Eye Records DVD Label : Eye Records Catalogue : #96 Disc Length : 183 Mins Source: DVD Professionally Filmed Date/Venue : Various TV Appearances & Live Performances 2006-2009 Video/Sound Quality : EX / EX- Year Of Release : 2009 |
Comments
Fink's
Comments (rates this release 4.0/5.0)
Ok, so
let’s deal with the content first. Eye Records have attempted to compile all of
Prince’s recent activity ranging from TV appearances to live footage from 2007.
It’s certainly comprehensive and the concept is sound and I must admit, it’s
always nice when someone else does the hard work for you, saving you the time of
sticking it all together and burning it yourself.
Starting at the top, we have Prince’s induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of
Fame and his Superbowl XLI performance (including press conference) and if I’m
honest, I really wish these had been left off this release. There is no need for
them to be here. They’ve been out on countless other releases and on at least 2
of those (Rock Hard In The Sunshine State, Lotus TV – The Right Way) in much
better quality. As this is an attempt to put together Prince’s recent activity,
content from the last 2 years was all that was really needed. Sometimes, you
just don’t need that ‘filler’ material.
Anyway, there’s some good stuff on here and a lot you may have already seen.
Appearances on Jay Leno from 2008 and the 3 night run from this year, including
the un-aired parts, are all here. All of the footage from Lotusflow3r.com has
also been added including the stunning rendition of ‘Shhh’ at the Coachella
festival (seriously, if you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a real treat).
There’s also some O2 footage thrown in for good measure. With a lot of this
still fresh in our minds, there’s little point commenting in detail on the
appearances themselves, they are of fairly standard fair (although, make sure
you have a sick bag ready for the Tavis Smiley interview, I’m surprised he
didn’t just bend the little guy over and get it over and done with). Other than
the Superbowl stuff, I can’t really fault Eye’s selections here…….and so onto
quality.
This is where the problems begin. On the whole, the quality is fine when it’s
concerning the LF footage. Let’s be honest, this was only going to be as good as
the FLV’s they came from. But as for the TV appearances, this is really what
let’s this release down. Eye took the time to get all this footage together but
neglected to bother getting the best footage together. All of this is available
in much higher (HD) quality and if you’re going to do this and charge people for
it then I really think you should go all out and do a proper job. The problems
don’t stop there. Some of the chaptering is off and the video formatting is all
over the shop on some sections.
Even if you have your set up at home all configured correctly, you’ll still find
some of the videos wildly uneven, out of proportion or even ‘snapping’ into the
wrong format at times. It’s such a let down because the menus themselves look
great. This could really have been a great release for Eye Records, maybe even
changing the opinion of some of their detractors, but with some average quality
footage and unnecessary mistakes in the formatting, what your left with is a
distinctly average release. If you want to see what a little care and attention
can do, I’d suggest you check out Lotus TV – The Right Way.