Ambient Waterfalls (2000) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | New Age |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Featurette-An Environmental Message From Ken Davis Discography |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2000 | ||
Running Time | 41:35 (Case: 45) | ||
RSDL / Flipper | Dual Sided | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | Ken Davis |
Studio
Distributor |
Ken Davis Music Holborne Australasia |
Starring | None Given |
Case | Brackley-Trans-No Lip | ||
RPI | $24.95 | Music | Ken Davis |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
Video Format | 576i (PAL)/480i (NTSC) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | None | Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
The presentation here is simply lots of video footage, filmed by Ken Davis, of waterfalls in the Cairns region and on the Atherton Tablelands. The video is accompanied by a choice of three soundtracks: piano music with nature sounds, nature sounds only or piano music only. The piano music comprises pieces from his album Innocence, which surprisingly enough is not amongst the multitude of similar CDs owned either by myself or my parents. The nature sounds are those recorded on location by Ken Davis.
Since the general use for the CDs seems to be for background ambience, you can pretty much guess what the purpose of the DVD is. Whether we really need both background video and audio at home, at gatherings or whatever is open to debate I guess, but if you really do need something of this ilk then you probably should not go past this effort.
The transfers are presented in a Full Frame format and are not 16x9 enhanced.
The video was shot by Ken Davis on a small handheld digital camcorder if I recall the introduction correctly. Suffice it to say then that this really amounts to a rather glorified home video, and does display some of the problems of such material. Occasional lapses in focus, the odd arty framing of photos and the general tendency to focus on detail and forget the overall picture. However, having said that, this is actually a quite decently sharp transfer that is quite clear in its presentation and quite well detailed. There is nothing in the way of grain problems here and low level noise is not an issue. However, that is not to say the transfer is perfect and I constantly sat through the video with the niggling feeling that something was not quite right here, as the picture simply does not look really natural. Perhaps it is a factor of the digital image itself, but this really came across to me as a manipulated digital image. I really wish that I could put into words what it is that just did not seem right to me here, but I cannot. It is simply that at times the image does not look "right" or "natural".
This is generally a slightly overbright image with plenty of vibrancy in the colours. Whilst the colours are generally quite natural looking, the slightly overbright image did at times detract from the imagery. There is no problem with oversaturation in the transfer and there is nothing approaching colour bleed here.
There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. What little problem exists here with film-to-video artefacts is purely confined to some very minor aliasing. There are no problems with film artefacts here at all.
Dumb question from father: "what waterfall is that?". Uninformed answer from me: "dunno"! Sadly, the producers of the DVD have not taken the rather logical option of including a subtitle track that brings up details of the name of the waterfall being shown. This rather diminishes the use to travellers who may well take this back home as a memento of their visit to FNQ. Whilst the back cover does list which waterfalls are featured, apart from the rather obvious Barron Gorge Falls (filmed during flood times judging by the dirty colour), I have no idea which name relates to which waterfall. No doubt Queensland locals would know, but they represent only a small percentage of the population of the world I am afraid. The only way you can identify the falls is through the scene selection menu which lists the individual waterfalls by picture and name, which is a bit fiddly if you are watching the entire programme.
Sharpness | |
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Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
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Overall |
The music and nature sounds are very clear throughout the three transfers, although perhaps the Audio 3 soundtrack is not quite so clear as the other two.
The music is your very typical new age/ambience type of stuff and is not especially memorable, but nonetheless does its job pretty well indeed. Nice and relaxing.
A few things stick out like sore thumbs with the soundtracks. Firstly, there may be plenty of surround channel action here, but the mastering has seen a bias given to the rear channels which makes for an unusual situation. You are watching the waterfalls but hearing the sounds and music behind you. Not sure that this is an ideal scenario. Secondly, there may be lots of surround channel action, but there is nothing at all out of the centre channel. I got some weird looks from the family as I crouched with my right ear glued to my centre speaker trying to discern any action out of it. Apart from some hiss, nothing at all - on all six soundtracks. This confirmed the impression I got from normal listening - the surround channels, and especially the rears, are boosted and hide to some extent the lack of an active centre channel. Whilst I did not kneel down to stick my ear against my subwoofer, I can assure you that the bass channel is also pretty much silent throughout. Mind you, realistic bass would have seen the music drowned out in some instances (another poor pun). My guess is that the channels are present, but are in actual fact silent, giving these 5.1 soundtracks all the effect of 4.0 soundtracks. However, apart from the rather unnatural balance with the water sounds in the rear channels not matching the visuals, there is little else to complain about regarding the soundtracks. They are all quite open sounding, with loads of clarity other than the slightly less open feel of the music only soundtrack (Audio 3).
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Audio Sync | |
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Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-515, using S-Video output |
Display | Sony Trinitron Wega (80cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Yamaha RXV-795 |
Speakers | Energy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL |