Somewhat disappointed here.

Picture quality is not befitting an artist of Prince's stature and with his resources. The mini-DV thing, which I initially applauded and which I have seen put to good use (Nine Inch Nails DVD) suffers here because the the transfer is shit. There are numerous compression artifacts and the resolution is poor. Plus, the focus is dodgy on many shots (shades of the SOTT shoot from Rotterdam?). It's actually hard to watch in places.

The overall aesthetic (handheld, mini-DV, etc.) actually gets in the way of the performance, IMO... I was at that show and this DVD in no way captures the spirit of the performance or conveys a sense of "you are there" to the viewer. So much of the show has been left off added to poor transitions between songs and what you have is a choppy, truncated presentation of what was, to be there, an almost epic, transcendent concert. You get almost no "flow" from song to song, the theatrical elements (backdrop text, etc.) of the show have been cut (removing the very "statement" the tour was supposed to be about), even Prince's stage banter between tunes has been eliminated. It feels like a sample of a concert rather than a concert. Sanaa Hamri should stick to music videos.

Prince owns a world-class studio and all we get is stereo? Not even a DD 5.1 mix? On Rave we even got DTS! Unacceptable. I thought the set list was cut short to allow space for a DTS track without compromising video quality... now there really is no excuse for not including more songs or parts of the aftershow. The DVD is less than half the show.

Still, something from the tour that's not a bootleg is better than nothing, and the performance itself -- what remains of it -- is, as always, enjoyable. But the presentation is severely lacking.

It's better than Rave (by a slim margin), but beneath the tour videos for Lovesexy, D&P, and the various broadcast versions of Nude floating around. The definitive live filmed records of a Prince show remain Cobo Hall in '86 and, of course, Sign o' the Times (even if that one was doctored at the Park). Maybe Prince should stick to directing these things himself.

What?!?!?!?!!?


YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I JUST BOUGHT AN 80 MINUTE CONCERT-DVD WITH POOR PICTURE QUALITY, AND NOT EVEN A SURROUND-SOUND MIX!!!?? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!?!?!

That really pisses me off!! I cannot believe ANY artist, no matter how rich or poor he is, would ever THINK about releasing a concert DVD without surround sound in this day and age.

DAMMIT!

How many times do you wanna be tricked?
You're doing this yourself ... you should have known better by now!!

Even the SOTT-movie doesn't represent the tour: what a fake that was! Do you believe those idiot audience-shots? And those irritant paisly park shots. U got the look???

Face it ... Prince is a genius musician, but what a wancker when it comes to directing a film

I like boot shopping and boot shopping likes me!

This does sound like a matter for concern, especially the picture quality. However, I don't understand why people are so uptight about the sound.

Firstly, if it is recorded in 2 channel stereo, "mixing" it in to 5.1 is futile. You don't really get any surround effects, the sound just "fills the room" with cheap systems. A decent stereo will wrap the sound around you anyway, so a "5.1 mix" is nothing really.

A true 5.1 surround track is better, but I own a lot of music DVDs and few of them benefit from it. I mean, come on, what can you hear behind you at a concert? Answer "Yaaayyy - PRRRIIINNNCCCEEE!!!" - wtf? 5.1 is great for films when you want to hear a missile scream right past your head, but at a concert? Wanna hear a bottle of water do a fly-by?!

The only music dvds I have that benefit from 5.1 sound are discs like Orbital's "The Altogether" - and that's really because they tend to use a lot of "swirly" sound effects in their music that sound great flying around the room (and it is a true 5.1 mix to boot! DTS!!). Listen to the Rave disc - what surround effects do you hear - there is a slight reverb on the instruments and the rest is the lame crowd that was there that night - not at all interesting and you might be forgiven for thinking the DVD is in straight stereo, such is the lack of attention drawn to what is happening in the rear channels.

If the 2-channel sound is well-recorded and sounds good, then stereo will perform well enough on its own (and, for audio purists, they just won't have music in anything other than stereo anyway!)

question: what the f**k Prince and his people did in the last 8 months? I thought it took so long to release this video because of mixing/dts/sorround mix/etc.
If all they did was to butcher and edit, I could have done it in one evening...

"The only music dvds I have that benefit from 5.1 sound are discs like Orbital's "The Altogether" - and that's really because they tend to use a lot of "swirly" sound effects in their music that sound great flying around the room (and it is a true 5.1 mix to boot! DTS!!)"

Cool you know about this dvd - it's very cool Underworld's dvd is great as well...

And I thought the Rave dvd sounded too clean, all this background vocals and synth effects don't really work. I like a more raw, unpolished sound.

TedW said:

Blasphemy!

COMON said:

im not even that much of a sucker.

i d/l the shit for free.

I wonder what the non-hardcore fans will think when they spend $14.99 at Best Buy on a lark and bring home a very low quality product? I would think it will prevent them from ever buying another Prince product again.

I am afraid to get my copy!

Mindflux said:

While I agree with you that the concert itself is recorded in 2-channel, the fact of the matter is that I believe the way most concert DVDs do it (crowd cheer in the satellites, and echoing from the show), helps improve the feel that you're watching a live show, and the stage is right in your TV room.

The thing of it is, for me anyways, I rank movies in terms of sound first, picture second. I am a bit of an audiophile.

I can live with an edited DVD. I can live with poor picture quality. BUT... when you throw in a 2-channel stereo mix, it's just too much sub-par work for me to bear. I really don't know what the purpose was of releasing this DVD. Those who review it will slam it, those who buy it will be upset with it, it won't sell very well, and it won't even be a very good testament to the quality of his shows.

So:
It won't be respected
It won't make money
It won't archive Prince as a legendary perfrom
Without the banter, Prince can't preach (not that I want this).

so what was the point??
[This message was edited Thu Aug 14 9:10:55 PDT 2003 by savoirfaire]

In Prince's defense, I should say that if you were at the show (or any show) you would be hearing a stereo picture, so perhaps he reasoned that a stereo DVD mix is a factual representation of what occurred on the night. I mean, SOTT or Cobo Hall are in stereo and nobody complains, right? However, splitting the signal across three front channels, with crowd sounds and reverb returns in the surrounds plus low-frequency information in the subwoofer (5.1) is the standard way DVDs are mixed these days and does contribute to the sense of "being there," so I've got to fault him here.

I just don't understand why this was done this way. Maybe somebody who works at Paisley can comment.

TedW said:

As Dolby Digital 5.1 surround is an actual spec of what a DVD is I find it frustrating that Prince has not included it. I appreciate that Prince may think that a stereo mix of the Concert is an accurate representation of the show - but he should let people make the decision themselves and included a stereo AND surround mix.

I'm still buying this DVD because we only get one every 3 years...but if it is bad as people are saying - I'm flying to Paisley and sorting out this whole mess personally

derek said:

Dolby Digital is the only actual audio specification that needs to be on a "Red Book" DVD. Not Dolby Digital 5.1 or AC-3. But still, the dude could have done a surround mix. He does own his own fucking recording studio.

I dug the audience noises on the surround mix from Rave 2k.

Prince used to be a perfectionist with his output, like it or not. This DVD shows to us that he doesn't care as much anymore...

I am glad now that I went to that party last month in MPLS. I was able to view 10 minutes of the dvd and came to the conclusion that it was not worth it. The audio for this dvd was great at the Park, I thought. Enjoy!