U2-Elevation 2001: Live from Boston (2001) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Music |
Booklet Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Making Of Multiple Angles-12 x 3 Featurette-Road Movie Featurette-Additional Tracks (5) Notes-6 DVD-ROM Extras DVD Credits |
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Rating | ? | ||
Year Of Production | 2001 | ||
Running Time | 108:05 (Case: 107) | ||
RSDL / Flipper |
RSDL (64:21) Dual Disc Set |
Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Programme | ||
Region Coding | 2,3,4 | Directed By | Hamish Hamilton |
Studio
Distributor |
Dreamchaser Universal Pictures Home Video |
Starring |
Bono Adam Clayton Larry Mullen Edge |
Case | Slip Case | ||
RPI | ? | Music | U2 |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Screen, not known whether Pan & Scan or Full Frame |
English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (1536Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | Unknown | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes, only on the bonus footage. |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes, the final credits run over the end of the concert. |
What we have presented to us here may not contain all the hits that you remember from U2, but what there is is certainly enough. The 19 tracks included run for almost two hours, and range from the very recent all the way back to some of their oldest work. Bono's voice is not at its best, but with the enthusiasm of the crowd backing him up, there are never any problems.
As far as shows go, this is a good one. It is a must-buy for any serious U2 fan, and there is enough there for those who have only delved far enough into U2 to own a greatest hits album, and who want to experience the masters of concert cutting it back to (almost) the basics.
1. Elevation 2. Beautiful Day 3. Until The End Of The World 4. Stuck In A Moment... 5. Kite 6. Gone 7. New York 8. I Will Follow 9. Sunday Bloody Sunday 10. In A Little While | 11. Desire 12. Stay (Faraway, So Close) 13. Bad 14. Where The Streets Have No Name 15. Bullet The Blue Sky 16. With Or Without You 17. The Fly 18. Wake Up Dead Man 19. Walk On |
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, this transfer is obviously not 16x9 enhanced. I was unable to ascertain if this was actually shot for widescreen, but from the footage available on some of the extras, I would hazard a guess that it was.
This transfer is very sharp, showing more than sufficient detail to make out the finer aspects of the image. There are only a very few instances of visible grain present here, most occurring when the presentation goes black-and-white for one song at 35:03. The shadow detail is excellent, and really gets to show its worth here in a concert with large amounts of darkness. There is no low level noise present.
The colours, while quite good, appear to be a little too warm for the most part, giving the whole concert somewhat of a sunbaked appearance. This, however, is more than likely due to the enormous number of lights put in place for the concert.
There are a few instances of light posterization that occur - most often when the stage-lights are filtered through effect smoke. The "spy-cam" fitted to Bono's glasses exhibits an extremely large amount of pixelization, and some image break-up - but this is due to the nature of the camera rather than any MPEG artefacting in the transfer. Fortunately this camera is rarely used. For such a sharp transfer, there is an impressively small amount of aliasing, but when it does occur it is fairly obvious. The worst example is at 50:26-50:38 on the edge of Bono's microphone, but the entire time the band is at the front of the platform, aliasing is far more prevalent than while they are on the stage. There are no film artefacts at all.
There are no subtitles at all on this disc.
This is an RSDL formatted disc with the layer change taking place at 64:21. As with any concert, there is no real way to hide the layer change, but at least it does come when the band are not playing.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
There are two audio tracks present on this disc, being a Dolby Digital 5.1 track encoded at the higher bitrate of 448 Kbps, and a Linear PCM stereo track. Somewhat annoyingly, the stereo track is the default. I listened to the surround track in its entirety, and sampled the stereo track extensively.
The clarity of the sound is extremely good, with crowd noise mixed in to provide pleasing ambience. Each instrument and vocal can easily be made out, and there is no problem with the music being overridden with crowd noise. There is only one slight problem in the surround soundtrack and that is that on occasion the extremely aggressive bass track will begin to interfere with the vocals. This does not happen often, and when it does, it is not for long, but it does happen enough to be at least a little distracting.
There were no audio sync problems at all with this disc.
For the surround soundtrack, the surround usage was quite nicely done, giving a very good spatial representation of the music across the front soundstage while reserving the surround channels mainly for crowd noise. There are a few noticeable exceptions, particularly BAD, however for the most part this segregation of sound is a good thing, leading to a very immersive atmosphere. The stereo track is significantly less immersive, and while the music is still displaced nicely across the speakers, all you are really getting is a live CD with pictures - not bad, but the 5.1 track is where the action really is.
One word in particular comes to mind where the bass track in the 5.1 presentation is concerned - aggressive. Not only will your subwoofer receive the workout of its life, but there is also very aggressive bass pushed to the front soundstage, and the centre channel in particular. Whether or not you like this kind of mix is really a matter of personal taste, but frankly the stereo track sounds positively wimpy in comparison. One final note is that the 5.1 track is encoded at an extremely high level - I was forced to watch this at about two thirds of my normal reference volume to avoid ear bleed. In comparison, the stereo track appears to be encoded at a more "normal" level, and hence seems considerably more subdued than the surround track at the same volume.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Update: I have been informed that the R1 version of this concert conatains two bonus tracks: Elevation and Until The End Of The World through the sunglasses-mounted camera that Bono wore during the concert. These are included as easter eggs, and are not available on the PAL formatted version of the disc. However, two extra tracks from a low-quality camera still do not change my assesment of the merit of the discs, and I still declare this one a draw.
The video quality is extremely good, with only a few problems that are often associated with concert discs.
While the audio is not the greatest concert mix you will ever hear, it is extremely serviceable, and easily gets the job done.
The extras present are good, although there are some glaringly obvious omissions such as a discography. The number of extras is also somewhat small for a two-disc release.
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Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Pioneer DV-535, using S-Video output |
Display | RCA 80cm. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS787, THX Select |
Speakers | All matching Vifa Drivers: centre 2x6.5" + 1" tweeter (d'appolito); fronts and rears 6.5" + 1" tweeter; centre rear 5" + 1" tweeter; sub 10" (150WRMS) |