Audio is a huge part of the experience...
DVD: It comes through loud and clear
phillynews.com
by Jonathan Takiff
Daily News Staff Writer
How good is DVD -- the new high-tech, CD-sized digital carrier of moving pictures and multi-channel sound?
We recently invited a trio of tech-savvy audio- and video-lovin' fans to eyeball and ear-judge some of the best music-video discs available for the medium. Our guinea pigs were longtime progressive rock mixmaster and critic Michael Tearson, the equally legendary DJ Ed Sciaky and music manager/event producer Alan Newman.
To give the medium a full-blast, no-compromise test, we fed the output from a Philips Magnavox DVD player to a Kenwood receiver equipped with six-channel Dolby Digital decoding, then onto an MB Quart "Domain" Home Theater speaker system and 35-inch Sony XBR television. (But this versatile DVD system also works quite well with the sound pumping through a conventional stereo or Dolby Pro Logic surround-sound receiver and the picture playing on any TV set with a video or, better yet, S-video input.)
Two of three judges (and yours truly) proclaimed DVD the best home-entertainment program source they'd ever experienced -- with "picture clarity and color reproduction that's just amazing" and "sound that's equally impressive -- robust and razor-sharp."
The only reviewer who didn't go bananas was laser-disc devotee Sciaky, who grudgingly judged the new medium "a little better than laser video." One of the other guys quipped, "Ed's just mad 'cause he doesn't want to give up on a format he already has."
Why did I choose to show these guys titles like "Mary Chapin Carpenter Live at Wolf Trap," "Eric Clapton Unplugged" and "Dave Grusin presents 'West Side Story,' " as opposed to slam-bang action-adventure films like "Mars Attacks" or "Twister," the staple of most in-store DVD demonstrations?
Movies are doctored like crazy by special-effects and Foley (sound-effects) technicians to shake you in your seat. And who knows what a spaceship landing in the Nevada desert or a tornado-swept car crashing into a barn really looks or sounds like?
But a knowing ear can detect the "honesty" (or lack of same) in the voices and instrumentation of a live musical performance. And some of these shot-on-video programs had picture clarity that was almost too revealing. "Geez, you can see all the blemishes in Carpenter's face," marveled Tearson during closeups. "If she had a pimple, you could pop it," dittoed Newman, only half-joking.
The latter was even more impressed by the fine gradations of black -- an acid test of color reproduction -- as evident on Clapton "Unplugged." "You can see that his jacket is really midnight blue, against a black backdrop. On the videotape version, it all blends together."
Sonic performance from the new medium was judged equally hot. "Wow, you can even hear Mary Chapin's guitar pick clicking on the strings," marveled Tearson, during her backyard acoustic interlude with Shawn Colvin on "That's the Way Love Goes." "And check out the faint bird chirps and whistling wind sounds coming from the rear channels," peeped Newman. "I feel like I'm sitting on the porch with them."
During performance footage from Wolf Trap, Carpenter rocked out on "Shut Up and Kiss Me," and devoted concertgoer Sciaky allowed "it sounds and looks better here" -- in my living room -- "than it was there."
Even more impressive, audibly, was the brassy big-band wailing on "Something's Coming" from the Grusin "West Side Story" DVD. This disc was digitally recorded and mixed especially for the new six-channel medium (with three speakers across the front and two in the back, plus a dedicated subwoofer channel).
"The band is set up in a 180-degree arc, with trumpets blaring out of the rear speakers," noted Tearson. "From my vantage point, I feel like I'm in the conductor's seat."
Also knocking them silly were the sights and sounds of Prince's flick "Purple Rain" and the THX-certified pressing of Oliver Stone's cinematic tribute "The Doors" -- a superb mixed-media roller-coaster ride. "The channel separation is great, and the bass is phenomenal," noted our Newman on "When Doves Cry." And as the screen rendering of the Doors soared and audience roared on the nightclub performance of "Break On Through to the Other Side," all of us felt like we'd done so, too. |
