The Band-The Authorized Biography (1995)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Documentary	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	65:00
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Mark Hall
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Eric Clapton George Harrison Ringo Starr John Hammond Emmylou Harris Ronnie Hawkins Al Kooper Carl Perkins Phil Ramone Todd Rundgren Bob Weir
Case	Super Jewel
RPI	$39.95	Music	The Band

    This rather well-made documentary covers a lot of ground, and is most definitely one for the fans. Many people, including Eric Clapton, George Harrison and so on talk about their experiences with The Band, not to mention most of the members themselves. Notable for his absence, however, is Robbie Robertson, who is someone I have come to have some degree of respect for. Why he is absent is never explained - clearly he wasn't available and I won't try and second guess why, but his omission is felt.

    If you don't know who The Band are, I would steer clear of this one. If you are a fan of this quite influential group from the 60's and 70's, then you will probably want this disc. It's just a pity that the presentation isn't a little bit better.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and being full-frame is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Even the opening credits were more than a hint that this picture was not going to be good. Blurred and somewhat out of focus, the movie never earns its praise, and only slightly betters a good VHS tape. The source is quite low resolution, with jaggies apparent much of the time, especially in high-contrast conditions, and during motion. I would hazard that the source is most probably NTSC, and has been converted to PAL. Anyway, it isn't much chop. Recent interviews fared the best, which wasn't particularly good, and stock footage was naturally worst. There is some good news, in that there was little in the way of low-level noise. Shadow detail was generally quite acceptable.

    There was no real problem with the colour palette, being fairly well rendered.

    There were no MPEG artefacts. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of excessive edge-enhancement, and some aliasing, although the lack of vertical resolution went some way to reduce this problem. If the image isn't sharp, you generally don't get aliasing.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Dialogue was always easy to make out and was easy to listen to, with no audio sync issues.

    The quality of the audio depended on what particular era the music was from at the time, which ranges from the fifties to the nineties, and was as variable as you might expect. Nothing can be done about this, so it is quite acceptable. Modern material came across quite well, with quite a rich quality to the tone. However, detail was lacking, and it never achieved what I would call "Hi-Fi", but it certainly does it's job respectably.

    The subwoofer came in now and then, and was well integrated when it was called on to be.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Chapter Selections (11)

    The video transfer is quite ordinary, coming from a low-resolution source to begin with.

    The soundtrack is quite good, and does what it is called upon to do.

    This package has no extras. Some details of The Band would have been nice, like a discography and some biographies at the very, very least.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall