| Re: DVD Review: Sarah Brightman - Live From Las Vegas
..."The PQ was merely acceptable... not as good as I was hoping for... although the use of so much fog might have had something to do with this. SQ on the other hand was awesome in DTS 5.1.
PQ (4 stars)
SQ (5 stars)"...
I agree about the picture quality, except I would degrade it to 3 stars. I was disappointed with the graininess of the image. It resembled something I would get with my home video camera. This is the result of low light levels used in a live performance, but surely the producers knew that before they started filming. They needed better lenses, duh. I saw the cameras in operation, and they were certainly big enough to house 300 mm objective lenses.
The DTS sound was very good, but compressed. Once again, this is partly the live performance problems with sound reinforcement, but once again, surely they new what they were doing, and could have recorded an uncompressed vocal feed. It was most disappointing at the end of the Phantom suite. If you had heard Sarah sing that in the broadway show, you would understand that this was badly compressed. Her real dynamic range has got to be 12 dB more. 4 stars on the audio.
The show was still pure Sarah Brightman, though. She hasn't lost one note from her incredible voice. 5 stars on Sarah's voice. (The wife pointed out she was only a kid when she did Phantom, and I replied, "So you're saying the Phantom was a pedaphile?") The swing on What a Wonderful World was priceless, as were Sarah's legs... The wife really groaned at that bit of theater, which was ala Moulon Rouge, but I thought it was very good, indeed. The only number I didn't like was Whiter Shade of Pale. It's a bluesy, gritty song, and really, it's just not for her. But it was sung well, if incongruously, and it was short.
If you like Vegas stage shows, this one's for you. If you haven't heard or seen Sarah Brightman perform, try it, you'll like it.
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