Friends-Series 3-Volume 2-Episodes 9-16 (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	175:34
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Sided	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Kevin S. Bright Terry Hughes Robbie Benson James Burrows
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

    This is the second volume of Friends episodes from Series 3. I reviewed the first volume of this series a little while back; you'll find that review here. This volume also contains 8 episodes. The episodes on this disc are:

• the Thanksgiving episode with the enormously competitive touch football game for the Geller Trophy
• Phoebe making a fuss over Christmas trees, Ross selling Brown Bird cookies, and Rachel quitting the coffee shop
• the upstairs neighbour being heard through the ceiling, Rachel getting a job offer, and Joey's sisters (lots of them!)
• Monica and the poet, Joey having to dance for an audition, and Ross getting terribly jealous of Mark
• Monica and Richard again, Joey reading Little Women, putting scary books in the freezer, Phoebe's boyfriend's shorts
• Phoebe and her ex-singing partner, Chandler and the girl with the artificial leg
• the double episode about Ross and Rachel taking "a break", the translator on a date, and leg-waxing 

    The closing double episode is a bit sad, particularly the ending, but there are some classic moments amongst this lot. Phoebe gets some good moments - her concern over Christmas trees not getting a chance to fulfil their destiny; her date with Sergei, the diplomat with a translator; her confrontation with her former singing partner (who left her to write advertising jingles). Joey has his share, too: lying on his resume about his dancing skills, and consequently being asked to demonstrate them; putting books in the freezer when they get too scary; chatting with Chandler about the possibility of sharing a girl. Then again, all of them get moments - I wonder if they have a roster?

    These are some classic episodes, and there are good laughs in each one.

Video

    Just like the first volume of this series, the video quality is not fabulous. Shot on video in 1997, it is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio.

    The image is soft, but acceptable. Shadow detail is not bad at all. There's no visible low-level noise. There was a hint of edge enhancement on one or two shots, but you really had to look to notice it.

    There is some noticeable aliasing, but it is not bad enough to annoy. There are no other MPEG artefacts, and no film artefacts.

    Colour is fine - well-saturated, with the merest hint of colour bleed on a bright red jumper Joey wears in the sixth episode.

    There are subtitles in several languages. I only checked those in English; there are standard English subtitles, and English subtitles for the Hearing Impaired. I looked at both, and there is very little difference between the two. The font used is clear, and the subtitles are in white with a black border, making them easy to read against any background. Their placement varies a lot. While most of them are towards the bottom of the picture, there are some placed high, and others in the middle - I've not seen that before, and it looked a bit odd, but it worked OK.

    The disc is double-sided and single-layered with four episodes on each side. No layer change. I'd rather they used a single-sided dual-layer disc, because those are easier to handle, but it's no biggie.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack, which is English in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.

    Dialogue is clear and comprehensible, which is critical on such a dialogue-driven show. I didn't see any problems with audio sync.

    The music is by Michael Skloff. We don't watch this show for the music - it's mostly limited to a bar or two between scenes. 

    The surrounds and subwoofer are not used by this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Oh, excitement! We have the same extra on this disc as on the previous one. And again we have it twice (once on each side of the disc). 

Menu

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

Music Video

    Gosh, the music video of the Rembrandts performing the theme song, "assisted" by the cast - where have I seen that before? Oh, yeah, on the previous disc. Something new, something fresh, might be nice...

    Let's be glad we live in Region 4, where we have Buffy on DVD, and where they release entire seasons of a show. In Region 1, as far as I can tell, they have only "The Best of Friends" discs, containing selected episodes, and thus missing out on the slow development of multi-episode plot elements.

    These are good episodes. I'd recommend getting the first volume, first, though.

    The video quality is fair, not fabulous.

    The audio quality is fine.

    There is the same extra, twice, again.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall