Live in Boston DVD disappointment

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Cour

Are DVI cables expensive?

Can you recd any brands or specifics about buying them?

thanks

"Monster" is the brand name if I'm not mistaken and they are available at any Soundtrack-type of store.

[mylittledemon]

Yeah always get Monster cables. Your system is only as good as the weakest link you have connecting it together.

Good Monster DVI cables are about $100. Now of course you have you make sure you have DVI connections on your DVD and your TV. If you dont you most likely have component. Component is a step down from DVI, but still high quality. Most all DVD players have component. Good component cables are about $50. They are the "red/green/blue" cables. You can get em at any decent electronics place like Circuit City, Best Buy or whatever.

[dissention]

Someone gave me Monster cables for Christmas last year and I've never used them. I just use the cables that came with my DVD player.

Do they make that big of a difference? Maybe I'll have to find them and hook them up.

[JamieSPC]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

Once again...the picture quality is in question unless you are using DVI cables or high quality Monster component cables from your DVD player to your TV.

If you use S-video or those crappy "yellow" video cables that came in the box with your DVD player, you will NEVER (yes, never) get the quality picture that DVDs are capable of.

My equipment list:

Mitsubishi 55809 widescreen television
JVC XVFA95GD 7-Disc Progressive-Scan DVD/DVD-Audio Player
Sony 905ES Dolby Digital/DTS receiver
Monster Cable (component, NOT composite or S-video)

Here's my home theater online:
http://www.jamie-cole.com/movies/ht.html

I've been a DVD reviewer for two national magazines and several web sites.

This concert was shot in high definition by a company that knows what it's doing in that regard. As such, there is no excuse for quality to be this poor, or for it to NOT be anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. If you don't have a widescreen set or a large display, you probably won't know the difference and it will look terrific. However, if you want to see what this DVD's potential was, check out the PBS-HD broadcast. Now DVD doesn't approach HD quality (in fact, HD offers pretty much twice the resolution of DVD, depending on how many lines are visible on your set). But this concert, spread out over two discs (one of which is dual layer because there's a layer change near the end of the second disc), should have been MUCH MUCH better given the source material.

~Jamie

[JamieSPC]

Originally Posted by dissention

Someone gave me Monster cables for Christmas last year and I've never used them. I just use the cables that came with my DVD player.

Do they make that big of a difference? Maybe I'll have to find them and hook them up.

Depending on the size of your set, you might see some very noticeable differences. If you have a normal-definition tube TV at 36 inches or below, the most notable difference will be the elimination of dot crawl. You'll see it around edges of objects, people etc. if you look close... looks like millions of tiny ants crawling around an object. Either S-video or component cables will take care of this and it will make a big difference. If you have a hi-def set, don't even think about using composite ("crappy yellow") cables. Again, depending on the size, S-video or component will both be good, but component is best (although to most eyes there's little difference).

DVI is more common on HD tuners than DVD players, but some have it... I find it reveals compression artifacts more than component does. It's kinda like when CDs used to say they "reveal the imperfections of the source material." After reviewing some TV sets with DVI inputs, I'd still choose component for DVD and go with DVI for HD broadcasts.

~Jamie

[Carolina Girl]

I just went to Best Buy to get the DVD. They had it advertised for $18.99, and the picture in the ad looked like the small cd style packaging. The store only had the cd style packaging, none of the DVD packaging. It was marked $22.99, but they sold it to me for $18.99 because I had the ad with me. I think they screwed up, and the $22.99 price would be for the DVD packaging. But WHATEVER. I haven't watched it yet, but I listened to the cd in the car, and to me it didn't sound as good as The Dance in terms of quality of the recording and the performance. For example, Landslide and Silver Springs got a lot of airplay from The Dance. And here they are again, but they don't sound as good. I'm sure a casual fan would have no interest in this. I did catch Landslide on VH1 this morning, and that was a touching video, but I'm a fan of Landslide, and it has always touched me. Again, a casual fan is probably going to be confused by this after hearing The Dance version of Landslide for the last seven years (they still pay it around here on the soft rock station).

[skcin]

Carolina Girl,

I just bought it myself, Best Buy here had the wrong price on it too. Sold it to me for $18.99, no problem.

Anyway, I was thinking the same thing - if I was a casual fan & saw that the majority of the songs offered on the CD were already on The Dance - well, it's just not a selling point.

As far as the DVD goes, how many people will recognize the lesser-known songs (BC, WTWCT, etc) & decide that it's worth it? Most of them (unless they came to the shows & paid some attention) won't say to themselves "wow, I really need to buy this DVD & watch this show over & over again." We all know these songs were great live, but the general public...

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll love it - as a huge fan. But if I didn't love them so damn much, I might not bother. Like Chris posted in another thread, I shouldn't be this upset over it, it's not my problem if it doesn't sell well. And I'm sure I'll watch it over & over again anyway.

paula

PS - the packaging isn't great, pretty amateurish, IMO. And did everyone else notice Karen Johnston credited as a photog? Maybe she took the blurry ones, lol.

[Livia]

Okay, that's it, we're ALL going to Jamie's house!

[jwys_soapbox]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

Well the picture quality is in question unless you are using DVI cables or high quality Monster Component cables from your DVD player to your TV.

If you use S-video or those crappy "yellow" video cables that came in the box with your DVD, you will NEVER, yes NEVER get the quality picture that DVDs are capable of.

I thought that S-Video cables were supposed to give better quality. As for the standard RCA cables, the only difference I know of besides the out of the box kind and the expensive monster-type has to do with conductivity and any difference to quality is really dependant upon the quality of what you have encoding and decoding the signal

John

[whitesoxx]

Has anyone actually bought the dvd in a regular dvd package or is the cd-sized digipack the only one available?

Rick

[Carolina Girl]

Originally Posted by skcin

PS - the packaging isn't great, pretty amateurish, IMO. And did everyone else notice Karen Johnston credited as a photog? Maybe she took the blurry ones, lol.

I've seen better pictures posted here than the ones they used.

[GypsySorcerer]

Originally Posted by Cour

Did they ship the PBS DR set via regular first class mail or Priority mail?

Am I the only one who ordered it the first day and has not received it?

I haven't gotten mine either.

[estranged4life]

has yet to arrived, But it should be in my mailbox either tomorrow (What good will that be when I wont be here because of the Mac show in Dallas) or Thursday at the latest since CdUniverse is shipping it priority.

I cannot believe that those who ordered it from fm.com with the DR DVD havent received their copies (Worse is that they charged so much to ship it media mail.)

[dissention]

Originally Posted by JamieSPC

Depending on the size of your set, you might see some very noticeable differences. If you have a normal-definition tube TV at 36 inches or below, the most notable difference will be the elimination of dot crawl. You'll see it around edges of objects, people etc. if you look close... looks like millions of tiny ants crawling around an object. Either S-video or component cables will take care of this and it will make a big difference. If you have a hi-def set, don't even think about using composite ("crappy yellow") cables. Again, depending on the size, S-video or component will both be good, but component is best (although to most eyes there's little difference).

DVI is more common on HD tuners than DVD players, but some have it... I find it reveals compression artifacts more than component does. It's kinda like when CDs used to say they "reveal the imperfections of the source material." After reviewing some TV sets with DVI inputs, I'd still choose component for DVD and go with DVI for HD broadcasts.

~Jamie

Thanks for the info, Jamie. I'll dig them out sometime this week.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by estranged4life

(Worse is that they charged so much to ship it media mail.)

It's just FOUL