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    Totaldance Volume 3
    Sony Music Video/Sony BMG . R4 . COLOR . 95 mins . E . PAL

      Feature
    Contract

    Every time a special compilation CD or DVD is scheduled for release, the eyes light up with excitement, anticipatingly counting down the days. Yet, every time, disappointment shortly comes after as this promise of totaldance is quite a misleading comment. So the fairest way to review this disc is to tally up the great songs, and find a percentage of good tracks vs. bad tracks. That is how that score has been achieved – 24 great tracks out of 26. With this review we reach the end of the totaldance series, with Volume 1 and 2 both achieving an average 6 out of 10, and then Volume 3 finally living up to the title’s name with a stunning 9 out of 10.

    Making this compilation rate so high is the inclusion of some funky new tunes as well as some absolute classics. An all-time favourite song by N-Trance has been included, the trance classic Set You Free, as well as some new music from Planet Funk, 2 Heads and Karaja. Ex-Spice Girl Melanie C has branched into a solo career, and demonstrates this with the catchy I Turn To You (featured in Bend it Like Beckham), and features a sexy, and predictably sporty video clip to boot. Snap!’s 2003 re-release of the classic Rhythm is a Dancer is a nice up-tempo remix with a bit of a face lift, but a great crime has been made by covering Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. Still, at least this cover is credible! The rest of the compilation is made up from a heap of huge artists including Lasgo, Ian Van Dahl, Darude, Kai Tracid, Kosheen, DB Boulevard, Groove Coverage and DJ Sammy, and this selection is just top notch. One questionable inclusion, though, is Voodoo and Serano’s Blood is Pumpin’ - their 2002 track Shooting Star has a much happier and catchier tune than this, and fits in better with the rest of the tracks. No biggie – the included track is still a kickass one.

    If you’ve read any of the other totaldance reviews you’ll know what the downside will be – and you guessed it – Brooklyn Bounce and the Warp Brothers. That’s it for complaints – this volume of totaldance is by far the best. On the plus side, it is good to see that groups like Brooklyn Bounce and the Warp Brothers are placed in the track listing at three and four respectively, so then the rest of the compilation can be savoured.

    Overall, this concluding compilation to the totaldance series is superb, with only a few tracks short of perfect. To upgrade from a superb to an awesomely perfect total dance compilation you’ll need to include tracks from legends (and favourites) including BT and Hybrid. With 92% of the tracks favoured on this disc, that leaves only 8% that could have been improved to live true to the name – quite a nice ratio of good vs. bad. But this disc is by far the greatest in this series, and nicely rounds out the compilations. If only they were all this pleasing.

    Track listing...

    Plumment - Damaged
    Planet Funk - Who Said? (Stuck in the UK)
    Brooklyn Bounce - Bring it Back
    Warp Brothers - We Will Survive
    Moguai - U Know Y
    Ian Van Dahl - Reason
    French Affair - Sexy
    Karaja - She Moves (La La La)
    DJ Sammy - Sunlight
    Novaspace - Time After Time
    Milk Inc. - In My Eyes
    2 Heads - Out of the City
    DB Doulevard - Point of View
    Darude - Feel The Beat
    Groove Coverage - Moonlight Shadow
    PPK - Resurection
    Kosheen - Catch
    N-Trance - Set You Free
    Lasgo - Alone
    Mint Royale - Sexiest Man in Jamaica
    Deepswing - In The Music
    Melanie C - I Turn To You (Hex Hector Mix)
    Kai Tracid - Too Many Times
    Voodoo and Serano - Blood is Pumpin’
    Snap! - Rhythm is a Dancer 2003
    Jam and Spoon - Right in the Night

      Video
      Audio
      Extras
    Contract

    The clips are presented in a single title, cut into individual chapters. The overall presentation is in a 1.33:1 aspect, with some clips framed at a widescreen aspect – well one of many widescreen aspects to be exact. Throw the standards book out the window and get ready to do your own thing! After watching a superb presentation on totaldance volume 1 and a rather disappointing transfer on volume 2, this volume was approached with mixed expectations. Sadly, this one slides even lower than volume 2 – surprisingly that can actually be achieved.

    The most noticeable and distracting set of problems occurs during chapter 15 when some lovely tracking marks can be seen along the bottom of the screen. This would have been easy to fix up with a simple solid black shape, mimicking a black bar, placed over the bottom of the clip during the editing process, covering up these hideous marks. Yet things get worse for this example – we also have tracking lines on the actual image, not just the black bars. These are the standard VHS tracking marks, as well a rather odd digital distortion at 52:39, where the image stops about halfway down, and that entire row of pixels has been duplicated over the bottom half of the screen. This occurs for one frame only, but does cause a rather obvious flicker. This isn’t the only reminder of VHS – we also get rather questionable clarity during some clips, with minor compression artefacts visible during many of the slower fades between scenes. For a DVD presentation that is capable of a much higher quality than VHS these transfer issues really are unforgivable. The quality from these tape sources is quite disappointing, with chapter 15 looking terribly fuzzy, totally lacking in quality. At times, the random mess of some digital noise reduction can be seen, but nothing terribly disturbing. Just thankfully colours are bright and vibrant, showing no sign of bleeding or posterisation, with deep and well-defined blacks providing a solid backing to the image.

    With 95 minutes featured on a single layer, a single DD 2.0 track has been included, in form with the previous two volumes. For a compilation of video clips, things are peachy – it’s a big step up from the somewhat fuzzy and crackly reception that can occur over the airwaves when watching video clips on a Saturday morning. It’s a decent mix with some heavy bass and clear treble, so it’s hard to find any faults with that. A hint for those with Pro-Logic II capabilities – turn that baby on for a more enveloping mix, which sounds much better for a party.

    You’ve gotta love advertising, with a lovely Sony clip flogging how interactive Sony Music DVDs can be, with interviews, hidden features, subtitles, multiple angles and the like. Well that’s nice to know but next time include some of these functions on these DVDs, rather than just telling us about them! Upon sticking this disc in, you get a bit of a trailer for the Absolute audio CDs, but for a better mix, get Ministry of Sound any day. Each of the menus are thematically built on the cover art for this disc, and each page of the song selections, as well as the main page, features a different looping audio clip.

    Over three DVDs titled totaldance, only one manages to reach that hard to achieve goal that the title suggests. This disc is by far the greatest compilation of the series, but it’s just really disappointing to see so many video flaws. The audio transfer is fine – no issues at all, with a solid stereo grounding. If you’re going past a sale, this entire series of DVDs will help get your party going – and with the rather broad and questionable selection of tracks on previous discs, it is a great opportunity to dust off that remote and actually program the chapters in. Yeah, believe it or not, some DVD players actually do have that function – a perfect opportunity to use it!


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  •   And I quote...
    "totaldance finally reaches that high goal, but the transfer sadly falls more than a stone’s throw away from perfect. "
    - Martin Friedel
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Philips DVD 736K
    • TV:
          TEAC EU68-ST
    • Receiver:
          Sony HT-SL5
    • Speakers:
          Sony SS-MSP2
    • Centre Speaker:
          Sony SS-CNP2
    • Surrounds:
          Sony SS-MSP2
    • Subwoofer:
          Sony SA-WMSP3
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
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