Pearl Jam-Touring Band 2000 (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Audio Featurette-Europe Montage-The Cities Featurette-Europe Montage-The Band Featurette-Europe Montage-The Fans Featurette-Smile Featurette-Matt Cam: Evacuation, Evenflow, In My Tree Music Video-Evolution, Oceans
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	124:58
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (78:17)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	Ed Vedder Jeff Ament Matt Cameron Stone Gossard Mike McCready
Case	Snapper
RPI	$29.95	Music	Pearl Jam

    Pearl Jam Touring Band 2000 is a collection of live concert footage not surprisingly from the band's 2000 tour series.

    The disc provides twenty eight separate live tracks from different concerts that have been neatly integrated to give a single concert experience. This main live concert footage has a running time of over two hours and the disc also includes a number of additional extras.

    If you are a fan of the band you should definitely check out this disc. It provides the next best thing to attending a Pearl Jam concert and can be played at your convenience. Unfortunately, the video quality could have been significantly improved but as the viewer's main interest is in the audio content this can be tolerated.

Video

    The content for this disc was obviously source from a relatively low quality tape source that has been further degraded by the MPEG encoding. Luckily, viewers will mainly be concerned with the audio content but the poor quality video is still a disappointment.

    The video is presented as a full frame transfer at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is unfortunately quite soft throughout and never provides high levels of detail at any stage. The dark backgrounds and crowd scenes never display high levels of shadow detail, as you would expect from this type of video source. Significant low level noise is also visible throughout the transfer which is disruptive to the viewer.

    The colours displayed during the transfer are often quite extreme with large amounts of red and blue created by the lighting effects. Despite these extreme colours, the transfer appears muted and never highly accurate at any stage. Chroma noise is also visible throughout the transfer.

    Various small MPEG artefacts may be seen continually throughout the transfer. These artefacts are visible in most scenes with parts of the picture displaying small macro blocking effects and shimmering. Some examples of these artefacts may be seen at 13:30, 15:13, 17:40 and 24:35. Despite being reasonably small, the frequent occurrence of these artefacts is quite disruptive to the viewer.

    There are numerous examples of aliasing present throughout the transfer. Some examples of these appear around the edges of band members' shirts, instruments and the stage and may be seen at 10:10, 11:28 and 29:14.

    As this transfer originated from a tape source there are no film artefacts present in the transfer.

    During the transfer, a halo effect can be seen around all brightly lit objects. This continues for the duration of the feature and is quite distracting to the viewer.

    Unfortunately there is no subtitle track included on this disc. The inclusion of a subtitle track would have been appreciated as some of the lyrics are a little hard to understand if you are unfamiliar with the songs.

    The layer change occurs at 78:17 at the start of Chapter 21. This point is the beginning of a new track and is only mildly disruptive to the viewer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The lyrics for some songs are a little hard to understand for listeners unfamiliar with the band's songs.

    At no stage during the transfer were any dropouts or problems with audio sync detected.

    Even though the 5.1 mix is focused across the front three channels, the surround channels are used extensively during this aggressive Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. They are used mainly for crowd noises as well as some instruments. Unfortunately, I found this mix rather unnatural but I am sure that some people will undoubtedly enjoy this mix.

    The subwoofer channel is used throughout to support the music but never draws attention to itself.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Featurette: Europe Montage

   This is a collection of footage taken during the band's tour of Europe. It is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and has an accompanying PCM audio track. The footage is divided into the following three sections: The Cities (5:02), The Band (3:32) and The Fans (6:02).

Featurette: Smile (3:57)

    This contains a series of clips of the band clowning around and is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with a live PCM audio track.

Featurette: Matt Cam

    This featurette contains footage of drummer Matt Cameron performing the following three tracks: Evacuation (2:58), Evenflow (5:25) and In My Tree (4:03). All footage is presented full frame at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with an accompanying PCM audio track.

Music Video: Do The Evolution (4:12)

    This video is presented with a PCM audio track at an aspect ratio of approximately 1.78:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. There is obvious low level noise present throughout the video.

Music Video: Oceans (2:49)

    This video is presented with a PCM audio track at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. There is obvious low level noise and MPEG compression artefacting present throughout the video.

    As both versions of this disc feature identical content, and as the R1 disc also reportedly has the same low quality video, I would have no preference for either version.

    Pearl Jam Touring Band 2000 is a disc that attempts to recreate the live concert experience that will definitely appeal to fans of the band.

    The video transfer presented on this disc is quite disappointing but adequate for the required purpose.

    The choice between a 2.0 PCM track and a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix should satisfy all viewers.

    The collection of extras provided on this disc are quite entertaining but would have been improved with a complete discography or a lyric subtitle stream.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall