embmmusic said:

I played the hell out of my old VHS tape (which I still have! Just no VCR, lol!). I am so loving this on DVD finally. No sync probs at all. I played it on Friday and think I smiled through the whole damn thing. Brought back so many great memories of that time.

Poplife88 said:

I played the hell out of my old VHS tape (which I still have! Just no VCR, lol!). I am so loving this on DVD finally. No sync probs at all. I played it on Friday and think I smiled through the whole damn thing. Brought back so many great memories of that time.

i did too, i was surprised how much I either didn't notice or didn't remember, as I watched it probably more times than i did Purple Rain.

TheDigitalGardener said:

Well well..

https://twitter.com/house...3876943872

+

https://www.facebook.com/...2393869481

Awesome, thanks!

That's outrageous!

Some professionals (if they can be called that) really don't understand the 'simple' technical engineering of video.

Just slightly off topic, if the Parade birthday concert ever gets released, I hope they don't mess that one up!

TheDigitalGardener said:

Well well..

https://twitter.com/house...3876943872

+

https://www.facebook.com/...2393869481

.

So yes, even if we cannot hold the promises from http://www.rollingstone.c...ic-w466431 against WB there are some valid concerns about WB's product quality.

.

Even 'amateur' c.q. pirated stuff is better in some or most of these areas.

.

Why do we accept these issues?

They're a friggin' 'record' company and they cannot even give us decent quality audio and video.

We hear unexcusable dropouts (they can be repaired to a certain extent), even lossy sources are mentioned, and we see badly treated video.

If this were a bootleg with all `new` stuff we would be happy.

But this ain't a bootleg.

This is rehash for the greater part.

So it had to excel to appease the crowd.

.

WB: are you reading these quality assessments?

databank said:

savagedreams said:

.

so you even though the videos ar available with the movie, especially on blu ray, you feel it was a missed opportunity to include them in lower quality on a dvd? ooooooook

Vulgarity was uncalled for, really.

However, my point was that for one thing not everyone owns a blu-ray player (not that those video-taped music vids would look better on blu-ray than DVD anyway, as evidenced by the quality of the Syracuse show on DVD), and for another thing some people may not have bothered to purchase the 2004 PR edition.

But the bottom line is that, regardless of whether you own those or not, it wouldn't have cost WB a great deal of money or effort to add those videos as bonus on the Syracuse DVD.

I know some people don't care for single edits for example, it depends whether you're a completist or not, but I think it's always better to offer a comprehensive collection if you're gonna do such a boxset. Complaints about there being too much on it can't really be taken seriously as a customer complaint. But complaints about something that should be there not being there is always more of an issue for the record company.

.

vulgarity? LOL ooooook

so the consensus is that the dvd sucks? is that right?

darkroman said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

Well well..

https://twitter.com/house...3876943872

+

https://www.facebook.com/...2393869481

Awesome, thanks!

That's outrageous!

Some professionals (if they can be called that) really don't understand the 'simple' technical engineering of video.

Just slightly off topic, if the Parade birthday concert ever gets released, I hope they don't mess that one up!

PeteSilas said:

so the consensus is that the dvd sucks? is that right?

Not from what I can tell... seems to be that the consensus is that the audio is great, but that they could have done better for the video.

.

Personally, I feel that the video is an improvement over the VHS release, but I haven't watched that tape for close to 20 years, so my memory can be hazy. And my VHS player has been disconnected for going on 10 years, so there's that as well.

mediumdry said:

PeteSilas said:

so the consensus is that the dvd sucks? is that right?

Not from what I can tell... seems to be that the consensus is that the audio is great, but that they could have done better for the video.

.

Personally, I feel that the video is an improvement over the VHS release, but I haven't watched that tape for close to 20 years, so my memory can be hazy. And my VHS player has been disconnected for going on 10 years, so there's that as well.

the lighting was pretty dark to be using a vhs recording from what I understand. You can only do so much with blacked out footage. I always assumed Prince liked things a little underlit for the mystery, I can't think of any of my other favorite artists who've had the lighting like that. If we were there in person, it would have looked fine, but the equipement definitely had it's limits. What's called "fixing it in post" can only do so much. I don't particularly mind it though, and it's not even that bad for half the show, but the parts where he wears the black sequins and plays the piano, you can hardly see him.

sonshine said:

I'm glad to have this on dvd. Watched it today. No sync issues. Great audio. That being said I've already seen this. Would have liked a bit "more" (?) or something new. But at this point i'll take it. This journey has only just begun (fingers crossed!)

as you know, plenty on youtube, i haven't even had the time to wade through a fraction of it.

PeteSilas said:

so the consensus is that the dvd sucks? is that right?

darkroman said:

Awesome, thanks!

That's outrageous!

Some professionals (if they can be called that) really don't understand the 'simple' technical engineering of video.

Just slightly off topic, if the Parade birthday concert ever gets released, I hope they don't mess that one up!

I'm not sure yet as I haven't watched it jet.

The pixel ratio highlighted by Housequake is very interesting indeed, but may be adjusted depending on the player.

As this is a 2 hour video on a dual layer DVD I'm expecting the bitrate to be 'acceptable' at a push as over compressing wouldn't be required - for DVD standards.

No one has yet mentioned the absence of overscan on digital players and modern TVs. So in fact we are seeing a lot more of the image (around the edges) we would have never seen before!

Anyone else having trouble ripping this DVD into iTunes? I swear, it keeps saying that I don't have permission to copy these files? What am I missing?

CDinwiddie said:

Anyone else having trouble ripping this DVD into iTunes? I swear, it keeps saying that I don't have permission to copy these files? What am I missing?

I don't use iTune but I assume this imports the DVD as a .m4v file?

Is the DVD protected?

If so you would need to run AnyDVD, which eliminates region coding and protection.

If I was to doing this, I would run AnyDVD first, rip with CloneDVD and then convert to any format with either WonderShare or Handbrake - this process would give perfect results.

If anyone wants audio only, just run through DVD Audio Extractor. Personally, I rip the DVD first rather than doing this on the fly as it is much faster and avoids read errors.

Thank you, Darkroman. I was convinced that I was going to get a snipey respone from my dumb question on here. But you gave me great information. And I appreciate it. And yes, the DVD is protected.

Tried Handbrake. Still won't work. Guess I should search the web for someone who's already ripped this. Sigh. Amazing that this is only available in physical format from the vendor. How am I supposed to watch this on the airplane???

CDinwiddie said:

Tried Handbrake. Still won't work. Guess I should search the web for someone who's already ripped this. Sigh. Amazing that this is only available in physical format from the vendor. How am I supposed to watch this on the airplane???

Hand the DVD to the pilot when you walk on, along with a cheeky £5 note, they'll sort you out.

CDinwiddie said:

Tried Handbrake. Still won't work. Guess I should search the web for someone who's already ripped this. Sigh. Amazing that this is only available in physical format from the vendor. How am I supposed to watch this on the airplane???

As it is protected that is the issue.

If you are on a PC you need to run AnyDVD first so it is running in your system tray.

Then insert the DVD.

AnyDVD will scan the DVD and 'remove' the copy protection while you use an application to copy the DVD.

I will be making a digital back-up but probably not until the weekend, as I tend to batch a few at the same time.

darkroman said:

CDinwiddie said:

Anyone else having trouble ripping this DVD into iTunes? I swear, it keeps saying that I don't have permission to copy these files? What am I missing?

I don't use iTune but I assume this imports the DVD as a .m4v file?

Is the DVD protected?

If so you would need to run AnyDVD, which eliminates region coding and protection.

If I was to doing this, I would run AnyDVD first, rip with CloneDVD and then convert to any format with either WonderShare or Handbrake - this process would give perfect results.

If anyone wants audio only, just run through DVD Audio Extractor. Personally, I rip the DVD first rather than doing this on the fly as it is much faster and avoids read errors.

I ripped the full DVD to VOB files via an old version of DVDfab with no proplems. From there it was easy to rip the lossless audio and as mentioned the video files can be easily converted to any format with Handbrake.

Well, I've started to give this DVD a look and it is very interesting indeed.

So without any doubt this was shot using broadcast cameras onto videotape. This is actually significant. It has also been vision mixed live as some of the camera cues have errors. So basically the director is shouting out camera numbers, "1, 5, 3, 1, 3 etc" and the vision mixer is pressing the buttons to mix to the relevant camera - clearly some cues go wrong!

Also, many of the issues have NOTHING to do with Warners, but in fact are a problem with using three-tube broadcast cameras and recording onto videotape and their limitations.

There aren't actually many cameras being used but they still get great coverage. However, the camera to the left taking wides and mid-shots has some serious problems. I would suggest it hasn't been set-up properly.

The lighting is absolutely appalling. The colour gells predominantly used are not good for camera lenses nor for video tape. The guilty colours are blue and red. The cameras and videotape just can't cope with those spectrums. A good example of this is Computer Blue and Darlig Nikki - the blue and reds limit the depth and clarity of the image. As this was shot using the NTSC system this does compound the problem further. NTSC does not like red. It can't reproduce red correctly and when converting to PAL, engineers have to be extremely skilled and dilligent during the process.

As a joke in the broadcasting world, NTSC is defined as Never The Same Colour due to it's extremely poor processing of colour.

The floodlights are way too hot. This stage has been lit for the audience and has not been considered for a live video recording. The video camera iris can't cope with the dark parts of the stage so the iris opens therefore bleaching out the bright parts creating the hot spots.

Do bear in mind these old broadcast video camera would have had a low contrast ratio of perhaps 20:1 whereas film could be up to 300:1 therefore this is why the image can look so flat, soft and bleached out in places. There is a serious lack of depth and definition to the image. This is due to the bad lighting. The depth of field keeps dropping and as such the camera lose their focus. I find the focus drops really very hard to watch and quite annoying.

If you watch Take Me With You you'll see red and blue gells are not used so much. A white spot light is used more and the white floodlight is less used. Therefore the chroma and luminance levels are actually ok and as such the mid shots look quite clean.

I watched this on a 55inch TV and the screen resolution held up quite well. There was a lot of pixelation on red and blue gradients but less then expected - after all this was only recorded with 525 lines in NTSC and was never intended for large modern TVs that can show up every flaw.

The sound is great! A stereo LPCM track is used.

Even though none of these issues are Warner's fault, what could they have done?

They could have used the correct pixel ratio - documented by Housequake.

They could have slightly tidied up the vertical pillars - but this is a minor point - but the one on the right is annoying.
They could have hunted for a better copy to encode as this can look very soft in places - also documented by Housequake

Personally I would have sourced the master (if possible), adjusted some the chroma and luminance levels and encoded at the correct pixel ratio at the highest possible bitrate to use the extra storage space avaialble on a blu ray.

I'm looking forward to comparing this to the Fullasoul lazerdisc rip which I haven't seen in years.

wow, you know your stuff. I have a question for my own recording performances, is it normal to have problems getting enough light for live performance in bars? I think I turned up everything I could and my footage still looks too dark.

darkroman said:

Well, I've started to give this DVD a look and it is very interesting indeed.

So without any doubt this was shot using broadcast cameras onto videotape. This is actually significant. It has also been vision mixed live as some of the camera cues have errors. So basically the director is shouting out camera numbers, "1, 5, 3, 1, 3 etc" and the vision mixer is pressing the buttons to mix to the relevant camera - clearly some cues go wrong!

Also, many of the issues have NOTHING to do with Warners, but in fact are a problem with using three-tube broadcast cameras and recording onto videotape and their limitations.

There aren't actually many cameras being used but they still get great coverage. However, the camera to the left taking wides and mid-shots has some serious problems. I would suggest it hasn't been set-up properly.

The lighting is absolutely appalling. The colour gells predominantly used are not good for camera lenses nor for video tape. The guilty colours are blue and red. The cameras and videotape just can't cope with those spectrums. A good example of this is Computer Blue and Darlig Nikki - the blue and reds limit the depth and clarity of the image. As this was shot using the NTSC system this does compound the problem further. NTSC does not like red. It can't reproduce red correctly and when converting to PAL, engineers have to be extremely skilled and dilligent during the process.

As a joke in the broadcasting world, NTSC is defined as Never The Same Colour due to it's extremely poor processing of colour.

The floodlights are way too hot. This stage has been lit for the audience and has not been considered for a live video recording. The video camera iris can't cope with the dark parts of the stage so the iris opens therefore bleaching out the bright parts creating the hot spots.

Do bear in mind these old broadcast video camera would have had a low contrast ratio of perhaps 20:1 whereas film could be up to 300:1 therefore this is why the image can look so flat, soft and bleached out in places. There is a serious lack of depth and definition to the image. This is due to the bad lighting. The depth of field keeps dropping and as such the camera lose their focus. I find the focus drops really very hard to watch and quite annoying.

If you watch Take Me With You you'll see red and blue gells are not used so much. A white spot light is used more and the white floodlight is less used. Therefore the chroma and luminance levels are actually ok and as such the mid shots look quite clean.

I watched this on a 55inch TV and the screen resolution held up quite well. There was a lot of pixelation on red and blue gradients but less then expected - after all this was only recorded with 525 lines in NTSC and was never intended for large modern TVs that can show up every flaw.

The sound is great! A stereo LPCM track is used.

Even though none of these issues are Warner's fault, what could they have done?

They could have used the correct pixel ratio - documented by Housequake.

They could have slightly tidied up the vertical pillars - but this is a minor point - but the one on the right is annoying.
They could have hunted for a better copy to encode as this can look very soft in places - also documented by Housequake

Personally I would have sourced the master (if possible), adjusted some the chroma and luminance levels and encoded at the correct pixel ratio at the highest possible bitrate to use the extra storage space avaialble on a blu ray.

I'm looking forward to comparing this to the Fullasoul lazerdisc rip which I haven't seen in years.

also, it's interesting that prince rarely paid attention to hiring top notch anything, he'd use anyone who was around. the guy who did his video during the symbol period mentioned that having everything perfect didn't seem to be a concern for Prince. His ONA Dvd is also similarly pretty amateurishly shot, not that it matters to me particularly but it's kind of odd that a guy known to be so demanding in so many other areas would skimp on something as key as video.

SquirrelMeat said:

djThunderfunk said:

Yes... WTF?!?

Thought it was just me, wasn't sure because most of it's so dark and I'm looking at the booklet and posting on the org while watching, but definitely noticed it during Purple Rain.

I'm playing on my Xbox and the whole sync is out by a second at least.

The Xbox often has that issue with DVD playback. Really not sure why.

I had never seen the video, so today was my first time ever to see the concert or any PR concert except for the one that I attended at the Superdome. Despite the erratic quality of some of the visuals and occasionally the audio, it was better than I expected in all manners. My partner, who is not a Prince fan, came to sample it but than stayed for the whole concert. I had forgotten how much Prince moved around in the early years, truly amazing. And still he could sing in pitch!!! I know many of us get tired of the song Purple Rain but it was sure a show stopper back in the day with the immense amount of genuine passion he put into the song.

The soud remains pretty awful. It's pretty clearer and more tridimentional than on the classic LD rip we had but there remain 3 major annoyances IMHO (and I'm not even an audiophile):

- The sound has way too much treble: it literally hurts the ears if listened to very loud. This problem is very typical of this show, as I don't face it with other live albums.

- The treble problem is made worse by the crowd noise, that's been kept loud all along (instead of being put down during tracks and kept only when required). Unfortunately it seems the audience was composed mostly of 13 y.o. females with high pitched voices... Crowd noise is a constant annoyance here.

- The mix remains somewhat brickwalled.

I realize that technology was different then but just compare it with ONA live and it becomes obvious that it sounds like crap. Now I realize that it's the way it was mixed in the first place, for a VHS release, and I'm not asking that it should have been remixed because, for the sake of authenticity, it should be as was. I'm already glad it was cleaned and remastered, but it's never a show I'll listen with great pleasure. Hopefully at some point another PR show will be released that sounds better.

appleseed said:

I feel short changed (if not deceived) by iTunes and folks should note any dissatisfaction they have in the iTunes store reviews. It's idiocy to give disc purchasers the concert video and not download patrons.

Hope the estate figures this out and we get a correction.

That said, I hope a Piano&Microphone concert video is released soon to make up for this snafu. So easy to do for smart people.

I believe the Estate were doing the rounds trying to offer it up as a digital exclusive (to services such as Apple Music). Bad news if you want to actually "purchase" it via a service like iTunes or Google video because if it ends up on one of those premium services it would be stream only.

BTW the digital rights have nothing to do with iTunes. It's the owners of the content that decide how, when and what format.

Personally I am happy to have an optical disc (DVD) as I can do with it as I please instead of it verifying usage and ownership every time I play it on a device. With a DVD you can rip it for personal use, lend it to friends and even sell it if I get bored with it. Can't do that if you buy a digital copy.

Not to mention they will probably comress the heck out of it.

So...I know I just said on another thread it was hard to imagine complaining about this release, but finally got to DVD. I'd never seen it, so I'm glad to have done so, but yeah, the quality is absolute garbage. Surely, there are higher quality concert vids from this era?

Also, the middle of this show was a pretentious snooze - made me not feel so bad that I didn't see this tour when I was 13

All that said, it's almost all worth it for those last two numbers. I never thought I'd enjoy another performance of Purple Rain, but that was about as close to a religious experience as I've ever had.