Madonnas concerts in Australia were a big success and the expierence my sisters shared with me proved this. This dvd showcases the sydney leg of her concert and begins byb showing the beautiful sydney hardor at dusk.
This image soon show a birds eye view of the concert venue and fades into the view of the stage with one of her dancers sliding down a pole wearing nothing but a g-string. Only Madonna could pull such an intro off and it's all erotica from here.
The video quality of this dvd is good. It's not reference quality by any standards but it is not bad. Put it this way, its a very good encoding of a video signal that is not photographic film.
The only downside I could see was that the blacks could have been just a little bit darker in some scenes. This could be due to the source material and shouldn't detract from the overall picture.
This dvd is split into 2 sides, one containing a dolby digital 2 channel mix and a dolby digital 5.1 channel mix. They could have had both mixes on the same side but I guess this was done to lessent he confusion of anyone new to dvd, those not understanding how to properly switch the audio via the setup or remote.
The 5.1 mix is great. The LFE is used but not overly emphasised. Channel seperation between left and right is subtle but front and back is noticable in that the rears emphasise more of the crowd noise and participation with the fronts left for music and lyrics.
I'm not sure if I picked this up correctly but the surrounds contain some sort of reverb of the music and lyrics. This could be attributed to my setup or could be the recording of the actual stadium. I know from attending the Michael Jackosn concert in Melbourne, MCG, that their was a 1 second delayed echo of the music coming from behind that totally distracted everyone on the floor. Who knows.
The 2 channel mix is well, harsh. By simply flipping the disc and keeping all the volume levels the same it was noticable that the sound was piercing in a way. The volume was only 1/3 of the way up, maybe less, but there was a definite difference. I'd recommend the 5.1 mix on this dvd.
Madonnas concert was a success and if you're a fan you will enjoy this dvd. My sisters have the VHS version but it hasn't seen any air time since the dvd arrived. As a semi-fan myself, i didn't much enjoy her 'alternate' versions of some of her classic songs, but hey, its her music, isn't it.