Babyface-A Collection of Hit Videos (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Biographies-Cast Discography
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	62:32 (Case: 61)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Various
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	None Given
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$24.95	Music	Babyface

    Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds probably isn't a name that would immediately come to mind unless you are an aficionado of the R&B style of music. It is therefore amazing to realise that this excellent singer is also a very successful songwriter for other artists such as Madonna and Whitney Houston. This disc presents a look back at some of his better known songs, and showcases a smooth, elegant and silky style.

    Possibly the best track on offer on this disc is the opening track, Change the World with Eric Clapton on guitar and assisting on vocals. Recorded live, it is visually the best-looking of the tracks and is a good introduction to the music. Arguably the best known track is How Come, How Long, with Stevie Wonder. This is made in typical music video style and has the best lyrics for my tastes, as well as a topical theme. Moving backwards through the years, the rest of the disc is indicative of the changing styles of music from the late 1980s through to the end of the 90s, as well as a pictorial history of the development of Babyface's music.

    Many of the tracks on this disc include other noted music personalities like Kenny G, Bobby Brown, LL Cool J and Jody Watley, amongst others. The music is smooth, never jarring or discordant and makes for an excellent background. I am not a huge fan of R&B but I really enjoyed this disc, not for the video quality, but for the audio. For those of you that love your music laid back and melodic, then this disc is for you.

Video

    There are 13 different videos on offer here, obviously made by different directors, offering a diversity of styles and quality. It would be true to say the older the video was, the less quality it contained, although the biggest problem was contained in the second clip. This is a fairly standard mix of music video clips.

   The entire disc is presented in 1.33:1 (4x3) Full Frame and isn't 16x9 enhanced.

    The opening clip is probably the closest you'll get to high quality on this disc. Recorded live, it is sharp and defined with good lighting aiding depth in many shots. The blacks are noiseless and grain is very low. After this, things do degenerate with more and more grain present as you watch the various clips. Sharpness is fairly consistent nonetheless. Edge enhancement didn't appear as much more than minor outlining, naturally in many clips it simply wasn't necessary. Shadow detail was decent overall, but not exceptional. There was some minor blooming at times, mainly due to the style of the clip being shot and wasn't caused by the transfer in my opinion.

    The colours ranged from full, vibrant and saturated through black and white with orange and sepia tones, all the way through to deliberately oversaturated and bleeding. Again, this is more a matter of artistic preference and not the transfer. For the most part, the normal visual was quite exceptional with excellent skin tones.

    All the text on this disc suffers from mild aliasing and shimmers constantly. This was very annoying. Track 2, How Come, How Long has annoying macro-blocking visible on a door pattern all the way through it. The first instance is at 8:29 and is very easy to spot. There are minor spots of shimmering visible at times on various clips but not enough to really stand out. The only film artefact I noticed was at 45:21 during My Kinda Girl which was a testament to the quality of the masters used.

    The subtitles are in yellow with a black border (interesting) which made them extremely visible at all times. They followed the singing precisely, except for the uh-uh's and ooooh-aaaahs, which is fine. They were located a little higher on the screen than normal, slightly above the bottom of the screen but weren't too disruptive.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two audio tracks available on this DVD. The first is a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix at a very smooth 448 kilobits per second, and the other is a PCM Stereo track at 2304 kilobits per second (48kHz, 24 bits). To be honest, you shouldn't need to look past the Dolby Digital 5.1 track which was so much more full and was a delight to listen to. I did try the PCM track but found it almost annoying by comparison.

    There is some dialogue on a couple of tracks that wasn't hard to understand. There was a nice lip-sync stuff-up on Whip Appeal at 55:35 that was very noticeable.

    There was some surround activity on offer in the Dolby Digital mix which definitely added an extra element to the quality of the music. For the most part, the music was solidly located across the fronts but the rears gave a richness and fullness to the sound which was surprising.

    The subwoofer is really nicely utilised on this disc with often subtle activity. I was pleasantly surprised to find the music had that much bass to it and the .1, although not overpowering, quietly added to the excellent ambience of the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Introduction

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Scene Selection Animation & Audio

Biographies-Cast

Discography

    As far as I can determine, this disc hasn't been released in any other Region at this time, although there is a DVD out there called Karaoke: Hits Made Popular by Babyface which contains many of the same songs as on this disc.

    Although I'm not a huge fan of this particular music style, this was a very relaxing and easy listening disc. R&B might not make it into my regular diet but I can't argue with the quality of the sound on this disc, even if the video isn't as good. The extras are typically almost non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall