Def Leppard-Historia/In the Round in Your Face (1988)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Interviews-Cast-4 Music Video-Promises;Goodbye;Slang;Work It Out;All I Want Is Everything Discography
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	176:41 (Case: 172)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (21:10)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Various Wayne Isham
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Def Leppard Joe Elliott Rick Allen Phil Collen Rick Savage Steven Clark
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	Def Leppard

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	French German Spanish Italian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    This disc is actually two separate titles included on the one DVD. The Historia section is basically the music video history of the band from their infantile first steps back in 1980 with their first TV video for Hello America (which was never actually seen on television) up to the heady days of the Hysteria album (1987-1989). This video section covers quite a range of songs including some non-singles (Rock Rock (Till You Drop) and Me and My Wine) as well as their hits. In between each video, or each block of videos, the band give an introduction explaining what the particular piece means to them, and a bit of history about the song and the filming of the videos. These are quite revealing and interesting, and are usually very humorous. These text introductions are done a la silent movie era with the appropriate scratchy piano music and an artefact-laden sepia image.

    Included amongst the videos are a couple of alternate versions of videos which include the UK version of Pour Some Sugar on Me and a second version of Bringing on the Heartbreak with (then) new guitarist Phil Collen (who replaced Pete Willis on lead guitar) and a new remix by the influential producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange (I seem to remember more keyboards on the Lange remix). About the only video not included on this collection (strangely) is the one for Rocket. Thankfully, this is included on the second disc in this series and any fan of this band should consider getting the two titles (Def Leppard - Historia / In the Round In Your Face and Def Leppard - Visualize / Video Archive). While the two discs are available for separate purchase, they are companion pieces and should be bought together.

    The second part of this disc is a live concert recording of the band during the Hysteria tour of '88-89. If the footage seems a little familiar during this concert, it's because the live concert scenes in the Sugar and Armageddon It videos come from this recording. It is an interesting addition, as you not only get to hear the band live during the band's hugely popular Hysteria tour, but you can see just how Def Leppard really sound in contrast to their heavily polished and produced albums. Thankfully, the sound and style that any fan of the band has become accustomed to is very much evident and the guys can really reproduce those seemingly impossible harmonies. This looks almost to be a near-complete concert with the band covering songs from High 'N Dry and Pyromania, right through to Hysteria.

    This is a great addition to the list of titles on DVD covering the life and times of this popular and influential band. With this disc and its companion title (Def Leppard - Visualize / Video Archive) and the disc from the Classic Albums series, we have an almost exhaustive documentary of the group and their work. If you are a fan of this band's work, don't hesitate to buy this disc. You won't regret it. Recommended for any fan.

Video

Video:  Historia (video collection)  85:32

    This section is presented full frame (1.33:1) as it was recorded and shown on television. There is no widescreen material and as expected, there is no 16x9 enhancement.

    Taking into account the age of the source material and the fact that some of the video contained therein haven't seen the light of day for more than 20 years, what we end up with in the end really does stand up and the sharpness of the images (for the most part) is quite reasonable. Much of the material shown looks to have been shot directly onto film and then committed to video tape, while some of the later work could have been video taped and then committed to film and then recorded on tape again. Some of the image has a slightly faded or softened look to it, but this could be intended by the video's director and is not necessarily a fault with the source. For the most part, shadow detail is reasonable. We have various sources for this title, so you do get some portions slightly lacking; some of the concert scenes shot on video which, due to the lack of reasonable lighting, do come out a bit lacking. However, this would have been taken into account at the time of the production and so we can't really complain too much - the quality of the image is dependant of the technology of the era. Low level noise is not an issue.

    Colour for the most part is quite reasonable and natural (for video clips) with some of the older material having a slightly faded look.

    There are quite a few video transfer faults to be seen during this title, but again, due to the age of the material this should be expected. There is some pixelization to be seen at 39:24 and at other various times during this feature. There is some chroma noise evident: see 13:15 and 41:09, but this is not as frequent an artefact as might be expected with this amount of video tape. Aliasing is not really a problem with the material here and is quite infrequent. One frequent problem with the transfer is the large number of video tape tracking errors and flaws. These are numerous and can be seen at 2:12, 27:58, 29:55, 39:37, 41:08-11, 45:40 and 58:09. This is a trimmed down list as there are quite a few more of these tracking errors. Having said that, these are not too much of a problem and in no way detract from the enjoyment of the material. There are quite a few film artefacts to be seen during this feature which largely consist of black flecks that spot the image at times and can be seen, for example, at 9:08. There is also a quite bad film splice that is very visible at 13:09. There is a fairly frequent hair on film artefact that can be seen during the video of Me and My Wine which is quite noticeable at 44:05-19. There is some grain noticeable to various degrees during this feature. Highlights of this can be seen at 40:15, 63:18 and 65:05. Some of the grain could have been intentional by the video's directors, but without knowing, all I can do is report the artefact.

    There are four subtitle options for this feature which are French, German, Spanish and Italian. Bear in mind that these only are useful during the video introductions and are not visible during each video feature, which is sad for any fan of the band whose first language is not English. (Ed: no English subtitles for fans who've lost their hearing? Shame!) 

Video:  In the Round In your Face (live concert) 91:09

    This concert is presented full frame (1.33:1) which is its original aspect ratio. As expected, there is no 16x9 enhancement.

    The sharpness of the image is fairly reasonable given that we have a sparsely-lit concert arena and a video source made 14 years before the production of this DVD. Sometimes the image seems a little soft, but this looks to have been intended by the director of the concert footage. With this concert being shot in a darkened arena, and with limited lighting (except of course for the stage), the shadow detail we get is reasonable. Given the technology available at the time of this feature's commitment to film and tape, what we end up getting is fairly good. As with the videos section of this disc, low level noise is not an issue.

    Colour use, for a live concert, seems natural and suits the material well.

    MPEG artefacts seem to have been kept at bay during the feature with no real issues of note other than some slight pixelization seen during the concert. Aliasing is no real problem with this section of the disc. Also, film artefacts seem to be largely absent with any standout artefacts being intended by the director. Overall, this is a very clean and clear transfer of this concert that remains mostly devoid of any real problems.

    The subtitles are not available during this portion of the disc.

    This disc is formatted RSDL with the change taking place at 21:10 during the concert between songs. As this disc is divided into two sections, one might have thought that the layer change could have been made invisible and placed between the different features.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio track available on this disc, that being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded track.

    The dialogue (or vocal) quality on offer is quite good with Joe Elliott's vocals being quite clear and understandable (age dependant) through the range of material both studio and concert. The interview portions during the extras also are quite clear with no issues of note.

    The audio sync for these features is quite good, although there are some slightly out-of-sync issues to be observed during this program, such as that seen at 12:29 during the Historia portion of the disc. This looks to be an editing issue, as with much lip-synched material, singers don't always get it 100% right and the video editors are not perfect either. Still, for the most part there are no real problems with the sync on this disc during the videos. There is some out of sync audio during the concert material, with the audio drifting in and out of sync. Again, sometimes audio and video editors will make some slight errors and however distracting the level of 'out of sync' is, without a complete re-edit this is as good as we'll get. There is also a noticeable shift in the audio at 7:24 during the concert portion of the disc where the sound seems to shift away from the centre to the left of screen. While not very noticeable when audio playback is in a processed mode such as Pro Logic, it is quite noticeable if listened to in Dolby Digital 2.0.

    The music is of course by the band Def Leppard, who are a very polished and vocally harmonic band that play fun and energetic music. Not as pretty (musically) as Bon Jovi and not as hard as Metallica, but having the best of both worlds with music that is accessible but still rocks. This ability to cross-over and straddle the worlds of pop music and heavy metal is the real strong point of this band and has the effect of making them relevant to a much larger market than just the pop fans or metal heads. With the metal heads in tow and even the urban (read black American) market lending an ear, you know the guys had to be doing something right, and during the Hysteria era, they were unstoppable.

    With the low bit rate on offer, the audio wasn't exactly bursting out of every channel full range, but then, this was to be expected. My receiver was able to coax some surround activity from this audio offering, but not much, and it was at best only a weak atmospheric presence. Play around with your processor's surround settings (perhaps Pro Logic II can generate some amount of surround audio), but in the end I watched much of this disc in 2 channel stereo.

    There is some low frequency effect available on the audio track on offer, but again, it is limited by both the source material and also the low bit rate of the audio track. Still, we do get some LFE that serves this title well.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Extras

Menu 

    This appears after the initial language selection menu which is static and offers the various subtitle options that include French, German, Spanish and Italian (English is there at the start too, but is basically a 'subtitles off' option rather than a selection of English subtitles - there are no English subtitles).

Historia (video collection)

    Upon selecting the subtitle option, the viewer is taken to a main menu which offers either the Historia video collection, In the Round In your Face concert section or Special Features. Selecting Historia presents the list of videos available for individual selection or the viewer can select the Def Leppard Historia logo at the top of the screen to play the entire video collection from beginning to end. This menu is animated and features audio in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded that loops endlessly every 56 seconds.

 In the Round In your Face (live concert)

    This menu offers the tracks from the live concert which are selectable individually, or by selecting the Def Leppard In the Round In your Face logo at the top of the screen the whole concert will be played back in total. This menu is animated with audio in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded that loops endlessly every 55 seconds.

    The Special Features menu offers the viewer the options of:

• Interviews (with subtitle selection)
• Bonus Videos
• Discography

Interviews: 11:07

    The interviews are broken up into four parts that cover the subjects of: DVD, playing live, making videos and pushing the limits. This is a fairly light section, but does offer some insight into the band and their life from the halcyon days of Hysteria to the present day.

Bonus Videos: 19:49

    This is a selection of videos made later in the life of Def Leppard during 1996 to 1999 and feature songs from the band's newer albums Slang and Euphoria. The songs available are:

• Promises (from Euphoria)
• Goodbye (from Euphoria) presented in 1.85:1 with no 16x9 enhancement
• Slang (from Slang) presented in 1.85:1 with no 16x9 enhancement
• Work it Out (from Slang) presented in 1.85:1 with no 16x9 enhancement
• All I Want is Everything (from Slang)

    These videos are an interesting look at what was the future (in relation to the main material) of the band. Some of the songs such as Promises sound like the old band while Slang and Work it Out are quite different indeed.

Discography: 9 Pages

    This feature presents the full list of albums of the band from their first LP On Through the Night up to their later work Euphoria. This disc was produced too late to include any details of their album X (which was released mid-2002). Sadly not included are the release years for each album.

R4 vs R1

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

    As far as I am able to ascertain, this title is the same as that offered in Region 1. A PAL transfer and local affordability would make the R4 disc the version of choice.

Summary

    This is a great disc that matches up well with its companion disc Def Leppard: Visualize / Video Archive and the fantastic Def Leppard - Hysteria (Classic Albums) disc which presents a quite complete history of the band (up to 1993 at least). For any fan of this very popular band, buy this disc straight away. Very highly recommended.

    The video is quite reasonable if you take into account the age and source of much of the video material, some of which has not seen the light of day until this video's release. The concert portion of the disc presents a good clean image that captures the live feel of a band at their peak.

    The audio is reasonable and is easily listenable, though nowhere near reference quality. The Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded sound (just) works well as this material originated in the 2.0 realm. A higher bit rate would have been nice.

    The extras are quite good, with 2 titles available on the one disc, and some later videos from the band on offer, plus some brief but interesting interviews.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Sean Bradford (There is no bio.)
Friday, September 27, 2002

Review Equipment
DVD	Panasonic A300-MU, using S-Video output
Display	Hitachi CP-L750W LCD Projector. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder	Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
Amplification	Yamaha RX-V2090
Speakers	VAF DC-X fronts; VAF DC-6 center; VAF DC-2 rears; LFE-07subwoofer (80W X 2)

---

Other Reviews
Jeff K's Australian DVD Info Site - Kevin S
DVD Net - Adrian T