained and delighted 74,527 people at 25 concerts. Not satisfied with such a gruelling tour, Michael went on to perform a concert in Amsterdam, two shows at the Liverpool Pops Festival and open-air concerts at Howard Castle, Glamis Castle and Longleat House.

    The culmination of his 6th UK tour was a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, which is the programme presented on this disc. The concert included the following songs, spread over two "Acts":
 
Act I Act II
  1. Hot Stuff
  2. Everybody's Talkin'
  3. Love On The Rocks
  4. How Can I Be Sure
  5. Someone Else's Dream
  6. The Way We Were/The Rose
  7. Something Inside So Strong
  8. Prepare Ye The Way Of The Lord/Gethsemane
  1. Oh! What A Circus
  2. My Heart Will Go On
  3. Empty Chairs, Empty Tables
  4. We Have All The Time In The World/Millennium
  5. Let The River Run
  6. One Step Out of Time
  7. I'll Be There For You - Theme from "Friends"
  8. Blues Brothers Medley (Shake Your Tail Feather, Think & Everybody Needs Somebody To Love)
  9. Help Yourself
  10. Love Changes Everything

    The concert includes a fairly patchy mix of songs closely associated with Michael (including Empty Chairs, Empty Tables from Les Misérables and Love Changes Everything from Aspects of Love), songs written/adapted specially for him, as well as covers of songs made famous by other singers - such as Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Celine Dion, Tom Jones not to mention the theme song from the Friends TV series and a medley of songs from the film Blues Brothers.

    Michael still looks pretty cute with his dimpled cheeks and looks a little more, shall I say "well-rounded" since his Les Misérables days. His audience seems to be at least 90% female given his penchant for singing easy listening numbers. I think he has a very good singing voice and I admire his professionalism and his stage persona but he's not really my cup of tea.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    All in all, we get a pretty honest and decent full frame (not 16x9 enhanced) transfer.

    Sharpness, detail and colour saturation are all acceptable (though not reference quality).

    The video source is relatively clean and surprisingly, there were few MPEG artefacts given that the DVD producers have chosen to try and fit everything onto a single layered disc. I detected occasional minor ringing and pixelization, but never at an annoying level. Other artefacts detected including shimmering and aliasing every now and then, but once again nothing major.

    The only annoying aspect of the transfer is that on my home DVD player the disc does not provide any status information at all during play (such as chapter number, running/total/remaining time) apart from title number, although the chapter selection buttons do work. This made it very hard for me to tell where the concert was up to and how much more material was left at any given point. Status information was provided on a PC with a DVD-ROM drive.

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

Audio

    There is only one audio track: English Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded at 448 Kb/s. Once again, it is a reasonable track but will not win any awards for excellence.

    The sound of the audio track seems to be lacking in extreme high frequencies and extreme low bass, sounding more like TV broadcast quality rather than CD quality.

    There were no issues with the dialogue or audio synchronization.

    The source is obviously a stereo master that has been remixed for 5.1 surround, as I can detect no more than the faintest murmurs coming from the surround speakers. Despite that though, the sound coming from the three front speakers has reasonable depth.

    I doubt that the subwoofer would have been actively engaged.

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

Extras

    The extras are pretty mediocre - the major item being a decent-length featurette.

Menu

    The menus are pretty standard and unexceptional.

Featurette - "Backstage With Michael Ball" (20:51)

    This is a behind-the-scenes documentary of the UK tour introduced by Michael himself. It covers rehearsals in various locations, ideas for the opening of the concert, a tour through the "tour bus", arriving at the NEC (a concert venue off the M6 if I recall correctly from my UK holiday), and interviews with fans after the concert at the NEC. The documentary is presented in Full Frame with a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track that is a bit patchy and uneven in places.

Biographies - Cast - Michael Ball

    This consists of 10 stills containing a rather detailed biography of Michael Ball.

Gallery - Photo

    This contains a photo gallery of 12 stills taken during and off concert featuring either Michael by himself or with other members of the accompanying band and crew.

R4 vs R1

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

    This title has yet to be released in R1.

Summary

    Michael Ball - Live at the Royal Albert Hall, is a very well put together concert sung by a cute looking guy with a great singing voice - what more can I say? Unfortunately, it didn't really click with me. It is presented on a so-so DVD with a slightly above average video transfer and an average audio transfer marred by lack of surround speaker involvement.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Christine Tham (read my biography)
Tuesday, May 01, 2001
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-626D, using Component output
DisplaySony VPL-VW10HT LCD Projector, ScreenTechnics 16x9 matte white screen (254cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationDenon AVR-3300
SpeakersFront left/right: B&W DM603; centre: B&W CC6S2, rear left/right: B&W DM601

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