Underworld

Live: Everything, Everything

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation Main Menu Audio and Animation Multiple Angles - Live Tomato Art Jam Programmable Track Selection Outtakes Music Video - Kittens Music Video - Rowla DVD-ROM Extras
Rating
Year Released	2000
Running Time	88:28 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (40:25)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection, Audio Selection then Menu	Cast & Crew
Region	2,3,4	Director	Various
Studio Distributor	Tomato Films Zomba Records	Starring	Darren Emerson Karl Hyde Rick Smith
Case	Transparent Soft Brackley	Starring	Darren Emerson Karl Hyde Rick Smith
RPI	$???	Music	Underworld

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448 Kb/s) English (Dolby Digital 2.0, 256 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English Welsh Japanese	Annoying Product Placement	No
Subtitles	English Welsh Japanese	Action In or After Credits	Yes, during credits

Plot Synopsis

And in the immortal words of Monty Python - and now for something completely different. And you will not get much different than this effort, let me assure you! From an artistic point of view, there is going to be no middle ground here - you will either love this video presentation or you are going to hate it. Stick me in the latter category basically. The culmination of some work apparently, this is a live concert video with a substantial difference, and the difference is that basically the concept of the concert has been taken out of the video. This is definitely the sort of thing that you have to see, for it sure is difficult to describe what is going on here.

I am not an Underworld fan and thus this techno music is totally foreign to me. The songs, for want of a better description, on offer are:

Juanita/Kiteless
Cups
Push Upstairs
Pearls Girl
Jumbo
Shudder/King Of Snake
Born Slippy Nuxx
Rez/Cowgirl
Moaner

And to be quite blunt, were it not for the chaptering you would not really know where one song ended and another started. There is certainly a high degree of similarity to the music throughout the video. Nothing of it is truly memorable to me, although no doubt fans will disagree violently, but despite the sameness, the urge to get your body moving is a little difficult to ignore on the strength of what is an awesome sounding soundtrack.

Quite where this one ranks in the general scheme of things I don't quite know. Fans of the band and techno music in general will probably lap this up and be thrilled with the video presentation. The rest of us will probably just sit there shaking our heads and wondering what the fuss is all about. Whichever camp you fall into though, there is one thing that will be agreed upon - this is an absolutely awesome sounding DVD. I confidently predict that complaints from the neighbours will increase through the playing of this DVD, especially if you crank it all the way up! Bugger the structural damage, just to have that bass thumping at you...

Transfer Quality

Video

You can pretty much throw out all the conventional notions about video transfers here, as they simply do not apply. This has diffuse images aplenty, poor shadow detail, tons of grain, lack of clarity, lack of detail, lousy colour and all sorts of other issues. Yet this is a superlative transfer, as all these problems are exactly as intended. Hence the reason why you will either love or hate this video transfer.

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced. The DVD is also encoded with Auto Pan and Scan information, so you need to ensure your system is set up correctly in order to get the widescreen playback.

Yes, poor general detail, poor shadow detail, sharp images, diffuse images, grain and lack of clarity can result in a virtually flawless transfer. This has to be seen within the context of what was being aimed at, otherwise it would be forever consigned to the unwatchable category. As it is, I have serious problems watching the video, especially with the strobe lighting that gets a good run here. However, since it is all as intended and there are no apparent faults, at least that can be seen against the backdrop presented, there is not too much technically wrong with the transfer. There does not appear to be anything in the way of low level noise problems in the transfer.

Given the extreme variations in the technical aspects of the transfer, you can pretty much guess that there are similar variations in the colours on offer. This goes all over the place from undersaturation to oversaturation, muted to vibrant and everything in between. There may even be some odd instances of colour bleed, but even that is probably intended. One thing I can say for sure is that this is not pretty, but it is reasonably effective.

There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There did not appear to be any significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. There did not appear to be any significant film artefacts in the transfer.

This is an RSDL formatted disc, with the layer change coming at 40:25. For a music video it is a very good one as there is no audio clue as to the change, just the slight pause in the video.

There are supposedly subtitles in three languages on the DVD but I did not seem to get anything in any of the three options remotely looking like subtitles. Welsh is certainly an esoteric language for subtitles anyway - it is a beautiful language to speak and listen to, but a pretty difficult one to stick into subtitles.

*Video Ratings Summary*
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain
Film-to-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

Let me make this very plain - ensure you select the 5.1 soundtrack option, crank this up as high as you can, sit down and push play. This is going to not only knock your socks off but blast them way down the street.

There are two soundtracks on the DVD, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and the English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I could not be bothered doing much more than a brief sampling of the 2.0 soundtrack - I just had to sit there and have the 5.1 soundtrack thump out at me. Yes, I know I hate overemphasis of bass - this is not overemphasis, but almost perfectly mastered bass within the context of the programming.

What little in the way of vocals that are on offer here are barely noticeable in the mix, and that is the way it is meant to be. There could be all the audio sync problems in the world here, but it would make little difference in view of this being a montaged concert video anyway, with film being combined from five different concerts on three continents.

This is a quite amazingly open sounding soundtrack, but when that bass kicks in you really are transported to a different level. There is nothing unnatural about the way the bass channel is mixed in the overall audio transfer, it is just an awesome sounding effort. Indeed, this is so good that you immediately start thinking how unbelievable this would sound with a full blown DTS soundtrack! Now there is a sadly missed opportunity indeed. The surround channels, especially the fronts, get plenty of action and the overall result is a really engrossing concert sound - just like being shoved up against the front of the stage and between the speakers, as the cover blurb suggests. There is really nothing wrong with this soundtrack at all, other than the fact that the excellent Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is made to sound like a mono radio recording in comparison.

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

Extras

The extras for this release were conceived as part of the overall package, and are an integral part of the experience.

Continuing the eclectic feel of the whole DVD, the menus are not themed to the programme at all, and basically comprise coloured boxes against a black background. They are all 16x9 enhanced, the boxes have some animation in the form of changing colours and the main menu also has some musical accompaniment too. Different and quite effective.

Multiple Angles - Live Tomato Art Jam (88:28)

One of the great selling points of DVD was the use of alternate angles - a feature generally sadly ill-used thus far. Indeed, this is the first time I have encountered a serious commitment to the multi-angle ability of DVD. This is not so much an extra as an alternate video display for the main concert. The main concert is Angle 1 and this is Angle 2, and you can switch between the two at will. This one comprises a whole lot of disjointed video images, predominantly of assorted neon coloured lines and squiggles, although there are images of other things including the band included too. I am not sure what was trying to be achieved here, and I doubt that I could watch the entire concert with this as the video image, but it is an 88 minute use of the alternate angle facility of DVD. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, it is 16x9 enhanced and obviously comes with the same audio options as the main feature. Interesting, but I doubt that it will be returned to often.

Program Your Gig

Precisely what it says - you have the ability to program the DVD tracks in any order you like, leaving out those that you don't like. Just use your remote to select the tracks in the order you want and the DVD stores the info and then plays them in the order you selected, by pushing play on the remote. An interesting and novel use of the capabilities of DVD.

Outtakes (3:57)

Thoroughly uninteresting stuff, four minutes of what seems like garbage can fodder, including video with stuffed sound, that really serves no useful purpose. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, it is 16x9 enhanced and comes with only Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Music Video - Kittens (8:47)

Not so much a music video as an eight minute audio track playing over what appears to be essentially the same still image over and over again. I would hate to hazard a guess at the aspect ratio here, but it looks like about 2.75:1, it is 16x9 enhanced and comes with the same audio options as the main feature. The music is the same style as the main feature obviously.

Music Video - Rowla (7:48)

Ditto, but this time the still image changes regularly.

DVD-ROM Content

Oh boy! Where do you start with this little collection? Well, first up I suppose to make it clear that I hate DVD-ROM content and second I especially dislike DVD-ROM content that does not appear to work. Thirdly, what exactly is the point to it all? Now before you start poking needles into that voodoo doll, I am sorry but that is how I feel about stuff like this, even though I recognize that there are obviously people who find this sort of stuff utterly essential. I just don't know how much use will be made of this collection, which has obviously been put together with some thought and care, after the first time use. I am going to assume that the problems that I seemed to have with getting any of this to work was down to my system, but caveat emptor.

Throw the DVD into your ROM drive and use Windows Explorer (or Mac equivalent since this does support Mac usage for a change) to get to the installer program, double click and let it load. This is by the way a quite sizeable file (101 Mb in size on the DVD), but does not take long to install. Once it is loaded, click on the icon in your menu and away you go - at least if you have Quick Time 4 loaded on your system. If you don't, the DVD will load it for you, and then you can go.

The first thing you confront is a menu which gives you a few choices as to where you can go. Reading across the menu, they are:

Wongizer

This is an interesting little diversion that allows you to mix a video from the selected images to accompany the Underworld song that is playing (in my case very faintly). You select the video by selecting a letter of the alphabet, since each letter has a different piece of video footage. Given that lower case letters have different video to upper case letters, you have a reasonable choice of video to play with. Basically you get to play at being a video mixer for as long as you want or as long as this does not drive you to boredom. Your mileage may vary as to how long that time frame is, but mine was not long at all.

Headset

Now I am presuming that this is basically an interactive experience type deal without too much point to it. Those squares that have been seen all over the menus on the DVD get another outing and it appears that what you do is highlight a square across the bottom of the screen, then play your mouse over the main collection of squares, and the various different sounds assigned to those squares are mixed together for your enjoyment. The selection of the base sound samples seems to come from the squares along the bottom of the screen. For anyone over 30, it probably makes a lot more sense if you are under the effect of hallucinogenic drugs methinks, but I would certainly not be encouraging such use merely to play around with the DVD. It probably makes perfect sense to the under 30 set as it is.

Links

Make sure your Internet connection is ready (but even if it is not the program will open it for you) and fire this one up. It then downloads a collection of links to various sites associated with the band, basically up-to-date links to JBO (licensee), V2 (record company), Underworld site, Tomato (film producers and interactive stuff producers), Dirty and Meridian Trust. I did not bother actually delving through the delights on these sites, but no doubt for those really interested there are plenty of minutes to be had whiling away your time wandering through the sites at your leisure.

Live

Ditto on the Internet connection, it downloads a list of things, mostly quite obvious, which you can investigate - in theory. Web cam did not seem to want to do much for me, so I am presuming a set up problem somewhere. Audio stream seemed to spend forever saying loading audio stream and not doing anything. However once I decided to select my download speed, things seemed to improve as it eventually came up saying playing audio stream. Only problem is that I was getting nothing at all. Video stream seemed to do even less and was just determined to keep letting me see the Quick Time logo, which after five minutes is not an especially interesting sight at all. 365 sofas at least seemed to do something, but quite what the purpose of this is I would not like to hazard a guess. Finally there is Web book which seemed to indicate that something largish was being downloaded and then proceeded to do ... nothing. I have just got to conclude that this sort of DVD-ROM content is not for the unintuitive computer user, hence the comment about the under 30 set above.

R4 vs R1

As far as can be ascertained, the content of this DVD is the same around the world and therefore the Region 4 (and 2) version is the winner owing to the better resolution of the PAL format.

Summary

Underworld - Live: Everything, Everything is ultimately a fanfest only, as the presentation is far too problematic for general consumption in my view. The DVD is blessed with an awesome Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that raises little reason for complaint. The DVD-ROM content does absolutely nothing for me whatsoever, but undoubtedly will have more impression on the people who crave this sort of content. There is no doubting however the effort that has gone into putting the content together. A pity that Zomba Records have decided to go down the route of the lousy Soft Brackley case instead of genuine Amaray cases.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment
DVD	Pioneer DV-515; S-video output
Display	Sony Trinitron Wega 80cm. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder	Built in
Amplification	Yamaha RXV-795. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Speakers	Energy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL