Christina Aguilera-My Reflection (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Booklet Tattoo Menu Animation & Audio Music Video-Genio Atrapado (Genie In A Bottle) Music Video-Por Siempre Tu (I Turn To You) Music Video-Ven Conmigo (Come On Over) Music Video-The Christmas Song
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	65:26 (Case: 64)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (47:57)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Larry Jordan
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Christina Aguilera Lil Bow Wow Dr. John Brian McKnight
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Christina Aguilera

    The tracks on this disc are:
 

    This "concert" was a Christmas TV special, presumably made for American cable TV. I say "concert", as it is spliced together presumably from a number of performances, leading to costume switching that sometimes is a little jarring. As with most TV specials, the line-up is heavily biased towards songs that received heavy radio air-play, and well-known covers. In this regard, I expect that some real fans may be a little disappointed that they only get the songs that everyone else knows as well. This disc strikes me as perfect for the casual fan, as most of the songs are recognizable, and those that aren't are strong enough to keep the interest.

Video

    This disc is presented in Full Frame, and is obviously not 16x9 enhanced. I was unable to ascertain if it was shot like this or not, but the chances are good that it was, considering that it is a TV special.

    For the in-concert footage, the transfer is extremely clear and as sharp as I have seen. As mentioned previously, there are some "home video" segments that are taken from a video source that lead to a marked decrease in clarity and a corresponding increase in graininess - but there is not much that could have been done for these sections short of axing them, given their source. There is a large amount of shadow detail in this transfer, and no low-level noise whatsoever - which is especially helpful here as there are often large areas of the image that are not lit directly (such as "unimportant" areas of the stage - the band for example - and the audience).

    The colours are spot on. This is something that is not often done well for concert videos, as they usually possess an abundance of bright colours from both costumes and stage lighting. Even when large portions of the image are occupied with stage lighting shining directly into the camera, the remaining areas remain properly coloured.

    The only MPEG artefact of note is some minor pixelization that occurs at 15:35 when the camera pans through the beams of three stage lights at the same time. There are only minor film-to-video artefacts in the transfer consisting of aliasing that occurs on the occasional guitar string and drumstick, or the scaffolding of the set. It is all very minor and does not distract from the viewing experience at all. The vast majority of time aliasing is non-existent, with the usual culprits (steel gratings and such) being rendered perfectly.

    There are no film artefacts apparent at all, although reflections from stage lighting occasionally cause errant flashes, such as on the drum at 22:23 - these are obviously not the fault of the transfer, but can be as distracting as any actual film artefact.

    The arrangement of subtitles on this disc seems a strange one. For starters, there are no English subtitles. The second irregularity with these subtitles is that they are only active for dialogue, and not for the songs at all. This seems a strange decision on the part of the DVD authors, as casual fans will not be able to sing along with Christina.

    This disc is an RSDL-formatted disc with the layer change occurring between tracks 15 and 16 at 47:57. It is not single layer as stated by the packaging. While it may seem strange that such a short concert requires a dual layer disc, it became apparent that it is the reason why the video transfer is of such high quality. The bitrate on the video almost never drops below 9MBps, and rarely below 9.5MBps, where 10MBps is the maximum possible bitrate for the DVD standard. There is also the DTS soundtrack to consume space on this disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    All three soundtracks (DD 5.1, DD 2.0 and DTS 5.1) are mastered at an incredibly high level, with the DTS soundtrack having the lowest overall level. The volume of the soundtrack seemed to increase throughout the length of the transfer as I found myself frequently lowering the volume over the length of the feature. I listened to both the DTS and DD 5.1 tracks completely while sampling the DD 2.0 track at intervals. I would have to say that the inclusion of the DTS track was quite pointless as it was "wimpy" in comparison to the DD 5.1 track as well as being less immersive.

    Dialogue and Christina Aguilera's singing were clear throughout the transfer. The vocals were mastered at a very high level, often drowning out the rest of the music. This is one reason the soundtrack was so loud - the vocals were really pumped up in the mix. There was slight distortion in the vocals at around 9:31 due to the very high mastering level. To be honest, I was very surprised that the high mastering level caused only one instance of vocal distortion throughout the feature.

    Audio sync was fine throughout the feature. I could not pick any faults with it. The extra Music Videos had perfect audio sync, even in Spanish. It would seem these videos were actually recorded in Spanish at the same time as their English counterparts - more on that in the Extras section.

    Musical clarity was always excellent with very good definition throughout the feature. The DD 5.1 soundtrack was superior to the DTS soundtrack in clarity, a win for DD for a change. Clarity was occasionally lost during Christina Aguilera's vocals because the vocals were mastered at a much higher level than the music. There is also a "home video" showing a live performance where the music sounds terrible, although this is no fault of the transfer.

    Surround channel use was kept to a minimum with no aggressive utilization. The DTS track utilized the surrounds much less than the DD 5.1 soundtrack did. The surrounds were used to carry crowd noises, the occasional musical instrument (5:52) and backup vocals.

    The subwoofer was disappointing. It had great opportunities to shine but never quite pulled it off. Bass definition was fantastic - very clear and precise. Unfortunately, the LFE channel was mastered too low! Way too low. If the LFE level could have been raised even a few decibels the results would have been far more enjoyable. One of the best examples of subwoofer use can be found in Track 7.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Music Video - The Christmas Song 3:49

Music Video - Genio Atrapado (Genie In A Bottle) 3:40

Music Video - Por Siempre Tu (I Turn To You) 4:06

Music Video - Ven Conmigo (Come On Over) 3:13

Tattoo

Booklet

    The video quality is superb, with only the home video sourced segments letting it down.

    The audio quality is good, but the volume is way too high and the subwoofer/surround usage too low.

    The extras are quite disappointing.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall