The Corrs-Live in London (2000)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-The Corrs: Access All Areas (19:40) Multiple Angles-Dreams, Radio, Breathless Featurette-Merry Xmas (War Is Over) DVD-ROM Extras-360 degree footage (So Young, Toss The Feathers)
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	105:55
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (72:05)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Hamish Hamilton
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Caroline Corr Jim Corr Sharon Corr Andrea Corr
Case	Alpha-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	The Corrs

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.0 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (384Kb/s) English dts 5.0 (768Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, during credits

    The conversation went along the lines of: "Ian, do you want to review The Corrs - Live In London or not?", "Michael, you are obviously not feeling well, please take two aspirin and go and lie down. There is no chance that I am not reviewing The Corrs - Live In London". And so the DVD arrives at my doorstep for review... which is a different way of saying that if you want an unbiased view of the contents of this particular DVD, you probably will not get it here! As most of you might have gathered, I am a big fan of the band and any chance to see them on DVD is taken with alacrity. I can only envy those who recently saw the band on their brief tour of the east coast. Still, those lucky sods probably need a souvenir anyway, so here it is.

    Recorded during their European tour in 2000, this DVD provides a third concert experience of the band on Region 4 DVD and the second to be recorded in London. Now perhaps it is just me being overly expectant, but this does not quite live up to the expectations. Okay, as far as I am concerned everything starring The Corrs is worthwhile viewing, but in comparison to The Corrs - Live At Lansdowne Road, released about one year ago in time for Christmas (just like this effort), this just does not have the same pizzazz. Certainly part of the reason is that there is nothing quite like playing in front of your home town crowd, but I am not sure that that is the entire reason for the slightly flatter concert here. Mind you, the fact that having heard the album In Blue in DVD-Audio format might also have something to do with this too.

    Naturally enough with a band into its fourth DVD release, there is considerable overlap of material with the prior DVDs. That is not to say that the material is not worth listening to, for even in its fourth DVD incarnation, the music remains very listenable and there is just enough variety in the track listing to distinguish this from The Corrs - Live At Lansdowne Road, which is probably a good thing as far as Warner Vision Australia are concerned: hard core fans of The Corrs will buy the DVD anyway, but the less committed punter is going to need some inducement to buy if they already have any of the prior DVDs. As you can see from the track listing below, the concert covers the breadth of the band's three original albums (I don't include Unplugged as an original album as it really just provides variations upon songs off the first two albums). The variety especially comes in tracks like Old Town (a Thin Lizzy song) and Paddy Carthy.

   From a purely concert point of view, it is regrettable that once again the camera focuses a lot on Andrea Corr to the exclusion of just about everyone barring Sharon. Now I appreciate that Andrea is the focal point of the group for reasons not completely unconnected with the fact that she is an attractive woman as well as being the lead vocalist, but a slightly more balanced visual presentation of the band might not go astray one day. Past the visual side of things though, the concert provides a good cross-section of The Corrs career to date, and is certainly worthy of consideration.

    However, whilst fans of the band will not be hesitating to slap the asking price down once again, for the less committed punter it has to be said that this holds slightly less sway upon the wallet than say The Corrs - Live At Lansdowne Road (similar video transfer wise but a better concert experience) or The Corrs - Unplugged (a wonderful presentation in just about every respect). All of which means of course that we are still awaiting the absolute definitive concert DVD of The Corrs. All I can say is that I hope Warner Vision Australia keep on trying to achieve that perfect DVD - I am thoroughly enjoying all the near-misses they are coming up with!

Video

    The concert itself was being broadcast live on cable television (presumably Sky in England) and obviously reflects this fact at times - i.e. Andrea Corr and backing band is about the extent of the filmed material. Since it was a direct to air broadcast, the transfer reflects this fact, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and 16x9 enhanced. It should be noted however that portions of the feature are presented in an ultra-widescreen format with a split picture contained therein.

    In just about every way, this is your typical concert video - generally sharp but with a fair chunk of the transfer to some extent washed out by the stage lighting. At its best, it is an excellent transfer with oodles of definition, right down to the fact that you can see the soft hairs on Andrea's arms. At other times it is hog-tied by a lack of shadow detail, with the foreground bleeding into the background. Then you add in the odd segment where the detail is completely washed out by the stage lighting, and this leaves one in a quandary as to how to broadly categorise the quality of the transfer. The other problem with the stage lighting is that it tends to introduce a slightly grainy look to what is actually a very clear transfer. Add into the mix some slightly out of focus material (not the intended stuff by the way), and broadly this is a transfer that whilst inherently excellent, sure does amplify the inherent weaknesses in the source material. There does not appear to be any low level noise issues in the transfer.

    The colours again suffer somewhat from the effects of the stage lighting, but generally speaking this is a nicely saturated transfer with quite reasonable vibrancy. Obviously we have some issues with slight flare throughout the show as there is plenty of blue stage lighting in evidence at times, which creates the usual "aura" around the band members. Thankfully there is nothing really approaching over saturation here. There did not appear to be any colour bleed issues in the transfer. Note that there is some artistic use of black and white for slow-mo shots at various times and these are very nicely handled, even though I find them unnecessary intrusions.

    There are no apparent MPEG artefacts in the transfers. The big problem in the transfer is the presence of film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, mainly in the form of moderate aliasing. The usual suspects exhibit the problem, such as microphones (26:48), instrument strings (42:15), keyboards (29:19), edges of the stage (26:00) and so on. It starts out mildly enough but by the end of the concert I was just plain frustrated by the lack of grip the authors managed to get on this problem. Frankly, I found it too distracting after 100 minutes or so. I really do appreciate that fine detail gives problems in the mastering process but I would have thought after three years experience we would be getting a better handle on the issue than is demonstrated here. There are no problems with film artefacts in the transfer.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD, with the layer change coming at 72:05. It is your typical effort for a concert DVD, being about as obvious as the size of Anna Nicole Smith's chest. It comes during a break between songs and exhibits the usual silent pause in the applause from the crowd.

    There are two subtitle options on the DVD: English (which really is just a lyric subtitle track) and English for the Hearing Impaired (which is a true subtitle track with all spoken dialogue, too). Both are excellent being very accurate and nicely presented.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are the three soundtracks on this DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and an English dts 5.0 soundtrack. I listened to both of the 5.0 soundtracks whilst sampling sections of the Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

    There are some slight inherent problems in the recording, where Andrea Corr's microphone seems to be absent at times making it a little difficult to hear her, but otherwise dialogue and vocals come up very well in the transfers and everything is easy to understand. There is no problem with audio sync in the transfer.

    The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is a very good effort, and in many ways is the soundtrack I prefer on the DVD. It is very nicely balanced, so that the sound is quite natural. It has a clean open sound that appears to have no blemishes at all. At normal listening levels, this does not concede that much to the surround soundtracks at all. Indeed, about the only notable difference is purely the lack of surround presence - which in some cases is a blessing in disguise if the engineers don't get the surround encoding correct.

    No such problems with the encoding of the surround presence here though and this is a very good Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack. It seems that there have been a few concert DVDs recently lacking the low frequency (bass) channel and I have to say that on the balance I appreciate it. Maybe it is a reaction to too many badly mastered 5.1 soundtracks, but the 5.0 soundtrack seems to have a more natural sound with better presentation of the vocal tracks in particular. Certainly there is nothing much wrong with this 5.0 soundtrack at all and the surround channels are very nicely handled indeed. The really noteworthy aspect of this effort is that nice consistent surround presence, especially out of the rear channels. Indeed, amongst recent concert DVDs this has a much better rear channel use than the norm.

    Switching back and forth between the two 5.0 soundtracks indicates that there really is not that much difference between them. The dts 5.0 soundtrack has a slightly fuller sound, with just a hint more solidity out of the surround channels, but really and truly this is no settler of the argument of which format is better. The lack of serious bass here is what makes this a more listenable soundtrack than normal, and I would suggest that 5.0 sound is far better for better balanced concert sounds than 5.1 sound. I know that is a view unlikely to be shared by others, but this really has a much more listenable sound to it than most 5.1 soundtrack concert DVDs.

    Basically, three fine soundtracks with nothing really to complain about at all.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are some modest extras included on the DVD, one of which provides usage of one of the more unused features of DVD in the form of multiple angles.

Menu

    Very nicely done, with some nice audio and animation enhancement.

Featurette - The Corrs: Access All Areas (19:40)

    Another of those rather extended electronic promotional kit style of efforts that basically consists of some behind the scenes footage with some interview material with the band members. It also includes some concert material lifted from the previous The Corrs - Live At Lansdowne Road. It appears to have been made for transmission on Sky in connection with the concert. Hosted by the slightly annoying Kate Thornton, about the highlight of the whole effort is the glimpses of the slippers that Andrea wears backstage (she performs barefoot). Presented in a mix of Full Frame and 1.78:1 aspect ratios, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Nothing really insightful or compelling about this, but at least it is something.

Multiple Angles (3)

    Three songs in the main concert have been blessed with the multiple angle feature: Dreams, Radio and Breathless. Each has a choice of five angles, and can be changed at whim. For fans of Caroline Corr, you will be pleased to note that one angle in each song concentrates pretty solidly on her. Aside from that, you don't really notice that much difference between the angles. The presentation is obviously the same as the main feature. Nice, but why not more of it?

DVD-ROM Extras

    Basically containing only one extra, being a 360 degree presentation of two songs, So Young and Toss The Feathers. However, it sounds more exciting than it actually is. On my seventeen inch monitor, the film is presented in a small "screen" about two inches by three inches in size. You move the footage either left or right by moving your mouse over the footage in that direction. The 360 degree camera is located at the front of the stage near, you guessed it, Andrea Corr. Basically an unusual extra but not one that serves a whole heap of purpose - especially given the small size of the presentation (and I could not see any way to increase the size thereof). A one time only look, which diminishes the value enormously. The only other content is two website addresses.

Featurette - Merry Xmas (War Is Over) (4:04)

    Actually a song from the concert that appears to have been excised for some reason (anything else missing?), there is nothing terribly exciting about it. Nice song, decently done but not a patch upon the original obviously. Presented in the same format as the main feature.

    As far as we can ascertain, this has yet to be released in Region 1, but on the basis of previous releases the eventual release will not differ substantially to the Region 4 release.

    The Corrs - Live In London is another decent enough concert DVD from one of the most popular bands around at the moment. However, it really offers little different to earlier DVDs and as a concert experience is not a patch upon The Corrs - Live At Lansdowne Road. Whilst real fans of the band will be grabbing this from the DVD shelves around the country, others would be well advised to head towards the previous release for a better concert experience, if a slightly poorer video presentation. We still await the definitive DVD of The Corrs in concert - that is, perfect video, perfect audio and a worthwhile extras package.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall