Friends-Series 3-Volume 1-Episodes 1-8 (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Music Video-I'll Be There For You-The Rembrandts
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	175:19
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Sided	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Gail Mancuso Kevin S. Bright Steve Zuckerman Peter Bonerz
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Jennifer Aniston Courtney Cox Lisa Kudrow Matt LeBlanc Matthew Perry David Schwimmer
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michael Skloff

    Friends is a TV sitcom, pure and simple. Well, almost. In the more recent series, it seems to have evolved into a bit of a soap opera. I have to admit that I have watched very few episodes of the current series, because it seems to have lost its edge. There's lots of speculation as to the cause (maybe the actors are being paid too much? Heck, they get more per episode than we get in a year) but let's not worry about that. Let's go back to when the show was fun. Say, around Series 3? Gosh, that series is on DVD - did you know that? Let's have a look at it, and see what it's like... (yeah, yeah, I'll behave).

    Series 3, to put things in context, is the series where Ross and Rachel are together, where Monica has broken up with Richard, and where none of the others has a steady relationship, except for that brief Chandler - Janice thing. This series has the dancing in the fountain credits.

    This is the first volume of episodes from Series 3. It contains 8 episodes, which is good value (other TV series give you rather less per disc). The episodes on this disc are:

• the Princess Leia fantasy. A warning: this episode may put some men off sexual fantasies altogether
• getting ready for Ross' big speech; the "essence" of a chair, and "going commando"
• Monica making jam, and Phoebe's stalker. Remember Ursula? Phoebe's twin sister?
• Chandler vs commitment; Phoebe acting as Joey's agent, Ross obsessing about his son playing with Barbie
• Phoebe's brother Frank; Joey's carpentry, including cutting Chandler's door in half, and building the entertainment unit
• flashback: "have any of you ever nearly slept together?" - 3 years earlier
• the racecar bed; Ross trying to get along with Rachel's father
• Phoebe's fear of dentists ("someone always dies"), the giant poking device

    One oddity - on the back cover, and inside, there's a still photo for each episode. It looks like they swapped the last two photos, because the captions are in the right order, but the photos aren't.

    I was a bit surprised to see several good episodes together on this disc. I guess I've gotten accustomed to the slow decay of the series, and I'd forgotten how good it used to be - nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Video

    The video quality here is not particularly good. I suspect that the show is shot on video in the first place, and even for video the quality of the image could be better.

    This is US TV material, shot in 1996. Naturally, it is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. That definitely qualifies as the original aspect ratio.

    The image is quite soft, but mostly acceptable. Shadow detail is adequate, and there's little or no visible low-level noise.

    There's very little aliasing, probably because of the softness of the picture. There is some pixelization in the night sky once or twice, especially in the first episode. There are no other MPEG artefacts, and there are no film artefacts (possibly because it was shot on video...).

    Colour is fine - colours appear accurate and well-saturated.

    There are heaps of subtitles, in an interesting mix of languages. Given my limited knowledge of Scandinavian languages, I stuck to checking the English subtitles. They seem fine, abbreviating the occasional phrase, but well in sync with the on-screen action. 

    The disc is double-sided single-layer: no layer change, but the nuisance of having to flip the disc over. Still, after four episodes you need to get up and get some exercise. Double-sided discs are a pain to handle, though. I'd have preferred a dual-layer disc - it is not as though the content would have stretched the capacity of the disc (8 episodes at 21:55 per episode is only 175:20).

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are lots of subtitles, but only one soundtrack, which is English in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.

    Dialogue is clear and comprehensible, which is vital for this show - without the dialogue there's nothing. I saw no audio sync errors. I did get rather irritated with the laugh track, though - it seems to have been mixed a bit louder than necessary. There is some limited directionality in the stereo sound, but it's mostly a front and centre mix.

    The theme was composed by Michael Skloff, who is also credited with "additional music". It's OK, but nothing special. 

    The surrounds and subwoofer are not called upon by the soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are extras! Well, an extra. And it is the same extra on both sides - that seems a bit mean. 

Menu

    The menu system is static and silent. It is simple and easy to use, but not exciting.

Music Video

You may have already seen this video - it is the Rembrandts performing the theme song, "assisted" by the cast. It is pleasant enough, but I don't see why they had to put it on both sides of the disc.

    These episodes do not appear to be available in Region 1. I'm surprised. All they can get is a "best of" collection. Region 2 has the same collection as we do.

    This is a collection of good episodes, from when the series was at its best.

    The video quality is adequate, but only adequate.

    The audio quality is fine.

    There is one extra, twice.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall