So Eric Clapton begins the 'unplugged' music style that so many other artists have also done. This MTV special showcases some of his greatist hits in an arena styled layout. How does this recording, both video and audio, transfer to dvd? Let's take a look.
The video quality on this disc is the best you can get given that the source material used to master the disc is high quality video rather than high resolution film. I couldn't not find a single fault on the video, video on both sides of the disc are identical.
Looking at the bit-rate meter I was surprised to see this disc constantly above 9.2 which pretty much states that they used the best quality compression the dvd format can provide.
The only fault I could find was in the source material, not the compression. It seems in some scenes showing Eric Claptons collar we get some video noise due tot the fact of the pattern of his shirt. This is most likely due to the lower resolution of video as compared to film but it's not the annoying type.
I must say, watching this dvd gave me more respect for Erics music. I wasn't a big fan before I sat down to view this but I've changed my mind. Could it be the high quality sound recording and the subtle channel seperation of the disc, I don't know but the sound is top notch.
The PCM side is only 2 channel stereo but it is loud as can be expected of PCM. There is not much of a surround effect on this side but some dsp modes can produce the desired effect, even though it wasn't encoded in this way. The rears weren't as loud so their levels had to be adjusted to give that enveloping feel but for a 2 channel encoding it is as good as you can get.
The Dolby Digital side has 5.1 channels of sound and is great. The channel seperation isn't as discrete as a movie because its supposed to be that way. There is subtle seperation and thats how it should be, the music should be all around you and not just coming from one speaker. The front channels have the 2 main guitarists occupying the sound field, Andy Fairweather leaning toward the left-front and eric clapton leaning toward the front-right. The rest of the band is generally from the front with, once again, 'subtle' surround use.
The crowd gets involved in the show and when they clap along, they are clearly with you in the surrounds as well as the front, but not as loud. I didn't notice the LFE being used much but then again I didn't have a dedicated sub in use. To sum up, great use of all 5 dolby digital channels.
