Stevie Wonder
Songs In The Key Of Life

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	74:05 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	David Heffernan
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision Australia	Starring	Stevie Wonder Quincy Jones Herbie Hancock Gary Byrd
RRP	$39.95	Music	Stevie Wonder et al

    As with others in this series, we have the engineers who recorded the album working with the original master multi-track tapes. This level of involvement is very much appreciated and enjoyed, and we are given a true insight into the recording process. Stevie Wonder's enjoyment and excitement of the whole reunion of the artists and his revisiting of this album is very clear and makes for an enjoyable look at this album many describe as a landmark in recording history.

Video

    The transfer is full frame, with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is not 16x9 enhanced. I look forward to the (distant?) day when video is natively 16x9....

    The image is very clear and sharp. Shadow detail is exemplary, and their is no low-level noise whatsoever. Very clean indeed.

    Colour rendition is, as usual for this series, absolutely spot-on. Skin tones are rendered to perfection, and there is no hint of bleeding, noise, saturation or any of the bug-bears we normally pick on.

    The only fault to the video presentation is from MPEG artefacting. Whilst this is not problematic during scenes, it rears its ugly head between scenes, or to be more accurate just before the next scene. This image clearly "blocks-up" in the last frame before a new scene, and is only slightly off-putting. Apart from that, there are no other video related artefacts.

    There are no subtitles.

Audio

    There are five soundtracks on this disc, consisting of German MPEG 2.0 stereo, English MPEG 2.0 stereo, French MPEG 2.0 stereo, Italian MPEG 2.0 stereo and Spanish MPEG 2.0 stereo. All non-English soundtracks have the English soundtrack in the background, with the relevant language overlaid during speaking.

    Half-an-hour into this disc I was most surprised to find that audio-sync went the way of the dinosaurs - that is it went away and never returned. This was especially unfortunate when Stevie was playing keyboards or drums because the delay was so palpable, and it did slightly ruin the presentation at these times.

    Audio quality was very high throughout. Most impressive was when the engineers were going through the multi-track tapes, and picking individual channels. It really felt as if you were in the studio with these men, the sound was so clear. It was especially impressive given that these master tapes are over twenty-years old - they certainly are preserved very well!

    The subwoofer was lightly used.

Menu

    The video quality is very nice indeed.

    The audio is also very nice, audio-sync notwithstanding.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall