Jennifer Lopez-Feelin' So Good (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Music Video-9 + 4 Featurette-Behind The Scenes of Jennifer's Photo Shoot Biographies-Cast-Jennifer Lopez Gallery-Photo Featurette-EPK
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	57:46 (Case: 60)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Jim Gable
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	Jennifer Lopez Lynda Lopez
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$29.95	Music	Jennifer Lopez

    It seems that just about everywhere you turn at the moment, Jennifer Lopez is there somewhere. Be it at awards ceremonies almost wearing clothes, or at police departments with former beau Puffy Combs, or simply gazing out from the front cover of magazines galore, you would be hard pressed to have missed the woman over the past two years. Indeed, about the only way you would have avoided seeing the woman is if you were stuck away in a monastery on the lower slopes of the Himalayas. So I suppose that her appearance on DVD was not so much a question of if, but when, and here is the when - Feelin' So Good. Now there is no denying that Jennifer Lopez is one attractive woman, but what does this DVD have to offer in its 57 minutes? Well, not much music is part of the answer.

   Basically, the songs on offer on the DVD comprise If You Had My Love, Waiting For Tonight, No Me Ames (duet with Marc Anthony), Feelin' So Good, Let's Get Loud and Baila, presented in various live or video performances, some of which are incomplete.

   I have to admit that the songs themselves are not too bad, especially in comparison with much of the drivel that has been called music in the last ten years, and she sure can move her body in a most alluring way, even though she must have the most over-exposed midriff in the western world. But at the end of the day, it really highlights how the music industry has slowly prostituted itself and promoted appearance over substance. Now I am not blaming Jennifer Lopez for using her physical attributes to further her career, and good luck to her if the record companies are going to throw considerable wads of their money at her, but this really is a great example of how the music industry has lost the plot.

   This one really is for fans of Jennifer Lopez only, for there is nothing here that really adds much to her career so far. It was a mildly interesting view but with only six songs on offer, it is hardly the most encompassing of insights into a relatively short music career thus far.

Video

    The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format (1.33:1), which is not 16x9 enhanced, although some sections and videos are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 - still not 16x9 enhanced.

    Apart from really poorish looking video taken from her television appearances (that from the Billboard Music Awards looks like it might have been mastered from a home recording of the television broadcast itself), this is not a bad looking transfer at all, even allowing for some of the artistic choices. Quite sharp throughout, reasonably well detailed, the only real complaint is those extracts from the television performances that look pretty ordinary. They suffer from a lack of resolution and are quite grainy in appearance. Grain otherwise is not much of an issue here, and shadow detail is pretty good. There did not appear to be any low level noise problems in the transfer.

    The colours are pretty well all over the place - the interview stuff looks fine, the television performances again suffer from lack of tonal resolution and are a bit dark, whilst the music videos suffer the usual problems of music videos. Quite a vibrant transfer in parts, it is the lack of consistency through the source material that really hampers the whole package just a little. There are no issues with oversaturation here and colour bleed is similarly not an issue.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are a few instances of aliasing/shimmer in the transfer (try 19:38 and 54:00 as examples) but other than that there are no significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. Within the context of the divergent source material, there are no real issues with film artefacts in the transfer.

    In the absence of noting any layer change, it is presumed that this is a Dual Layered DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    It seems that every time I get my hands on a Sony Music DVD, there seems to be a problem with the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The sheer consistency of this issue is such that it really does seem that not only do Sony have a serious problem with how to master 5.1 soundtracks, but their quality control procedures are not picking up the problems created. This is such a disappointing 5.1 track that the Linear PCM 2.0 soundtrack totally destroys it. I really don't know what their problem is, but I sure wish they would fix it.

    As suggested, there are two soundtracks on the DVD, being an English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 soundtrack and an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I listened to both soundtracks but predominantly the Linear PCM soundtrack as the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is so poorly mastered that it makes listening to the songs most difficult, and very unnatural.

    What might appear at first glance to be marginal audio sync problems in the soundtracks are in actual fact examples of pretty ordinary lip-sync.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is really lacking any sort of natural balance to the sound at all. Whilst there is not much wrong with the surround channel use, the soundtrack goes way off-track with the bass channel and the vocal track. The bass channel is mixed slightly too prevalently in the mix, although given the style of music I would have perhaps expected a bit more power in the bass. Whilst this would ordinarily have not been an issue as it is reasonably well-matched to the surround channels, it does become a serious issue when taking into account the vocals. The vocal track for some reason has been mixed at a far too low a level in the overall mix with the result that it sounds very much recessed compared with the rest of the mix. This results in the music well-and-truly overpowering the vocals and as a result destroys the songs. Even fiddling around with volumes for each channel did not really enable me to find a decent compromise so that the vocals sounded natural in the overall mix. The overall result is a less-than-exhilarating musical experience. Thankfully the soundtrack has no other problems, but the one it has is enough to fatally wound it in my view.

    The Linear PCM 2.0 soundtrack is a much more impressive sounding effort indeed. In fact, it produces a far more pumping/driving sound than the Dolby Digital 5.1. This perhaps illustrates how poorly mixed the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is, for there should be no way a Linear PCM soundtrack should have such a drive to it. It is a really nice, open-sounding effort, completely lacking in any congestion, that does a terrific job of carrying the lady's music. Absolutely nothing wrong with the soundtrack at all, this is one of the better examples of Linear PCM yet heard on a Sony Music DVD.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Well, it certainly looks like an impressive extras package...

Menu

    If you understand the personal reference in the album title Out On The 6, you will understand the theming of the main menu animation. If you don't, you will probably wonder why the heck they have a subway train as the theme. Quite decent enough stuff, even though the audio looping is far too quick.

Music Videos - 9 + 4

    Well, it does look mighty impressive in an extras listing, but the simple fact is that the two menu items Music Videos and TV Appearances actually seem to just provide links to the relevant portions of the programme as far as I can tell. If they actually do go to individual items, then they only repeat (as far as I can see) the content in the main programme. That being the case, it really is a bit misleading - and definitely not very exciting. Since they duplicate the main programme content, they are obviously presented in the same way as the main programme - and doesn't the function itself duplicate the scene selection menu?

Featurette - Behind The Scenes of Jennifer's Photo Shoot (2:55)

    A short featurette mainly showing Jennifer Lopez being photographed. Unless you are a really die-hard J-Lo freak, I doubt that you will see anything of mind-shattering importance here. Presented in a Full Frame format which is not 16x9 enhanced and with some Dolby Digital 2.0 audio enhancement.

Biography - Cast

    Presented in a scrolling format with some audio enhancement, this is not so much a biography as production notes about her album really.

Gallery - Photo (1:02)

    Presented with automatic forwarding, the fifteen photos take just over a minute to view. Unless you are a really die-hard J-Lo freak, I doubt that you will see anything of monumental importance here, no matter how good-looking she is. The photos are presented in Full Frame format, are not 16x9 enhanced, have some audio enhancement and are unannotated.

Featurette - EPK (9:33)

    Nice to see that one of these things is actually called what it is, rather than trying to describe it as a Behind The Scenes featurette. As far as these 9 minute sells go, this is not a bad one and is the best part of the extras package. Presented in a Full Frame format, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Nothing wrong with it technically.

    As far as we have been able to ascertain, this is identical to the Region 1 release.

    Jennifer Lopez - Feelin' So Good really serves to highlight the woman's lack of pedigree in the music field. The DVD basically contains five songs which you see in various different incarnations. Even allowing for the fact that they might actually be half-reasonable songs, that lack of content is the main stumbling block here. Whilst the interview material, with the interview conducted by presumably J-Lo's sister Lynda, is reasonably interesting if lacking in any great depth, as a non-fan I would really be needing a lot more content here in order for me to hand over the money to buy the DVD. A few more songs would certainly help, as would some more meat in the interviews. Fans will probably lap this up, but if this is the best of what she has done so far, I would humbly suggest that J-Lo wait a little while longer before proclaiming herself a music artist. At the moment she falls a little bit short of the mark. Sort of like as a singer she makes a pretty good actress, as an actress she makes a pretty good singer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall