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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Biographies-Cast
Rating
Year Released	1996
Running Time	68:40 (not 75 minutes as per packaging)
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	4	Director	Jerry Bryant
Studio Distributor	SMV Enterprises Sony Music	Starring	Joe Satriani Stuart Hamm Jeff Campitelli Eric Johnson Stephen Barber Roscoe Beck Brannen Temple Steve Vai Mike Keneally Philip Bynoe Mike Mangini
Case	Black Brackley
RPI	$34.95	Music	Various

    I cannot admit to being a fan of any of the guitarists featured here, and found their separate numbers fairly unexciting. Eric Johnson in particular, whilst pleasant to listen to, seemed very mournful. Perhaps that's just his way. However, even I was more than impressed with the finale where all three of them played together. Contrary to my expectations, the finale was not a competition between the three of them to see who could outshine the other, but rather a superb example of ensemble guitar playing. For me, the finale made sitting through the rest of the programme worthwhile.

    The Track Listing is as follows;
 

Joe Satriani	Eric Johnson	Steve Vai	The Jam Songs
1. Cool #9	4. Intro Song	7. Answers	10. Going Down
2. Flying In A Blue Dream	5. Manhattan	8. For The Love Of God	11. My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama
3. Summer Song	6. SRV	9. The Attitude Song	12. Red House

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. It is presented in the NTSC format, so your equipment will need to be compatible with this format.

    The transfer is generally quite soft and fuzzy, with limited detail on offer, particularly on the long shots of the stage. Close-ups fared better, with a reasonable amount of detail on offer, however, the level of detail remained no more than average at the best of times. Shadow detail is very concert-like. If something was lit, you could see it. If it was not lit, it was completely black, with no subtle details whatsoever visible in the shadows. Low level noise was a periodic problem for this transfer, particularly during Joe Satriani's set, where many of the blacks were marred by inserted video noise.

    Colours were typical of a concert DVD - relatively poorly detailed monochromatic blues and reds with some concomitant chroma noise marring the blues particularly. Once again, Joe Satriani's set, with its predominantly blue lighting, was the most problematic in this area. Surprisingly, I noted no evidence of colour bleeding at any stage.

    MPEG artefacts were not seen at any stage. Aliasing was a trivial issue with the key's on Eric Johnson's keyboardist's organ, but really there was insufficient detail and resolution in this transfer for aliasing to be a significant problem. I noted no video artefacts.
 
 

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is very little in the way of dialogue in this soundtrack. What there is tends to be quite recessed and hard to hear. Indeed, the only song in which the vocals are clearly audible is Red House. This is probably not all that much of an issue, as we are really here to listen to the guitarwork, but even that is quite muddy and recessed in the 5.1 mix.

    Audio sync does not appear to be an issue other than during Summer Song where the drummer's close-ups are at slight variance with the audio. At times he appears ahead visually and at other he appears behind visually. Since this is not an issue for the remainder of the DVD, I'll put this down to sloppy editing rather than to any specific sync issue with the DVD.

    The surround presence of the 5.1 soundtrack is limited to light ambience, with even the audience being placed in the front soundstage. The guitarists are placed across the entire front soundstage except when jamming together, when each has his own space in the mix - Eric Johnson is mixed left, Joe Satriani is mixed center and Steve Vai is mixed right. This gave occasional cause for concern as the aural imaging conflicted with the visual placement of the guitarist in question, but it would have probably been more distracting if the respective guitarists had moved around in the soundfield excessively.

    The main criticism of the 5.1 mix is that the various instruments are blurred and indistinct in their placement in the soundfield, with no separation between them. Unlike many other mixes, the instruments do not occupy their own space in the soundfield, but are all blurred into a muffled and non-specific soundfield. In stark contrast, the Linear PCM track is much clearer and has much better spatial and high frequency resolution, and in many ways is the preferred way to listen to this DVD, particularly if you are keen to clearly hear the guitar playing on offer.

    The subwoofer was nicely integrated into the 5.1 mix and supported it well without ever calling attention to itself.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Biographies-Cast

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (read my bio)
10th January 2001