BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Theatrical Trailer(s)	No
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	No
Year Released	1999	Commentary Tracks	No
Running Time	59:25 minutes	Other Extras	Discography Other Titles
RSDL/Flipper	None	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Philip King Nuala O'Connor
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Bono The Edge Adam Clayton Larry Mullen Brian Eno
RRP	$34.95	Music	U2

    It is a fairly standard documentary, and as usual we have the original band members talking about their part in the process. Interestingly, NONE of the band members are together at any given time - they have all had their segments recorded separately, and then pasted together. I wonder why? Are people that busy that they can't come together for a day to record a doco on themselves? Well, at least they all must be rock legends because they all wear the good old sunglasses during their interviews, especially Bono, who appears to prefer to see the world through rose coloured glasses. With the amount of money he has, I am sure he could afford to not wear them and still get the same effect.

    We also get a run of the original master tapes, and it is an eye-opener to see Bono visibly embarrassed having his vocals soloed on the mixing desk - oooh, he sounds much better with a full band behind him and he knows it! Funny stuff. We also get to meet Brian Eno, an absolute legend, and hear some amusing anecdotes from him.

    If you are a fan of the album, then this will be a good watch for you, though I didn't find it as compelling as I thought I might. Still, it was not too bad. I must say that the inclusion of  the music clip for "Sweetest Thing", which was originally recorded for Joshua Tree, is most welcome and a nice touch to finish off the disc.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Far and away, this is the poorest looking of the "Classic Albums" series, being acceptable but below their usually high standard. Recent interview footage was reasonably sharp, though the extreme use of edge-enhancement pretty much buggered up any detail which may have been present (but probably wasn't). None of the other discs in this series which I have reviewed have exhibited anything near this amount of edge-enhancement, and it just drops the visual quality down by several notches. Low-level noise was absent during the recent interview clips, but prevalent during the stock footage, almost to the point of distraction. Shadow detail was always excellent, though that is little consolation! The tacked-on clip of "Sweetest Thing" is, however, utterly perfect in all aspects, and reminds us how much better a contemporary music video can look.

    I didn't notice anything really wrong with the colours. The recent clips were fine, though some of the old footage had some problems, especially with chroma noise.

    There were no MPEG compression artefacts, the transfer being very solid in that department. There were no artefacts of any kind during the recent interviews, however the stock footage exhibited every artefact known to man (or woman) kind, but you have just got to swallow that. I am not going to complain about old footage, because it is just that - old.

Audio

    Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand.

    Lip-sync had a habit of wandering in and out, and sometimes became almost a problem, but was for the most part good enough.

    The audio quality was, like the video, a bit sub-par. For instance, during most of the interviews, there were various background hums and hisses, which meant I had to drop the volume down, and then raise it again to enjoy the music - it sounded much like a mains hum and was quite distracting. The actual live clips sounded variable in quality, some being good, others being poor. However, given the nature of this documentary, it is pointless picking it to bits - these clips are old and probably haven't received the highest priority in terms of archival care (of course, apart from the recent footage). "Sweetest Thing" sounded brilliant, and certainly showed up the rest of the disc!

    The subwoofer had a small look in now and then, but really joined in during "Sweetest Thing" at the end.

Menu

• Linear PCM audio

    The video is fairly ordinary, with too much edge-enhancement ruining what would have been an otherwise good transfer.

    The audio is functional.

    The whole disc is a big extra really so I will refrain from rating it, but the inclusion of scene selections is a nice bonus.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall