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New Products From Runco, Revel, NAD, Pioneer, Linn & Lexicon
www.theperfectvision.com
Editor-in-Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Harry Pearson
Executive Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sallie Reynolds
Senior Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Greg Rogers, Video
Thomas O. Miiller, Audio
Greg Sandow, Music & Multimedia
Technical Editor,Audio . . . . . . . . . . . .Robert Harley
Assistant Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bob Gendron
Technical Consultant,Audio . . . . . . .Richard Marsh
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T
his was a hard issue. Our third time out and maybe three’s a jinx, maybe
we got a little cocky. In any case, nothing jelled for the longest time. Then,
because TPV has Twinkle-Dust Factor, something finally clicked, and the
topic rose to the surface: We were questing for the Mythical Beast. The elu-
sive, the magical and mysterious. The thing you want – It – ever and teas-
ingly just beyond reach.
The experience of “art” is a mystery, after all, and requires that willing suspension
of disbelief. Furthermore, we want this shimmering thing in our homes – so quotidian,
the antithesis of the magic carpet. If It can ever happen at home at all, the process
requires an extraordinary blend of multi-sensual cues with true artistic vision – more
than ever we needed in strange, dark caves.
Paul Seydor tells you how film editors strive for It. Alen Koebel haunted INFO-
COMM looking for It. Alice Artzt says she found It in Roberto Benigni. For Tom Miiller,
It turned his “perfect” room into a Ti g e r. Greg Rogers says you might be able to find
perfect color – but not without real know-how. Greg Sandow digs at the very heart of
the experience before he finds a little of It.
HP points out that while Special Editions are supposed to have It, suppositions by
nature create unassuageable desires. Jonathan Valin takes on the vision of the great
Imago himself, Ingmar Bergman, in the hope that some spells work forever.
W h y, you say, I might have It in my hands right this minute! But drat, you can’t get
the system to work – you keep punching buttons and get picture but no sound, sound
but no video. Where are those simple, hunky knobs of yore that clicked so cleanly
from off to on and let you know when you’d got there? For some of us, It might just be
sound and vision at the same time – every time.
Still, we have good, solid stuff here: Controllers (maybe they’re that great old knob
in new skin, if we can figure out how to use them). DVDs. Projectors, line doublers.
Even whole systems (Part 1, of course. This is still a q u e s t. And we are yet ourselves.)
Highlights: Sandow in Cuba at the Buena Vista Social Club; Seydor on the Cutting
Room Floor; Rogers on Color; Rogers on Runco & Sony; Miiller in the War Room with
Revel; Rawlinson with the Alchemist of Linn. Valin with Queen Elizabeth (he’d rather
be with Mrs. Brown). And HP with Kubrick and the Space Monsters.
S R
IN THIS ISSUE
I s s u e 2 6 , S e p t e m b e r /O c t o b e r 19 9 9
V I E W P O I N T S
6 Editorial
7 Editorial Notes
Can All That Counts Be Counted? A Forum Begins…
Janet’s Index (A footnote to “Keeping It Real:
Producing Classical Music Videos,” Issue 25)
9 Letters
The Problem with DVD: Digital Artifacts…Targeting
14-Year-Old Boys?…Down the Primrose Path…What
Not To See on DVD…Electronic Cinema
Columns
13 Audio: Death to Convention – Tom Miiller
15 Video: We’ve Got What it Takes for Home
Theater – Greg Rogers
16 Music & Multimedia: The Vexed Question of
Multimedia – Greg Sandow
17 Out of the Box: Video Travels – Tom Martin
19 Design Concepts: The Human Interface
– Barry Rawlinson
J O U R N A L
20 Industry News
INFOCOMM ’99: An Insider’s View – Alen Koebel
24 Exploring Film
Trims, Clips, and Selects: Notes from the Cutting
Room Floor – Paul Seydor
A U D I O
31 Featured Product
Lexicon MC-1 Controller: Sonic Flavors To Slake
Every Thirst – Robert Harley
35 Department
What You Should Know…About Controllers
– Robert Harley
41 Reviews
41 Revel Ultima Speaker System Episode One:
The Ancient Enemy – Tom Miiller
48 Linn-AV5100 Tukan Multi-Channel System:
In Search of the Mythical Beast I
– Barry Rawlinson
51 NAD T770 Audio-Video Receiver: Just the
Basics, Done Well – Neil Gader
53 Manufacturers’ Corner
RPG
MUSIC & M U L T I M E D I A
55 I Want My DVD! Major Labels’ Plans for
Classical Music on DVD – Heidi Waleson
57 Upscale Pop (on DVD) – Thom Duffy
59 Made for DVD: Puccini’s Tu r a n d o t – Greg Sandow
63 A (Classical) DVD Sampler – Greg Sandow
67 Surrounded! Roger Reynolds’ Wa t e r s h e d (created
for DVD) – Greg Sandow & Barry Rawlinson
71 Pop with a Twist – Bob Gendron
77 Multimedia: A Close Encounter (Voices of Light
&The Passion of Joan of Arc) – Andrew Quint
V I D E O
81 Department
Video Insights: An Introduction to Digital
Video 2: Video Color Concepts – Greg Rogers
87 Reviews
87 Sony VPH-G90U Multiscan Projector
– Greg Rogers
90 Runco DTV-930 Multiscan Projector
– Greg Rogers
Measurements – Greg Rogers
94 IEV Turboscan 1500 Line Doubler – Bill Cruce
96 Pioneer Elite DVL-91 Combination
CD/LD/DVD Player – Bill Cruce
Measurements – Greg Rogers
99 Further Thoughts: DVDO iScan Plus Line
Doubler – Greg Rogers
FILM & M O V I E S
101 Personalities
Roberto Benigni – Alice Artzt & Bruce Lawton
105 HP’s Movieola
Special Editions (DVDs): Kubrick & Alien box
sets…Worth a Look: Weir’s Gallipoli; Ward’s
What Dreams May Come; Vadim’s Barbarella
110 Second Run
110 BioPics: Elizabeth; Mrs. Brown;
Gods & Monsters (DVDs) – Jonathan Valin
Comments by HP
114 Current Attractions
Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut – HP
115 Film Forum
Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (DVD)
–Jonathan Valin
S I G N O F F
118 For the Reader
Information about TPV
120 VisionWatch
Prognostications: Our staff predicts the future
Front Cover: Sony VPH-G90U Multiscan Projector
.
“Do not keep anything…that
you do not know to be useful
or believe to be beautiful.”
– William Morris
Let it be said, at this the half-way point of summer
(as of the writing), the neighborhood multiplexes
find themselves wishing they could either get rid of
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace or at least move
a surviving copy of it to one of their lesser screens.
Most of you probably know the terms that George
Lucas stuck the exhibitors with: (a) a 12-week min-
imum run and (b) on their biggest screens. It is even said that
Lucasfilm is demanding 90 percent of the box-office gross for
the entire 12 weeks. Unheard of terms. And not soon likely to
be repeated.
Instead of being a Titanic-buster, as the marshmallow-
cloud prognosticators foresaw, the fourth Star Wars install-
ment looks a bit more like Dennis the Menace in its measur-
ing up to the Cameron box-office juggernaut. And so we have
the lovely irony wherein the biggest venues in the local plex
may be less than half full, while across the hall, in a smaller
theater, folks are getting turned away from the likes of Wild,
Wild West, Austin Powers, Big Daddy,and other such intel-
lectually stimulating and spiritually instructive treats. Me, I’m
just glad that Lucas hasn’t cornered the popcorn concession,
demanding a cut there as well.
I had hoped to have a few “real” films under Current
Attractions in this issue and was prepared to review one for-
eign flick no longer much about (The Dream Life of Angels)
and even an artistic failure with plenty of meat on the bones
(Mike Figgis’ The Loss of Sexual Innocence). Eyes Wide Shut
opened just in time for me to squeeze in a few observations.
But I was able to catch Run, Lola, Run, which is an exhil-
arating film, as full of energy as any dozen others and perhaps
a significator of where film is going at the end of the century.
When I walked out of the theater, mind abuzz with the images
I had just encountered, I felt almost a guilty pleasure, know-
ing that Lola marks the end of film as we know it. Well, maybe
that’s an exaggeration; but still, for some time movies have
been abandoning traditional narrative formats for the hyped-
up visual experience and Lola takes that hyped-up energy to
the edge. And when you metaphorically peer over that edge
into the abyss, you’ll have to ask yourself, “Just where do the
movies go from here?” Will they all become machine-gun fire
multi-media collages, going even further than Lola, which is a
multi-media treat (animation, live action, stupendously well-
employed Dolby Digital, wall-to-wall-papered rock)?
I can’t imagine this German import not becoming one of
the most successful foreign/art-house films ever. Yes, it has
subtitles (oh horrors!), but you hardly need them to keep up
with the action, which has the virtue of being pure movement
(cinema’s forte) once Lola sets out on her run, repeated three
times over with a different outcome each time. At issue is sav-
ing her dope-dealing boyfriend’s life, which means she has to
come up with $100,000 (Deutsche Marks) within 20 minutes
or else. There is a cast of characters whose paths she crosses
(or doesn’t) during each run, and as the camera pauses to con-
template each, you see a rat-a-tat barrage of still photographs
of each’s future, which changes according to the circum-
stances of the encounter with Lola. There are, additionally,
two beautifully done bridge passages after the first and sec-
ond runs, which show, slyly, why she gets another chance at
changing the outcome. There is a surprising amount of heft,
emotional meat on the bones, in this seemingly slight virtuoso
exercise in the craft of film, and buried within its telegraphed
shorthand staccato outbursts, a reservoir of deep feeling. And
such mordant, dry, macabre humor to keep the tone ironic
and post-modern. All this is in vivid, day-glo color, filmed in
almost every medium one can think of, but done in such a way
that it all coheres and makes perfect artistic sense (unlike,
say, Oliver Stone’sNatural Born Killers, where Stone is
showboating with technique, failing to relate it to content).
Like I said, it may well make you feel as high as a kite, but
what in the world do you do for an encore?
Barco Vision Watch
In the first chapter of our adventure, Projector Installation:
The Real Menace, I took a shot at Barco’s official Long Island
installation folks at Gavi. That was written on deadline.
Between then and the time the folks at Gavi saw the unfavor-
able mention in the last issue, the company sent its men back
again and again in an effort to get the 708 data-grade projec-
tor working at the level I needed in order to make solid and
sound judgments about everything from laserdiscs and DVDs,
enhanced and non, to HDTV when it finally arrives at the Sea
Cliff studios.
Part of the problem the first time out was that Gavi’s folk
did not remount the Barco so that it was correctly distanced
from the 8-foot Stewart screen. Instead, they used the ceiling-
mounted plate Sony had installed for their projector. Thus, I
couldn’t get an accurately sized 4:3 picture, which meant I
couldn’t watch full-screen discs (this means anything before
l954 and Latter Day stuff either made for TV or not – IMAX,
e.g.). Then on a subsequent visit, I found the team had put in
an anamorphic widescreen setting without supplying another
for standard widescreen discs. So non-anamorphic DVDs and
laserdiscs looked really weird, being squeezed as they were
into aspects that ranged up to 3:1 for a 2:35.1 disc. There have
been more visits and now I am waiting for Gavi to get its color
analyzer back (it’s in California) so that we can check the
grayscale and color temperature. I’m not satisfied with the
colors as rendered – for one thing, the whites aren’t as pure as
I’d like, and either some transfers (mostly of foreign films) are
a bit “pink” or the set isn’t fully dialed in just yet.
Meaning? The installation of a front projector is tricky
business, especially with the advent of anamorphically
enhanced DVDs and of HDTV. And we shall be addressing the
topic in detail sufficient unto the day.
HARRY PEARSON
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
E D I T O R I A L
Follies & Frolics
. . . . . . . . . .
I: Can All That Counts Be Counted?
A Forum Begins
We are running Charles Hansen’s response to Issue 24 as the
beginning of a forum in which we explore how we will blend
the observational and the empirical (tests and measurement
programs) in our video and audio sections. Our aim is not to
overwhelm the reader with our expertise at the test bench or
with our skill in the obfuscatory use of High End jargon – but
to produce the clearest, most comprehensible and useful
examination of the hardware we review and the concepts
behind that hardware. Every reader should understand every
line of text and every graph, no matter which he uses most to
help him make his own judgments. If one serious reader does
not understand, we believe we must simply learn to explain
b e t t e r. Over time, we will.
The editors will respond next issue.
E d i t o r :
Congratulations on the rebirth of The Perfect Vi s i o n, a superb
new beginning to an intriguing journal. As I was reading the
first issue, I was struck by at least one marked similarity to T h e
Absolute Sound, namely the satisfying richness of content that
requires multiple readings to digest fully.
One thing that also struck me was the dichotomy between
the methods used to review the video and audio performance
of a component:
1) Objective observational methods are the only accept-
able means to review audio equipment, whereas labora-
tory measurements must be relied upon to judge video
e q u i p m e n t .
2) Long-term listening tests are much more sensitive in
discerning meaningful differences in audio equipment,
while instantaneous A/B switching is favored for com-
paring video equipment.
3) Any sort of signal manipulation has been traditional-
ly frowned upon in the realm of High End audio, but in
video “clever electronic prestidigitation” is able to cre-
ate “unprecedented picture quality. ”
This last point is particularly interesting, as it appears to
contradict item one. If I read the review of the Pioneer DV-
09 correctly, the measurements performed were unable to
identify the source of the sharpness enhancement, instead
requiring the use of objective observational methods. (By
the way, the service guide for the Pioneer player describes
the sharpness enhancement feature as selectively modifying
the luminance signal with a non-linear gain element. A simi-
lar technique used in an audio component would be unac-
ceptable to the High End community. )
As I consider these two different reviewing approaches for
audio and video components, three distinct possibilities come
to mind on the reasons for their need:
a) The human brain processes audio and video informa-
tion in completely different ways, and therefore differ-
ent methods must be used to evaluate audio and video
equipment; or,
b) While analog audio has always had arbitrarily high-
resolution capability, video has had format-prescribed
resolution limits. This limited resolution may require dif-
ferent evaluation methods; or,
c) In this early stage of video equipment, there are gross
differences (and defects) in measurable performance
parameters, just as in audio equipment of the 1950s. As
these measurable defects are corrected (thanks to the
feedback provided by the measurement capabilities of
Convergence Labs), meaningful differences in the
observed performance of video equipment may or may
not still exist.
At this point, I lean toward the last possibility as most
l i k e l y. This view would seem to be supported by
Jonathan Va l i n ’s comments on the Theta Voyager [Issue
24], in which he noted improvements in the following
areas: video noise and grain; gradations of the gray
scale; sharpness of image; focus of background sub-
jects; depth of field.
Can all of these observed improvements in image quality be
correlated with improved performance on the test bench? It
seems unlikely, although I suppose we will have a partial
answer in the next issue, when the Voyager is placed under the
scrutiny of Convergence Labs’ battery of tests [see Issue 25]. (I
say “partial answer” because the correlative results from one
unit do not necessarily apply to all models.)
I look forward to future issues, as these and other topics
are explored in depth. CHARLES HANSEN
AYRE ACOUSTICS, INC.
II: Janet’s Index
And now a footnote to our interview last issue with Phillip Byrd
and Janet Shapiro, producers of classical music television
broadcasts. Janet talked about a terrific show she’d just fin-
ished, called C a n ’t Stop Singing, a documentary about the 60th
annual convention and contests of the Society for the Preser-
vation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in
America, held this year in Atlanta, at the Georgia Dome. A few
days ago, she sent me some statistics she’d prepared for the
o r g a n i z a t i o n ’s board, to show them what goes into her work. I
asked her if she’d share them here, and she agreed, provided I
let her say the following:
“Although the show is a documentary, it contains a lot of
straight performance as well. It exists in two forms: an
81-minute version for pledge time on PBS stations,
which airs nationwide on PBS beginning August 11, and
also in a slightly longer version that will air at an unspec-
ified time after August without pledge breaks. [It’s an
h o n o r, she’d explained, for a pledge show to be picked
for national distribution outside those special weeks.]
“There will be a home video version. My role in the
production was Producer and Editor, and I’ve poured
my heart and soul into this show. I want people to
watch it!!!”
Which they should – it’s engaging from beginning to end
and the quartets look and sound pretty fabulous.
J a n e t ’s stats, for her 87-minute show:
• Number of field crews: 4 (each with its own producer,
s h o o t e r, audio tech, and PA )
• Number of field tapes: 86 30-minute tapes
• Amount of time needed to log and transcribe said field
tapes: 2 months
• Number of pages of logs and transcriptions: 591
• Number of cameras at the Georgia Dome: 5
• Number of contest tapes: 67 90-minute tapes
• Amount of time to edit finished program: 2 1/2 months
• Number of video edits in finished program: 662
• Number of audio edits in finished program: 361
• Number of e-mails in my Barbershop folder when I last
looked: 202 GREG SANDOW
EDITORIAL NOTES
The Problem with DVD:
Digital Artifacts
E d i t o r :
I have subscribed to your revival of
The Perfect Vi s i o n, and not being famil-
iar with the original, I can only say you
seem to be off to a strong start. Yo u r
style feels more academically, intellectu-
ally driven than some of your competi-
tion, and I welcome this.
I’d like to address one point that
M r. Pearson makes in his Vi e w p o i n t s
editorial. “And we shall push, push, push
for the highest quality images, either
from an ‘enhanced’ DVD...” How hard
are you willing to push? Are you satis-
fied with DVD now?
I find the digital motion artifacts of
DVD too severe for a serious High End
format. DVD’s 10Mbps data rate is just
not enough to carry a component digital
standard definition video signal! Wi t h
only few exceptions, every DVD I watch,
on a wide variety of systems, is plagued
by large-area low luminance chroma
macroblocking. Also, pre-compression
noise reduction removes much of the
film grain within the image. Film grain is
an integral part of an image; the type of
film stock and its grain structure are
often aesthetic choices made by direc-
tors of photography. How can reduction
or removal of this element be aestheti-
cally acceptable?
The popular press, and even some
higher end journals, are head over heels
over DVD. I will admit that it offers
some true benefits such as component
color space, progressive output capabil-
i t y, anamorphic presentation, and
extended luminance/chroma channel
bandwidth. But the digital artifacts are
bad, they are visible, and they are unac-
ceptable. But I hear no other voices to
the contrary. This saddens me.
If The Perfect Vi s i o n is to “push,
push, push,” then I implore your maga-
zine to [convince] manufacturers that
our future digital formats must use
milder data reduction methods. I fear for
the future “enhanced DVD” format. Wi l l
we be saddled with a digital output
channel that will max out at the low 19
Mbps data rate specified by the ATSC for
1080i transmission? Wo u l d n ’t it be better
to output a wideband RGB or Y/R-Y/B-Y
analog signal to feed our monitors?
Within the home, we should shoot
for performance above the AT S C / G r a n d
Alliance system and stay free of injurious
motion artifacts caused by high data-
reduction schemes. Please use your plat-
form to strive for the finest images we
can get – we are counting on you!
CHRISTOPHER MOORE
M A N H AT T AN BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Greg Rogers: I applaud your desire for
high-quality video, but I can’t agree with
your sweeping generalization of DVD.
You haven’t provided a single example
of a disc or player for which “digital arti-
facts are bad, they are visible, and they
are unacceptable.” That certainly is not
the case with the vast majority of DVDs
I buy or the players I use today. Early on
there were some quite poor DVDs
rushed to market to make a quick buck
and some DVD players that were ques-
tionable in terms of MPEG artifacts and
D/A converter output stages. Your char-
acterization would have applied to
them. But MPEG encoding on major stu-
dio releases is generally quite good
today and MPEG decoding and signal
processing in players is excellent. That
said, there are still plenty of video quali-
ty problems on DVD, but I think you are
barking up the wrong tree. I would spare
you the usual advice to make certain
your displays are calibrated, but I have
no other explanation for what you see.
I believe if we want real improve-
ments in DVD quality, we must have bet-
ter transfers using high-definition down-
conversion, no edge-enhancement arti-
facts, and use the 16.9 enhanced format
for all widescreen movies. And stop
recycling old transfers done on inferior
telecine equipment or stored on D-2
composite video VTRs.
I’m not sure how much film-grain
you have been able to see through dirty
film transfers and the video noise of pre-
vious formats like laserdisc, and forgive
me, VHS tape. But you are correct that
pre-processing to remove noise is an
important part of the MPEG compres-
sion process. But if that means cleaning
up dirt on film, and using better telecine
equipment with less noise, then I think
i t ’s a pretty good tradeoff.
When it comes to future high-defin-
ition DVD formats I’m not as worried
about the ATSC bit-rates as I was a year
ago. From what I’ve seen of pre-record-
ed HDTV, multiple-pass MP@HL MPEG
encoding is working well and encoders
will be even better by the time 720p gets
to DVD. The jury is still out on real-time
high-definition MPEG encoding.
Targeting 14-Year-Old
Boys?
Editor:
I’ve just skimmed through Issue 24,
and already TPV is better than just about
anything else out there. A few weeks ago
a friend and I were discussing the lam-
entable state of Home Theater m a g a -
zine, which apparently has decided that
its target audience is 14-year-old boys.
…I’m now using one of the Panan-
sonic DVD players, which does a pretty
good job. My monitor is the Toshiba 35-
inch direct view, and I heard that the
Sony DVD player looks a little soft when
not in 16.9 enhanced mode (although
that appears not to be a problem with
the S7700). I’d be tempted to spring for a
Theta Voyager if I had 6 grand to spare!
I’ve seen all the films in your “Best
of 1998” list except Central Station,
Gods and Monsters, Elizabeth, and T h e
Object of My Affection. I’ve been pleas-
antly surprised to see that the library of
DVD films isn’t entirely made up of
blockbusters. I had never seen Picnic at
Hanging Rock before and was knocked
for a loop by it. What an incredible,
haunting film! I’ve also been picking up
a goodly number of laserdiscs at give-
away prices. Speaking of which, is DTS
a consumer failure? I see that Ken
C r a n e ’s is dumping its DTS laserdiscs,
which can’t be a good sign.
RICHARD GALLAGHER
RGALLAGH@IX. NETCOM.COM
L E T T E R S
Down the
Primrose Path
Toward Perfect
Vision Forever?
E d i t o r :
I’ve been with TPV since the first issue,
and was thankful, even delighted, when
you covered the remaining issues on my
subscription from five years back. That’s
perfect honesty. Now that you know my
credentials, here’s my wish list, which I
hope will help you keep your focus on
the perfect vision:
1. Reviews must be brutal in their
criticism of any company whose
film transfer falls short of DVD’s
promise. It wouldn’t hurt to take
up a page or two with three ongo-
ing lists: (near) perfect transfers,
adequate transfers, and lousy
transfers, arranged alphabetically
by company.
If magazines like this have any
goal in life at least one has to be to
speak truth to power and put
more pressure on the industry to
do what’s right instead of extend-
ing its rip-offs further into every
new technology.
2. In keeping with that goal, editors
must not allow a DVD review to
get longer and longer because its
author is rehashing plot-lines or
attempting to create a “think”
piece about the film’s story con-
tent, idea content, the director’s
o e u v r e – or lack thereof. I know,
everyone wants to strut his
insights. But there are other maga-
zines for doing that. Your bi-
monthly shouldn’t eat up precious
space that way. We’re after the
perfect movie vision, not the per-
fect movie insight. In the
July/August issue it took 14 pages
(about 14,000 words) to cover a
mere 18 DVDs because of such
noodling on. At that rate, you’ll
cover not much more than 100
DVDs per year. The list sure won’t
grow fast at that rate. More impor-
tant, the story content of most
DVDs isn’t strong enough to begin
to justify buying all the expensive
equipment that TPV reviews.
Everyone should re-read Morrell’s
thoughts about what constitutes
the viewing experience under var-
ious conditions.
3. If there’s anyone to supply them,
add more think pieces that illumi-
nate the problems and weakness-
es of the medium. Morrell’s “Theo-
ry of Relativity” is a good example.
My favorite would be a discussion
of whatever technical factors
cause some TV sets/monitors to
have that wonderful 3-D window-
on-reality look while others don’t
even come close.
I’ve seen cheap TVs in motels
have that “see through” look and
s u p e r-expensive units that did not –
at all. So it doesn’t take HDTV or
DVD to get there. But what causes it
and why don’t all sets have it? What-
ever the answer is goes to the heart
of attaining the perfect vision.
4. Please, don’t go back totally to the
“good old days” of TPV. Av o i d
space eaters such as long, long
rambling interviews and general
articles about the history of film,
T V, Te c h n i c o l o r, formats, etc.,
unless the discussion is directly
and explicitly relevant to illumi-
nating specific problems with
attaining the perfect vision in cur-
rent media.
An example of relevance would
be the parts of Allen Daviau’s inter-
view where he reveals how sloven-
ly movie houses can be. Since the
goal is to “recreate” the theater
experience in the home, it’s rele-
vant to know what the theater
“standard” really is. For those inter-
ested in film as film, there are other
magazines. An example of irrele-
vance would be his own favorite
film scenes. How does that help
achieve the perfect vision?
5. As we go once more down the
primrose path toward another
technological bait and switch, TPV
c a n ’t be too critical when any
manufacturer violates DVD’s im-
plied promise of perfect (or near
perfect) vision at low cost. That
would include manufacturers who
reportedly “cripple” the DVD play-
e r ’s video high-frequency output,
supposedly because viewers don’t
know enough to turn down their
s e t ’s sharpness (edge) control.
Why not have three lists for front
end equipment, too?
After more than a decade of CD
hype, aren’t we all more than a lit-
tle disgusted when no reasonably
priced hardware can completely
reproduce the content of the best
software, forcing the consumer to
fulfill the promise by buying more
and more expensive equipment to
more “perfectly” decode the damn
thing? From a marketing perspec-
tive, it’s a perverse inversion of the
standard “give them the razor and
sell them the blades” tactic. Here,
even when the blades are great,
must all the reasonably priced
handles be so designed that you
c a n ’t avoid cutting yourself?
6. Finally, a modest proposal for all
readers looking down that prim-
rose path. Given the increasingly
high cost of recreating a good
movie theater and the difficulty of
choosing compatible equipment,
and assuming your video purchas-
es have nothing to do with show-
ing a profit, wouldn’t it be wiser to
buy the small movie theater your
town isn’t using any more? Sever-
al audio/videophiles could even go
into this together.
The owners’ families would re-
serve the best seats. You could let
everyone else in for a buck and
pay the mortgage and film rental
costs with income from something
that has nothing to do with any
kind of vision but that is neverthe-
less endlessly popular – popcorn.
I t ’s just a thought.
Best wishes for great cash flow in
the future. MIKE ROBBINS
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVA N I A
M R O B B I N S @ P O L E S H I F T. O R G
H P : So your credentials consist solely
of “perfect honesty?” I might add that
you write well and make your points
c o g e n t l y. And as you probably suspect -
ed when pen you first picked up, I am
far from being in agreement with the
bulk of your thinking, to the point of
saying perhaps the letter should have
best been addressed to some other mag -
azine ( Widescreen Review p e r h a p s ? ) .
1. Agreed. I’ve been, since the re-
installation of a big home-theater
projection system, sorting the
DVDs in my collection into quite
distinct categories. You’ll be read -
ing about this in an upcoming
issue. My biggest problem to date?
Drawing the line between the A+,
A, and A- categories of excellence.
2. If there were other magazines
capable of strutting their “in-
sights” on film better than I can
muster as editor of this one, I will
cease. But I don’t believe that.
Content is at the heart of the mag -
azine. I quite agree that the
assessment of movies should
never be routine or mere assess -
ments of the plot line. That said,
I’ll note that the magazine is in
transition (I’ve said this before)
and the film section is far from
its final form. There will be a
“mix” of reviews, short to long,
with more material being cov -
ered, but I’m not running a cata -
log of quickie impressions. Other
magazines, as you so helpfully
noted, do that.
3. No problem here. We will talk at
some length about the differences.
(Another reason why the percep -
tion of movies ought to be taken
into account in our reviews, thus
adding to their length.)
4. I remain unrepentant. We shall
continue to cover film technology
because it is at the heart of the
experience of cinema in the
home. The “old” TPV had it right.
5. Agreed.
6. Not unless we’re recreating a Cin -
erama equipped local theater. Oh,
Paul Allen, the nation looks to you.
What Not To See on DVD
Editor:
The Perfect Vi s i o n exceeds all my
expectations in terms of its control of the
subject and originality. I predict it will be
a great success. I found “Outtakes” espe-
cially useful [Issue 25]. DVDs vary enor-
mously in quality and are bought blindly.
Alerting buyers is thus a great service.
My candidates for disappointments are
Fox Lorber films. For a few, such as
Ta m p o p o, they got the original print
used for transfer to video. But in most
cases – e.g., L’ E n f e r, Ran, Nostalgia,
Swept Aw a y – they just dumped video
(with its 200? lines) onto DVD.
ED EPSTEIN
M A N H AT TA N
Edepstein @worldnet.att.net
Digital Cinema: The Good
& the Bad of It
E d i t o r :
…It was… a surprise to see TPV on
the shelf of my local Borders. Somehow
I guess I hadn’t really expected you to
hew to the publication schedule right
out of the gate. Guess this means you’re
really back.
Once again, an outstanding read –
probably even more so than the first
“new” issue, although I have to admit that
I skipped the more technical articles on
first pass in favor of the letters page,
movie reviews, and Allen Daviau inter-
v i e w. Daviau’s story about the $130 pro-
jector lenses at local multiplexes is a
h e a r t b r e a k e r. Of course, I always wel-
come think pieces on the differences
between theater viewing and home-the-
ater viewing, though this issue’s article on
the topic reminded me that TPV had run a
similarly provocative piece back in the
d a y. Did you see Walter Murch’s article in
The New York Ti m e s a month or so back
about the implications of a digital cinema?
Greg Rogers remains nothing if not
exhaustive in both knowledge and tem-
perament. Good to see him handling his
end of things – he’ll keep the hardware
guys on their toes. (I saw him beat a
Sony rep into submission at CES over
the lack of blacker-than-black display on
the DVP-S7700.)
Speaking of hardware, saw Te x a s
Instruments’ DLP Cinema in action over
last weekend in Secaucus [the digitized
Star Wa r s ]; was impressed. Particularly
stunning was the richness of color and
the eye-blinding brightness of whites on
the screen. The line structure was occa-
sionally visible, however, and the dark-
est scenes looked murky, with little in
the way of shadow detail. I suspect that
movies that don’t have Star Wars in the
title might not lend themselves quite
this well to digital projection.
Of course, we’re showing this off
to a generation of filmgoers whose stan-
dards have been systematically lowered
by a lack of even a token effort at 70mm
exhibition and poor quality 35mm the-
atrical prints. It’s no wonder that, with
no 70mm blow-ups for comparison’s
sake, lots of folks think this system
looks “better” than 35mm film. It’s com-
parable to a clean 35mm print, and it’s
not much else. Any thoughts?
B RYANT FRAZER
bfrazer@panix.com
Bryant Frazer is a film critic (and pen
pal of HP’s) whose website, Deep Focus,
contains his intelligent and stimulat -
ing writing about movies. HP considers
him one of the best young film critics in
the country. Vi d e , his review of David
C r o n e n b e r g ’s Vi d e o d r o m e for starters.
John Eargle: Lossy Data
Compression & DVD
Sound
E d i t o r :
I want to thank The Perfect Vi s i o n
for the excellent coverage of surround
sound by Robert Harley and Tom Miiller
in your May/June issue. I hadn’t intend-
ed to discuss lossy data compression as
such, but the subject did come up
obliquely in TOM’s DVD reviews. I’d like
to make the following
additional comments:
I consider the major
lossy data compression
systems (AC-3, DTS, and
MPEG2) to be virtually on a par with
each other. If I had felt that AC-3, for
example, was not up to the job required
of it in producing the Delos DVDs, then
the DVDs would not have been issued
at all. As it is, I have A/B’d the 1812
Overture surround sound mix via all
three of the above-mentioned lossy sys-
tems, and they all sound, to a first
approximation, like the uncompressed
original.
My remark about future media and
the prospects of not “worrying about
any lossy data compression” reflects
not so much a current problem with
those systems, but rather the simple
fact that future systems will not require
them. I think everyone would be in
agreement that, all else being equal,
lossless is better than lossy.
JOHN EARGLE
DELOS RECORDS
TV Is TV
Editor:
Have received two issues of TPV.
Both have remained in the plastic wrap.
I am no fan of TV. I believe that analog
recordings on vinyl are all that is needed
to satisfy the needs of music lovers. Dig-
ital recordings and TV are not part of my
life, and will not become a part.
RODNEY ABBOTT- B U C H A N A N
Rabsba @earthlink.net
H P : Do you think I care? The point of
The Perfect Vi s i o n is film and the con -
tent of other media we experience via
television. This is not an either/or
proposition and I think you are being
bone-headed, but it’s your life to live as
narrowly as you choose.
RAB: Sir: I did not ask for TPV. L a
S t r a d a is Film. I do not think Film is the
content of the Digital Age. Film is an
analog experience from the get go to the
end of the optic nerve. The Digital expe-
rience does not accomplish that which
is Film. I was at Hi Fi ’97, my first and
o n l y. Digital-ready speakers and subs-
peakers to demo wall of noise with spe-
cial visual effects is not Film. I am a
character in the film C l e a n S l a t e, you
can use my outhouse anytime – yes I
concur with a narrow path through the
woods – much better than a crowded
f o u r-lane highway.
When we embarked upon the re-launch of The Perfect
Vision, I envisioned the experience as a great
adventure – an opportunity to explore uncharted
territory in home entertainment. Everywhere I looked and
listened, there were new experiences, as the emergence of
digital technology shattered the old notions of what is pos-
sible in home audio.
I didn’t expect that the most challenging adventure
would be developing an editorial approach that would do
justice to the topic. As I planned the audio section for each
issue before me and the ones beyond, I came face to face
with a harsh reality – there weren’t enough pages to cover
the subject using conventional techniques. Indeed, our sub-
ject matter is so rich that using the conventional approach
of reviewing consumer equipment one product at a time
would yield superficial coverage of the available products at
best, while we were forced to ignore many of the fascinating
issues that underlie those products.
We needed a new way.
For inspiration, I turned to two wildly different sources:
Star Trek and law school. By way of analogy, most audio
reviewing today is similar to the episodic structure of a TV
series such as Star Trek: The Next Generation. Each
episode is a whole story, with a beginning and an ending.
And next week the crew is off on another adventure that
typically has nothing to do with last week’s. In contrast, Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine is serial in structure. While elements
of each show are episode specific, there is a dominant plot
structure running from week to week that makes DS9 seri-
al. That’s what we need in TPV’s audio section: a review
structure that is open enough to feature products while
using those same products to explore the larger plot that is
our quest to accurately recreate the sound of the original
event, be it music or movie.
You may well wonder what law school has to do with any
of this. Even lawyers who love the law will tell you that
law school was a nightmarish experience. One of our
principle objectives at TPV is to provide guidance to the
intelligent reader who is interested in home entertain-
ment. This objective flies square in the face of the reality
that even if you read every publication available on con-
sumer electronics, you could not read a review of every
product you might be interested in.
Faced with this limitation, I found myself in
a situation not unlike my first year of law.
Rather than teaching us the law, our professors taught us
how to think about the law. There are too many “rules” for
any student to sit down and absorb them all – just as there
are too many audio products for any reviewer to cover. And,
like the law, the results obtained from an audio product are,
to a degree, fact specific. What is needed is a broader per-
spective in approaching each product.
In law school, they taught us to read cases and discover
for ourselves the issues within those cases. Only then could
we begin to comprehend the use of rules in the law. Similar-
ly, it is the issues presented by each product and each sys-
tem that must be our starting point in understanding multi-
channel audio. If we reviewers can understand and share
the larger issues with you readers, you won’t need a review
of every product to guide you. You will be better equipped to
guide yourselves. And an informed marketplace produces
better products through economic force.
And how do we fuse the structure of DS9 and approach
of law school in the audio review section? Crudely, at first, I
suspect. There isn’t a manual that tells us how to do this. So
like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, we’re going to
make it up as we go along.
In this issue, you can read the first installments of two
serial system reviews – one by Barry Rawlinson and the
other by me. Rawlinson, with his design background, will
approach the Linn system he is reviewing from a different
and invaluable perspective. Meanwhile, I’m off on a journey
to confront humankind’s ancient enemy as I review an evolv-
ing system based on Revel loudspeakers.
I envision an audio section that will provide more con-
text and insight than is possible with a conventional review
structure. There are limitations with this approach, of
course. The most significant is that we will be covering a
smaller number of products than if we just limited our
reviews to 1,500 words and grabbed every product we
could get (worse yet would be writing 3,000 word
reviews that cared not for the larger issues –
think about it). Because of this limitation, we
must be highly selective in choosing the products
we review. We want products of high performance
that have something to teach us.
This then is our manifesto of freedom from
the old conventions of audio reviewing.
But what did you expect? TPV is not a
conventional magazine!
Death to Convention
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
TOM MIILLER
A U D I O
IVX Dead! Enough said. Too much was written about
it when it was alive, so we don’t need to talk more
about a company that just didn’t get it.
Video at The Perfect Vision is about Home Theater, and
to me that means a large screen picture. Sorry, but a 32” TV
just can’t be home theater, can it? I’m not talking just about
picture quality; I’ve spent endless hours looking at the best
picture quality available, on 13” and 19” professional broad-
cast monitors. No, it’s the emotional experience of a large
screen that fills our field of vision with images of a different
reality. That’s the reaction we get at the cinema and what we
need to experience home theater. So unless you can sit close
to a RPTV, home theater means a front projector with at
least a six foot wide, 16.9 or 1.85 screen.
In this issue I review front projectors from Sony and
Runco that will really make your home-theater experience
happen. But you can’t have large screens without HDTV or
upconverters, unless you want to stare at scan lines. And
that doesn’t quite capture the cinema experience, either. So
Bill Cruce looks at the IEV Turboscan line doubler with lots
of features at a budget price. And I take another look at the
DVDO line doubler, with almost no features, but a sensa-
tional price at $700.
Bill also reviews another DVD/LD combi player. I sup-
pose its time to admit that laserdisc is dead, but some of us
have an awful lot of laserdiscs lying around that we may
never see on DVD. How about Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me,
with Max Parrish, Sean Young, and Timothy Leary? Not like-
ly to make it to DVD, but it’s a great LD title.
Finally, there’s something missing from the video cover-
age in this issue. Part 2 of Christy Warren’s review of the
Runco 5800 HD-ready RPTV. It’s hard to evaluate high-defin-
ition picture quality without an HD source. We didn’t solve
that problem until right before our editorial deadline. So
rather than rushing something with little time for evaluation,
we postponed that report until next time.
Speaking of HDTV: As we went to print with the
Unity Motion review in the last issue, they were clos-
ing their doors in St. Louis. Now as this is written,
Unity Motion, under a new management team, is
officially trying to refinance, restructure, and return
to business. As I wrote in the review, they delivered
some excellent hardware but needed programming
for success. The key was HBO, and Unity Motion
just couldn’t seem to get together with them
and make something happen. We’ll stay
tuned, but it won’t be long before DirecTV and the Dish Net-
work will be delivering HDTV via their satellite systems.
Unity Motion will have to find some sort of niche to make
another run at it. How about an all HDTV sports network?
Movie Trivia
So much for my career in trivia games. When last we met, I
dropped the names of a couple of sci-fi film characters into
Video Insights and the Unity Motion review (Issue 25). I for-
got there were really two characters from different movies
in the Unity review. One was trivial, Scotty from pick your
favorite Trek film, but the other was a bit more difficult.
Unfortunately, I asked for just two movie titles instead of
three. The first person to identify Prof. Barnhardt from The
Day the Earth Stood Still and Scotty, was Neil Bulk from
New Jersey. He wins the AVIA Guide to Home Theater DVD.
But Rick Connolly came through a day later and also identi-
fied the “Toys for Ellie” clue as Jody Foster’s character in
Contact. So Rick also got a copy of AVIA courtesy of its
authors at Ovation Software (www.ovationsw.com). Now
remind me not to try this again!
16.9 DVDs Gaining Momentum
Paramount followed up The 10 Commandments and S t a r
Trek Insurrection with 16.9 enhanced transfers of A Simple
Plan, Varsity Blues, a n d B a r b a r e l l a ( r e v i e w, this issue). I
was feeling really good about Paramount until I heard that
“King of World” Cameron’s chick-flick was going to be
released in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but without a 16.9
enhanced transfer! Is that any way to treat the biggest
money maker of all time? Well, I was one of the four people
on the planet that found the movie boring, so I doubt that
they’ll miss my $30.
Fox finally joined the party with a spectacular boxed-set
of the four A l i e n films (review this issue), all in the higher- r e s -
olution 16.9 DVD format. And Criterion has announced their
intention to use 16.9 whenever possible on future releas-
es. Their first 16.9 enhanced title is July’s release of
I n s o m n i a. Criterion pioneered widescreen and spe-
cial editions on laserdisc, so it’s great to see them
commit to the highest-quality DVD format.
It must be getting lonely over at the Mouse.
First DIVX dies and now Mickey may be the last
company to switch to 16.9 enhanced DVDs. Oh,
sorry! I wasn’t going to talk about DIVX or
companies that just don’t get it.
We’ve Got What It Takes for Home Theater
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
V I D E O
G R E G R O G E R S
…is it just a random mesh of sight and sound, or does some-
thing really new emerge? T h i s gets another look in this issue
from Andrew Quint, who saw a performance in New York that
made him think the much-hyped phenomenon might be real.
And I, along with anyone else who’s seen the Wim Wen-
ders film Buena Vista Social Club, now better understand
something simpler, but still important: How an extra visual
dimension can help us understand music.
This is Wenders’ latest film, and its title ought to ring a
bell with people interested in Latin music, world music, or
just plain good music, thanks to the Nonesuch Records CD
also called Buena Vista Social Club. It’s a Ry Cooder project
(another of his explorations of cross-cultural musical
styles), recorded in Cuba and featuring older Cuban musi-
cians who hadn’t performed for quite a while. I’d had the CD
for some time, along with others spun off from it, including
something credited to the Afro-Cuban All-Stars (featuring
some of the same people), and a recent solo album spot-
lighting Ibrahim Ferrer, a Cuban singer with a tenderness,
sly wit, and radiant sense of rhythm that mark him, for me,
as an exceptional treasure.
Wenders’ movie might be called a high-class “making of,”
and it helped me understand something about the musical pro-
ject I hadn’t quite grasped. Ferrer apart, my first reaction to the
CDs was to think the music was nice, but a little sloppy and
informal, traits I normally don’t mind (I love rock & roll, and
how could I, if I didn’t like sloppy and informal?), but which
struck me here as odd, maybe because I thought Cuban music
should be hot and tight. Adding to my puzzlement was a recent
trip to Cuba, where I spent a week tracking down Cuban clas-
sical music for two articles I wrote for the Wall Street Journal,
and which appeared there in May. I t ’s not that I heard any of
the Buena Vista musicians (my loss), or even any musicians
like them (again my loss). But I got a shot of Cuba in my blood,
heard a lot of other Cuban things on CD, and even spoke to a
Cuban musicologist, who – maybe I took this out of context –
suggested that the Buena Vista recordings aren’t all that
remarkable to anyone who knows Cuban music well.
And then I saw the Wenders film. I’ll tease Wenders
about one exaggeration, harmless but misleading – his many
shots of old American cars. These, it’s true, are a famous
sight in Cuba, especially Havana, and for good reason. When
the Castro revolution hit in 1959, Cuba was economically
and politically close to the United States (it was virtually an
American colony, with Havana essentially controlled by the
Mafia). American cars were naturally what people drove.
When the US broke relations with the Castro government,
American car imports stopped, and Cubans for a while had
neither money nor the chance to buy anything else. They
kept driving their old Chevys and Oldsmobiles, and still
drive them, holding them together with spit and ingenuity.
These ancient vehicles are a famous sight on just about
any Havana street. But they’re not the most common sight.
Most cars in Havana are creaky Russian ones, boxy and can-
tankerous, imported during the years when
the Soviet Union was Cuba’s ally. They’re no
fun to look at, and Wenders simply left them out, a pardon-
able decision cinematographically, but not an accurate pic-
ture of what he surely saw.
But the wonder of the Buena Vista film, apart from the
sheer delight of watching it, is how it changed my hearing of
the music. (I should note that it’s shot in grainy video, but
since Wenders is an artist, the grainy video becomes an
artistic element. It helps convey the otherworldliness of
Havana, a city literally crumbling, but jumping with life. The
colors are intentionally distorted, too, for an extra distanc-
ing effect.) I knew, for instance, that the musicians weren’t
young. But to see them – genial old coots in their seventies,
eighties, and even nineties – makes them come alive.
We hear them tell their stories, too, and we realize some-
thing else. These aren’t just musicians. They’re top entertainers
from another time, who know their business cold, even if they
h a v e n ’ t practiced it in quite a while. So for them, the B u e n a
Vista Social Club recording isn’t just a job. It’s recognition.
Even more, it’s a kind of unexpected personal gravy. Never did
they think they’d play again, least of all with international atten-
tion. But they’re prepared. The old shticks – pianist Rubén
González plays a solo moving up the keyboard, and when he
passes the highest note, keeps on playing in the air – work just
as well in Carnegie Hall as they did in old Havana nightclubs.
A trip to New York for a Carnegie performance is the cli-
max of the film, and for the musicians, we sense, the climax
of their careers. “Que linda, linda, linda, linda!” cries one of
them, walking up Broadway. “How gorgeous, gorgeous, gor-
geous, gorgeous!” They all go to the observation deck near
the top of the Empire State Building, and here – with Wen-
ders scoring a coup for both delight and honesty, by filming
his stars exactly as they are – we see them searching for the
Statue of Liberty, even though none of them knows where it
is or what it looks like, not even the one who swears he vis-
ited it, many, many years ago.
Of course I wanted to love their music. And I learned to
hear it differently. What was sloppy once (though I should
stress that not all of it is), is now adorable, in the spirit of the
search for the Statue. What was lively gets promoted to
completely irresistible, and what’s most important, most of
the players and the singers gain individual voices. They had
them all along, of course, but once I saw the movie, their
individuality was magnified. “That’s the one who prays to
Santeria gods…those are the guys who can’t stop playing
dominoes…he’s the one who’s 90, and can’t stop grinning.
He says he’s working on his sixth child!”
Not that all of this, in some metaphysical subliminal
form, wasn’t in the music anyway (and of course was part of
the reason so many people hear these CDs with such
delight). But the movie brought it out for me in implicit
stereo, 3D, surround, and holographic hypertrue reality.
Go see the movie if it’s playing at an art house near you.
And get the CDs, all on Nonesuch: Buena Vista Social Club,
Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer,and “A
Toda Cuba le Gusta,” credited to the Afro-
Cuban All-Stars.
GREG SANDOW
The Vexed Question of Multimedia…
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
MUSIC & MULT I M E D I A
ViaTV VC 105 Vi d e o p h o n e
At about the same time, during the
1963-64 New York World’s Fair, AT&T
demonstrated videophones to the gen-
eral public. In the early years of the
space age, you couldn’t help but feel
that videophones were right around the
corner. Yet somehow this dream never
materialized, even as the PC era pro-
gressed. In the mid-90s videophones
re-emerged, but were rather expensive
(over $2,000/pair). This has changed
with agreement on the H.324 protocol
and the advent of consumer video-
phone adapters such as the ViaTV VC
105 from 8x8 Corporation.
Using low-cost video compression
and modem chips, the VC 105 brings
the cost of a pair (obviously you need
two to make the video element work)
of videophones under $500. The VC 105
is a small box containing a video cam-
era as well as the compression and
communications electronics needed to
make video work over conventional
phone lines. Operation is straightfor-
ward: You connect the VC 105 to your
TV and a phone, dial an owner of anoth-
er H.324-compatible device (which
could be a PC-based system or a set-up
like the VC 105), and press a button to
start the video call. After about 30 sec-
onds, an image of the scene at the loca-
tion you’ve called shows up. You talk
through the phone and listen through
the phone and TV speakers.
Every time I used the VC 105, I had
the feeling of using a technology one
generation away from being really use-
ful. At this stage, the technology is
okay, but every session involves a set of
distracting compromises. First of all,
you have to choose between moderate
resolution and the ability to follow
motion. Most of the time, you’ll proba-
bly set up the VC 105 so that the picture
is relatively clear and live with an
update of the picture every few sec-
onds (sort of like sending still pictures
regularly). Second, no matter what you
do, the picture is pretty fuzzy (maxi-
mum 352x288 pixels, but in practice
more often 176x144). This might seem
like a minor factor, but it decreases the
sense of “thereness” in the interaction.
Third, and maybe the biggest factor
in my experience, the effort needed to
set up a call is a problem. The steps
d o n ’t seem that cumbersome on paper,
but in practice you have to make at least
two phone calls to get a video call going.
Even with these limitations, I found
that the VC105 significantly lengthened
calls (we would stay on the line longer).
As I’ve said before, discussing down-
loadable music: Higher bandwidth
communications (whether xDSL or
cable) should make a huge difference
to this technology.
Panasonic DVD-L50D
PalmTheater
With the advent of DVD, truly portable
video solutions suddenly abound. I’ve
been using a notebook computer with
built in DVD for about a year, and have
found it very useful for watching movies
when traveling. At the roughly 24” view-
ing distance that feels comfortable with
a computer, my 14.1” screen is actually
quite large (and the latest 15” screens
are even better). At this distance, I esti-
mate that a notebook-based video sys-
tem is equivalent in viewing angle to an
84” wide front-projection system.
If you don’t have a notebook com-
puter, or think a notebook is too large
to carry where you are going, Panason-
ic has a solution. The DVD-L50D is a
DVD drive with a footprint slightly larg-
er than typical portable CD players. It is
a bit thicker than these CD players are,
too, because it has a 16.9, 5” TFT LCD
display and a pair of speakers above
the disc lid. But at around 1/3 the size of
a notebook computer, it is still quite
portable.
I found that the DVD-L50D worked
well. The picture was bright and clear,
though on occasion the LCD produced
edge artifacts (because LCDs are rela-
tively slow). The headphone sound was
solid, and even through the mini-speak-
ers, was usable (my kids and I watched
a DVD one night on vacation and the
sound was adequate for a three-listener
situation). The screen size might seem
tiny, but with a normal viewing dis-
tance, my calculation is that it is equiv-
alent to a 20” screen. Maybe not home
theater, but completely usable. And, the
DVD-L50D can play CDs (like all DVD
players). It has a full set of audio and S-
Video outputs so that you can use it as
a conventional DVD player, whether
you are at home or in a hotel room.
Sometimes new technologies just
work right from the beginning.
TOM MART I N
Video Travels
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
O U T O F T H E B O X
A
certain fascination tags along with any complex technology
when it penetrates a new area of our lives. This is true in part
because we get to see familiar things in unfamiliar places. And
in part because of the sheer amazement that these new forms of tech-
nology work at all. Making a technology portable frequently triggers
this sense of awe. I recall when Sony introduced its first portable CD
player, not long after the introduction of CDs to the market, and it was
only slightly larger than a jewel case. While this seems trivial now that
you can purchase such a machine in a blister pack at Walgreens, at the
time it seemed miraculous. Similarly, when a technology can be deliv-
ered remotely, it seems quite special. In the mid-Sixties, my father
took me to his office to see a new accessory attached to the corporate
mainframe computer: the facsimile machine. It wasn’t just surprising;
it seemed almost impossible.
recall as a seven-year-old switching
on the system that my father had
designed, made, and housed in a
meticulously crafted and veneered cabi-
net. One satisfyingly large circular knob
served as on/off switch and volume con-
trol, another selected between radio
(wireless!) wavebands, and a third tuned
the radio. All immediately obvious to me
and everybody else in the household,
and as a result, the radiogram received
constant use. A similar state of affairs
existed at school, where from my earli-
est days our teachers’ efforts were com-
plemented daily by BBC schools broad-
casts. What concerns me here is the
immediate accessibility of programming
– to anyone with the wit to turn a knob.
Now let us travel forward in time to
the advent of remote control of these
same functions, and let me give you an
example of the problems we have
encountered.
I know an intelligent woman who
holds a degree from a solid university;
she has a good position with a large
company; she is responsible for a num-
ber of subordinate employees and sev-
eral large accounts whose annual
billings run into several millions. And
yet on several occasions she has been
unable to receive the television program
of her choice because of the perceived
complexity of her system. This televi-
sion is connected to a cable feed and a
VCR with their own separate controls,
both remote and otherwise – fewer
inputs than my father’s radiogram. And
yet she tells me that sometimes a week
has passed before she could coax pic-
ture and sound from the thing.
This is clearly bad design. For good
design by its very nature is all encom-
passing, while bad design is exclusion-
ary. If you cannot see the emperor’s
new clothes, the fault does not lie in
you. Some manufacturers have tried to
address this problem by using analog
reproductions of those vintage controls
on their remote control handsets, but
even those suffer from a cognitive dis-
connection.
When we communicate with each
other, we unconsciously use the teach-
ing model – we say what we’re going to
say, then we say it, then we say what
we’ve said. We do this using implicit
languages; if we can see each other, we
use body language and timbre of voice
to confirm reception; when we cannot
see each other we use semantic redun-
dancy – “Did I tell you I spoke to Larry?
He said he’s doing well – he sounded
well – did he speak to you? Did you
think he sounded well?”
And so we find that our better com-
munication channels contain 100 per-
cent redundancy. Writing may contain
only 80 percent redundancy, or less – a
good example is the use of irony. When
Swift proposed that the problem of
famine in Ireland might best be solved by
urging the populace to eat their babies,
he relied upon the contextual cognitive
disconnection between his public posi-
tion as a vehemently pro-Irish represen-
tative to the English Parliament, together
with his reputation as a humanitarian, to
provide a key with which to decode the
real message: that we are all one; there-
fore allowing harm to come to another is
to visit violence upon ourselves – all this
reliant upon context, a questionable
assumption founded upon the premise of
a common culture.
This may explain why irony is
emerging today in American culture to
the degree it has long been apparent in
the older, more homogenous European
cultures.
N o w, if you are not sure of the con-
text within which your recipient will
receive the message, you can build into
the message another layer of redundan-
cy geared to the recipient’s reception.
This is called m i r r o r i n g by psycholo-
gists; the rest of us know it from “When
in Rome, do as Rome does.” It is perhaps
the greatest politeness to adopt the
mores of your recipient, even if you con-
sider those mores abhorrent, because
the common context thus formed will
lead to better communication.
And that’s my agenda for remote
control. When I first use the equipment,
I want to use a large rotary switch with
an audible “click” to turn it on, and I
want both the remote and the system to
confirm that command to my senses –
without having to turn on a separate
d i s p l a y, which will simply introduce
another variable to the equation. I want
next to be informed of the signal chain
I have invoked – and I’m quite happy to
have system memory reinstate whatev-
er I was using when I switched the sys-
tem off – anything rather than a baffling
lack of activity.
Next I may wish to select a differ-
ent source; again I’ll choose a large
rotary control that satisfyingly clicks as
it moves between clearly labeled, illu-
minated positions. And now I may wish
to connect other monitors, video or
audio, in various ways dependent on
the source programming format and, of
course, my whim.
You can see that by allowing the
on/off knob to also control volume, I’ve
arrived back at my father’s radiogram
control panel: three rotary switches
scaled for human hands, with back-lit
labels illuminated as the knobs are
turned.
By now you may have decided that
I’m a reactionary Luddite, and you may
infer that I can’t cope with the micro-
processor age. You would be partially
correct, but only in the first assumption.
My point is to make the experience as
comfortingly familiar as Linus’ blanket.
So where do we go from here? No,
I’m not suggesting that we should all have
remotes styled after 1950s illuminated
fascia panels. I suggest that we are miss-
ing the tactile interface with these com-
plex devices, the subconscious feedback
that adds to the richness of our environ-
ment. Although it may seem grandiose, I
am going to draw a parallel between this
feedback and body language, which con-
veys a surprisingly high proportion of our
communications and adds to the redun-
dancy that is so vital to consistent com-
munication. This is the missing element
from our connection to the machine, and
no box of M&Ms can supply it.
I don’t know the solution: That’s
going to take a serious investigation to
define. But I know this problem is being
vigorously addressed elsewhere – have
you noticed the eagerness of the voice
that greets AOL users? And the resigned
tone of its “Goodbye”? Or that the GUI
(graphic user interface) of current com-
puters includes a satisfying snick every
time you click the mouse?…
B A R R Y R A W L I N S O N
The Human Interface
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
DESIGN CONCEPTS
I
When most people hear “Orlando,
Florida” they think of Disney-
world, Universal Studios, palm
trees, and flamingos. They don’t
usually think of darkened, car-
peted convention halls filled
with flashy images projected
onto huge screens. But that’s
almost all I saw in Orlando when
I visited last June to attend INFOCOMM International 1999. This annual trade show, sponsored by
the International Communications Industries Association (ICIA), is the most important event of
its kind for vendors of presentation products. An estimated 25,000 people attended the show this
year – most of them “information and communications” professionals but some consumers as
well. More than 450 exhibitors were on hand, many to introduce new products. The most excit-
ing such products were displays – cutting-edge projectors and direct-view monitors. While most
of these are designed for the needs of audio-visual professionals – and priced accordingly high,
the same technologies will soon find their way into more-affordable consumer products, the kind
you and I can buy in a retail store. No matter how you look at it, the show is an important event
J O U R N A L
INFOCOMM
in the world of displays.
As with many trade shows, the city hosting Infocomm
changes each year. But the general organization of the show
remains much the same wherever it occurs. This year it was the
huge halls of the Orange County Convention Center that were
filled with manufacturer’s exhibits. The largest booths, some
threatening to scrape the ceiling, were those of the pro-
jector manufacturers. Many of these contained screens
of nearly theater proportions displaying high-definition
material, much of it from recent blockbuster movies,
projected by the brightest projectors available. Sur-
rounding these were the smaller booths of manufactur-
ers with more humble space requirements. Line the aisles
between with plush carpet and your picture of this trade show
is almost complete. (Did I mention the indigestible food?)
Separated from the main exhibit halls was the ICIA Pro-
jection Shoot-Out. This event-within-an-event is a showcase
of Infocomm. It is also quite misunderstood: It was created to
allow potential buyers of display equipment – potential
because nothing can be bought at the show – to compare the
performance of products from different manufacturers under
identical conditions. No one actually wins the Shoot-Out, and
there are no prizes – in fact, participants are strictly prohibit-
ed from declaring themselves winners. Nevertheless, it’s an
important event for manufacturers and buyers alike because
it is rare to see similar display products together in one place.
This year, over 90 projectors were presented, as well as a
handful of direct-view CRT monitors and plasma-display pan-
els. Products were divided into multiple categories according
to image resolution and display application. Projectors in a
given category were fed identical signals for display on iden-
tical side-by-side low-gain screens. For the first time, the
Shoot-Out included a high-definition “HDTV Demo” category
whose entries consisted, for the most part, of high-brightness,
large-venue projectors (the screens were large - 27 x 15 feet).
The Shoot-Out also included categories for scan converters
and video upconverters. (See the sidebar.)
Since I work as an engineer for Electrohome Projection
Systems, an exhibitor at the show, my view of Infocomm is
that of an industry insider, an advantageous perspective from
which to report the event. Of course, it carries with it the dan-
ger that I could be perceived as biased toward my company’s
products or against those of its competitors. To set this aside,
let me assure the reader that, apart from supplying a relative-
ly low volume of OEM projectors for the very High End of
home theater, Electrohome does not make products that
directly compete in the categories of most interest to this
report.
Significant New Products and Trends
Among the multitude of new display products introduced at
Infocomm, I have selected a handful as “significant” because
they demonstrate the most important trends taking place in
the display industry. They also turn out to
be the most relevant to those attempting
This year’s Infocomm pre-
sent ed over 90 project ors in
its annual Shoot Out , as well
as a handful of direct -view
Video upconverters have become important prod-
ucts for home theater. A large number of these
were introduced this year at INFOCOMM, almost
all of them scalers. Unlike simpler line doublers or quadru-
plers – which output progressive signals with either double
or quadruple the number of
lines in each original inter-
laced video field – scalers
offer a range of progressive
output formats and scan
rates to better match the
characteristics of a given dis-
play device. The new products this year at the show includ-
ed Analog Way’sTrans-Scaler, Communications Specialties’
Deuce Pro, Extron’s DVS 100, Faroudja’s DVP3000 and
DVP3000U, Focus Enhancement’s QuadScan, Inline’s
IN1402, IN1403, and IN1404, RGB Spectrum’s DTQ and VLI
200, and YEM’s DVS-1000. Space prohibits describing all of
these products, so I focus here on only a few of the most
noteworthy.
Communications Specialties’ Deuce Pro, with a sug-
gested list price of $4,995, is a much-improved version of
its popular Deuce video scaler.The product adds a compo-
nent/RGB input, VGA pass-through, stereo audio switching,
RS-232, and an internal power supply. Compatible with
NTSC and PAL signals, it outputs RGB in ten different for-
mats up to 1365 x 1024, at three selectable refresh rates.
Performance improvements include a two-line comb filter,
noise reduction, and a sharpness control. Extron’s DVS
100, with a list price of $2,325, includes a component input
and a three-line adaptiveY/C separator. It can decode
NTSC, PAL, and SECAM and provides a total of 17 RGB
output formats, including 480p, 720p, and 1080p. Faroud-
ja’s DVP3000, with a suggested list price of $19,995, con-
verts 480i (NTSC) to one of eight output formats, including
720p, 1080i, and 1080p HDTV. In addition to Faroudja’s
renowned film-mode deinterlacing, the DVP3000 includes
“Directional Correlation Deinterlacing” to eliminate motion
artifacts from video-originated material. Another significant
feature is the ability to upconvert 480p signals from future
progressive-scan DVD players. A component output is also
included for connecting to HDTVs. The DVP3000U
($21,995) adds 580i (PAL) and 580p input compatibility and
the ability to output at 100Hz.
A total of 11 upconverters were entered into the Pro-
jection Shoot-Out this year, including several of the new
products described above. The upconverter Shoot-Out was
divided into two categories - 31.5 kHz output and 64 kHz
output. Each product was fed identical input signals and
the output was projected onto identical side-by-side
screens – using 8” CRT projectors in the 31.5 kHz category
and 9” CRT projectors in the 64 kHz category. Video mater-
ial consisted of colorbar and multiburst test patterns, color
and black-and-white movie scenes, and VCR playback of
video-originated scenes, including fast-forward and reverse
previews, as well as paused frames. These images permit-
ted only a limited evaluation of performance (scaling quality
with other output formats was not tested, for example).
Accordingly, I ranked products simply as “good,” “ade-
quate,” or “poor” based strictly on the test images shown.
In the 31.5 kHz category, I rated two products “good:” the
Astro Systems SC-2025A line doubler and the Chromatek
Biraster 3428 line doubler. Both displayed the test patterns
competently, had few objectionable deinterlacing artifacts,
and handled VCR playback well. I rated the Communication
Specialties Deuce as merely “adequate” because of its rel-
atively poor high-frequency luma response and smeary
VIDEO UPCON-
VERTERS
ALEN KOEBEL continued on page 23
to recreate the theater experience in the home.
The dominant display technology today for home-theater
screens larger than 40” diagonal is CRT (Cathode Ray Tube)
projection. It is used in almost every rear-projection TV and
most HDTVs just recently introduced. But it is an old technol-
ogy near its limit and its days are numbered. The display
industry, driven by the desire of business professionals to
make presentations in fully lit rooms, has been hard at work
replacing CRT projection with brighter and friendlier alterna-
tives. These alternatives are Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) pro-
jection and Digital Light Processing (DLP), the latter invented
by Texas Instruments. Both of these technologies use discrete
pixels to form images and both use a lamp as the source of the
light projected on the screen. These considerations have
made it possible to design small, portable projectors with
much higher light output than a CRT projector – just the thing
for the mobile presenter. Most of the projectors at Infocomm
were of this type. One of the standouts in light output per unit
weight was the U2-1080 from PLUS Corp. Based on DLP tech-
nology, this small, ultra-portable projector weighs less than 6
pounds yet puts out 800 ANSI lumens of light - three to five
times as much as a CRT projector can provide. (I will explain
the meaning of “ANSI” below.) The native resolution of the
image is also relatively high – 1024 x 768 (XGA format). Unfor-
tunately, there are trade-offs for the small size of ultra-
portable projectors. Input connection options and features
are usually more limited than with larger models. Also, in
some cases performance may have been compromised to
minimize the projector’s size and weight.
Although light-output ratings for small LCD and DLP pro-
jectors are usually much higher than for CRT projectors, they
do not always appear as bright as you might think from the
numbers. When displaying video images, which typically have
a much lower average picture level (APL) than graphics
images, a CRT projector can put more of its energy into high-
lights of the image – an ability indicated by its “peak lumen”
rating. This makes the image appear brighter than you would
expect from the projector’s ANSI lumen number, which rep-
resents the brightness achievable with a full-white image.
Nevertheless, an LCD or DLP projector rated at 1000 ANSI
lumens – a number that is now quite common – looks brighter
on video images than a typical 9” CRT projector.
One area where CRT projectors still have the edge is
black level. Despite years of steady improvement, neither
LCD nor DLP has yet managed to achieve, on small screens,
the deep blacks achievable with CRT. That is reason enough
for some to choose a CRT projector for their home theater. A
promising new choice introduced at the show was the HD
2000 from Chromalux. Like DWIN’s HDP-500, this 7” CRT pro-
jector has no fans – the projector’s metal chassis serves as a
heat-sink. Designed by Arthur R. Tucker – one of the pioneers
of the projection industry – it includes a built-in line doubler.
Chromalux claims peak and ANSI light outputs of 1100 and
800 lumens, respectively. Since the projector was not shown
operating, I could not confirm these numbers. Eight hundred
ANSI lumens would be an astounding output from any CRT
projector, much less one using 7” tubes. In a bid to improve
domestic harmony, the projector’s plastic cover is available in
custom colors to match any décor.
Despite late arrivals like the HD 2000, it is clear that the
total replacement of CRT-projection by LCD and DLP, even
for home theater, is close at hand. The quality of images from
LCD and DLP projectors at the show this year was dramati-
cally better than last year. Colors were more saturated, whites
were more accurate, blacks were deeper (although not yet
quite good enough), and overall uniformity was improved.
The final nail in the projection-CRT coffin may be this: Texas
Instruments showed a prototype of a rear-projection HDTV
Notable New Display Products at INFOCOMM ‘99
Manufacturer Model No. Price Technology Light Output Pixel Format
(ANSI lumens) (H x V)
Barco BarcoReality $20,995 LCD projection 2,000 1280 x 1024
6300DLC (w/o lens)
Chromalux HD 2000 N/A 7” CRT projection 800 Not applicable
Davis DL X10 N/A DLP projection 1000 1024 x 768
Epson PowerLite 9000i N/A LCD projection 1,600 1280 x 1024
JVC Professional DLA-G15 $20,000 est. LCD projection 1,500 1365 x 1024
NEC PlasmaSync $22,995 Plasma, N/A 1365 x 768
5000W 16.9, 50” diagonal
PLUS Corp. U2-1080 N/A DLP projection 800 1024 x 768
Princeton AF3.0HD $4,100 CRT, 30” diagonal N/A Not applicable
Revox E-542 $17,000 est. Plasma, N/A 848 x 480
16.9, 42” diagonal
Sanyo PLC-EF10N $23,995 LCD projection 2,300 1280 x 1024
Toshiba TLP-770 $9,995 LCD projection 1,800 1024 x 768
Project ors in a given cat ego-
ry were fed ident ical signals
for display on ident ical side-
based on DLP with a native resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels
(16.9). Hitachi and Mitsubishi have signed agreements to
develop consumer HDTVs based on this technology for sale in
late 2000. The image quality of the prototype was, to my eyes,
excellent. If the consumer versions can match it, and do so
affordably, we may not have reason to mourn the passing of
CRT for long.
Given the arrival of HDTV and the ramp-up of HDTV pro-
gramming over the next few years, there is little reason to
consider buying an LCD or DLP projector today with less than
XGA resolution. The gain in detail on high-definition images
with XGA is, in my opinion, well worth the typical 30 percent
price increase over comparably equipped SVGA models. If the
price can be justified, SXGA (1280 x 1024) projectors are, of
course, much better, but are currently available only with
LCD technology. Several notable models of LCD projectors
with SXGA resolution were introduced at the show, including
S a n y o ’s PLC-EF10N and Barco’s BarcoReality 6300DLC.
While neither would be my first choice for a home theater,
they are significant in one respect: They both include a form
of digital video connection. Such a connection bypasses the
traditional conversion steps between analog and digital most
video signals must take between the video source and the dis-
play. A digital connection provides the cleanest possible way
to send the signal and, as importantly, eliminates a lot of the
fussy set-up issues involved with getting an image to look
good. The Sanyo projector provides a digital connection
called “PanelLink,” which is becoming a standard way to con-
nect computers to flat-panel monitors. The Barco product
provides an optional FireWire connection. FireWire (IEEE
1394) is the standard that will very likely be used to connect
consumer DTV products together, from HDTVs to digital
VCRs to surround processors. The important point is this:
What is available on these professional projectors now will
become available on consumer projectors, in one form or
another, soon.
The trend to digital connectivity is not just restricted to
projectors. Plasma display panels (PDPs) are getting in on
the act, too. A prime example introduced at the show is the
Revox E-542. Advertised as the world’s thinnest PDP, at a 2-
inch depth, it consigns all user-connections to an external
box that sends digital video signals and power to the display
over a single cable up to 40’ long. The control box has a slot
to accept a FireWire interface card to be developed later
this summer.
Speaking of PDPs, they were definitely one of the hot
technologies at the show. They are being increasingly con-
sidered for use in corporate boardrooms and for point-of-sale
displays. In the consumer world, more and more people are
considering them worthy alternatives to large direct-view
CRT monitors and rear-projection units for home theater.
The more affordable panels are those with “standard” resolu-
tion – 852 x 480 at 16.9 aspect ratio. The most recent of these
at the show had better contrast ratios, higher brightness, and
more accurate colors than last year’s models. Nevertheless,
they weren’t turning heads the way their high-definition sib-
lings were. Last year, only one high-definition PDP was intro-
duced at the show. This year, five were introduced, which is
a good indication of the way this technology may be matur-
ing. NEC’s PlasmaSync 5000W was the standout. This 50”
diagonal 16.9 panel, with a resolution of 1365 x 768, had the
best looking image I’ve seen yet from a PDP.
While PDPs are unquestionably getting better, they still
have problems. One of the more notable is a tendency to pro-
duce noise in dark areas of the image. The only panel I saw
not showing this noise – the Revox E-542 – had obvious con-
touring (discrete steps in the grayscale) in the dark regions of
the picture, leading me to suspect that the noise may be an
intentional trade-off to reduce the visibility of contouring.
PDPs also tend to show rather obvious deinterlacing and
resizing artifacts, although this may simply be a function of
the image processing electronics rather than a property of
PDP technology itself.
An Ideal Cinema?
This report wouldn’t be complete without mentioning a land-
mark event at this year’s show. Hughes-JVC and Miramax
Films teamed up to give show attendees a “digital sneak pre-
view” of Miramax’s An Ideal Husband before its release on
film. Shown in its entirety, the movie was projected onto a
t h e a t e r-sized screen by a Hughes-JVC ILA-12K projector.
“ILA” stands for Image Light Amplification and is Hughes-
J V C ’s answer to the problem of projecting a high resolution
electronic image with extremely high brightness. Digital
Light Processing (DLP) is the competing answer from Te x a s
Instruments. While the image I saw from the Hughes-JVC pro-
jector was not perfect, the resolution, color saturation, and
contrast were all good enough to give me confidence that
electronic projection – whether based on ILA or DLP tech-
nology – will be equal to the task when digital cinema
becomes an every-day reality. When that day arrives, the
technologies exhibited each year at Infocomm will have
found their ultimate expression.
chroma transitions. Barco’s VSE-20 line doubler, Extron’s
DVS-100 scaler, and RGB Spectrum’s DTQ scaler all earned
a“poor” rating, mostly because of their inability to cleanly
handle VCR playback (particularly in the case of the DTQ).
If VCR playback is discounted, they each earn a rating of
“adequate.” In the 64 kHz category, I considered only one
product “good,” the Communication Specialties Deuce Pro.
I rated Analog Way’s Smart Cut II scaler “adequate”
because of some instability during VCR preview modes
and because of relatively poor high-frequency luma
response. Extron’s Sentosaxi earned a “poor” rating
because of a considerable number of obvious deinterlacing
artifacts. I likewise rated Focus Enhancement’s QuadScan
“poor,” in this case mostly because of its unstable
response to VCR playback – the image was not steady
even during regular play. If this is ignored, its overall perfor-
mance is adequate. Lastly, Barco’s VSE-40 also earned a
rating of “poor” because of its relatively poor high-frequen-
cy luma response combined with an excessively noisy pic-
ture.
This comparison of upconverters should be ta ken with
caution because the source material and conditions
imposed by the Shoot-Out were too limited to evaluate the
p e r f ormance of the products thoroughly. If yo u ’re in the
m a r k et for an upconve r t e r, try to audition the products yo u r-
self using test material and sources you are intimately
familiar with. A K
For t he first t ime, t he Shoot -
Out
included a high-definition
ometimes I think that every position on a
moviemaking crew comes with its special privi-
leges, its perks, as it were. If you’re the script super-
visor, you stand right next to the director as the film
is shot, noting which takes are to be printed and any
remarks the director may have about them. From
this position you watch the script come to life
before the camera. If you’re the director of photography or
the production designer, you play large, determining roles in
how the film will look. The actors literally give a flesh and
blood reality to characters whose only previous existence is
on paper. The writer, of course, has written the screenplay; if
it’s an original screenplay, then he has invented the story. The
most important position of all, it goes without saying, is that
of the director, who realizes the story before the cameras and
oversees every aspect of preproduction, production, and post-
production.
It is the special privilege of the editor that he or she is the
person who first gets to see the movie as a movie. Before it
passes through his hands, it is only a collection of long takes
from various angles, of various sizes, without dramatic shape
or rhythm. Having said that, I wouldn’t
want to suggest that the editor alone
gives it shape and rhythm. The screenplay has a structure, as
does each scene; and in most of the scenes, the director has
built tempo or range of tempos. But these things have no real
cinematic existence until they leave the editor’s bench. One of
the most continually exciting and personally rewarding
aspects of an always interesting job is that first time I run a
scene after I’ve cut it. Suddenly, as if by magic, I’m looking at
a real movie where there was none before, or at least the
beginnings of a movie.
Outsiders are sometimes surprised to learn that most
movies are shot out of sequence and that editing begins the
moment there is a complete scene to cut, which is to say with
the first day of shooting. It makes no sense to wait – you can
cut just one scene at a time anyhow. And it would be bad eco-
nomics to let the interest on the loans increase while the
footage just piles up. What directors want and need is to have
a first cut finished as soon as possible after the completion of
principal photography. As it usually takes longer to edit a
scene than it does to film it, cutting must begin immediately.
Editing as you go along gives everyone involved the
opportunity to assess how the project is shaping up – are the
performances working, as the scenes
accumulate do they tell a story, does
J O U R N A L
NOTES F ROMTHE C UTTING
Wh at d o e s a f i l m e d i t o r d o ?
A nd w hat e f f e c t d o e s t hi s hav e o n t he f i na l v e r s i o n
PA U L S E Y D O R
Bef or e
it passes
t hr ough t he edi-
t or ’ s hands, a f ilm
is a collect ion of
long t akes f r om
var ious
there appear to be a movie here at all? Sometimes technical
problems develop – shots go out of focus, the director loses
the light at the end of the day and doesn’t get some angles he
fears he needs, the negative gets damaged in the lab. When
this sort of thing happens, it is imperative that the director see
the scene cut together as soon as possible so he can deter-
mine if additional shots are needed or, perish the thought, the
entire scene needs to be rescheduled.
I’m often struck by the number of people, including those
in the movie industry itself, who have little or no idea what a
film editor actually does. “Oh, you cut out all the bad parts,”
is the usual salvo when I’m introduced as a film editor. Almost
as frequent and worse: “Oh, they say an editor can make or
break a film.” The one conceives the job more or less as glo-
rified bean counting, the other invests it with far more power
than it actually has. When I tell people that I usually do my
work on my own, as first cut is done while shooting is going
on, which means the director is filming while I’m editing,
they’re often taken back. Doesn’t that almost mean that
you’re directing the film, not the director? Of course not. An
editor’s power to radically alter a scene is much less than peo-
ple often think. For one thing, you want to keep your job, so
you’d have to be egotistic to the point of professional suicide
even to try to cut a scene much differently from the more or
less clear intent with which it was shot, at least on first cut or
without discussing your ideas in advance with the director.
For another, you’re limited by the material itself. A
well-placed reaction shot can make a character appear more
or less sympathetic; if you’re given a fairly wide range of read-
ings (not usual, but not atypical either), you can pitch a per-
formance higher or bring it down by your selection of takes;
you have the option of playing dialog on or off camera. But it’s
the really unusual film that would allow the editing as such to
transform the direction into something else entirely.
I’ve had directors tell me many times that I’ve “saved” a
scene. This is always flattering, but also a little puzzling, and I
usually reply that I didn’t shoot any new footage, so whatever
I did was there to be found in the material. For one of the
most valuable things a good editor can contribute is a fresh
perspective. That, of course, and his basic talent for story-
telling, his taste and sensitivity in shaping performances, and
his imagination in how the shots can be most effectively com-
bined. Sometimes colleagues tell me they like to hang around
the set to soak up the feel of the movie, but I’ve never found
them convincing. Anyone who has spent any time on a film set
soon finds out there is little “feel” for the story to be
picked up there – not with production assistants,
camera crews, sound recordists, costumers,
assistant directors, service people, and the
countless other crew members necessary
to the making of a movie milling about.
And if the editor is hanging out
there, he plainly isn’t editing the film,
which is what he should be doing. I
prefer to approach the raw footage
with as little knowledge as possible of
what went into getting it. It doesn’t
matter if the star was sick and not on
best behavior; it does me no good to
know that certain essential setups were
never filmed owing to inclement weather
or a camera breakdown. All that makes for
interesting dinner conversation or frustrated
venting over a drink, but is of no consequence
one way or another when it comes to working with
the footage.
Every film is in fact three films: the film that
is written, the film that is directed, and the film
that is edited. Sometimes they’re all the same
film, sometimes they’re not, and I can’t
think of any necessary correlation in qual-
ity between when they are and when
they aren’t. I do know that the only film
you finally have is the raw footage
that has been developed and is wait-
ing to be cut. Everything else is
academic.
Early in my career I was on a
job interview; present were the
director, the producer, and the two writ-
ers who were also associate producers. One
of the writers asked me who I thought should
get the right to final cut. Talk about being on the
spot. I replied that insofar as it devolves to a single per-
son, I believe it must be the director. (Whatever prob-
lems I have with the auteur theory, I nevertheless
believe that the director is the overall “author” of
a film, because a screenplay is not a final any-
thing – it awaits realization on film, for
which the director is responsible.) But I
went on to say that my experience sug-
gests it is the film itself that deter-
mines the final cut, the film itself
that soon becomes the last, best
arbiter. A movie that is good
or has a chance of becom-
ing any good eventually
develops a life of its
own. And every direc-
tor and every editor
who are good keep
themselves alert to
this process and bend
their egos to helping
this emergent organism
assume the shape it desires,
to letting it, in a word, live.
The director with the greatest editorial imag-
ination of them all, Sam Peckinpah, used to
say that he knew what he saw in
the material, he wanted to
see what others saw in
it. Of one of his
favorite editors,
Robert Wolfe, Sam
once told me, “Bob
will come back with
20 ideas. I might hate ten of
them, but that still leaves ten that I’d
never have thought of that’ll make my
movie better.”
Different directors work dif-
ferently. Some give you copi-
ous notes at dailies, right
down to which specific line
readings they want and
how they’d like the shots
used. I’ve been lucky, I
The
edit or shoot s no
new f oot age; w hat ev-
er he does w as in t he
f ilm all along.
1Takes are stored individually for a
movieola (i.e., an upright viewing-machine);
they are stored in 1,000-foot reels for
flatbed viewing.The former obviously allows
for much faster access to a given piece of
film.
guess, in working
with this kind of direc-
tor only once. Most of the
time I get few, if any, notes, and the
directors seem to trust me to use my
abilities to select the takes and structure the sequence of
shots. (On at least two projects I had put the films into first
cut before I ever met the directors in person.) This makes the
job more difficult because more challenging, but also more
rewarding because more creative.
Different editors also work differently. Perhaps because
when I first started editing in 1982, the editors I worked with
– Roger Spottiswoode and John Bloome – cut on a movieola,
I continued to use one right up until I switched to the Avid
computer in 1995, the way most films are cut these days. I like
the Avid for the same reason I liked the movieola, as opposed
to the KEM or flatbed: the quick access to all the footage.1I’ve
never been one of these editors who watch the dailies and
take notes on the so-called “best” takes or readings, then build
or have their assistants build a “selects” reel and cut from
that. For one thing, typically you watch dailies at the end of
what has been a long day of editing (if you’re the editor) or
shooting (if you’re the director). Hardly the best conditions
under which to be making editing selections. For another, I’m
never really certain where I want something to be played until
I reach that point in the scene. It’s all very well to feel that a
reading of this or that line was much better in the medium
shot than in either the close-up or the master shot, but what if
the medium shot is emotionally or psychologically the wrong
place to be at that point in the scene? Perhaps the isolation of
a close-up is what’s called for or the tie-in of the over-the-
shoulder or the distance of the master. Then you’ve got to
search through the other takes and find a reading that works
or alter the cut accordingly. I like to have the fastest possible
access to all the footage at whatever point I am in the scene.
As important as individual moments are – in my opinion, they
are the very lifeblood of truly vital movie-making– scenes are
more important, and you usually have to sacrifice the inci-
dental to the overall.
Editing is a curious process of the intuitive and the intel-
lectual, the instinctive and the ratiocinative. For every deci-
sion you make has both immediate and long-range implica-
tions. There’s an old saw –one that, dull though it has
become, is alas still in too much use – that goes, once you go
in, stay in. This refers to the classic way of editing a scene,
where you begin with the masters, then move to the medium
shots, the over-the-shoulder angles, going progressively
tighter until you conclude with the close-ups. And
when you get close in, stay close in. You see a
lot of cutting like this, especially in older
movies and quite a bit of television. It’s
certainly a serviceable way to edit
movies,
it works,
and it’s not
likely to get you
into any trouble.
But it doesn’t necessari-
ly make for terribly exciting
or dynamic moviemaking,
nor does it allow you to avail
yourself of anything like the full
expressive use of the filmic language at your disposal. One of
the most valuable lessons I learned from studying Peckinpah,
for example, is how dropping back to the master shot or even
an establishing shot in the middle of scene can let it breathe,
or alternately can give it a beat that will then invest your
close-ups with even greater force and intensity.
Some editors and directors don’t like what are called
jump-ins and jump-outs, that is, going from one size to anoth-
er without an angle change or a cutaway. Yet this is one of my
favorite procedures. These are, admittedly, difficult cuts to
make work, but when they do work, you gain an expressive-
ness that you don’t otherwise have. In the movie I’m current-
ly doing, for example, Ron Shelton’s Play It to the Bone, Loli-
ta Davidovich has a scene in which her character is talking
about the things she enjoys. Ron covered the passage pretty
thoroughly, as he usually does. But there were two takes in
particular, a loose over-the-shoulder looking at Lolita past
Woody Harrelson and an isolating close-up, both from the
same angle, that contained readings that are especially effec-
tive. Lolita sustained the speech through both readings and
either take could have been dropped in with hardly a second
thought. If I had to choose one or the other, I would have
selected the looser angle because she is responding to some-
thing Woody’s character has asked her and it felt wrong to me
to play the whole speech in the isolation of the close-up. Yet I
also felt that the end of the speech is slightly more effective in
the tighter angle and I wanted to play the whole speech on
her, without cutting to a reaction and back again. So I simply
cut from the looser to the tighter angle at an unobtrusive spot.
The performance plays as seamlessly as if in one, but the shift
to the close-up gives the last part of the speech just the right
subtle emphasis, drawing us closer to the character and her
dreams, than would have been the case had I been doctrinaire
about jump-ins or, for that matter, had I worked with selects,
which would have forced me to choose one or the other take
before the cutting part of process began.
Do editors have styles of their own? I suppose they
must, but I don’t imagine they can be very well
defined ones, otherwise they’d be terribly
limited. As I think about my own, I can
state a few – preferences I’d rather
call them, as they’re nothing so hard
and fast as principles. I prefer my
cuts to be as seamless, even as
invisible as possible. I generally
like to knit the scenes internally,
which means that I prefer to have
the emotion, the mood, the action, the transfor-
mation lead the cut, rather than the other way
around. I don’t like to let picture cuts fall on
hard consonants, as that emphasizes a cut.
I enjoy prelaps to pull the narrative
along – that is, starting an incoming
line of dialog over an outgoing
scene – provided it doesn’t become
a mannerism. I generally detest
what I call the never-let-a-mod-
ulation-die-out-before-you-cut-
away school of editing, which
in our attention-deficit age
is becoming more and
more common.
When most people are
impressed by editing they usually
think of elaborate action
sequences, but the real art of editing
lies in working with performances
and in concealment. What I care
about most is achieving a theatri-
cal sense of performance but
with filmic means. By the-
atrical, I don’t mean
ostentatious “acting”;
rather, I am referring
to the continuity you
get from a perfor-
mance on stage, the
building up and
releasing of tension
and emotion in an
unbroken arc of
time and space.
This can be
achieved on film,
but it is more
difficult because
films are made in
pieces and over
time. Usually the
master shots are done first. In a long scene,
allowing for camera setups, lighting, and rig-
ging, the director may not get around to
the close-ups until the end of the day
or the next day. Yet the shots have to
cut together. Sometimes one
actor will have his close-ups
before lunch, the other after
lunch; and emotionally, psycholog-
ically, even physiologically they’re
in completely difference places. Yet
the shots have to cut together. When scenes
involve several characters, each actor has his or her dif-
ferent way of working; they reach emotional peaks or
descend into emotional valleys at different times. Yet
the shots have to cut together. More often than not,
one actor will nail the scene in the first few
takes and setups (meaning the master),
another will not hit his stride until the
medium shots and over-the-shoulders,
and a third finally comes up to
speed in the close-ups. Yet still the
shots have to cut together.
It’s a funny thing about matching in editing. Most lay
moviegoers who pay attention to editing admire the elegance
of the shot matching; most editors brag about the mismatch-
es they manage to get away with. What experienced editors
care most about matching is the mood and emotion of the per-
formance from one shot to the next. (Even a volatile perfor-
mance that swings between extremes must have the integrity
of its changes.) Neophytes usually worry about quite trivial
matters – how much of the cigarette was burned away in this
shot as opposed to the previous one. The second scene I ever
had to cut was in a movie called The Best of Times. Kurt Rus-
sell and Robin Williams are at a bar drinking beer out of bot-
tles. The scene was covered from every conceivable angle and
size except that there were no singles –that is, a shot that con-
tains only one character. Every shot was some variety of a
two-shot, which means not only that both actors were plainly
visible, but so were their beer bottles. What a learning experi-
ence! Every time I wanted to make a cut, one bottle or the
other got in the way. Soon enough I discovered what every
editor discovers – the hell with matching. You cut for mood,
emotion, for the feeling of the moment, and then later correct
any mismatches you can’t live with.
In the scene I just described, the only cut I don’t like is the
one I absolutely had to make for the match alone: after one of
the actors delivered his line, I had to wait for him to raise the
bottle to his lips because that is where it was in the incoming
take that was best for the next line. I’d have rather cut away
sooner, but there was no other way without leaving a mis-
match so grotesque as to throw any moviegoer right out of the
moment. When I ran this scene for Garth Craven, one of my
mentors, he remarked, “Never give an actor a prop.”
Garth did not, I must add, say this to the detriment of the
actor; it was just commiseration between editors. The takes in
question were made hours apart; no actor can be expected to
turn in a good performance at the same time as he’s trying to
keep precise track of what are supposed to be casual swigs of
beer during a long scene in a neighborhood bar. That’s one of
the things editors are for.
There was a time when studio previews served an
admirable and necessary function, or complex of functions.
They let you observe how your movie played in front of an
The scr eenplay has a
st r uct ur e. Each scene has a
st r uctur e – a r ange of t empos.
But t hese t hings have no r eal cin-
emat ic existence unt il t hey
leave t he edit or ’ s
2 In computerized editing, the movie is only edited in the video/com-
puter domain; the final product is still film, which is assembled from a
cut-list generated by the computer with numbers corresponding to each
piece of negative.
audience for the first time. There are always surprises. Things
you worried were unclear the audience tracked perfectly;
things you never imagined would be a problem turn out to
require a lot more thought and work. Previews were useful for
studios, too, helping them determine the kind of movie they
had, the more effectively to market it.
But in our marketing-obsessed age, where high among the
Monday morning headlines, even in Podunk, USA, are the
weekend grosses of the latest movies, the principal function
of previews now is to let the marketing people tell the film-
makers how to “fix” their movies to make them easier to mar-
ket. One of my favorite minor spectacles of our time is watch-
ing rich, powerful studio executives and movie producers
hang on the every word of teenagers in focus groups for some
scrap of a clue as to anything objectionable that might make
the movie under discussion unpalatable to the 16-25 age
group. They pay slavish attention to witless comments built
around words like “rad,” “awesome,” or “icky” as they bring
the common denominator lower and lower.
The studios don’t care about older moviegoers any more,
and you have only to look at the latest products – this is being
written as the summer approaches – to see where their sights
are set. Previews have become a degraded and degrading
process that only the most powerful or committed of direc-
tors can withstand and prevail against. It’s the only part of the
editing process that I actively hate, and every editor and direc-
tor I know feels exactly the same way.
Most movies are now cut on computers, rather than on film
itself, and only assembled as films relatively late in the process.
Does this affect the way movies are edited? I suppose it must,
but when I look at my work before and after Avid, I don’t see
any differences that I can attribute to the technology alone.
When Avids first appeared, you did see a great many more dis-
solves because, unlike film, the computer lets you see the dis-
solve immediately.2A far bigger influence than the tools them-
selves is the whole home-video market.
Fifty years ago, Jack Warner used to say that the life of a
movie was basically three months, which may explain why
the studios were so careless in handling and storing the mas-
ter negatives once movies had their theatrical runs. But the
video market has not just given theatrical movies a whole
new lease on life, it has practically b e c o m e their life. Most
people now see movies on video, whether via cable or
through rentals. (The best single thing about the advent of
DVD is the hope among many of us that it will supplant
videotape as the preferred viewing medium, so that home
viewers will have decent picture and sonic reproduction.)
This cannot help but affect the way movies are made. I
c a n ’t recall that I’ve ever cut with anything other than the-
atrical viewing in mind, but just the other day something
happened that gave me pause. I wanted to end a particularly
intimate scene by dropping back to an extreme long shot
that Ron Shelton had filmed. I use big screen (30”) monitors,
but when I cut in the long shot, I realized I couldn’t even see
the two actors. For all I or anyone else knew, I was cutting
to a different scene or I was doing a time cut. The actors
completely disappeared, and I thought that when the movie
shows on television this is exactly what will happen there as
well. And because the medium I was using to cut the film is
video, it was driven home to me more forcibly than before. I
made the cut anyway, because I knew it would
be effective in the theater, and we continue to
make movies for viewing in the theater.
Peckinpah, old theater man that he was,
always believed that one of the most
important aspects of moviegoing was
leaving your house, joining other peo-
ple, and seeing the movie as part of a
large audience: in other words, the
communal aspect of the experi-
ence, and also, of course, the
giving of your full attention to
the movie that being in a the-
ater demands. But this is not the
way most movies are watched
these days, and it is sobering to think
through the implications of this from the
editorial point of view. Do most people who
watch movies at home actually set aside time
and watch the movie? Do they turn off the tele-
phone or at least silence it? Do they watch the
movie as an integral, unbroken experience? Or
do they, as I suspect, treat it as a social occa-
sion? In Understanding Media, M c C l u h a n
argued, correctly, I think, that a televi-
sion in the home becomes rather like
another person in the house, its
content less important than its
presence as an electronic
device with sounds and
images of its own that it
brings to the party. Peo-
ple talk, go to the
r e f r i g e r a t o r, pause
the movie for any
number of valid
and invalid rea-
sons. This is the
reality of what the
movie experience
has become after a
hundred years during
which it was hailed as the great art form of the
Twentieth Century.
W h y, then, in making a movie do we
continue to lavish such care on pace, on
tempo, on rhythm, on timing, on conti-
nuity of performance, story
t h r o u g h-line, narrative clarity, and
all the rest? If through the medium of
television, a movie becomes just
another member of the household,
merely one of the party, with no more
claims to our attention than anyone or any-
thing else, what becomes of the art of film or, indeed, of the
film experience itself?
I haven’t any brilliant answers right at hand. But when
I contemplate the future of movies as the technology
of home video becomes ever more sophisticated
and widely available, I do find myself feeling
rather like Dorothy after the tornado has car-
ried her far, far from home. Whatever else,
Toto, this really doesn’t seem to be
Kansas any more.
exicon is unique among companies building multi-chan-
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Three RCA jacks marked “Expansion Ports” accept stereo
PCM signals at up to 96kHz sampling and 24-bit word length.
Expansion Port A feeds the left and right channels, Port B
feeds the center and subwoofer channels, and Port C drives
the left and right surround channels. These inputs bypass the
DSP in the MC-1, including the bass management functions.
The idea is to provide an input for high-resolution multi-chan-
nel digital sources. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that DVD-
Audio and SACD players will provide unencrypted high-reso-
lution digital output on RCA jacks. Still, you can use one
expansion port to connect those DVD players that can output
24/96, realizing a simpler signal path than is available through
the MC-1’s conventional digital inputs.
Bass management in the MC-1 is a little more flexible than
usual, offering three crossover frequencies
(40 Hz, 80 Hz, 120 Hz), but no slope adjust-
Lexicon MC-1 Controller
Sonic Flavors To Slake Every Thirst
. . . . . . . . .
A U D I O
F E A TURED PRODUCT
R O B E R T HARLEY
ment. A “Bass Split” feature takes bass infor-
mation filtered from the center channel
(assuming you have a small center speaker)
and directs it to the left and right channels.
Inside, the MC-1 uses AD converters and
DACs from a company called AKM. Both are delta-sigma
devices that are supposedly better performing than the con-
verters used in most controllers. Note that both are always in
the signal path, meaning that all analog signals are converted
to digital upon entering the MC-1 and then converted back to
analog at the output. If you have a High End turntable or dig-
ital source (I used a Krell KPS-25s and a Mark Levinson
No.31.5 transport and No.360s processor), the MC-1’s digital
conversions will degrade the sound quality. There’s no
“bypass” mode that directs an analog signal to the output
unaltered. This is, in my view, a serious shortcoming.
I’ve used many controller and A/V receiver remotes;
this is one of the best. The MC-1 needs a good remote
because the machine is extremely complex. There are four
layers of menus incorporating 17 submenus. This opera-
tional complexity goes with the territory on a controller
with as many features as the MC-1. No fewer than 24
effects are provided, including simulated acoustic spaces
(Concert Hall, Night Club), various film-soundtrack modes
(Dolby Digital, THX 5.1, DTS), Lexicon’s Logic 7 process-
ing, and music surround.
Logic 7 Digital Signal Processing for
Movies and Music
Logic 7 is Lexicon’s proprietary technique for generating multi-
channel playback from two-channel sources. Logic 7 processing
can also “enhance” existing 5.1-channel programs such as Dolby
Digital and DTS for seven-channel reproduction. Lexicon pro-
motes Logic 7 as a universal format for distributing multi-chan-
nel music over two-channel formats such as CD and television or
radio broadcasts. These programs can be Logic 7 encoded to
achieve the full surround-sound effect, or unencoded (such as on
existing CDs) and still create surround-sound playback.
When reproducing 5.1-channel sources (Dolby Digital and
DTS) with Logic 7 and seven loudspeakers, the MC-1 sends
the right surround signal to the right side and right rear speak-
ers, and the left surround signal to the left side and left rear
speakers. This is identical to wiring two surround speakers to
each surround channel. But as sound effects pan toward the
rear, the Logic 7 algorithm uses equalization to “steer” sur-
round signals between the two side and two rear speakers.
Specifically, effects moving from the left to rear pan smooth-
ly from the left front loudspeaker to the left side, then from
the left side to both left and right rear speakers. When effects
are moving toward the rear, Logic 7 adds a 3dB treble cut
(shelf filter) to the side speaker. As the sound further pans to
the rear, the frequency at which the shelf filter begins attenu-
ating is lowered, further reducing the treble sent to the side
speaker. When the sound is fully to the rear, a 6dB per octave,
400Hz low-pass filter is applied to the side speakers. The
result is an apparent separation between the side and rear
channels that heightens the feeling of envelopment, and of
sounds in motion.
Lexicon’s Music Surround Modes
The music-surround modes are as innovative as Logic 7. The
music modes are divided into two categories, ambiance
extraction and ambiance generation. In the latter modes, the
MC-1 generates new signals (reverberation) that drive the
side and rear speakers. In the extraction modes, the MC-1
simply recovers ambiance information from the existing sig-
nal for reproduction by the side and rear speakers. The
extraction modes are much more subtle, and, in my view,
more musically appropriate. Nonetheless, the ambiance-gen-
eration modes driving seven loudspeakers can produce some
startling results.
The music modes use a variety of processes to increase
the sense of spaciousness and create a feeling of being
enveloped in an acoustic larger than that of your listening
room. Some of the MC-1’s modes use a crosstalk-cancellation
trick to widen the soundstage. Crosstalk occurs when sound
from the left speaker reaches the right ear, and vice versa.
L e x i c o n ’s booklet that accompanies the MC-1 explains
crosstalk cancellation: “Imagine there is a sound coming from
the left channel only. This sound will travel to the left ear of
the listener, then diffract around the listener’s head and be
heard by the right ear. If we take the left-channel sound, delay
it just the right amount, invert it in phase and feed it to the
right speaker, it will arrive at the right ear just in time to can-
cel the crosstalk from the left speaker.”
Although crosstalk cancellation has been used in other
products (where it has been called a variety of trade names),
the MC-1’s implementation is considerably more sophisticat-
ed. The simple technique described above can introduce col-
orations because the cancellation signal becomes audible.
Lexicon uses a multi-order cancellation technique in which
the cancellation signal is itself canceled by a second signal,
and that signal canceled by a third, and so on. Reducing this
“inter-aural crosstalk” by adding cancellation signals can
make the sonic presentation appear wider.
These are just a few of the processes, used individually or
in combination, by which the MC-1 creates multi-channel sur-
round playback from two-channel sources. Other equally
interesting techniques are also employed that space restric-
tions prevent me from describing.
Listening to Movies
For starters, the MC-1 in straight decoding mode (Dolby Pro
Logic, Dolby Digital, and DTS), or those formats with THX
processing, was superb sounding. The MC-1 had outstanding
dialog clarity and intelligibility, even with the center- c h a n n e l
level perfectly matched to the other channels. With lesser
products, I find myself increasing the center-channel level a
couple of decibels to make the dialog easier to hear. The MC-
1 ’s good resolving power and image solidity seemed to
anchor the dialog right on the screen (it helps to have a
superlative center-channel speaker like the Revel Vo i c e ) .
This impression of tight center-channel focus and clarity
was particularly impressive with matrixed Dolby Surround
sources, which often lack the image specificity and clarity of
discrete multi-channel sources. The MC-1’s Pro Logic
decoding made matrixed sources sound more like discrete
soundtracks, with greater apparent channel separation,
smoother pans, and increased clarity compared with other
Pro Logic decoders.
Even without any additional processing, the impression of
envelopment from the surround channels was exceptional. The
MC-1 seemed to create a spaciousness behind me, along with a
smooth transition between the front and rear speakers. More-
o v e r, detail resolution in the surround channels was excellent.
Moving next to Logic 7, Lexicon’s process for deriving 7
channels from 2-channel or 5.1-channel sources, I found the
effect worked remarkably well on film soundtracks. (Logic
7 enhancements can be combined with some THX process-
ing on discrete 5.1-channel sources such as Dolby Digital
and DTS.) The addition of rear speakers driven with Logic 7
produced a more vivid feeling of sound effects moving
behind me rather than simply stopping near the listening
position. I had a greater impression of the wall behind the
listening seat disappearing. This effect was enhanced by
Logic 7’s other salient attribute, the perception that the
soundstage was continuous from front to rear. That is, pans
were seamless along the room’s side walls, rather than pre-
sented as a discrete jump from the front channels to the
rear channels. In addition, Logic 7 processing widened the
soundstage and created a more expansive feeling. Try the
chase scene in Toy Story (chapters 28 and 29 on the DTS
laserdisc) in which the toy car speeds through traffic; the
“real” cars whiz by as pans from front to rear, an effect vast-
ly more effective with Logic 7 than either straight DTS or
DTS/THX decoding. In addition to these benefits, seven
loudspeakers are, I believe, fundamentally better than five
for film-sound reproduction.
An interesting way to judge Logic 7’s effectiveness is to
compare a full 5.1-channel discrete source with that source
downmixed to two channels, then played back with Logic 7.
H e r e ’s how you do it: Record a section of a film soundtrack
on a VHS machine (or cassette deck) using the MC-1’s “AC-
3 2-Channel” mode. This mode downmixes the discrete 5.1-
channel soundtrack into two channels for recording on a
two-channel medium. Then play back the two channels with
Logic 7 decoding and compare it to the discrete 5.1-channel
source. I did this with the scene in D r a g o n h e a r t in which
the dragon flies 360 degrees around Dennis Quaid. The
sound of its wings beating, accompanied by Sean Connery’s
voice, moves from speaker to speaker around the room sev-
eral times, making it an ideal test of Logic 7 decoding.
If someone hadn’t heard the discrete version, they’d
never think that they were hearing a matrixed format. Logic
7 is that effective in creating the impression of wide chan-
nel separation. Indeed, I found it hard to believe I was lis-
tening to two channels decoded into seven. The channel
separation in the DTS original was better, generating a
stronger illusion of movement, but it was a much closer call
than I would have thought possible.
Overall, Logic 7 provided an impressive enhancement to
film soundtracks. The processing did, however, seem to
make the soundtrack less intimate, as though I were sitting
farther away from the action. The upside of this impression
is that my 14.5 by 21 by 9-foot listening room seemed larger.
I evaluated the MC-1’s DAC quality by feeding it a digital
signal from a Mark Levinson No.31.5 CD transport, then
connected the MC-1’s main outputs to an Audio Research
Reference One preamp. The No.31.5 also drove a Mark
Levinson No.360S digital-to-analog converter, which also
fed the ARC preamp. (Power amplifiers were Audio
Research Reference 600s.) I could thus switch inputs on the
Reference One and compare the No.360S to the MC-1.
Granted, a $5,995 multi-channel processor should be no
match for a $7,995 two-channel DAC, but the comparison
put the MC-1’s performance into perspective.
The MC-1’s sound quality in this evalua-
tion was only fair. The MC-1 overlaid the
music with a grainy texture, with a darkening
of the upper midrange that resulted in a less
palpable rendering. The MC-1’s treble was a
bit hashy, and the soundstage was somewhat flat and
closed-in. These characteristics became apparent when lis-
tening critically to two-channel music sources through a
reference-quality playback system; when listening to film
soundtracks, the MC-1’s sonic shortcomings didn’t intrude
on the experience. I would rank the MC-1’s DAC stage as on
the level of a $500 CD player. (That’s not bad considering
the $5,995 MC-1 has eight DACs and analog line stages, plus
everything else that goes into a sophisticated multi-channel
c o n t r o l l e r. )
The $6,500 Classé SSP-50 controller provides an inter-
esting contrast with the MC-1. The Classé was significantly
better sounding when reproducing music. If the MC-1’s
DACs were comparable to those in a $500 CD player, the
SSP-50 sounded more like a $2,000 outboard converter. The
Classé benefits from an audiophile-quality signal path and a
superb multi-bit DAC stage. That superior two-channel per-
formance is, however, offset by the MC-1’s more sophisti-
cated surround processing, 7.1-channel capability, THX pro-
cessing, vastly better remote and user interface, and propri-
etary Lexicon film-soundtrack enhancements. But that’s the
beauty of diverse design goals: You can choose the product
that best matches your priorities.
If you are uncompromising on both film and music repro-
duction, you can still enjoy the MC-1’s terrific surround per-
formance without shortchanging High End music playback:
run the MC-1’s left and right outputs through a two-channel
analog preamp on the way to the left and right power ampli-
fiers. (The Krell KPS-25S has a “Theater Throughput” mode
just for this purpose. Theater Throughput sets the preamp’s
gain at a set level so you maintain your individual channel-
level calibration when switching back to multi-channel.) Ana-
log source signals that you will listen to in two-channel feed
the analog preamp and never go though the MC-1’s A/D and
D/A stages. Note that adding an analog preamp works only if
you have full-range left and right speakers that don’t require
the MC-1’s front-channel crossover.
Listening To Music Surround
My experience with surround-sound modes on A/V receivers
has left me contemptuous of the concept. The modes sound
gimmicky, often destroy the musicality of the front signals,
and their presence is purely marketing driven. That is, the
receiver must sport a huge list of surround modes for it to be
competitive on the sales floor, whether or not those surround
modes are well thought out or even musically appropriate.
But after living with the MC-1 and reading the superb book-
let explaining the theory behind the MC-1’s surround modes,
I’ve taken a somewhat different view. The MC-1’s modes,
designed by Dr. David Griesinger, are all based on solid
research that relates the physical properties of concert-hall
acoustics with our perception of sound. The MC-1’s effects are
far from marketing gimmicks.
The MC-1 is without question the most sophisticated music
processor available today. But do two-channel recordings ben-
efit from this processing, or is a pure, unadulterated signal path
more musically engaging? Before tackling that question, I
should mention that my loudspeaker array is
less than ideal for assessing Lexicon’s surround
modes. The side loudspeakers are bi-polar (the
Revel Embrace set to bi-pole for music sur-
round, di-pole for films), and the rear speakers
were the point-source Mirage Reference Monitors. Lexicon rec-
ommends seven timbre-matched loudspeakers in an acousti-
cally absorbent room. Nonetheless, I got a good impression of
what each surround mode was doing. (I’ve also heard these
modes in Lexicon’s listening room.)
The subtlest of the music processing modes is called Music
Surround, which sends the left and right signals to the left and
right loudspeakers unaltered. The MC-1 in this mode creates a
low-level center-channel signal, along with side and rear signals
(with seven-channel playback). The side and rear speakers
receive ambient information extracted from the recording.
Delay and steering are used on the side and rear channels.
Music Surround produces a gentle expansion of the soundstage
that takes the presentation out of the front speakers. In Music
Surround, I was never consciously aware of sound arriving
from the sides or rear. Instead, my listening room walls seemed
to disappear aurally, replaced by a larger acoustic. Switching
back to two-channel mode caused the soundstage to collapse
into the front loudspeakers. About 30 percent of the music I
tried in Music Surround benefited from the processing.
Smaller, more intimate music was best reproduced with-
out any processing. The classic Bill Evans recording Sunday
at the Village Vanguard (a superb transfer on JVC XRCD) was
more immediate and direct in two-channel mode, even though
the “Nightclub” surround mode created an amazingly realistic
impression of a club acoustic. In surround, I felt a sonic and
emotional distance from Evans’ introspective expression.
One of the most spectacular examples of two-channel
playback conveying a sense of the recorded acoustic is Keith
Johnson’s stunning recording of Rutter’s Requiem on the Ref-
erence Recordings label. When played back with HDCD
decoding on a superlative two-channel system, Requiem is
transcendent. Could this maximally optimized recording be
improved upon with surround processing?
R e q u i e md i d n ’t benefit from any of the MC-1’s processing, in
my view. The processing did expand the acoustic, but at the
expense of reduced image specificity. Just for fun, I ran R e q u i e m
through the decidedly unsubtle Cathedral ambiance-generation
mode. Although this was a gross distortion of the recording, the
feeling of being transported to a large acoustic was stunning.
Twenty minutes in the listening chair with the lights off and I was
awestruck at how convincing the illusion was.
I also evaluated the ambiance-generation modes by play-
ing the Denon Anechoic Orchestral Music Recording CD
[Denon PG-6006], an orchestral recording made in an ane-
choic chamber (a reflection-free room). This recording does-
n’t just seem dry; the sound is totally distorted in a way we
never hear in real life. The complete absence of reverberation
allowed me to add effects with the MC-1 and hear exactly the
effect’s contribution to this unique recording. The MC-1’s
reverberation generation was exceptionally clean and
smooth, producing an almost convincing impression the
recording was made in a real hall.
Overall, the MC-1’s music surround modes were more suc-
cessful on some types of music than on others. Most of the
time I preferred two-channel reproduction. Nonetheless, I
found some music discs more involving and engaging in sur-
round sound. That’s a big step for a confirmed two-channel
purist – and a testament to the careful thought that went into
the MC-1’s music-surround processing.
Conclusion
The Lexicon MC-1’s unparalleled array of sophisticated signal-
processing modes represent the state-of-the-art in consumer
multi-channel controllers. For those who listen primarily to
film soundtracks or surround-sound music, the MC-1 provides
exceptional surround performance, unique signal processing,
and a terrific remote and user interface. The thought that
went into the music surround modes and the effectiveness of
Logic 7 were particularly impressive.
If you’re a two-channel music purist looking for a home-
theater controller, the MC-1 may not be for you. The lack of a
two-channel bypass mode that circumvents the MC-1’s A/D
and D/A converters limits the musical performance possible
from your system. It does little good to own a High End digi-
tal processor or turntable if its analog output is digitized by
the MC-1. This shortcoming was exacerbated by the only fair
sound quality of the MC-1’s D/A stage.
If you want the ultimate performance from both film and
music sources, you can always add an analog preamplifier. It’s
a bit of a hassle and adds to the system cost, but the MC-1’s
outstanding film-soundtrack and multi-channel music perfor-
mance make it worth the effort.
LEXICON, INC.
3 Oak Park
Bedford, Massachusetts 01730-1441
Phone: (781) 280-0300; fax: (781) 280-0490
Web: www.lexicon.com
Source: Manufacturer loan
Price: $5,995
See text.
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
A s s o c i a t e d E q u i p m e n t
M a n u f a c t u r e r’s Response
We would like to thank The Pe r fect Vi s i o n and Robert Harley
for the comprehensive rev i ew of the MC-1. One of our primary
goals in the MC-1 and DC-2 was to improve upon the earlier DC-
1 ’s audio performance. We procured samples of the latest Dig-
i tal to Analog and Analog to Digital converters from our ve n d o r s
and began a series of objective and subjective tests. During this
process we came across a prototype DAC from AKM. The per-
formance of the AKM exceeded that of eve ry other DAC we
tested, and handily exceeded the performance of the DC-1’s
DACs, which Mr. Harley noted in his rev i ew.
We used several analog and digital sources to compare the
A D C / D ACs to ensure that even the purists would be satisfied
with the results. It was no contest. The AKM converters easily
won the subjective listening tests with comments like: “ c o m -
pletely neutral,” “dead quiet,” and “extremely dynamic.”
We stand by our decision and feel that the MC-1 and DC-2
s h a tter the myth that digital audio products are “ g r a i ny” com-
pared to analog designs. The performance of digital audio prod-
ucts has reached the point where the ceiling is now being dic-
tated by the limitations of analog. T H E C O N S U M E R P RO D U C T ST E A M
L E X I C O N,I N C.
No product better exemplifies the fundamental shift in
home-entertainment technology than the controller. Also
known as a surround-sound processor or audio-video pre-
amplifier, the controller is an entirely new
product category that combines many
diverse functions in a single chassis. To
understand what a controller is and does is to
understand the technologies that are trans-
forming the way we reproduce sound in our
homes.
A modern controller replaces as many as
four separate components in your music and
home-theater system: the source-switching
functions of a preamplifier, a surround-sound
decoder, six (or eight) channels of digital-to-
analog conversion, and an electronic
crossover to split up the frequency spectrum.
Moreover, the rapidly increasing computer horsepower in
today’s controllers points to a future in which they will
incorporate even more func-
tions and capabilities, such as
digital signal processing for
loudspeaker and room cor-
rection. While power amp-
lifiers and loudspeakers
change relatively little over
time, the controller repre-
sents a radical new path to
the future.
Despite the power and
sophistication of some of
t o d a y ’s controllers, they are
remarkably inexpensive and
relatively easy to use. While
none of us would call a $5,000
audio product cheap, the price
of a High End controller is rea-
sonable considering all the
functions it performs. In addition, it seamlessly merges a
diverse array of sophisticated processing and controls to pro-
vide nearly transparent inter-operability to the user. Still,
designers need to focus on improving the user interface so
that anyone can operate even the most sophisticated system.
As controllers replace two-channel analog preampli-
fiers, many of us music purists are concerned that two-chan-
nel music reproduction may be compromised in the rush to
add features. Some controllers are designed with an empha-
sis on multi-channel film-soundtrack repro-
duction, with little regard for the two-chan-
nel musical experience. Other controllers can be considered
true High End preamplifiers that also offer surround-sound
decoding and video switching. This diversity of products on
the market lets you choose a controller that
parallels your priorities. The movie buff will
have very different requirements from the
music listener who wants a little surround
sound when he occasionally watches a
movie.
Inputs, Outputs, and Source
Switching
Let’s start with the controller’s most basic
function, selecting the source you listen to or
watch. The controller accepts audio or A/V
(audio and video) signals from all your
source components and lets you select which
source signal is sent to the power amplifiers and video mon-
itor. A basic controller will offer two analog-audio inputs
(for a tuner and CD player, for
example) and perhaps four
audio-video (A/V) inputs. In
addition to the main outputs
that drive your TV and power
amplifiers, two record outputs
are often provided to drive
two VCRs or a VCR and an
analog tape recorder.
When choosing a con-
troller, make sure its array of
inputs matches or exceeds the
number of source compo-
nents in your system. Yo u r
system is likely to expand in
the future, so look for a con-
troller with at least two more
inputs than you need right
now.
All controllers have inputs for digital audio signals as
well as for analog. These inputs receive the digital-audio
output of a DVD player, laserdisc machine, DSS receiver, or
CD transport. The signals carried on these digital connec-
tions include Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Surround, and two-
channel PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) signals, such as from
a CD transport.
If you’re an old hand at home theater, you proba-
bly own a laserdisc player with Dolby Digital output. Fur-
ther, you know that to get Dolby Digital
(once called AC-3) onto a laserdisc, the sig-
R O B E R T H A R L E Y
Controllers
. . . . . . . . .
A modern controller replaces
as many as four components
in your music and home-the-
ater system: the source-
switching functions of a pre-
amplifier, a surround-sound
decoder, six (or eight) chan-
nels of digital-to-analog con-
version, and an electronic
crossover to split up the
frequency spectrum.
nal had to be encoded as a radio frequency (RF).
If you don’t want to immediately replace your
cherished laserdisc collection with DVDs, you’ll
probably need a controller that can decode
those RF-encoded Dolby Digital discs. If your
controller doesn’t have an RF digital input (typ-
ically labeled “AC-3 RF”), you’ll need an exter-
nal RF demodulator box. This device converts
RF Dolby Digital to bitstream Dolby Digital, which
can then be fed to one of the controller’s standard digital
inputs.
Don’t forget the controller’s responsibility for handling
the video signal. Look for S-Video input jacks on all A/V
inputs and outputs. Most controllers offer both composite
video (on RCA connectors) and S-Video jacks. Controllers
can degrade video quality and some have better quality
video processing than others.
Two-Channel Bypass Mode
For the music lover shopping for a controller that will also
serve as a two-channel preamplifier for his system, one of
the most significant considerations is its performance with
two-channel analog sources (especially if you have an
extensive vinyl collection). In that case, you’ll want a con-
troller that has analog bypass. Without a bypass mode, the
analog signal will be converted to digital and back as it pass-
es through the controller. Digital conversion is far from
transparent, so the sound will suffer.
There are two catches to look out for regarding the
bypass mode. First, the controller must have an analog vol-
ume control such as that used in the Proceed AV P. Most mod-
ern controllers adjust the volume digitally in their DSP chips
(which don’t sound as good as an old-fashioned potentiome-
ter). Second, whenever you engage bass management, even a
controller with a bypass mode will convert the analog signal
to digital because bass management is performed by the DSP
chips. If you have a subwoofer with satellite speakers and use
the controller’s crossover to divide the frequency spectrum,
the bypass mode won’t remove the A/D and D/A conversions
from the signal path. This is a serious limitation for music
lovers who demand the ultimate in sound quality.
Surround Decoding and Digital Signal
Processing (DSP)
The availability of powerful Digital Signal Processing
(DSP) chips has revolutionized controllers in the past few
years. DSP chips are the heart and brain of the controller,
performing surround-sound decoding, signal processing
(equalization, crossovers), and THX post-processing (if
the controller is THX certified). To d a y ’s advanced con-
trollers boast the computing power of a late 1980s main-
frame computer.
The first job of the DSP chip is decoding; that is, con-
verting a stream of digital data into separate digital signals
that can be converted to analog audio. Virtually all con-
trollers today decode the three major surround-sound for-
mats: Dolby Digital, Digital Theater Systems (DTS), and
Dolby Surround. Dolby Digital is by far the most common
format on DVD and laserdisc, and has been chosen as the
surround-sound format for HDTV.
Even inexpensive A/V receivers sport DSP
chips, although they have vastly less comput-
ing power than those in High End controllers.
Consequently, High End controllers offer bet-
ter implementations of surround-sound decod-
ing, more flexible features, and higher sound
quality (more powerful DSP chips allow greater
precision in the mathematical computations per-
formed on the audio signal).
A DSP chip is a number cruncher that operates on spe-
cific instructions (the software) controlling it. When decod-
ing a Dolby Digital source, for example, the software tells
the DSP how to decode Dolby Digital. When decoding DTS,
the same DSP operates under the instructions for decoding
the DTS bitstream. A DSP chip is only as good as the soft-
ware it is running. That’s why some High End companies
write all their own software in-house rather than rely on
stock software that performs a given task. As DSP chips
grow increasingly more powerful and less expensive, con-
troller capabilities increase proportionately.
Beyond decoding digital data signals, DSP chips are
used to perform advanced signal processing that creates the
artificial acoustic environments such as “stadium” or “con-
cert hall.” Those artificial environments are the parlor tricks
of DSP. Much more importantly, DSP can be used to perform
equalization and room correction. That is, DSP at the high-
est level can be used to alter the signal so that it compen-
sates for the intrinsic sound of your room, smoothing out
the room’s resonant characteristics and allowing you to bet-
ter hear the music and the sound of the recording venue.
On a practical level, DSP makes it possible to execute
the crossover for the subwoofer in the digital domain. Some-
day, DSP chips may be the standard method for providing
crossovers in speakers.
If the trend toward more powerful, less expensive DSP
continues – and it will – controllers will incorporate more
and more sophisticated signal processing. Digital crossovers
for the subwoofer will become more flexible (see, for exam-
ple, the Theta Casanova crossover options). Surround
decoding will be executed with greater precision. The
potential for DSP in audio is only now starting to be real-
ized. Much more is yet to come.
DSP and the Future-Proof Controller
Because of this software control, some controllers can be
updated simply by downloading new software into the
machine. As new technologies arrive, or refinements in
existing systems are discovered, you simply install new
instructions for the DSP chips. Such “software-based” con-
trollers can be thought of as general-purpose DSP devices
that happen to be running the software for Dolby Digital,
DTS, and Dolby Surround decoding.
The Proceed AVP is a good example of a software-updat-
able controller. The unit has an RJ-11 port (a telephone jack)
on the rear panel that connects to a computer’s RS-232 port.
A Proceed dealer can download the latest software from the
Internet, connect his computer to your AVP (either in your
home or his shop), and update the AVP’s flash memory. The
process takes about eight minutes, can be per-
formed with the AVP installed in your system,
and doesn’t erase your set-up and configuration
settings.
New software can add capabilities such as
DTS or MPEG decoding (by changing the DSP
code), refine the user interface (by updating
the operating system), or configure the unit to
accept formats not available when the product
was designed (by changing the input-receiver software).
The AV P ’s Proceed input receiver (the chip that receives,
identifies, and decodes the incoming bitstream) is custom
made, which allows the AVP to work with future formats
whose interface protocols have not yet been established.
Updating software in this way reduces the likelihood of
needing expensive hardware changes.
Another method of heading off controller obsoles-
cence is “modular” construction. A modular
controller is built like a PC, with a mother-
board and smaller circuitboards that fit into
slots on the motherboard. If a new technology
comes along or better digital-to-analog con-
verters become available, as examples, you
simply swap out a circuitboard to bring your
controller up to date. Some controllers com-
bine the ability to update software with modular
construction for the ultimate in upgrade flexibility.
Bass Management
An important controller function performed by the DSP
chips is bass management, the subsystem that lets you
selectively direct bass information in the soundtrack to the
main loudspeakers or to the subwoofer. Bass management
allows a controller to work correctly with a wide variety of
Some controllers are “THX Certi-
f i e d ,” meaning they incorporate
Lucasfilm signal processing – a
technology that Lucasfilm believes better
translates film soundtracks created for
theater playback into the home. THX-cer-
tified controllers must also meet a set of
technical performance criteria established
by Lucasfilm. If the product corr e c t l y
implements the THX technologies and
meets the performance criteria, the unit
can be branded “THX Certified.”The man-
u fa c turer then pays a license fee to
Lucasfilm on every unit sold.
The goal of Home THX is to re-create
as closely as possible in a home-theater
system the sound that the mixing engi-
neers heard on the film-dubbing stage.
THX-certified controllers employ fo u r
processes that Lucasfilm has found to
i m p r ove the home-theater ex p e r i e n c e :
surround decorrelation, timbre matching,
re-equalization, and the subwo o fe r
crossover. Let’s look at each of these.
S u rround decorr e l a t i o n m a kes the
monaural surround signal slightly different
in the left and right surround channels by
varying the time and/or phase of those
signals. This technique prevents the “in
the head” localization of surround signals,
and “smears” the surround signal so that
we feel a greater sense of envelopment
in the film soundtrack. With the advent of
5.1-channel formats with separate left and
right surround channels, THX surround
d e c o rrelation has ta ken a new tw i s t ,
called “adaptive de-correlation.” Adaptive
de-correlation turns off the de-correlation
circuit when the two surround channels
carry different information, but smoothly
turns it on when the surround channels
are identical. Most 5.1 soundtracks still
have mono surrounds most of the time,
so this is a useful feature. (See the side-
bar to the Denon AVR-5700 review in
Issue 25 for more on surround decorrela-
tion.)
Timbre matching makes it possible
for sounds arriving from the sides to have
the same perceived timbre as sounds
arriving from the front. This makes pans
(movements of sounds) from front to rear
more realistic, because the perceive d
timbre doesn’t change with movement.
You can easily demonstrate for yo u r s e l f
h ow perceived timbre changes with direc-
tion: Snap your fingers in front of your fa c e ,
and again to the side of your head. Th e
sound is “sharper” to the side. THX timbre
m a t ching compensates for this diffe r e n c e
with signal processing in the controller.
Re - e q u a l i z a t i o n is a treble cut applied
on play b a ck to make soundtracks mixe d
for movie theaters sound natural when
p l a yed in the home. Mixers intentionally
m a ke soundtracks bright for several rea-
sons. Theaters are usually full of absorbent
seats, drapes, and people, all of which roll
o ff high frequencies to a greater degree
than midrange and bass frequencies. In
addition, the long distance between the
audience and loudspeakers tends to selec-
t i v ely attenuate treble. Consequently, the
s o u n d t r a ck has a natural tonal balance in
the theater, but exc e s s i v e brightness on a
home-theater system. The answer is to
e q u a l i z e the soundtrack during play b a ck so
it sounds correct in the home.
But how much treble cut is correct?
And what should the equalization curve
look like? To find out the correct THX re-
equalization curve, THX’s inventor,Tomlin-
son Holman (THX stands for Tom Hol-
man’s eXperiment), asked a series of top-
level film-sound mixers to listen to their
films on a home-theater system. Th e
mixer had an equalizer in front of him, and
was asked to adjust the equalizer until the
soundtrack sounded “right” on the home-
theater system. Holman averaged the
equalization curves created by the mixing
engineers (which were remarkably close)
to generate the patented THX re-equaliza-
tion curve.
To save money, some budget con-
trollers license only the re-equalization
part of THX processing, not the entire sig-
nal-processing suite. Other controllers
not licensed by Lucasfilm may employ a
selectable treble cut, often carrying a
name such as “Cinema EQ.”
F i n a l l y, the THX s u b wo o fer crossove r
s ta n d a r d i z es the crossover ch a r a c t e r i s t i c s
( c u t - o ff frequency and slopes) that split the
frequency spectrum into bass for the sub-
wo o fer and midrange/treble frequencies
for the main speakers. The THX crossove r
frequency is 80 Hz, with fourth-order low-
pass and second-order high-pass slopes.
The subwo o fe r-out jack on a T H X - c e r t i f i e d
controller thus carries a precisely defined
signal. When decoding 5.1- channel Dolby
D i g i tal or DTS (so-called THX 5.1 mode),
the subwo o fer output carries the Low Fr e-
quency Effects (LFE) channel, plus the
bass from any number of the other five
channels. When decoding Dolby Surr o u n d ,
the THX subwo o fer output is a mix of the
front three ch a n n e l s’ bass below 80 Hz,
assuming that the front speakers are small
satellite ty p e s .
You may have recently seen the desig-
nations “THX Select” and THX Ultra”
replace plain old THX. THX Select products
h a ve relaxed performance standards, and
are designed to allow products suitable fo r
smaller rooms to benefit from THX pro-
c e s s i n g. The more rigorous Ultra perfo r-
mance level corresponds to what used to
be simply called “THX” and is built on the
assumption that the room invo l ved may be
3 , 000 cubic feet or larger. R H
THX-Certified Controllers
speaker systems. For example, if you have five
small loudspeakers and a subwoofer, you tell
the controller to filter bass from each of the
five channels, and to direct it, in sum, to the
subwoofer. When watching a Dolby Digital or
DTS movie, the bass from the LCR and sur-
round channels is mixed with the Low Fre-
quency Effects channel to drive the subwoofer.
The bass management in most controllers lets you
direct the full frequency range to the left and right channels
(including the LFE channel), but filter bass from the center
and surround channels.
A feature in the most advanced controllers is the ability
to specify the crossover frequency and slopes between the
subwoofer and main speakers. The crossover is implement-
ed in the digital domain with DSP. Splitting the frequency
spectrum into bass and treble in the controller is a vastly
better approach than subject-
ing the analog audio signal to
the capacitors, resistors, and
inductors found in the cross-
overs built into subwoofers.
Other controllers let you
specify the crossover frequency (40 Hz, 80 Hz, 120 Hz, for
example), but not the slope or phase characteristics. The
greater the flexibility in this function, the greater the likeli-
hood that you can achieve the best results with your speak-
ers and room.
Keeping low bass out of smaller loudspeak-
ers confers large advantages in the speaker’s
power handling, dynamic range, midrange clari-
ty, and sense of ease. When the woofer doesn’t
have to move back and forth a long distance try-
ing to reproduce low bass, the midrange sounds
cleaner and the speaker can reproduce louder
peaks without distortion.
High-Resolution Digital Audio
Decoding
Many controllers today feature the ability to accept digital
input signals with a sampling frequency of 96 kHz and word
lengths of up to 24 bits. This allows them to decode high-res-
olution digital audio output from a DVD player that can
deliver 24/96 digital signals (the Pioneer DV-09 is an exam-
ple). The selection of 24/96 discs is slim, and until a digital
interface with a copy-protec-
tion system is in place, don’t
expect many DVD players to
provide access to the 24/96
bitstream.
A more useful feature for
taking advantage of the high-resolution multi-channel for-
mats about to come on the market (DVD-Audio and Super
Audio CD – SACD) is a six-channel analog input on the con-
troller. Until the digital-interface issue is resolved (which
may take a long time because it is inextricably linked to the
…the controller represents
a radical new path to
the future…
copy-protection problem), DVD-Audio and
SACD players will have six analog outputs for
reproducing multi-channel music discs. Unless
your controller has a discrete six-channel ana-
log input, you won’t be able to play high-reso-
lution multi-channel music through your sys-
tem until the copy-protection dust has settled.
The six-channel analog input approach has its
drawbacks: You’re paying for six DACs in the DVD-
A or SACD player and for six DACs in the controller. It
would obviously be better and more cost effective if multi-
channel DVD-A or SACD was provided to the controller in a
single digital data stream. Until then, the most important
thing to look for is that the analog bypass is available for the
DVD-A and SACD signals. Adding extra layers of conversion
will only degrade the sound. The issue becomes more com-
plicated when you add bass management to the mix, since
bass management is done in the digital domain.
After DSP – Digital to Analog
Conversion
Every 5.1-channel controller has six digital-to-analog con-
verters (DACs) and six analog output stages built into it. The
DACs convert the digital data for each channel into analog
signals. The quality of these DACs and the subsequent ana-
log output stage (which drives the power amplifier through
interconnects) is crucial to realizing good sound quality.
DACs vary greatly in their sound, and a poor-sounding DAC
(or a poor implementation of a good one) can ruin an other-
wise excellent controller. More expensive controllers use
higher quality parts and design techniques, including metal-
film resistors, polystyrene capacitors, four-layer circuit-
boards, and exotic circuit board material. Also look for ana-
log stages made from discrete transistors instead of inex-
pensive operational-amplifier chips. Some High End compa-
nies now have considerable expertise in designing cutting-
edge digital converters, expertise they can apply to building
multi-channel digital controllers.
D o n ’ t be swayed by marketing hype that touts the DACs as
“24-bit.” Although the DAC may have 24 resistor “rungs” on its
“ l a d d e r,” that doesn’t mean it has 24-bit resolution. The last
four bits often contain just noise, not real information.
Because real-world DAC technology is limited to 20-bits, those
last four bits are known in the industry as “marketing bits.”
The best minds working today in digital conversion cite
the historical “two bits per decade” rule of con-
verter advancement. Assuming this rate contin-
ues, consider this: 24-bit digital audio has a the-
oretical noise floor of –144 dBV, but the thermal
noise produced by a single 1,000 ohm resistor
(generated by random movement of electrons)
at room temperature is –125 dBV, a noise floor
19 dB higher than a 24-bit converter’s theoretical
limit. I doubt that converter technology will
advance beyond 21 bits without a fundamental break-
through employing new DAC architectures.
(Inter)Facing the User
Most of this article has been concerned with the path of a sig-
nal from input to output and the wide variety of turns
between. But how the user operates a controller with all
these features is just as important as the raw technology that
makes the magic. A controller can be easy to set up initially
and a joy to use on a daily basis. Or it can be a confusing
nightmare that makes you feel lucky to get any sound at all
from your speakers – never mind fine-tuning the controller
for the best performance. Which of these scenarios comes to
pass is determined by the controller’s user interface, a term
that encompasses the front-panel controls and display, the
remote control, and the on-screen display. Some products are
easy and intuitive to use; others are frustrating and complex.
Before buying a controller, ask the salesman to run through
the system set-up; if he has a hard time, watch out. Second,
play with the unit yourself in the store; you’ll not only get a feel
for how it works, you can ask questions before you take the
controller home. Third, take a close look at the remote; if it is
covered by a sea of identically sized, shaped, and colored but-
tons, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the user interface. The
buttons should be color coded, grouped by function, and fea-
ture different sizes according to their frequency of use or func-
tion. And it’s all to the better if they light up in the dark.
Do not underestimate the importance of a well-designed
user interface. It could make the difference between loving
and hating the component that is the heart and brain of your
multi-channel system.
For more information about controllers and other home
theater topics, check out Robert Harley’s book Home The-
ater for Everyone. For information, or to order a copy, call
800-848-5099. Website: www.hifibooks.com
One feature lacking on even some
High End controllers is compo-
nent video input and output jacks.
Component video, carried on three sepa-
rate cables, offers vastly improved picture
quality over composite video, and is even
better than S-Video. As more and more
products with composite-video connec-
tions become available (DVD playe r s ,
HDTV set-top boxes, video monitors),
component-video switching becomes an
increasingly important feature. Most con-
trollers with component-video switching,
however, have no on-screen display from
the component-video output.
If you have a single component-video
source (a DVD playe r, for example) and a
video monitor with component-video
input, you can simply run the component-
video cables directly from the DVD play-
er to your video monitor, bypassing the
c o n t r o l l e r’s video-switching function. Th i s
t e chnique requires that you switch inputs
on your video monitor to wa t ch a DV D.
E ven if your controller has component-
video switch i n g, howeve r, none ava i l a b l e
t o d ay offer cross-format conversion (i.e.,
S - Video input to component-video out-
put), meaning you still must switch
inputs on your video monitor when
wa t ching a component-video s o u r c e .
Although component-video switch - ing will
become increasingly common, multiple
RCA jacks ta ke up valuable rear-panel real
e s tate. Some products just don’t have
the room. R H
Component-Video Switching
t is a conflict as old as good vs. evil. It is the war that came
before wars between peoples. It is the battle between
humankind and its environment and it is being fought to
this day in your house.
While not so noble as a life and death struggle between a
Jack London hero and the elements, your battle to extract
good sound from the room in which you listen to
music and watch movies is as challenging. Your
victory is not to be measured by survival,
but satisfaction. And when the tools
of war cost many thousands of dol-
lars, satisfaction is survival.
Know thine enemy: T h e
Room. Do not think of it as a help-
ful collaborator or even an inno-
cent bystander. It, more than any-
thing else, will determine the
overall quality of sound you
extract from your system. A bad
room will put a foot on the throat
of your speakers, choking off
their musical life.
From hard experience I have
learned these lessons. I built a
room – from scratch. And I vowed
it would be a great room, unlike
any other. In my hubris, I thought
this was truly possible and that I
would do it. Now my comfort
comes from knowing that humili-
ty brings education and, with edu-
cation, satisfaction is, indeed,
possible.
This article and the ones that
follow trace my experiences
installing the Revel Ultima speakers
and Proceed electronics multi-channel sys-
tem into this enemy mine. We begin here with the
Revel Salon loudspeaker and the Revel Sub-15/LE-1 sub-
woofer system. Future episodes will include the Revel Voice,
Embrace, and Gem models. Other players in this first episode
include the RPG Room Optimizer software and, briefly, the
Cambridge Signal Technologies T1100 Room Correction Sys-
tem. Each of these companies has faced the enemy with their
products, offering hope that victory can be had.
Meet My Enemy
Now that you have a blank sheet of paper,
what’s next? Choosing the dimensions. Start
with the realization that no set of dimensions is perfect. The
perfect room does not exist. Revisit Robert Greene’s “What
You Should Know About Bass” in Issue 24. Every room has
modes that arise from its dimensions. The most obvious – and
the most significant – are the axial modes. These are the fun-
damental acoustic resonant modes (and their harmonics) that
are created between two opposing surfaces, such as front
wall and back wall, side to side and floor to ceiling. In addi-
tion to axial modes there are tangential and oblique
modes. Tangential modes arise from four surfaces (e.g.,
the side, front, and back walls) and oblique modes arise
from all six surfaces. Your room’s modes will create
audible gaps within (nulls) and boosting of (nodes)
the sound at different frequencies, destroying the
tonal uniformity that is necessary for uncolored
music reproduction. The best you can hope for is to
avoid modes piling up on top of one another, since
that will greatly exacerbate the non-uniformity of the sound.
Programs now exist into which you can input the dimen-
sions of your room and calculate the room’s modal character-
istics. A “simple” Excel spreadsheet, properly configured, will
do the trick. It’s nothing more than math. But don’t let that
deceive you into thinking it’s simple. Such programs assume
accurate dimensions that form a uniform lossless rectangle –
that is a perfectly rigid room. But building a rigid, uniform room
d o e s n ’t solve your problems; it only helps make them more pre-
dictable. There is even some thought that a rigid room isn’t
preferable because it actually intensifies the low-frequency
modes because none of the bass can be atten-
uated by leakage through walls that flex.
R E V I E W S
Revel Ultima Speakers – From 2 to 7.1 Channels
Episode One: The Ancient Enemy
The Revel Ultima Salon
loudspeaker and
Sub-15/LE-1 subwoofer
system face an implacable
enemy of sound, with
some help from the RPG
Room Optimizer software
and, at the last moment,
the SigTech T1100 Room
Correction System.
I
TOM MIILLER
Now that your head is swimming, choose
your dimensions. The actual dimensions you
select based on a ratio such as those listed
below will determine the exact frequencies at
which the modes will develop. Jim Thiel, the
engineering brain behind Thiel speakers, calculated the fol-
lowing set of ratios:
2.5 by 1.6 by 1 2.18 by 1.6 by 1
1.39 by 1.14 by 1 1.54 by 1.14 by 1
2.33 by 1.6 by 1 1.9 by 1.4 by 1
1.9 by 1.3 by 1 2.1 by 1.6 by 1
2.5 by 1.5 by 1 1.59 by 1.26 by 1
I chose to build a room that measured 33’3” long by 22’9”
wide by 8’9” high. That’s 3.8 by 2.6 by 1. At the time, I thought
it was permissible to double any of the numbers (it isn’t). I
doubled two of them in the 1.9 by 1.3 by 1 ratio. Plug these
numbers into our Excel spreadsheet and the resulting plot of
modes looks something like Diagram 1.
Despite my mistake, the room ended up with a good
spread of modes (save for a pile-up at 50 Hz). Being somewhat
skewed myself, I chose not to build a perfectly rectangular
room (see Diagram 3, page 46) although I built it fairly rigidly
with studs that were on 12-inch centers and two layers of dry-
wall (the floor is concrete). I wanted an equipment room I
could walk into to change components and cables, and I want-
ed an opening from that room into the media room. I also
decided not to wall off the entrance to my office at the end of
the media room, leaving a floor-to-ceiling opening. Finally, I
have always suspected that rooms with bay windows or simi-
lar broken angles behind the speakers sound better. So I
framed in three-foot facets where the side walls meet the
front wall. If I ever get the chance to do it again, I would do it
a little differently – but that’s another story.
Deploying the Troops –
RPG Room Optimizer Software
Nothing is more important to good sound than where you
choose to place your speakers. Over the years there have been
numerous attempts at simple empirical formulae to help you
place the speakers. Perhaps the best known is the Rule of
Thirds (put the speakers at the one-third points away from the
side walls and back wall). The Rule of Thirds is derived from a
superficial understanding of modal room characteristics. This
approach, which seems to work with dipole loudspeakers, is
less than optimal for dynamic coil designs.
There is no predictable location that works optimally for
all speakers and all rooms; the variables are too numerous.
Indeed, finding the absolute best location for a certain speak-
er in a certain room is extraordinarily difficult (unlikely, but
not impossible). Now, though, there is a useful tool to credi-
bly attack the location issue: Room Optimizer software ($99 a
copy) from RPG Diffuser Systems, Inc. You quickly learn,
when using Room Optimizer, that what is optimal depends on
where you sit, on the geometry of the speakers, and their loca-
tion. Fortunately, Room Optimizer will consider all those vari-
ables for you.
Room Optimizer, in simple terms, does the math for you.
It combines a modal analysis with a Speaker Boundary Inter-
ference Response (SBIR) analysis based on the legendary
work of Roy Allison. It is the combination of these two
approaches that makes Room Optimizer unique and useful.
Balancing the modal and SBIR analysis, Room Optimizer
searches out locations within your room for your speakers
and your listening location that will meet a certain threshold
frequency uniformity. See Diagram Two for a graphic repre-
sentation of a solution that Room Optimizer found for the
Salons in my room.
I will eschew a detailed technical explanation of how
Room Optimizer works and concentrate more on how well it
works and its limitations. Know this about it: It will “do the
math” on many thousands of locations, relentlessly honing in
on the optimal location within parameters set by the user.
Room Optimizer randomly selects a starting spot within user-
defined boundaries. This random starting point influences
Room Optimizer’s search for the optimal location. Once it has
a starting spot, it works around that location gradually refin-
ing the search. Different starting locations lead to different
final solutions. For this reason, it can and usually does come
up with different solutions when fed identical parameters.
Thus, it is worthwhile to spend some time at the computer,
Diagram 1: Room Mode Calculator
by Allan Devantier
letting Room Optimizer search out different solutions (just hit
“start” and go get a beer, or two).
Room Optimizer is concerned only with the low-frequency
characteristics of your room. Its search is based upon the fre-
quencies from 20 Hz to 300 Hz. It is possible to set the high and
low points within that 20-300 Hz range. Thus, you may seek an
optimal location for a full-range speaker or a main speaker that
will be crossed over to a subwoofer. Similarly, you can set the
upper limit so that search is concerned only with the frequen-
cies that will be covered by a subwoofer (e.g., 20-80 Hz). It is
not possible to set the upper limit below 80 Hz, if, for example,
you wanted to cross over your subwoofer at 40 Hz (the
crossover point I prefer when using full range main speakers).
Another limitation of Room Optimizer is that it assumes a
fairly rigid symmetrical room. Its formula includes an absorp-
tion coefficient for the surfaces that is comparable to the
amount of flex in the walls of my room. According to RPG’s
president Peter D’Antonio, at low frequencies most rooms are
essentially rectangular, so the assumption of a rectangular
room might not be as limiting as it first seems. If you don’t
take Room Optimizer’s results as gospel – how can you when
the same problem usually yields different results? – it can be
remarkably useful in finding a good (and close) starting spot
for placing full-range speakers.
I used Room Optimizer to find initial locations for the
Thiel MCS-1, Thiel CS 7.2, and Revel Salon loudspeakers in
two-channel configurations. In each instance, Room Optimiz-
er got me within several inches on each axis of an excellent
location. From the suggested location, I used a variety of pro-
gram material as I moved the speakers to and fro, listening to
the extension and smoothness of the bass as well as its blend
with higher frequencies. As I will discuss later in this series,
matching the performance of the two channels
as closely as possible is instrumental in attain-
ing outstanding soundstaging performance.
Thus, symmetrical location within the room is
highly desirable. Room Optimizer automatical-
ly sets the speakers up in symmetrical locations.
When Room Optimizer generates a solution, it also identi-
fies suggested locations on your walls and ceiling for diffusive
and absorptive materials. These are materials that RPG will
be more than happy to sell you, and the suggested locations
are rational and not just a clever cross-promotion for RPG
products.
Here we set Room Optimizer aside, but do not leave it
behind. It will return in our discussions of subwoofer set-up
and, more importantly, surround speaker set-up. Beware: You
cannot use the software as a means of totally avoiding empir-
ical experimentation in your speaker set-up. But if used to
substantially narrow your empirical search, Room Optimizer
is remarkably useful.
Revel Ultima Salon – Noble Warrior
At first blush, it isn’t apparent why any loudspeaker could be
thought of as a warrior in the battle against The Room. Rather,
it may seem more like a casualty of war. And yet the $14,200
Revel Ultima Salon is not only equipped to do battle, it is well
suited to the task.
The Salon is, in every sense of the word, a full-range loud-
speaker. It can plumb the lower depths (way below 30 Hz)
with ease and reach dizzying heights of amplitude without
strain. Revel rates the Salon’s “in room response” (their mea-
surement) as plus or minus 1 dB from 25 Hz to 18 kHz. I real-
ize that response seems limited in the treble, but it is well
Diagram 2: Room Optimizer Frequency Responses
established now that dead flat 20 kHz treble
response in your room is an unpleasant expe-
rience. I’m not sure if that’s because 20 kHz flat
is just too much treble or too much distorted
treble. I find that treble distortions are the
most pernicious throughout the entire chain from recordings
to speakers. The Salon’s treble seems well balanced as a part
of the musical whole. I do, though, hear slight treble limita-
tions within the highest harmonic structures of instruments.
But I wouldn’t want more treble extension if it meant that
I had to sacrifice even one other positive characteristic of the
Salon. The Salon seems almost uniquely well crafted to repro-
duce musical timbres. It has the best balance of tonality and
character of any speaker I have ever used. In this regard, it is
our noble warrior against the ancient enemy.
The Salon is a four-way design with crossover points at
125 Hz, 450 Hz, and 2.2 kHz. All crossovers are fourth order
Linkwitz-Riley. Three 8-inch mica/carbon-filled polymer dome
woofers handle the range below 125 Hz. These woofers are
said to extend the Salon’s bass response to a minus 10dB
point at 17 Hz. The midbass driver, which actually handles the
upper bass through lower midrange, is a 6.5-inch driver of the
same composition as the woofers. The midrange driver is a 4-
inch titanium dome. The Salon has two tweeters. One, which
is more robustly built of an aluminum alloy, fires forward
while the other fires back, to provide ambient fill in the high-
er frequencies. Except for the tweeters, the Salon drivers are
designed and made within the Harman International house
(likewise for the 15-inch woofer in the Sub-15).
The design brief for the drivers included the ability to han-
dle high peak amplitudes without compression. This was nec-
essary to achieve the Revel design team’s (led by Kevin
Voecks) objectives, since they wanted a speaker that would
not change tonal character on dynamic peaks.
Nearly every aspect of the Salon’s design and perfor-
mance can be related to Revel’s primary objective – to pro-
duce a speaker as timbrally accurate in the listening room as
it is in the lab. To that end, Revel embarked on an extensive
research effort to quantify in-room speaker behavior and
incorporate its findings in its speaker designs. The typical lis-
tening room undermines many speaker designs, which boast
nonpareil frequency response when measured anechoically.
Typically, the upper bass and lower midrange are suppressed,
exaggerating the upper midrange and lower treble content. To
combat this, Revel developed a model of what a typical lis-
tening room does to a loudspeaker’s frequency response.
It is ironic how so many of the virtues we prize in sound –
midrange openness, soundstage depth, and detail resolution –
are exaggerated by the colorations created by the room-loud-
speaker interface. Many might regard these characteristics as
indicators of “transparency,” since they artificially open up
the soundstage and highlight the transient details of images.
In this context, the Salon can come as a bit of a shock. It
sounds fuller than many other loudspeakers. Further, its
sound is more up front spatially (not timbrally) and it doesn’t
seem, at first listen, to resolve as much information. It doesn’t
take long, though, to realize that the Salon is telling a higher
truth. In contrast with most other speakers, it is capable of
rendering timbres that are more fully saturated. That is,
instrumental timbres sound more authoritative and more
complex. There is a legitimate weight to the sound of instru-
ments through the Salon that is natural sounding and intoxi-
cating. Consider, for example, the ride cymbal front and cen-
ter at the start of the Conspiracy Theory soundtrack [TVT
8130-2]. Through the Salons, it is possible to hear the sus-
tained fundamental in the instrument’s metal while the sizzle
rides cleanly in the overtones. There is richness here that is
often missing, and yet the textural aspect of the instrument’s
timbre is not lost (as it would be with another rich sounding
type of component – the single-ended triode amplifier). I sus-
pect that the Revel’s ability to project power into the room in
the lower midrange through upper bass is directly related to
its wonderful way with timbres. Don’t forget that this is the
region where most fundamentals reside. Reduce the strength
of the fundamentals and lower harmonics in a note and the
result will be washed out timbre.
There are a number of loudspeakers based on the legacy
of Allison’s work in room acoustics that reproduce timbre
much like the Revel. While I haven’t heard all of these, my
impression is that the Revel distinguishes itself by maintain-
ing its tonal balance more evenly at all loudness levels. Dur-
ing major dynamic peaks, the Salons don’t compress nearly as
much as most speakers I have heard. Thus, their tonality
doesn’t change. Moreover, the treble distortion is truly mini-
mal during such peaks – movie lovers will drop to their knees
to thank Revel.
A c t u a l l y, mentioning the single-ended triode amplifier
makes me wonder – did music lovers turn to that flawed
device in an effort to restore the timbral richness that was
lost in their rooms by many loudspeakers? If so, the solid-
state amplifier is going to experience a perception makeover
when paired with the Salon, because listeners will be able to
enjoy solid-state control with timbral accuracy. I have, with
a wide variety of solid-state amps (the BEL 1001 Mk IV, the
Proceed HPA 3, and the Conrad-Johnson Design MF-5600).
You will want to use a sizable solid-state amp with the Salon.
Its sensitivity is moderate at 86 dB with 2.83 volts input and
its minimum impedance is 3 ohms (nominal: 6 ohms). This
i s n ’t a hideous load, but a robustly designed solid-state
amplifier with low output impedance will pay dividends. Do
not assume, though, that the Salon is imposing a pleasant-
sounding distortion through the lower midrange that makes
these different amplifiers all sound alike – the Salon can dif-
ferentiate the sound of amplifiers and source components
quite easily. In this respect it is a reviewer’s dream – reveal-
ing sound that is also a delight to hear.
When optimally set up, the Salons easily reached into
the 20 Hz region, producing clean bass information that I
could feel in my chest. It clearly delineated the plethora of
big instruments on Conspiracy Theory. The Salon sports a
bass control that allows the listener to reduce or boost the
bass in the region around 50 Hz. This proved helpful in my
room, as I was able to reduce the effect of the 50 Hz node
(take t h a t ! cursed Room).
Although the Salon’s balance through the lower and
middle frequencies seems to bring images forward, it still
produces a remarkable soundstage with stunning resolution
in the field of depth. This soundstaging performance is
unique among the direct-radiating dynamic-coil designs I
have experienced. Many direct radiators produce pinpoint
images within a smaller, sharply defined soundstage. In con-
trast, the presentation of dipole radiators is more open.
Dipole images, depending on the design, can range from
well-focused (though typically not as tightly focused as a
direct radiator) to bloated. The Salon’s soundstage com-
bines the best attributes of both types. It has better image
specificity than most dipoles, though it doesn’t render pin-
point images. There is a natural sense of size and weight to
images generated by the Salon. The soundstage itself seems
huge and encompassing on material such as that recorded
by Keith Johnson for Reference Recordings.
While the Salon doesn’t produce that phony see-into-it
t r a n s p a r e n c y, you can easily distinguish between instruments
in space – if you want to. But the separation isn’t tossed in your
face. Indeed, this is true of all aspects of this speaker. It’s all
there and you can listen to it, if you want to. But you’ll proba-
bly be too busy listening to the music.
What more could I want from
the Salon? For now, it doesn’t
resolve the p u l s a t i o n y o u
hear from live instruments. I
say for now because I haven’t
yet had an opportunity to
apply basic acoustic treat-
ments to the first-reflection
points in the room. The sensa-
tion I am discussing is subtle
and could easily be lost within
the ambient wash of an overly
live room. Because of room
issues not yet addressed, I sus-
pect that I have only heard a frac-
tion of this speaker’s potential. Never-
theless, it is already obvious that the Revel
Salon is the finest speaker I have ever used and
one of the best available at any price.
Revel Ultima Sub-15/LE-1
Subwoofer System – Bring-
ing in Reinforcements
If the Salon is so wonderful all alone, why
add the Sub-15 subwoofer (much less four of
them)? How ’bout: size matters. I used to
despise subwoofers, but home theater has infused
the old beasts with new vitality. More research has
been devoted to subwoofer design in the last few years than
in the preceding decades. As a High End kind of guy, I would-
n’t much care about all this subwoofer research if digital sig-
nal processing in controllers hadn’t made subwoofer
crossovers so much less audible and so much more flexible.
So, why add subwoofers to a state-of-the-art full-range
speaker? Removing the bottom octave from the Salon’s
duties frees up a good deal of power from the main amplifi-
e r. Deep bass sucks up more power than anything else does.
By shifting the bass load to the LE-1 power amplifier, the
main power amplifier can perform at a higher level. Likewise
for the Salon woofers. It all adds up to more dynamic range
without compression that distorts the sound. Finally, it is
possible to place subwoofers in other locations that will
smooth out the bass response of the whole system. With four
subwoofers, it should be possible to do an even better job of
balancing the bass. Using multiple subs also results in lower
distortion because each sub doesn’t have to output as much
sound as one alone would.
My description of the Salon might lead you to think that
the bass in my room was seamless and free of resonance. I
wish. Using a wide variety of recordings, I can
draw a map of the disaster area called the bot-
tom three octaves. Don’t forget – this is war. I
mentioned the pronounced bump around 50
Hz. Listening to the bass guitar tracks on
Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach’s Painted From Memory
[Mercury 314538002-2] was like riding a roller coaster. All
bumps and dips and the bumps were ugly. Similarly, trying to
follow the bass synthesizer lines in Celine Dion’s “My Heart
Will Go On” from the Ti t a n i c soundtrack [Sony SK 63213], a
worthwhile test disc for bass performance, was an exercise
in frustration. Some notes overpowered the arrangement
while others were nearly inaudible. But I know you know
what I’m talking about because this condition exists in every
room. I don’t care how much you move your speak-
ers around; the modes will get you every time. Over
time, you will probably accept all but the most pro-
nounced perturbations in tonal uniformity.
I worked well nigh a month trying to find the best
location for those four subs. I started by using the
Room Optimizer and quickly discovered that its value
dropped with the frequency. The charts reflected the
problems I kept bouncing into, but the program didn’t
offer me any real solutions (possibly a user limitation –
I need more time to work with the program). The main
problem was that I could get deep bass and midbass
bloat, or a good midbass blend and no low bass. Ulti-
m a t e l y, the four subwoofers ended up flanking
the Salons – one to each side of
both. This provided
the smoothest
blend with the
best extension,
but the response
below 30 Hz was
weak. Alert: This
was solely a room
p r o b l e m .
It is worth working
this hard to get the bass right,
because if the lower octaves are
excessive, the midrange is clouded
by the bass resonances and perception of
the highest treble is warped. It can actually sound as if the tre-
ble is reduced in level, though that is not the case. Changing the
perceived tonal balance of a system this severely has a direct
correlation with the accuracy of timbre. Timbre for each instru-
ment is created by a finely balanced group of unique frequencies
and is easily disturbed by the gross irregularities arising from
poor bass reproduction, whether it is the fault of the speaker or
the room.
Bass has a profound effect on our perception of the tem-
poral aspects of music. I will acknowledge that a hi-fi cannot
change the beat of the music. But I just as steadfastly main-
tain that a system can alter our perception of the music’s
rhythms. Precision down through the bottom octave is essen-
tial to accurately define the beginning of a note. Smear that
moment and our perception of the moment and when it
occurs can change. Worse, if bass resonances get in the way
of the proper bloom and decay of a note, the transition from
one note to the next is smudged. Again, the points of refer-
ence in the music’s time are less clearly defined. Finally, musi-
cians often use emphasis in the intensity of
notes to build rhythmic structures within the
measures of the music – it’s one of the things
that separates artists from technicians. Bass
that won’t get out of the way (and other
distortions) mars the fine artistic emphasis applied by
the musician, denying us access to the performance’s
inner architecture.
Finally, the presence of deep bass, accurately reproduced,
informs our perception of the music’s physical presence. It not
only adds weight, but it defines the environment of the per-
formance. Orchestral music, for example, is performed in
large venues that have observable modal characteristics only
at very low frequencies. These low modes allow us to hear the
size and volume of the space. It is an essential part of trying to
generate a realistic illusion of a live performance.
The $2,500 Revel Ultima Sub-15 is a stupendous sub-
woofer, when it is well integrated with your main speakers.
Each Sub-15 features a robust 15-inch driver in a compact cab-
inet that blends into your room easily. It offers very low dis-
tortion, with no audible doubling. If it is barnstorming in the
basement, it does so cleanly. Ultimately, I could play “The
Vikings” from Pomp and Pipes [Reference Recordings
RR–58CD] at lifelike volumes (94 dB peaks) without a hint of
strain in the Sub-15s. And the Sub-15 is clean enough to blend
seamlessly with the Salons, which means it should blend just
as well with any other speaker you choose, unless their char-
acters are radically different.
Driving the Sub-15 was Revel’s $6,000 LE-1 amplifier/
crossover. Used with one Sub-15, the LE-1 will pump out 700
watts; with two Sub-15s the LE-1 will deliver 1,200 watts total.
I used two LE-1s with the four Sub-15s. But I didn’t use their
internal analog crossovers, having previously played with the
crossover and having not cared much for its effect on the high-
pass signal. Instead, I relied on the digital crossovers in the
Proceed AVP and Theta Casanova controllers. While I was
playing with subwoofer placement, the LE-1’s phase adjust-
ment feature was invaluable. The blend with the Salons was
more transparent when the phase was adjusted just so and the
perception of the music’s timing improved. Both phase and
level can be adjusted by remote control from the comfort of
your chair.
Diagram 3: Tom Miiller’s All-Media Room
I have one minor sonic criticism of the Sub-15. Until the vol-
ume is advanced to higher levels, it doesn’t resolve the sensa-
tion of air moving in the recording venue. This is a sensation
that exists in the concert hall and I have heard it reproduced by
the Audio Artistry dipole subwoofers. The Sub-15 gets the
pitch, timbre, and timing of the music right, but the environ-
ment in which the music takes place is a shade to the dry side.
C o n s e q u e n t l y, it is more difficult to perceive the acoustic vol-
ume of the recording site. It will be interesting to explore how
room acoustic treatments effect this characteristic.
Battle Summary – Stand-off
I don’t pretend that all the work described above resulted in a
convincing victory over The Room. At this point, though, I was
close to a draw. The spectral balance of the room was delight-
ful, even though I had minimal damping material on the walls
(just a 12 by 9-foot cotton canvas sheet over the area for the
video screen and a little more propped up in the rear corners).
Despite the great overall spectral balance, an excessive amount
of ambient splash remained in the room, limiting the loudness
levels that could be cleanly attained and smearing images and
information in the soundstage. The bass was better, especially
when listening to classical program material. But popular
music, especially Painted From Memory, wouldn’t let me for-
get that the fight for the lowlands was far from over.
I have two major offenses planned: acoustic treatment of
the first reflection points on the sidewalls and ceiling and the
use of advanced technology to address room-induced distor-
tions. The former is to come first from Acoustic Innovations
and, later, from RPG. The latter arrived from Cambridge Sig-
nal Technologies just in time for a sneak peak.
The SigTech T1100 is one of the most important audio
products to reproduced sound since the introduction of elec-
tricity. The T1100 is a dedicated computer whose sole task is
to analyze the sound of your room in three domains (frequen-
cy, phase, and time). It then develops adaptive filters that
modify the signal and applies those filters to pre-correct the
signal to counteract room distortions. This is an extraordinar-
ily advanced and sophisticated use of digital technology that
promises to mitigate room problems that were previously
intractable.
As much as I had hoped for from the T1100, I was unpre-
pared for the fundamental way it reshaped my aural experi-
ences. First, using the T1100, the subwoofers blended seam-
lessly with the Salons and reached 20 Hz flat. The perfor-
mance I extracted from the Salons and Sub-15, which is
described above, was fully attainable only with the SigTech.
Not that I would change a word about the Revels. The SigTech
confirmed the excellence of the Revels.
You will have to wait until Episode Two for a full report on
the T1100, but I will share this now: The changes it wrought
improved not just the tonality of the music, but the dynamics
and space as well. If you want to know more right now, dig
out your old copies of The Absolute Sound (Issues 113 and
109) and read Robert E. Greene’s comments on the SigTech.
Episode Two – A War On Two Fronts
With the arrival of the SigTech T1100, The Room was thrown
back on its heels. There was reason to hope for a convincing
victory. Before the day could be won, though, the war expand-
ed to another front – the center (Revel Voice) and rear chan-
nels (Revel Embrace) – giving The Room more opportunities
to prevail. How would the design prowess of
Revel fare outside the traditional realm of two-
channels and could the SigTech triumph over a
fully activated room?
To Be Continued
Heartfelt appreciation to Robert E. Greene for his technical
contributions to this article. He is a gentleman and a schol -
ar, as generous with his knowledge as he is passionate about
the science of audio.
REVEL
8500 Balboa Boulevard
Northridge, California 91329
Phone: (818) 830-8777
Source: Manufacturer loan
Price: Salon – $14,200 ($15,500 as tested with high gloss
finish and rosewood panels); Sub-15 – $2,500;
LE-1 – $6,000
RPG DIFFUSER SYSTEMS, INC.
651-C Commerce Drive
Upper Malboro, Maryland 20774
Fax: (301) 249-3912
e-mail: info@rpginc.com
Price: Room Optimizer software program – $99
CAMBRIDGE SIGNAL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
95 Fulkerson Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02141
Phone: (617) 491-8890
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
Manufacturer’s Response
We thank Tom for his tremendous effort and vigilance in work-
ing to create a listening room that allows more meaningful crit-
ical listening. We are pleased that he found Room Optimizer
and our approach to its utilization to be useful. Through its use,
it becomes evident how inadequate simplistic dimensional
ratios are in the quest for optimum room design.
A couple of clarifications of points Tom made in the review
might be useful to the reader:
Dynamic compression does much more than rob the
music of dynamics during high-level peaks. We have found
that many High End speakers change in sound quality at per-
fectly normal loudness levels. The problem is greatly exacer-
bated by the use of first-order filter networks, smallish voice
coils, or less than optimum crossover points. We believe that
our efforts to combat dynamic compression pay off in
improved neutrality and realism. The lack of dynamic com-
pression is an essential factor in achieving the even tonal bal-
ance to whichTom refers.
To m ’s listening room currently has bare, untreated wa l l s .
A normally furnished or acoustically treated room yields ve ry
d i fferent sound at high frequencies. Since Tom is planning to
treat his room, we look fo rward to his further comments
a fter he has installed room treatment in the next episode of
his saga. KEVIN VOECKS
REVEL
he gleaming white livery of the Fed-X truck splintered
the morning calm with a fusillade of gravel against the
stone griffins sternly guarding the massive oak front
door. Upon the FedEx man’s announcement: “Two items,” the
door opened to reveal a man who might well be a stone Grif-
fin himself, his face bearing a stern and raptor-like stare.
“What do they weigh?”
Looking down at his clipboard, the Fed-X man replied:
“800 pounds.”
“But that’s a third of a ton!”
The next morning saw the arrival of the Bull, who swiftly
moved the boxes to the music room.
Then on the third day came the Alchemist from Linn Prod-
ucts to spread layers of thick black cables, cardboard boxes,
black metal boxes, and wooden speaker boxes. This formed
an ultimate hi-fi horizon layer two feet deep over the entire 25’
by 18’ floor, but the tide had again receded by sunset that
evening. The first level of alchemy left the room pristine and
newly decorated with a four-foot tall rack of black metal
boxes and a perimeter of cherry veneered cabinets. The Linn
AV speakers were arranged variously on black metal stands
(the four principal channels served by the AKTIV Tukan), on
a television monitor (the Aktiv AV5120 center channel), and
on the floor (the AV5150 sub).
The cabinets of the Tukan speakers are a foot tall, a little
more than half as wide and deep. They sit upon open black
metal stands that raise the top of the loudspeakers to a height
of three feet. At the front of the room, a television monitor is
centrally placed between the two loudspeakers on stands, and
it is surmounted by the Aktiv AV5120 cen-
ter loudspeaker (2 feet wide, 7 inches
high, 9.5 inches deep). The AV5150 subwoofer (26 inches high,
18.5 inches wide and deep), sits between the television and
one of the Tukans. A Quadraspire rack contains the five
AV5105 power amplifiers, the AV5103 system controller, and
on the top two shelves, the Linn Karik CD player and Numerik
digital-to-analog converter. The shelves are finished in cherry
veneer to match the loudspeaker cabinets.
The price of systems based around the 5103 controller
starts at $18,815; the system I am testing costs $27,170. This
reflects the 11 channels of amplification provided to separately
power each driver or pair of drivers, in the case of the center
speaker and subwoofer. With the addition of better Linn com-
ponents, it is possible to drive the system cost to $145,680.
The fourth day was set aside for musical refinement. The
Alchemist was pushing buttons on a remote control, watching
as messages appeared on the control unit and simultaneously
on the monitor. He listened to the hiss (pink noise) emitted by
each loudspeaker in turn, measuring the distance between
each loudspeaker and the listening position, adjusting the loud-
speaker stands, moving them a half inch at a time. At one point,
he added a cellular telephone to his juggling, speaking rapidly
into the mouthpiece as he set white words to flash across the
screens and listened to the loudspeakers hiss as he moved
them to and fro.
In the middle of the fourth day, music appeared whole and
viscerally present, as first the Alchemist then I sat on a chair
placed at the focus of the equipment. The cherry cabinets with
their eyes one above the other gazed upon us as frantic mes-
sages in computeiform script scrolled over the blank displays.
A new cycle began. After much
searching and deep consideration, a disc
LINN-AV5103 AKTIV Multi-Channel System
In Search of the Mythical Beast: I
B A R R Y R A W L I N S O N
was withdrawn from its shell and consigned to its whirring
drawer mechanism. Messages darted again over the screens,
followed by music that materialized throughout the room, a
large gentle beast trembling the wooden floor, stalking along
the walls, palpating the window panes.
In the Company of the Beast
I am listening as I write this to the latest release on the Water
Lily Acoustics label, entitled Fascinoma, a virtuoso vehicle
for trumpeter Jon Hassell in collaboration with Ry Cooder,
Ronu Majumdar on flute, and Jacky Terrasson on piano. A
point of special interest is that before developing his Fourth
World style, Hassel worked with Stockhausen and thereby
acquired the technique and aesthetics of electro-acoustic
composition. He now routinely incorporates loops and sam-
ples into his music as an accompanying ground bass.
On track 3, the entry of the synthesized percussion loops
explodes into the room with the intensity of a seismic tremor
over which Hassel floats the gossamer threads of his muted
trumpet tone like an impressionistic Milky Way serenely arch-
ing over a landscape in turmoil. The bass energy in this
recording is remarkable, but it demands a great deal of the
system to faithfully reproduce this together with the accom-
panying delicate and discrete strands of musical information.
If the system can cope, the assembled illuminati weave a
tapestry of surpassing richness within the ample acoustic of the
stone chapel in Santa Barbara, California, in which Kavi
Alexander has made so many remarkable recordings. So wide
is the dynamic range of this recording that the demand for the
system not to sound strained at climaxes becomes paramount.
The recording chain used by this label is unsurpassed in
rendering instrumental timbres naturally, and this will require
commensurate performance from the reproduction chain. If
there is any tonal imbalance in the system, this recording will
quickly expose it. With the Linn system, there was no such
problem, and the cavernous acoustic was rendered with tac-
tile presence while the music was woven in its supportive
embrace. But this degree of performance did not materialize
overnight, and before we achieved this resolution we were to
undertake the voyage of discovery that I have set down here.
Because there are so many aspects to the installation of
such a comprehensive surround-sound system, this review
will extend into the next issue, wherein we shall evaluate the
performance in other respects, most notably film sound.
The Quest Begins
Characterizing Linn’s advance man as the Alchemist is more
than just a writer’s device. Linn is an atypical audio company
that will purposely not regale you with design parameters and
specifications. Their typical response when asked about any
aspect of their products’ performance is “enough.” They will
perform the magic that brings the mythical beast of entertain-
ment to your home. That is not your concern. The Linn dealer
will play the role of Alchemist for every purchaser of a Linn
system. You need only sit back and be awed.
In keeping with that company philosophy, the Linn
AV5103/Tukan system delivered to me came without manuals
that would disclose its innermost workings. Linn did not feel
that I needed to know how this particular trick was per-
formed or how that rabbit got in the hat. But magazine writ-
ers (and editors) are compelled to pull back the curtain of
magic and witness the act itself. For this article, we will sit
back and watch the show. In the next issue,
though, we want to work the controls.
The sound of the Linn system has mutated
through three distinct phases to date: When
first set up, the sound was, in my room, a bliz-
zard of razor blades – a room problem, for my walls are plas-
tered. There is very little diffusion, and a handclap produces
a ring at the top of the room, near the ceiling. This has not pre-
vented the room from working well with most speakers, espe-
cially the Quad 63s with their tightly focussed treble radiation
patterns. The Linn tweeters are, I suspect, more generous in
the breadth of their polar dispersion patterns.
Purists of sound arcana always begin by aligning sound
radiators to achieve a solid mono image within the room,
and so did we. This process was aided in great part by “party
mode” – a multiple mono mode invoked by the surround
options button. Switching then into stereo mode revealed a
surprisingly deep stage. The bass frequencies, though, were
too much of a good thing, even when the controller
crossover sending the main signal to the Tukans was config-
ured as “small,” resulting in a low-frequency roll off begin-
ning at 60 Hz. This bass heaviness had a rubbery quality, a
looseness or slight slowness of response that added a drag-
ging beat to the music.
I suspect that this first set-up had located the drivers
within existing room modes. The AV5103 controller, for its
high price, has a limited bass-management system, but it
may be possible for Linn to add more options for tailoring
this range within the installer menus, which are normally
invisible to the user. It appears that the only bass manage-
ment provided is the turnover point for the main speakers, a
selection between ”small” and “large.” This is not a major
limitation in a closed system such as the Linn. Bear in mind
also that the system had at this point been working for only
one day, and all the speaker suspensions were unused!
Our next step was to tilt the cabinets slightly backward.
Now transients acquired substance as the midrange frequen-
cies aligned better with the treble. Next the speakers were
turned out to fire parallel along the long axis of the room,
then toed in toward the center just enough to attenuate the
side-wall reflections. In this position, the room ceased to
negatively dominate the treble presentation, and now it was
possible to relax into the sound. The predominant charac-
teristic of the sound at this second stage was clarity, reflect-
ing correct time alignment of the principal stereo pair with-
in the room acoustic.
Integration of the subwoofer was impeded by the heavy
bass response, which may at this stage have resulted from a
low-frequency mode of the room. Whatever the cause, the sub
had to be integrated with this anomaly, resulting in a dragging
bass with a slow decay.
At this point the Alchemist felt the results were more
than acceptable for running in the system before his second
visit a month later. There’s more to this saga, but that must
wait until the third phase, set-up for film sound, which
brought about a new level of performance with both music
and film recordings.
For now, the sound had acquired a clear and muscular
characteristic. Everything was imbued with a dynamic sound;
orchestras filled the room with massive wavefronts, while
Massive Attack turned the room into a massive vibrator at low
frequencies. Piano benefited especially, reminding me yet
again that this instrument was the first attempt
at a full-range home music center, a range
rarely captured or replicated by electronic
devices today.
All systems are biased in some way, and
the three principal biases are toward time coherence, phase
coherence, or tonal production. It is not possible to have all
three unless you also factor in the room, which acts as a filter
affecting all three. This Tukan-configured system seems to me
biased toward temporal alignment, as a result of which its
dynamic capabilities are enhanced. I would like to hear more
of the subtler textures of the tonal range, and so would you, if
you’d spent 15 years listening to Quads and BBC monitors.
For voice intelligibility, this dynamic bias has much to recom-
mend it; I was able to follow unfamiliar Sullivan (The Rose of
Persia) with surgical precision.
Controlling the dynamic qualities of this system requires
discretion, but this is encouraged by the system’s ability to
disentangle and relax the sound sources across the full width
of the stage when so adjusted. The soundfield projected is
also surprisingly stable when heard at some distance from the
focal point of the loudspeaker array, a very refreshing change
for those who dislike being confined to the sweet spot.
Working the Environment
It seems to me that the THX concept is good for the rooms in
which we listen to films, for it mandates an observational fre-
quency response at the listening position. In other words, the
response of the system at the listening position is measured
and guaranteed to meet specifications laid down and used for
mixing guidelines on sound stages, ensuring that the mix heard
in the cinema or your room will bear some resemblance to
what the mix engineer intended! This is something that no sup-
plier of music reproduction equipment has dared to offer in the
past. This, however, merely addresses tonality. To arrive at the
best solution, we must also have control of time and phase.
These factors are routinely addressed in live, amplified
concerts, following pioneering efforts spurred by the giant
concerts of the Seventies, which necessitated time alignment
of their public-address towers to achieve a single pulse
response over the full audience area. That technology is now
used to improve the acoustic performance of sound stages
and recording studios, where at least a smooth response is a
prerequisite.
Now it’s time to take that mature technology and apply it to
the domestic environment. Our controllers already include dig-
ital-signal processing to achieve stadium effects; the next ingre-
dient is the processing algorithm that optimizes the response
from the loudspeaker-room interface. The hot contender here
is SigTech T1100, which, to date, is the only device that corrects
for non-uniformity in tonality, time, and phase (see the Revel
r e v i e w, this issue). In a perfect world, its proprietary algorithms
would become a de facto system licensed to other manufactur-
ers. Regardless of who does it first, all controller brands will be
galvanized into action by the first one to use a microphone to
optimize the signal for any room.
The Linn AV5103 controller incorporates a PC port on the
rear panel, and I assume this will be used to update the host
software. The larger point is that the system uses a separate
channel of amplification for each driver, and its dynamic
capabilities reflect that. It is implicit in such a system that
there is a crossover filter upstream of each amplifier. For
now, the crossover functions (except for the bass manage-
ment) are performed in plug-in modules that are installed in
the AV5105 amplifiers. It would be much better to move the
crossovers even further upstream, to the DSP engine where it
can be performed elegantly in the digital domain.
This system cries out for a finer control of the tonal qual-
ities of the room response. Absent DSP correction, we will
see how these qualities can be further optimized by moving
the acoustic sources within the room in the next article,
wherein we devote ourselves to extracting maximum tempo-
ral synchronization from the system.
The Remote Interface
I’ll look at two levels of the interface, the customer’s and the
installer’s. First, the customer interface is kept simple by link-
ing video and audio bus switching to the source controls, so
all the customer has to remember is to switch the system on
from standby, and then hit a source button if the system is
addressed to the wrong source.
The remote control itself is built upon a cast metal chas-
sis resembling a footprint in plan, a rather weighty slab that
tapers from three inches in width to two and a quarter inches
to provide a hand grip. The area of the control pad is divided
into four zones, one at front left for controlling the Linn 5103,
another at front right for the source transport controls
invoked by the source selector zone keys, which occupy the
center of the remote. There is also a number pad zone on the
heel of the remote. Altogether a very good piece of industrial
design modeling after the Brancusi school, though perhaps
not the best choice for those with small or arthritic hands.
One quirk the user must get used to is the slight delay built
into the response of the 5103 processor before visual feed-
back confirms receipt of the signal. Perhaps this is where
some more instant feedback might be given, even something
as simple as a repeater LED within the display area. This
would also encourage use of the system without video moni-
toring for those of such disposition. The manual makes a good
case for this delay; it enables a short-press option for control-
ling sources other than those currently selected without dis-
turbing the video and audio images you are currently follow-
ing. In other words, if you tap the relevant keys quickly, you
can cue up a CD and route it to a CDR and make a recording
without having to stop following the currently selected pro-
gram. But sans audible or visual feedback, I was more likely
to start repeatedly pressing the source key until the confirm-
ing caption appeared.
Switching on the system from standby compounds this
problem. Unless your video display is on, you know that the
system has received the command only via a rearrangement
of the typography of the Linn 5103 caption, from one line of
type to two, on the display, which is rather dimly lit to start
with. If you have been successful in switching the system on,
you can confirm this by pressing a source key, but there’s a
slight delay.
The remote worked well as a universal remote, soaking
up all the functions of the other remotes with the notable
exception of the one that operates the cable television box –
surely one of the most commonly found remote-control sys-
tems in America?
The interface itself needs a little more memory to allow
tagging of soundfield settings to sources. This happens with
AC3 decoding, as confirmed by the caption “As mix” that
appears on the displays when the “surround” button is
pressed while playing an AC3-encoded source. Also useful
would be a last-source-selected memory. Now if you play a
disc and adjust one of the speaker level controls, then hit
“Play” to start the track again, you will discover you have to
press the relevant source button before regaining use of the
transport controls.
Summing Up
The Linn system offers advantages insofar as it is a turnkey
system, and anybody who buys one will be able to leave to the
dealer all the tedious installation details of running cable,
positioning loudspeakers, finding a home for the components,
and initializing the system controller to accept the source
components and direct their signals through the appropriate
processing functions to the related amplifiers and thence to
the speakers.
Linn also is known to have built its reputation on playing
the tune. This refers to its superimposition of one cardinal
rule upon all the flashing lights that surround audio: The
music comes first, and it don’t mean a thing if it don’t play the
tune. If your toes ain’t tapping and your hands ain’t clapping,
if your head ain’t bobbing and your guitar ain’t throbbing –
well, what’s the point?
This strikes at a schism between tonal quality and imaging
that divided the field of home music reproduction following
the advent of stereo. When you put two loudspeakers into a
room, you set up comb-filter effects that add and subtract
from the recorded sound in unpredictable ways. When you
put, as in this case, six sound sources into a room, you are far
better placed to control the room modes that render most
stereo a weak sister to mono – provided you are given the
tools for the job!
I hope Linn acquires a digital equalizer interface to refine
the tonal consequences of all that power (1,200 watts total),
power that should be even more nimbly
applied using the new generation of Linn
amplifiers as these incorporate switching
power supplies.
I asked Linn to supply a system of minimal
bulk, as I suspect this will be the choice of most people con-
templating the addition of such a system to a room of modest
dimensions that will probably have to serve multiple uses. As
a consequence, the smallest loudspeakers in the range, the
Tukans, were supplied. They did not betray any power han-
dling problems despite the use of live piano recital levels.
In the next installment, we’ll experience the full power of
the Linn illusion, applied to music and movies. And we’ll take
a much closer look at how it all works.
LINN INCORPORATED
4540 Southside Boulevard, Suite 402
Jacksonville, Florida 32216
Tel: (904) 645-5242
Source: Manufacturer loan
Prices:
5103 System Controller: $8,495
5150 Bass Reinforcement Loudspeaker:
$4,195 ($4,395 in cherry)
5105 amplifier for front left and right: $3,590 each
5105 amplifier for center: $3,590
5105 amplifier for rear left and right: $3,590 each
Aktiv 5120 Tukan loudspeaker: $2,490 each;
$2,590 each in cherry
Aktiv 5120: $1,220 ($1,440 in cherry)
Karik CD Player: $3,595
Numerik D-A Converter: $2,595
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
NAD T770 Audio-Video Receiver
Just the Basics, Done Well
n 1976 the NAD 3020 integrated amplifier hit the North
American shores and changed performance expectations
for less expensive audio forever. While competitors
stretched the limits of inanity with bells and whistles, NAD
(New Acoustic Dimension) concentrated on the basics of
clean sound: short signal paths; bulletproof power supplies
and conservative power ratings. NAD succeeded by appealing
to what audiophiles like most – less. Though nearly 25 years
have passed since that first NAD arrived, the new $1,700 T770
Audio-Video Receiver hasn’t turned its back on its roots.
If you are looking for adrenaline-pumped features like
Cinema EQ or compression levels or 1,001 surround modes
from the Sistine Chapel to Abbey Road Studios, then you’ll be
missing the point of the T770. NAD’s philosophy is to give you
what you need to listen to music or watch movies by provid-
ing the best engineering and components
at the price point. Features that they
believe will not contribute to this experience or might sub-
tract from performance are canned. Like the High End audio
market, NAD is taking the purist approach. Here’s an exam-
ple: Many AVRs automatically take a stereo analog signal and
process it through an inferior analog-to-digital converter and
back out through a D-to-A. NAD leaves the signal undisturbed
in the analog domain. The simpler and purer path.
The Model T770 is a five-channel, 70 watts per channel
into 8 ohms surround sound receiver that incorporates an
integrated Dolby Digital decoder. It provides a 5.1 input for
the addition of an external decoder, allowing the user to
expand to another surround sound format such as DTS. For
two-channel listening with surround enhancements, the T770
provides EARS (Enhanced Ambient Recovery System).1Three
digital inputs are provided, including RCA coaxial, TosLink
optical and an input with an integrated
RF demodulator for laserdisc players
NEIL GADER
I
that are DD compatible. There are preamp
outs for all five channels. Build quality in gen-
eral seems up to NAD’s usual fine standards.
Also included are the NAD Link jacks, which
allow other NAD components (with NAD Link)
that are not remote controlled to be driven via the T770’s con-
troller. Very clever if one intends to stay within the NAD fam-
ily. But since the remote is not of the learning variety, the user
is penalized if he chooses to consider a competitor’s offerings.
Once I managed to hook up the Sound Dynamics RTS-3
Surround Speaker system and my Pioneer 414 DVD player,
making friends with the T770’s remote control was the next
important step. It is well organized and allows thicker fingers
some room to negotiate the keypad. And the infrared end is
angled slightly so users know how to orient the remote when
they grasp it in the dark. (A lighted keypad would have been
better.) The OSD has the requisite multiple layers. Its graphics
are concise and the critical surround set-up mode is easy to
access. The T770 circuitry will adjust the delay characteristics
of the surround system based upon the distances of the five
speakers. Then with an SPL meter (not included), it’s easy to
calibrate 5.1 speaker levels via the T770’s test tone.
For apartment dwellers, the “Late Night” feature is espe-
cially welcome for those soundtracks with lease-busting explo-
sive effects. Since it’s a compressor, it limits the dynamic range
of the audio portion. That is, the extremes of loudness will be
drawn closer together. Explosions will not be as loud, while
soft dialog will not be as quiet. This allows the user to turn the
overall volume down and still not miss important moments – a
boon for some elderly videophiles as well.
Bass management is downright basic. With a Dolby Digi-
tal source, the LFE (Low Frequency Effects) option in the
OSD’s (On Screen Display) level calibration menu permits an
attenuation of 10 dB; take it or leave it. Using this in conjunc-
tion with the Late Night feature, you can listen at reasonable
overall levels. Still, it does not have the flexibility of a THX
crossover, which allows you the option of mixing sub-80 Hz
bass information with the LFE and redirecting it to the sub-
woofer – an effective way to reduce the work load and open
up dynamics on smaller speakers.
The Sound
At 70 watts into five channels, the T770 is not a real
stump puller and speaker matching should be carefully
evaluated for sensitivity and impedance. But that said,
running the T770 as a two-channel integrated amplifier
into either the Joseph Audio RM-22 or the slightly larger
Meadowlark Shearwater loudspeakers2reveals a pleas-
ing, smooth sonic character. The T770 understands the
all-important midrange. It’s not aggressive in the highs
and that area in the upper mids between 2-3 kHz is full. In
my book, the midrange is the sweetspot and the NAD
really connects. Vocals, male and female, are rich and
continuous. Soundstaging is wide and fairly deep, but
imaging is not as precise as some dedicated two-channel
rigs I’ve heard. The image specificity on tracks like Roy
Gaines’ “Stormy Monday” [I’ve Got the T-Bone Wa l k e r
B l u e s ; Groove Note, GRV-2002-2] is a little swimmy. It
just doesn’t have the snappy focus that this cut can have.
Pitted against the 150wpc Plinius 8150, my reference inte-
grated amplifier, the T770 sounds slightly dry. Bass is not
quite as rich and extended. But neither is it muddy or ill-
defined. It’s just a little rolled off.
The heart of the T770 is its competence in decoding Dolby
Digital soundtracks. Intelligibility of dialog is paramount not
only to understanding but to conveying nuance and atmos-
phere. One of the easiest ways to test for this is to find sound-
tracks where narration occurs. The Tennessee Mountain nar-
ration of actor Jeff Jeffcoat in the charming and overlooked
film The Education of Little Tree[Richard Friedenberg, direc-
tor; Paramount Home Video LV336143] is a prime example of
how a few well-chosen words can whisk the movie-goer into
a different time and place. The warm, non-aggressive
midrange character of this voice sounded remarkably similar
to the theatrical presentation I attended at the state of the art
Academy Theater in Los Angeles. And when you listen to the
West Virginia drawl of Levon Helm from The Right Stuff
[Philip Kaufman, director; Warner Bros. 20027] through the
T770, you not only catch every inflection with clarity and
smoothness, you can almost smell that stick of Beemans gum
he just started chewing.
The sound design of the film Elizabeth gave the NAD’s
decoder a thorough workout in retrieving ambience via – of
all things – footsteps! The movie’s interiors are set primarily
in medieval castles and churches. These large vaulted expans-
es have huge reverberant fields with delay characteristics bor-
dering on echo chamber. Throughout the movie, characters
are shown in medium and long shots walking through these
cavernous spaces, sometimes from above, other times at eye
level. The NAD demonstrated exemplary steering combined
with fast transient attack by not only localizing approaching
and departing footfalls from LCRs into the surrounds then
back again, but by taking those footfalls and their accompa-
nying reverberations and shifting them spatially to another
combination of speakers as the camera set-up shifted. Each
camera position yields a similar but distinctive spatial per-
spective. A thunderstorm sequence during chapter eight
reveals the T770’s ability to place powerful cues deep in the
background, an auditory illusion that appeared to be occur-
ring well behind the LCR speakers.
For spatial resolution I use the “Raindrops Keep Falling
on my Head” Test. In this case directly overhead. The DVD of
Das Boot, The Director’s Cut [Wolfgang Peterson, director;
Columbia-Tristar 22219] has some of the finest, most immer-
sive sound effects I’ve experienced in a movie soundtrack –
the metallic clatter of the diesel engines in the background,
the occasional groan of the boat’s hull as it descends deeper
than it was ever engineered to go. The sound designers
implanted a living, breathing soul within the vessel and her
fate is very nearly as poignant as that of the submariners she
carries. You can close your eyes and almost smell the mildew
hanging in the stale air. And feel the panic as claustrophobia
takes hold. The “Raindrops” test occurs late in the film, with
the U-boat crippled on the sea floor near the Straits of Gibral-
tar. Pipes have burst from the pressure on the bulkheads and
the sounds of discrete leaks are plopping in all channels.
These sounds were clean and startlingly lifelike. But there is
one specific leak that consistently dropped right down my
back, courtesy of the NAD T770 system. And it appeared to be
coming from my ceiling! This immediacy was not accom-
1 NAD points out that EARS is left-minus-right channel ambient process-
ing, incorporating no reverb.
2 86 dB & 88 dB sensitive respectively.
plished with gain biasing to the surround channels, either. I
set up the speakers fair and square. But clearly, the T770’s
steering in DD mode is precise and smooth.
Finally users are going to have to decide for themselves
which features they can and can’t live without. At its suggested
list price, the T770 faces some stiff competition from AVRs with
higher stated power ratings and prodigious features. Now I’m
not a big bells and whistles fan. If I want to drive fast, give me
direct input of a gated manual five speed from a n y era Ferrari,
not the “fly by wire” computer electronics of a clutchless Ti p-
tronic. The same goes for audio and video. I want to see and hear
the unadulterated material reproduced as intended. A great
many poseurs impress with their sizzle. But as single-chassis
designs go, the NAD T770 is all steak.
NAD ELECTRONICS OF AMERICA
6 Merchant St.
Sharon, Massachusetts 02067
Tel: (781) 784-8586; fax: (781) 784-8386
Website: www.nadelectronics.com
Source: Manufacturer loan
Price: $1,699
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
Manufacturer’s Response
NAD would like to thank Neil Gader for his
thoughtful review of the T770 receiver.
One point I would like to elaborate on is his
assertion that speaker sensitivity and impedance should be
carefully evaluated for compatibility with the T770’s 70-watt x
5 power rating. While he is correct in the absolute sense, the
T770 incorporates an exclusive NAD amplifier design, imped-
ance-sensing circuitry, which endows the NAD with the ability
to properly drive 4-ohm speakers by maintaining the correct
relationship between voltage and current irrespective of the
loudspeaker being driven. This is accomplished automatically,
requiring no adjustments from the listener. The T770 is stable
even at 2 ohms!
As Neil mentions in his opening paragraph, we rate our powe r
for A-V products the same way we rate our stereo amplifiers,
that is, all channels driven simulta n e o u s l y, 10 Hz – 20 kHz, at
0.08 percent T H D. Most manufa c t urers would have rated the
T770 at 100 x 2, 20 Hz – 20 kHz at 0.08 percent THD and 100 x
5 at 1 kHz. We believe our conserva t i ve approach is more in
keeping with our “music first” approach to A-V products.
GREG STIDSEN
DIRECTOR OF SALES AND MARKETING
NAD ELECTRONICS OFAMERICA
We are grateful to manufacturers
for correcting any errors of fact
in our reviews. When we can,
we also include the manufacturer’s com -
ments following a review. But sometimes
space does not allow us to do that and
this section gives us the opportunity to
include a cogent comment while the sub -
ject is ripe, rather than holding it over for
inclusion in another issue.
RPG Diffuser Systems,
Inc., Room Optimizer
I ’d like to commend Tom Miiller for ta ck-
ling a ve ry challenging task (“Revel Ulti-
ma Speaker System Episode One: Th e
Ancient Enemy,” this issue). Episode
One is a wonderful attempt to raise the
awareness of our community to the
acoustical distortions a room can intro-
duce. RPG has been conducting room
acoustics research for 16 years, sharing
our results with the acoustical and enter-
tainment industries through peer rev i ew
publications, seminars at CEDIA, NSCA,
the Audio Engineering Society, and the
Acoustical Society of America. Ove r
time, it became apparent that despite
the progress we have made in room-
acoustic design, sound diffusion, and
absorption tech n o l o g y, recording stu d i o s
and residential hi-fi and home-theater
communities were still at the mercy of
the location of the loudspeakers and the
l i s t e n e r. In researching existing pro-
grams to assist in these two areas, we
found that the solution lay in a new
a p p r o a ch that simultaneously addressed
modal coupling and speake r- b o u n d a ry
i n t e r ference response (SBIR), the two
causes of low-frequency acoustic distor-
tion. A technical description of this new
algorithm was presented at the AES and
a copy can be down-loaded from our
website (www. rpginc.com). One can
address this problem using wave
acoustics, called the frequency- ove r l a p
method, or by geometrical acoustics,
using the image model. Both approach e s
are difficult to apply. The recta n g u l a r
room offers a unique case in which both
r e s o l ve into simple and identical solu-
tions. The image model, howeve r, is the
d e fault solution, since it is time-based
and can be windowed to provide the
SBIR and modal responses. The issues
are how to deal with the SBIR and modal
coupling simultaneously and how to
s e a r ch the millions of possible solutions
for the best one. Simultaneous treat-
ment of SBIR and modal coupling wa s
easily addressed by using the we i g h t e d
smoothness (standard deviation) of both
responses, and an intelligent search
engine (downhill simplex, in this ve r s i o n )
was used to search through error space
for the best answe r. One thing to keep in
mind is that this type of problem
requires optimization of many va r i a b l e s
at one time. This type of problem con-
tains the possibility of false solutions.
The goal is to find the global minimum.
The starting point always affects the
solutions, so the program allows for the
evaluation of many random sta r t i n g
points. Each solution is valid and users
should choose the solution that has the
smallest error and the best ergonomic
placement. Once loudspeaker and listen-
er positions are established, the pro-
gram indicates optimum positions on
walls and ceiling for absorptive and diff u-
s i ve materials to control the mid-high
frequency portion of spectrum. It is
i m p o r tant, though, to remember that the
o b j e c t i ve is envelopment in the A - V
experience, and this cannot be accom-
plished by sound absorption alone. Th e
acoustical palette consists of absorption,
reflection, and diffusion. The best room
can be ach i eved by an appropriate com-
bination of these. Deader is not better!
While users are generally astonished
at the difference proper placement can
provide, some tweak the positions the
program generates. The program will find
the locations that generate the best room
response within its stated assumptions.
While a flat room response may be math-
ematically preferable, listeners have dif-
ferent hearing acuity, musical tastes, and
musical training. So let the Room Opti-
mizer get you close, then tweak to taste.
We are committed to expanding and
i m p r oving the Room Optimize r, and
users’ comments are welcome.
PETER D’ANTONIO,PRESIDENT
RPG DIFFUSOR SYSTEMS,INC.
Manufacturer’s Corner
f you’re looking for DVD movies at the Lincoln Cen-
ter Tower Records in New York, there’s no prob-
lem: Just head down the escalator
and there they are – banks and banks
of them. Classical music video on
DVD is something else. Those are
buried deep in the classical depart-
ment upstairs, in their own small
rack in the opera room. Small is the
operative word. On a recent visit,
there were only 23 titles available.
DVD may be the fastest adopt-
ed new medium to come down the
pike. Just ask the folks who are pro-
moting it: Statistics from the DVD Vi d e o
Group, an industry nonprofit aimed at
getting consumers to sign on to the
format, tells us that two years after
the introduction of the VCR, there
were 877,000 of them
out there. Now, two
years after the intro-
duction of the DVD
p l a y e r, there are two
million, to say noth-
ing of the 16 million
DVD drives that are
supposed to be in
home computers by
the end of the year.
But if you like watching
classical concerts and operas
I Want My DVD!
Major Labels’ Plans for Classical Music on DVD
. . . . . . . . .
M U S I C & M U L T I M E D I A
I
H E I D I W A L E S O N
in a home theater, don’t toss that VCR or
laserdisc player just yet. Ken Crane’s, a DVD
consumer sales website address, a subsidiary
of Image Entertainment, and one of the medi-
u m ’s distributors and licensees, lists 3,759
titles (everything from pornography to operas from Milan’s
La Scala opera house) and climbing. Of the 325 music titles,
41 are classical music, 21 more are opera. DVD Express,
another dedicated internet site, offers 55 titles under “Clas-
sical Music”; some of the titles listed on both sites are not
yet available (though scheduled to be released in the next
few months). Nominally (read: dubiously) classical events
such as “The Three Tenors” and performances by Andrea
Boccelli were, naturally, the first to appear. But what
about the opportunity to have some fabulous opera pro-
ductions with DVD’s high definition image? Pickings are
still slim. “Opera tends to be a year behind – that’s how it
was for VHS,” says Paul Gruber, author of The Metropoli -
tan Opera Guide to Opera on Vi d e o and executive direc-
tor for program development at the Metropolitan Opera
Guild, which sells such products through the Met By Mail.
No one disputes the usefulness of the format for clas-
sical programs – the ability to choose tracks without the
constant rewinding and fast-forwarding of video is only
one of the more practical advantages. Still, most of the
major classical labels are hedging their bets. Universal
Classics, the company formerly known as Polygram, com-
prising the classical labels London (Decca), Philips, and
Deutsche Grammophon, has nothing yet to say about how
much or how little of their vast back catalog of opera and
concert video will make it into DVD in the US. (Polygram
Japan, however, has released a 25-opera set on DVD – sub-
titled in Japanese and the original language, so probably
not destined for the US market.) EMI Classics has nothing
to say yet either.
Pioneer, which put out laserdisc versions of a number of
the Metropolitan Opera productions, did leap into the fray
with two DVDs of popular operas from the Met – a 1982 La
Bohème and a 1985 Tosca plus the 1983 Centennial Gala. The
Met, however, found some flaws, and all three titles have been
recalled for audio remixing. Over at Lincoln Center, caution
now prevails. One other Met opera, a little-known work by
Zandonai, Francesca da Rimini, a particularly lavish produc-
tion, is out on Pioneer in DVD, and two more are in the
pipeline. Choices available so far from other houses are not
exactly greatest hits: for example, Verdi’s early work Attila
(see review) from La Scala; Janàcek’sThe Cunning Little
Vixen from Chatelet.
Some major labels do admit to be grappling with the ques-
tion. Sony Classical has brought out six titles; five more,
including one new program, a teenage wundersinger from
England, Charlotte Church: Voice of an Angel in Concert,are
in the plans. Most of the Sony titles are old Herbert von Kara-
jan performances – the Great Stone Face conductor (see
review) up close and personal. Only one, planned for next
spring, is an opera – Karajan conducting a 1987 Vienna per-
formance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Samuel Ramey.
Leslie C. Cohen, vice president, business development at
Sony Music, is decidedly bullish on the potential of DVD and
is jubilant at the demise of Circuit City’s DIVX competitor.
“Sony Music supports DVD. Each of our labels [Columbia,
Epic, etc.] has had it from the beginning, and there are now 34
music titles out,” she says. “With three to five titles a year,
Sony Classical has done slightly less than some of the other
labels, but is keeping pace proportionately with the number of
releases. We’re also working toward simultaneous release of
VHS and DVD programs.”
I t ’s not surprising that Sony, with its hardware divi-
sion, supports the new format. Cohen also cites its wider
entertainment potential. “There’s an entire market of DVD-
ROM players to be satisfied,” she says. “There are only a
handful of titles available. People are traveling with their
computers, and the DVD gives them flexibility. We can also
do web links with DVD – with a new title from an artist, we
could add a link to their web site, so that fans can keep
current.” (It would also naturally give the company the
opportunity to sell fans its other recordings by that artist.)
All new Sony projects are being evaluated as to their VHS
and DVD potential. Will the day come when DVD replaces
VHS? “Not in the immediate future,” says Cohen. “But DVD
has been adopted more quickly than either VHS or CD. If it
keeps going, the whole market may change.”
An added feature of the Sony DVDs with Karajan is the
addition of surround sound, familiar to moviegoers – that
airplane taking off from the back of the theater and flying
over your head – but new to classical video. According to
David Kawakami, a director in Sony Corporate strategy
and a developer of DVD, the medium can support sur-
round sound in the compressed audio formats of Dolby
AC-3 (Dolby Digital), as well as newer formats, DTS (Dig-
ital Theater Sound) and SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital
Sound). “They all allow 5.1 channels of audio, compressed
so they can fit on the disc with the video,” Kawakami
says. “The quality is good, though below the quality of CD.
P s y c h o a c o u s t i c a l l y, we are able to elicit perceptually
good quality, though if you turn off the picture and con-
centrate on the sound, people have commented that the
audio falls short of what we’re used to hearing.”
Richard King, engineer on the Karajan discs, agrees.
“No one is super-happy with the audio on the DVD. When
you compress it, you don’t get everything back.” He says
that Sony is working on the new Super-Audio CD technol-
o g y, which, when combined with compressed video,
should give a better result. There is room to combine
uncompressed stereo with DVD, but the 5.1 channels for
surround sound take up too much space.
By adding surround sound in a music program, the pro-
d u c e r ’s goal is “to recreate the ambiance of the actual hall,”
There are two million DVD
players in our homes today.
But if you like watching
classical concerts and operas
on home theater, don’t toss
your VCR and laserdisc players
just yet.
ˇ
Kawakami says. “The greater number of
channels is useful in directing that envelop-
ing ambient sound.” Kawakami says that
producers are more conservative with the
surround sound on classical than they are
with pop. “Few orchestras or classical producers want to
take liberties – they’re not going to have the instruments
coming from behind you. They’re trying to recreate the feel-
ing of sitting in the hall, in the best possible seat, with a
wide and deep soundstage, with the instruments placed
a c c u r a t e l y. Coming from behind would be reflections of
sound, and sounds from the audience, so it feels like a hall.”
Steven Epstein, who produced the DVD Karajan record-
ings, went back to the original multi-track recordings. “The
1987 New Ye a r ’s Concert had pick-up mikes hanging in the
audience,” he says. “We fed that information to the rear
channels, added a little reverb to glue the perspective from
front to rear, and added a slight delay to get more of a sense
of distance from the front to the rear, which enabled us to
achieve a realistic surround sound. The Beethoven N i n t h
was recorded without ambient mikes, so we used informa-
tion from the main mikes as well as the spot mikes in the
orchestra. First we remixed the stereo, and brought it into a
more present-day natural sound. Then we took information
from the two main mikes and brought it to the rear ones,
but we had to process it, to recreate the sense of depth. We
used delay, some additional reverb, and equalized the sound
to get a believable result.” (See review of three Karajan
DVDs, this issue.) Producers working on popular concerts
sometimes get fancier. “You can put a guitar solo or a drum
solo front and center, tailoring the audio to feature what’s
on the video at that moment,” Cohen says.
Back to the numbers, however. Classical has its own
peculiarities, particularly within major labels. When sales of
5,000 have been considered typical – indeed, good – for a
single audio title, labels have to think carefully before com-
mitting resources to a project. After the industry downturn
in the 1990s, which saw a major reduction in the number
and kinds of classical audio releases put onto the market, it
is not surprising that these companies are taking a relative-
ly conservative approach to the new format, which adds big
bucks to the production costs. Classical video isn’t exactly
a mass-market seller anyway. Paul Gruber points out that
many of the classical VHS titles are going out of print. “The
audience just isn’t big enough for the big companies now, ”
he says.
The one major label to come out ahead of the pack with
new product is BMG Classics, which several months ago
released its DVD version of Puccini’sTurandot, as lavishly
performed last September in the Forbidden City of Beijing.
Why this one? David Kuehn, VP marketing and A&R director
On a recent visit to Manhat-
tan’s major Tower store, there
were just 23 classical DVDs
available.
Upscale Pop
DVD is having a profound impact on how pop record
companies look at music videos for the home market.
“It’s almost reinvented the business, now that we
have a system that delivers a high-quality picture and high-
quality audio,” says John Beug, senior VP, film/video produc-
tion and marketing for Warner Bros. Records. “Not to cast
aspersions on VHS, but the audio quality stinks and the picture
quality depends on who is duplicating it.”
Music video programs on DVD are now released routine-
ly by pop labels and are available from scores of acts, from the
Allman Brothers to Yes. But record companies still are selec-
tive in choosing acts for DVD treatment, given additional pro-
duction costs of $10,000 to $30,000 per title. “It certainly
appears as though the slightly older, slightly upper-demo-
graphic artists are selling better,” says Beug.
A recent ranking by Amazon.com of its best-selling music
video releases on DVD included titles from Eric Clapton, B.B.
King, Neil Diamond, Earth Wind & Fire, and Sarah McLachlan.
But also in the Top Ten were Michael Jackson and Madonna,
acts with a younger appeal.
“DVD was originally skewing toward older fans and clas-
sic releases,” agrees Leslie Cohen, VP of business develop-
ment for Sony Music. “But now with DVDs from groups like
Oasis and Savage Garden and Pearl Jam, we’re obviously
reaching out to younger listeners, and also trying to capitalize
on the existence of a fairly large CD-ROM population, which is
completely underserved.” The thinking here, says Cohen, is
customers won’t watch DVD films on small computer screens
but they will play music programs on their PCs.
Pop music fans, like their classical counterparts, are drawn
to the consistently high sound quality of DVD titles, whether
provided through Dolby AC-3 [Dolby Digital], Dolby 5.1, PCM
Digital Stereo, or the Digital Theater Systems (DTS) alterna-
tive, which requires a decoder-equipped DVD player.
While the quality of DVD audio and video is relatively con-
sistent, interactive content is not. Pop record companies differ
in their approach to DVD programming. Pop music DVDs may
include biographies, discographies, song lyrics, interviews,
and more. James Taylor Live at the Beacon, a made-for-DVD
release with several interactive elements, has outsold its VHS
counterpart 2-to-1, says Cohen at Sony Music, which is explor-
ing web-links and gaming elements in future music DVD titles.
Metallica’s Cunning Stunts concert DVD offers multiple cam-
era angles, interviews, and a photo gallery of nearly 2,000
shots. (See review,TPV 25.)
“I appreciate all those bells and whistles but I tend to be
pretty traditional and I’m really focused on the audio and pic-
ture quality,” says John Beug at Warner Bros., which has
released straightforward music programs on DVD from Clap-
ton, R.E.M., Prince, Frank Sinatra, Fleetwood Mac, Alanis
Morissette, and others.
As classical and pop fans embrace DVD, record company
executives now wonder if the format will work in other gen-
res. “How much more will the business ‘sectionalize’ itself?”
asks Beug. “We know the classical stuff works. Will this work
for country?”
How about a Garth Brooks concert on DVD with an inter-
active choice of hats?
THOM DUFFY
Thom Duffy is International Deputy Editor of B i l l b o a r d
magazine.
for classical music at BMG, explains, “We decid-
ed to do it because the format had become stan-
dard, and projected volume of hardware for last
Fall was so high. This was an elaborate joint
venture between various Bertlesmann compa-
nies. We were shooting it in high definition, with multiple
cameras, and a documentary was going to be made. It was an
opportunity to put a product on the market that we felt would
have the highest level-capability of features for the format.”
Turandot has all available bells and whistles, including a
behind-the-scenes documentary, camera angle changes, sepa-
rate audio track, multiple languages for titles, to say nothing
of the standard indexing programs. “It really shows the capa-
bility of DVD, and what everyone should be thinking abut
when making decisions about doing it in future,” Kuehn says.
(See review, this issue.)
So far, BMG reports that the title is selling well – several
thousand copies – though it is moving more through internet
sales than conventional retail. Also helpful was the June PBS
broadcast, after which sales made a 40 percent jump. Kuehn
doesn’t think it’s necessarily selling to the people who plan to
play it on their computers, however. “My guess is this is more
of a dedicated DVD player audience. It’s a big, colorful spec-
tacle. Still, the market is going in the direction that will see
computer and TV combined.”
BMG Classics will be doing more DVDs. “Eventually, ”
says Kuehn. “It more than doubles the production budget
from video, because the authoring costs are high. If we took
videos from the catalog and reissued them, we would have
to give them something special, such as interviews, docu-
mentary footage, opera libretti in three languages. The labor
that goes into that is expensive. We’ve earmarked some
items as good candidates. We could just take the four or five
best-selling operas or videos, do a master transfer, and rush
them out to take advantage of the fall buying season. But if
we want to be able to market them properly, we have to give
the consumer something different. Just the higher defini-
tion is not enough – and most of them have been on
laserdisc.”
For new programs, Kuehn says, “our strategy is to reserve
DVD to those projects with the biggest commercial potential,
say, an event with a TV broadcast. We’re also doing more new
recordings now with future DVD audio in mind as well. Since
the format standard isn’t completely agreed upon, it’s a little
risky to release it now. Then in ten years, if we want to come
back and exploit the catalog, we won’t have to go back and
remaster.”
The Atlantic Warner classical labels – Teldec, Erato, and
Nonesuch – are also going slowly, according to Arthur Moor-
head, VP, Associated labels. The company is planning two or
possibly three titles for the fall. One will definitely be the
exotic Matthew Bourne Swan Lake – that’s the one with male
swans. Two documentaries Richter: The Enigma (about Svi-
atoslav Richter, the late Soviet pianist; review,The Absolute
Sound, Issue 115, page 144) and The Art of Singing(in which
households names in opera talk about vocal technnique and
performance) are also under consideration. “We’re still con-
quering technology issues,” Moorhead says. “Most of our
repertoire is from Europe, and it’s expensive to remaster it to
the US/Japanese standard. If these do well, we’ll do more. We
have a great video catalog.”
It doesn’t look as though Atlantic is going to be rushing to
market with classical concert videos, however. “It’s the age-
old conflict. Things intended for the stage, like theater, ballet,
and opera, are immediately interesting from a marketing
standpoint. Videos of people performing sonatas – that’s for a
special kind of consumer. It’s a struggle we had with VHS and
laserdisc, and it won’t change.”
Small, independent video labels are being careful, too. VAI
(Video Artists International) which has a large library of his-
torical classical video, is not even entering the market yet.
“The compressing and authoring costs to create a DVD are
not justifiable for our type of product,” says Ed Cardona, the
company’s general manager. “As with CD, the pricing will
have to come down to where it becomes reasonable, and we
can generate a profit after conversion. But now, with the num-
ber of units we typically move on a historical classical release,
which can be a few thousand to perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 over
the life of the program, it’s too high a number. We didn’t do
laserdisc for the same reason, and now we’re glad we didn’t
spend the money on it. It’s better to allow the majors and
mass-market merchandisers to set the format definitively.
Once it’s being done on a mass-market basis to a high degree,
that usually drives prices down low enough so that it becomes
reasonable to invest.”
K u l t u r, a New Jersey-based producer of opera and other
classical videos with 1,200 performing arts titles now on the
market, thinks differently. Dennis Hedlund, chairman of the
c o m p a n y, reports, “We’ve been watching for two years, and
we’ve decided to go ahead this fall with 20 DVD titles,” he
says. Initial titles will focus on star names, such as Barysh-
n i k o v, Nureyev, Callas, Domingo, Pavarotti, and Leonard
Bernstein. “The profit margins have eroded even before we
got started, with some companies putting out product at
$14.95 and $19.95,” he says. “Our minimum price will have
to be $24.95 or $34.95, depending on if it’s one disc or two.
But we survived Beta and laserdisc. And because of the
compatibility with the computer, DVD is the future of the
world. I see Best Buy going to 50 percent DVD, 50 percent
VHS – the handwriting is on the wall. And since some cus-
tomers already have our whole collection, we’re honor
bound to make the product different, with additional
footage, bios, possibly adding an additional language. Some
titles we’re now acquiring might go straight to DVD – per-
haps some of our visual art titles, which have more applica-
tion for the search-and-find capability. We’ll see what hap-
pens to the first titles between now and the end of the year. ”
By that time, some of the fence-sitters may have decided
that the whole medium is too much fun to miss. For
starters, how about the outrageous Peter Sellars produc-
tions of Mozart operas (in unlikely modern settings) with
the addition of commentary from the director, as has been
done for films? Maybe then we’ll know what he was really
thinking.
Heidi Waleson writes about opera for The Wall Street Jour-
nal, and used to be a classical music columnist for Billboard.
Puccini: Turandot (at the Forbidden City of Beijing). RCA
Victor Red Seal 74321-60917-2.
’m inclined to be kind to the lavish RCA Turandot, and not
just because – as I sample a smorgasbord of available big-
name classical DVDs, in this and a succeeding review – it’s
the only one seriously crafted for the medium. In fact, let’s give
it full credit. It’s the first major-label classical video planned
from the start as a DVD release, which means it’s full of DVD
candy: angles, audio, and subtitles in six languages, plus a
“making of” movie. No surround sound, but that, if you ask me,
means that RCA is being honest. There wasn’t surround sound
in the original, so they’re not going to fake it for DVD.
Still, none of this guarantees a worthwhile product. Some-
body, after all, had to be the first to release a serious classical
DVD, and now that it’s here, the most important question has
to be, “How good is it?” And here, I admit, I was skeptical.
Turandot is one of those operas for huge voices, like Verdi’s
Aïda, that don’t fare well in the current operatic climate.
What we handle easily these days are ensemble operas,
operas that require intelligent, educated singers who con-
tribute small fragments to a mosaic. But we struggle with
works that fail unless the cast (educated, thoughtful or not,
who cares?) floors its collective accelerator, vocally speaking,
and sings with the force of a top-of-the-line Corvette in heat. I
wrote about a cast like that in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino in
the first issue of this restored magazine. But that performance
was filmed in 1957. Now it’s 1999, and the Beijing Turandot
doesn’t even feature the modern world’s most famous opera
stars. God, was I skeptical.
And my first look at the thing only fueled my doubts. I gave
myself a taste of the beginning, letting the opera play for 15
minutes or so. It’s a beautiful, distinctive, unusually artistic pro-
duction (no surprise, considering it’s directed by Zhang Yi m o u ,
C h i n a ’s leading film director, auteur of The Story of Qiu Ju, To
Live, and Shanghai Tr i a d),but what was clear from the start
was that the most telling artistry comes from the staging, along
with costumes and Chinese dancers, all of which make a com-
pelling, even thoughtful frame for the opera, but don’t deliver
the heart of the performance. The singers
seemed blah; careful, reasonably sonorous,
but not possessed. At times I wouldn’t have sworn that they
even cared much about their work.
The hero of the opera, Calaf, an impetuous wandering
prince (with, ideally, a heroic tenor voice), has just encoun-
tered his blind exiled father, Ti m u r, on a crowded street in the
Forbidden City of Beijing (Turandot, of course, is an Italian set-
ting of a Chinese story, and the shtick of this production is that
i t ’s staged more or less exactly where the story is supposed to
take place). Ti m u r, blind and helpless, has been rescued and all
but adopted by Liú, one of those old-fashioned opera charac-
ters with a personality profile that can make a modern person
shiver with dismay; she’s a slave girl of unbounded, abject loy-
a l t y. Upon hearing all this, Calaf, the prince, is seized with grat-
itude, and tells Liú she’s blessed. But on screen, unfortunately,
we see not a real prince, or even a reasonable simulacrum, but
instead a boyish Russian tenor named Sergej (on the DVD box)
or Sergeij (on the DVD itself) Larin, and none of his fairytale
get-up (not even his long black barbarian’s ponytail) could stop
me from noticing that he sang his line with all the enthusiasm
of a man saying, “Yes, thanks for helping my dad, but now I’ve
got to watch the stock market report.”
Taking advantage of DVD technology, I
paged quickly forward to the opera’s most
Made for DVD
. . . . . . . . .
I
The first release of a serious
classical DVD, and the most
important question has to be:
“How good is it?”
G R E G S A N D O W
Zhang Yi m o u
dramatic confrontation, in the second scene of Act Two.
Princess Turandot of China suffers from an icy heart, and a
jones toward men. Any male of royal blood may woo her, but
must answer three riddles. If his answers are correct, she
marries him; if they’re wrong, you guessed it: He dies. Every
prince who’s tried up to now has contributed his severed head
to Turandot’s collection; the Chinese nation, ruled by an
ancient, weary emperor, is caught up in the drama, with peo-
ple either turning cynical, or lusting for more blood.
Calaf, it won’t surprise any reader to learn, is the prince
who answers the riddles and melts Tu r a n d o t ’s heart. But first
she must defy him, explaining with frigid passion that the
whole scheme is designed to avenge a female ancestor who’d
been horribly violated, and then flinging a threat at the prince,
the kind of utterance that only makes sense in the unreal world
of fantasy (or opera): “The riddles are three, but death is one!”
She sings this, of course, in a phrase that rises to a high
note. “The riddles are three,” replies our game hero, taking the
musical arc even higher, “but life is one!” And then both of
them hurl their lines at each other, both singing at once, tak-
ing the music to the highest note yet. I would have thought
nobody, not even Richard Nixon, could have sung that music
without shameless excitement, if only because the high notes
won’t come out without some physical oomph behind them,
and because exuberance would be anyone’s natural reaction
after surging through them successfully. Like many other
great operatic moments, this one isn’t just music and drama,
but also an athletic feat.
So what happened in the Forbidden City? The Tu r a n d o t ,
soprano Giovanna Casolla, has a voice a size or two too small
for her forbidding role, so she has to work a bit too noticeably
to project her formidable music. I’ve already noted Mr. Larin’s
lack of conviction, though I later found that I’d been unfair to
him. He can sing passionately, but he doesn’t get involved with
anyone else on stage. His best moments are those that are his
alone, especially his famous aria, “Nessun dorma,” at the start
of Act Three. His worst are those that absolutely
demand interaction, like his blessing of poor Liú
(will anyone, by the way, be surprised to learn
that, in the end, she sacrifices her life to save
Calaf?), and his defiance of Turandot. So when
the moment for the highest high note comes, here’s what we
see. Both singers take a careful breath; then, with equal care,
they sing their lines. No drama, no music, no atheleticism; just
abstract performance, as if the two had been bred in a tank of
nutrients and trained to accomplish this task, with no idea that
anything raw and human was involved.
The Liú, soprano Barbara Frittoli, was miles better, a singer
fully equal to the human, vocal, and musical challenge of her
role, the one member of this cast who wouldn’t have been out
of place in the long-gone golden age (though, to be honest,
those years were only golden when the good singers sang; there
were more bad ones than there are now, and when they got on
stage, you’d want to run for the hills). But in the first act, at
least, Frittoli seemed to publish her music, rather than sing it.
It seemed far too premeditated. “Yes, this is how I sing Liú,” she
might have advertised. “I always do it just like this.” Perhaps
she wasn’t helped by the traditional Beijing Opera poses direc-
tor Zhang Yimou prescribed for her, a tricky hurdle for opera
singers, and maybe Zhang’s only miscalculation; she executed
them well enough, but not with any spontaneity.
When I sat down to watch the whole thing through, then,
I wasn’t surprised that the first two acts were a chore, vocal-
ly. Casolla has a notable wobble in her voice, and, maybe
worst of all, looks matronly. Here, of course, we’re on tricky
territory, because this is opera. If you’re casting the role of a
drop-dead gorgeous princess in a movie, you start by elimi-
nating everyone who doesn’t look right. In an opera, you elim-
inate everyone who doesn’t sound right, which means the
looks are secondary.1Still, a matronly Turandot is a big prob-
lem, at least in close-ups. Why, after all, does Calaf take up her
challenge, risking his life and allowing the sacrifice of hapless
Liú? This really is a question we shouldn’t ask too strongly,
because the odds are that Puccini himself didn’t know. The
way I’ve spun the story – China, a kingdom in distress, itself
needing liberation from Turandot – is only hinted at in the
opera, carelessly, so we can’t really say that Calaf wants to
free the Chinese people. Instead, he seems besotted by Turan-
1 In fact, to digress briefly, it’s even worse than that. For some very diffi-
cult roles, the bottom line is to find someone who doesn’t sound absolutely
horrible; the parts are so hard to cast, in other words, that sounding good
might not even be a requirement. For what’s arguably the hardest opera
role of all, Siegfried in Wagner’s Ring, opera companies will even settle for
the lowest standard of all – someone who can hack his way through the
music without breaking down, even if he sounds raw and ugly.
dot’s looks. Maybe, on a deeper level, he senses
her own need to shed her obsession, but all we
hear from him is that she’s beautiful. Maybe in
the 1920s, when Puccini composed the piece, a
preoccupation like that made more sense, but
now it sounds silly. “Jeez, Cal! I know you like bimbos, but
stay away from this one!” Still, this is all we have to go on, and
when the singer in the title role is dowdy, without even the
star-power that can override mere looks, Turandot as drama
falls apart.
What did grip me, though, was the production. I would
have said, up to now, that there’s nothing really Chinese about
Turandot. And why would there be? Yes, Puccini conscien-
tiously used Chinese folk songs in his score, but what did he
really know about China? What did any Westerner, besides a
few scholars and unusually open-minded travelers, really
know? China, in this opera, serves (or so I used to think)
merely as an exotic locale for a pre-Hollywood spectacular,
much as Egypt serves in Verdi’sAïda, or, reaching heights of
grand absurdity, the American frontier, complete with Indi-
ans, did in an earlier Puccini work, La fanciulla del west
(“The Girl of the Golden West”).
But now I’m not so sure. This production, first of all, is
grand enough to suit the opera, whose music – a direct ances-
tor, I’d think, of Hollywood scores for epic films – proclaims
its size, and gilded (if not precisely golden) glitter. Conductor
Zubin Mehta even jokes, in the “making of,” that the opera
tucks into a tiny corner of the staging. Hordes of Chinese
extras come on stage, along with dancers, and the Western
singers in the leading roles are costumed with unheard-of
sumptuousness. Even Liú, who has crossed deserts and
begged for coins in the street, is wearing clothes lavish
enough to bankrupt a small city; her nails flash with mani-
cured splendor. Somehow, instead of making the work seem
silly, all this helps it make sense. “It’s only a fable,” the pro-
duction seems to tell us, with surprising gentleness, consider-
ing its size. Some of the Chinese effects are brilliant, even
touching. In the first scene, there’s a chorus about the rising
moon; onstage we see a corps of Chinese dancers, wearing
long white sculpted robes that shiver in the midnight wind.
Touches like these even give the opera depth it wouldn’t nor-
mally have, perhaps because the visual imagery takes the
grand suggestions in the music to a higher and more truthful
plane. Whether Puccini’s vision was surprisingly Chinese, or
whether Zhang Yimou picked Chinese imagery that would
complement the music, I don’t know. (And don’t look to the
“making of” for him to tell us; nothing there goes even half an
inch below the surface.) But the whole thing adds up to much
more than I would have expected.
And in the third act, even the operatic performance starts
to be good. I’m not quite sure what makes that happen. Zubin
Mehta gets some credit. He’s a conductor somewhat reviled
these days by critics, ever since his hollow tenure in the Eight-
ies with the New York Philharmonic. But there’s no way to
fault him here. His Turandot (he conducts the Maggio Musi-
cale Fiorentino orchestra from Italy) is spacious, lyrical, and
suitably grand. And Barbara Frittoli helps to bring the act to
life. She’s the one principal, remember, who can really sing
her part, and here, given her biggest scene (her sacrifice), she
loses all her caution, and wakes the drama up.
But Sergeij Larin gets a medal, too, for his “Nessun
dorma.” He doesn’t interact much, I’ve said, but here he does
not have to; the aria is sung alone on stage, for what seems to
be his favorite dramatic partner, himself. And his voice rings
out. I have to admit that I’m suspicious of that ringing sound,
because the entire sound of the performance is artificial. It
had to be; the event took place outdoors, in a huge open
space. Obviously, the singers are miked, and the “making of”
shows us exactly how, as well as revealing, for those who
catch a fleeting moment when Larin tests a mike, that his
singing is beefed up with some reverb. “Beefing up” might not
be the intention; the idea might simply be to give the sound
some ambience. But there’s nothing like reverb to make a
rough voice a little smoother, and a small voice a little bigger.
Larin doesn’t have the trumpet sound a Calaf really needs;
worse, when we hear him in a practice studio in the “making
of,” he’s rougher than he sounds in the performance. Give him
the benefit of every doubt; grant that he’s just rehearsing, that
he could have been hoarse, or just generally having a bad day.
But still I think that amplification helped him. Maybe, know-
ing it was there, he sang more lightly than he would have, not
pushing his voice, but letting it blossom naturally. If then he’s
not loud enough, there’s a simple solution: Turn up the vol-
ume, which would have been simplicity itself to do. In the
“making of,” we see a giant mixing console, with separate
channels, clearly marked, for every singer.
And yet in the end, I was moved (even though Puccini died
before finishing the opera, and someone else had to write the
final scene, someone who couldn’t find the right, convincing
sound for Tu r a n d o t ’s crucial transformation). And so, I find I
recommend this DVD – though if you’ve never heard the opera,
you might supplement it with either of two classic audio-only
recordings, the RCA with Jussi Björling as Calaf, or the EMI
with Franco Corelli; both have Birgit Nilsson, spectacularly the
right kind of voice, as Turandot. (Avoid the set with Pavarotti
and Joan Sutherland, spectacularly the wrong sort of voices.
Pavarotti sings “Nessun dorma” nicely, but he’s far too light and
lyrical for this heroic role; don’t be fooled.)
About the goodies: I’ve already said the “making of” won’t
tell you anything deep; I trust you’re not surprised. The syn-
opsis, read out loud against snapshots from the performance,
is pompous in English, much more friendly in the other lan-
guages; it’s adequate, and not a word too long. There’s a PCM
audio-only track, again with snapshots, if you want that. What
the package badly needs, but doesn’t have, is a complete
libretto of the opera, on screen or in a booklet, so listeners
can prep themselves and then watch without subtitles. The
whole package needed much more careful editing. I’ve men-
tioned the two spellings of the tenor’s name, but there are
odd, no doubt accidental omissions. We’re correctly told, for
instance, that Zhang Yimou is a distinguished film director,
but we don’t learn the names of any of his films.
The box contains a booklet, with the kind of random
scholarly essay on the opera’s origins that might be found
with any new recording. We didn’t need that; we needed what
I said was missing from the “making of,” some comment from
Zhang or from a Chinese scholar on how Chinese the opera
seems, how it feels to be a Chinese person working with it.
The musical performance, with its strengths and obvious
weaknesses, is what it is. But if someone had worked one-
fourth as carefully on the DVD package as Zhang (and his
choreographer and costumer) worked on the staging, this first
big-time classical DVD – welcome as it is in many ways –
could have been better.
Verdi: Attila (La Scala production), Image Entertain-
ment ID4360PUDVD.
Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur (La Scala production), Image
Entertainment ID4362PUDVD.
Dvorák: Symphony No. 9, “From the New World” (Her-
bert von Karajan conducting), Sony Classical SVD 48421.
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Herbert von Karajan con-
ducting), Sony Classical SVD 46380.
New Year’s Concert, Vienna1987 (Herbert von Karajan
conducting), Sony Classical SVD 45985.
erewith the rest of my classical DVD smorgasbord –
the appetizers, if you like, the desserts, the smaller
items (compared to the oversized Beijing
Turandot), all involving big classical-
music names, but chosen with no
attempt to be complete or comprehen-
sive. Consider them a sampler, a taste of
what’s available.
I’ll examine them under two headings
– as DVDs (looking at the DVD-ness of the
products, how well they use the DVD for-
mat, its resources, and its interface) and as
performances.
DVD-ness:
How well do these items use the DVD
format? The overall answer: Not very well.
Neither the Karajan nor the Scala series offers
a 16.9 image, for instance. (Both series include more
releases, the Scala many more.) The Scala DVDs
offer nothing but an opera performance; no com-
mentary, no plot synopsis (well, there’s one on the
box the disc comes in), nothing. There’s no libretto,
either, as there isn’t for the BMG Turandot, so you
can’t take your time to prep yourself, and then
watch the opera without subtitles. But wait – you
can’t turn the subtitles off, so that isn’t an option
anyway. Nor can you get them in any language but
English.
The chapter menu shows itself with a touch
of operatic cuteness; a red curtain parts, to the
sound of applause. How quickly will you get sick of that? At
least the selection bar, which shows you which scene you’ll
chose by hitting “select,” is elegant, an image of one line of a
musical manuscript. But now we come to
something really weird. For Verdi’s Attila
(yes, Verdi really wrote an opera about the rampaging Hun;
more on that below), the chapters don’t correspond with the
start of scenes. Just imagine a CD that worked this way. The
soprano (a warrior woman Attila admires) finishes her aria,
and goes offstage. Now the baritone arrives; he’s an ambas-
sador from imperial Rome, and he’s here for formal colloqui-
es with Attila, the bass.
But the new CD track wouldn’t begin with his entrance. No,
it starts only when the baritone and bass begin the melodic part
of their duet! If you want to hear their recitative, or in other
words if you want to start the scene from the baritone’s
entrance, its natural beginning, you’re out of luck. Nobody
would accept that on CD, but that’s how this DVD is planned.
The chapters take you from one musical highlight to another;
they don’t let you page through the opera scene by scene. If you
want the baritone’s entrance, you have to find the soprano’s
aria and fast forward, or find the Attila/ambassador duet, and
hit rewind. This frustrated me to no end; there are parts of
the opera that are quite literally inaccessible, unless you
scan forward or back from one of the official landmarks.
Adriana Lecouvreur works better, but has yet anoth-
er oddity. Each act begins with the white-haired con-
d u c t o r, Gianandrea Gavazenni, whom the audience
adores, entering the orchestra pit. If you don’t want to
see that, you’re in luck, because the chapter on the
DVD begins a moment later, when the music starts.
But we hear the music too abruptly; the chapter all
but coincides with the first note, which, no matter
how many times I tried to get used to it, came as an
uneasy shock. I make my own CDs at home, and I’ve
learned to leave a breath between the start of each
new track and the beginning of the music.
For exactly the same reasons, I wished that
I could start each act with Gavazenni, but I
couldn’t.
The Karajan discs are a little more elab-
orate. They offer program notes and bios.
But what the point is, I’m not quite sure,
because these are simple, undecorated
texts, which to me at least would be much
easier to read in a booklet than on my TV
screen. (The program note for The Four Sea -
sons, I might add, amounts to little more than
just another biography of Karajan, with
almost nothing about the work or the soloist.
But that’s a separate complaint.) Each time
you want to read them, by the way, you have to choose your
language, English, Deutsch, or Français. This gets annoying,
and while it’s a separate software issue
(there isn’t any DVD standard for choos-
A (Classical) DVD Sampler
. . . . . . . . .
G R E G S A N D O W
ˇ
ing the language of written text), it seems to vio-
late the spirit of the DVD interface to provide no
way to pick a language once, and stick with it.
The Karajan discs also let you choose sur-
round or standard audio. But I’m not impressed
with the sound either way, or with the sound of the Scala
discs, which also offer 5.1 surround, but (and this applies to
Karajan, as well), not convincingly. Yes, it surrounded me, and
provided a momentary high. (“Look, ma! More sound!”) But
the effect wasn’t in the least realistic. We know that it was
faked, not to mince words, in the Karajan releases (see Heidi
Waleson’s piece, in this issue, for Sony Music’s acknowledge-
ment of that), and when I listened, I found I’d choose the
merely “stereo” option to get something even vaguely like the
real spatial layout of an orchestra. The Scala discs – like the
Karajan, transfers from VHS – also have an engineered sur-
round effect, and with no way to turn it off, I had to mute the
rear speakers before I could hear where the singers were on
stage. The surround sound, on both series, was richer, more
full of pomp and circumstance, but much less lifelike.
The Performances:
Not, though, that we’re talking about sound that’s all that
lifelike in the first place. The two Scala discs, especially Adri -
ana (which has refreshing clarity),aren’t all that bad, but the
Karajans are awful. Or let me qualify that. The Karajans, I’m
sure, sound just the way the great conductor wanted them to.
At this late stage of his career, he favored a rich, undifferenti-
ated, beefy orchestral sound, and clearly reveled in every arti-
ficial way to make it even more that way on his recordings.
There’s certainly something impressive about the result, but
not in any way that reminds me of real music. There are won-
derful, pop-production sonic moments, one involving a bass
drum on the Vienna disc that made me feel that I’d descended
to the roots of all the earth. But a bass drum would never
sound that shivery and intimate in a live concert. If you have
any taste for live orchestral music, the sound of these DVDs
will be, at best, severely puzzling.
I might say as much for Karajan’s performances. By one
standard, they’re wonderful. On the Vivaldi disc, he leads the
Berlin Philharmonic; on the others, it’s the Vienna orchestra.
Both orchestras reach the highest levels of achievement, or at
least they do if all you care about is pure technique; their
sound, in a detached, not quite human way, is ravishing. The
performances, for that matter, do everything performances of
these pieces are supposed to do, except maybe touch the
heart. There’s something contrived, almost undifferentiated
about them, as if Karajan looked at all music as some kind of
abstract challenge, and even if he didn’t sacrifice the most
basic musical values, worked to make them sound like him,
not like Dvorák or Vivaldi.
In one way, the Dvorák is the best of the three, because
the music ends up speaking for itself, once you get used to
Karajan’s trademark sheen. There aren’t issues of Baroque
style (which might stop a purist from enjoying the Vivaldi), or
Viennese frivolity. But then, from another point of view, the
New Year’s Concert is the best, because it raises no deep
musical issues, and the sheer virtuosity of the orchestral play-
ing can stand on its own. I’d rank it lowest, though, because
this virtuosity seems almost unhinged, torn away from any
real contact with human life.
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ˇˇ
Paging through the chapters is an eerie experience. At the
start of each one, there’s Karajan on screen, his face
inscrutable, a mask of – what? He projects, at best, a statue-
like institutional persona, “Herr Music Director of All
Europe,” as he used to be sarcastically called, in charge not of
music, necessarily, but of musical institutions. Flip from one
chapter to the next, and he looks the same. No New Year’s
froth for him; whatever’s at stake here, it seems deadly seri-
ous, and I’m not the only one to find this unsettling. Two
friends, both seasoned musical professionals, found it
strange, as well, and one of them even told me that Karajan –
his unmoving, not quite human face – disturbed her children.
The operas are happier experiences. Verdi’sAttila is far
from his greatest work; it was the product of a rushed time
when he was building his career, a period he later called his
“years in the galleys.” There are moments when you know his
heart isn’t quite in the music that he’s writing, maybe because
at times he was too rushed to write music that he really liked.
When I’ve seen it on stage, the
work comes off like an animated
poster, broad and bold but never
subtle, though it has wonderful
moments, like most of the last act,
where there’s a tenor aria that
ranks with Verdi’s best, and a trio
that’s simply ravishing.
This performance is broad and
bold, but never quite involving. For a start, I’d blame Samuel
R a m e y, the Attila, and the reason for many of the opera’s more
recent revivals; not many works provide such a juicy title role
for a bass, and Ramey’s huge and oaken voice is perfect for it.
(So is his bare chest, as almost any woman who saw him in the
part will tell you.) His problem is that he doesn’t give us any
notion of the person behind the music. Attila, as a dramatic
c h a r a c t e r, doesn’t go very deep, but he’s more than a cartoon,
depicted, in fact, as the only honest human being on stage, the
only one who isn’t plotting against anybody, the only one who
rejects cowardice and rewards courage, whether shown by
friend or enemy. Ramey can’t show us any of that, and plays
the role mostly as a force of nature, powerful but blank.
Cheryl Studer, as the Italian warrior woman Attila falls heav-
ily for (and who ultimately kills him) is another strong-voiced
blank, completely unable to convey either her character’s
strength, her anger, her conflict, or her swirling, lost love for the
t e n o r, to say nothing of all of these together. The tenor, Kaludi
K a l u d o v, is far better, a manly persona with a ringing sound (it
helps, too, that he gets much of Ve r d i ’s best music); his only
problem, as video so mercilessly shows us, is that he looks Slav-
ic, hardly his fault, since he’s Bulgarian. But he’s supposed to be
Italian, and, unfortunately for him and us, this matters here,
because the most convincing of the principals, baritone Giorgio
Zancanaro, looks, with his fine, chiseled Italian face, exactly like
what he’s supposed to be, an ambassador from Rome. “Bring the
Roman envoy to me,” Ramey sings to a servant, and when Zan-
canaro comes on stage, reality, for one brief moment, settles
into place, because a Roman is precisely what Zancanaro looks
like. Nor is his solid baritone voice a disappointment. This is the
one moment of dramatic truth in this performance; everything
else, even Riccardo Muti’s conducting – strong but blank, like
his two leading singers – falls short by comparison.
Adriana is another kind of stew. Cilea was a minor com-
poser of Puccini’s era, the early Twentieth Century, with a gift
for heart-stopping moments. There are a few of
these in this opera, most of them familiar
excerpts, like the soprano’s two arias, “Io son l’u-
mile ancella” and “Poveri fiori,” or the tenor’s
two. Everything else is empty boilerplate, and
one principal character, the vengeful mezzo-soprano princess,
has no real musical existence at all. The plot of the opera posi-
tively creaks, and should have been turned into a French farce.
The Princess, at one crucial point, is hidden in a back room, not
knowing that everybody knows she’s there; it’s meanwhile
essential that everyone onstage should have a different notion
of who she is. One intelligent question from anybody, and the
whole tired house of cards would collapse.
So why perform this nonsense? Because it gives a soprano
diva a commanding role, and this rendition features two divas
at once, Mirelli Freni in the title part, and Fiorenza Cossotto as
the Princess. And they’re not just divas; they’re aging divas,
whose combined experience and charisma gives the perfor-
mance a kind of stature, much loved
in opera, that lies halfway between
star appeal and utter camp. There
are some problems, though. One of
them is Cossotto’s character, an
older woman who, if she can’t have
the younger man she loves, would
launch nuclear missiles, if only
they’d been invented, to destroy the
world. This all is so absurd that, as I watched Cossotto, I almost
had to look at the calendar to make sure it wasn’t Halloween.
Another problem is Freni’s voice, originally a lyric soprano,
and too light for this role, even though it’s been strengthened by
age and artifice; it still negotiates (rather than simply conquer-
ing) music that’s too low for it. And the final problem, I’m
afraid, is Freni’s age. I can enjoy a battle of the matron-divas,
but the whole point of the confrontation in this story is that
F r e n i ’s character is young and beautiful, and therefore gets the
guy Cossotto can’t keep. We even hear about her age right near
the start, when a devoted older man falls in love with her.
Worse yet, Freni’s one moment of real dramatic truth is only
bearable if she’s young. Her character is supposed to be a
famous actress, and when she first comes on stage, she’s wor-
ried about a passage in a role she’s about to play. “I’m just a
humble handmaiden of art,” she tells us, and those sentiments
from the lips of an older woman would be disastrously self-
involved, too disingenuous to take seriously, even for a
moment. From a woman of about 22, they’ll pass, but Freni has
not seen 22 for quite a while.
Beyond this, there’s not much to say. The tenor, Peter
D v o r s k y, playing a character whose irresistible manly charms
provoke everything, sensible or silly, in the story, sings in a
manly fashion, while looking like a stable, proper bourgeois.
The many minor characters are fine, except the scheming little
Abbott, tenor Ernesto Gavazzi, who has a sharp, clear voice,
but mugs relentlessly, underlining every utterance with a sim-
per or a pose. I wanted to swat him like a fly. I can’t finish,
though, without a cheer for Maestro Gavazenni, whose alert,
rapt, and passionate conducting deserves every drop of the
a u d i e n c e ’s adulation. Gavazenni was music director of La Scala
in a bygone era; Riccardo Muti, who conducts the Attila, i s
music director now. The difference between them – one man’s
art has character, the other is a flashy empty suit – tells a sad
story about what’s become of opera in our modern age.
DVD-ness:
How well do these items
use the DVD format?
Performances:
A question of another hue.
Surrounded!
Roger Reynolds: Watershed (Mode 70, DVD)
. . . . . . . . .
Jargon
ere we have a first that needs
attention – “the first music DVD
[the package says] designed to
totally utilize the medium’s full 5-channel
capability.”
I just wish it were better, and less pre-
tentious. The composer, Roger Reynolds,
is (as he probably won’t forgive me for
saying) one of the earnest, gray mod-
ernists of a past generation, a specialist in electronic music
who teaches at the University of California in San Diego.
One problem with modernist composers is (I’m tempted to
say “was,” but they’re still with us, even if their influence
has waned) that they over-intellectualize. They tend to over-
value things in music that can objectively be analyzed, and
then they turn around and insist that
everything in music can or should be ana-
lyzable. One mistake they make is to
think that music is a language – not
metaphorically (as when someone tells
us “music is the universal language”), but
literally. They think musical sounds are
or should be connected by grammatical
rules, like words in a sentence. That’s an
academic preoccupation, if anything is.
On this DVD are extensive conversa-
tions with Reynolds, with Steven Schick, a
percussionist who plays the longest piece on the disc, and
with Peter Otto, a computer sound specialist who’s responsi-
ble for (jargon alert) the “spatialization” of sounds in one of
Reynolds’ works. Now, we could argue over whether there’s
too much conversation, and whether it ought to be sand-
wiched around the actual compositions, as it is on the DVD,
or placed in its separate section, for
GREG SANDOW
Experiment in a New Medium
Because I’ve been exposed to far too much featureless mod -
ernistic music, and might be jaded coming anywhere near
what looked to be new example of it, I thought I’d ask Barry
Rawlinson to listen to this, too. A non-professional ear’s
reaction would be worthwhile, I thought, especially since
music like this shouldn’t just appeal to specialists. Maybe
Barry would hear something in it that I didn’t. We heard and
watched the DVD together, both of us for the first time. We
d i d n ’t discuss our reactions. Here are his, refreshingly more
evocative than mine. GS
first played Watershed IV, in which the listener is placed at
the center of a circle of percussion instruments. I found
the “Raindrops” section a particularly engrossing piece as
the surrounding forest of percussion is chaotically stimulated
to reveal an imaginary landscape radiating outward into far
darkness. I soon discovered that a mild elevation of rear- c h a n-
nel levels centered this sonic landscape
in my room, at which point I ignored
the visual image in favor of the hemisphere of sound projected
far beyond the walls, stretching into the distance all around –
full immersion. The larger drums seem to ripple the floor as
percussive wave fronts pass, smaller
sources hang in space around you,
B A R R Y R A W L I N S O N
I
The performance you experience
will be defined by which sounds
you choose to listen to, and your
choice can vary from moment to
moment, implying that you can
never experience the same
performance twice…
attention only if you care to give it some. I admit I’m skepti-
cal about the need for so much commentary. Shouldn’t the
music speak for itself? But then maybe the techniques really
are so new that we all need orientation.
Still, I knew we were in trouble when Reynolds tells us,
with all the emotion of a librarian reading the phone book,
that “meaning” will “arise” in his music from his “syntacti-
cal” use of space. There it is, that old fallacy of music as a
language, with not just grammar, but syntax (a collection of
rules that can turn languages into well-developed logical
systems). Reynolds’ statement – I’m not going to be shy
here – is utter, total bilge. For one
thing, notice that we don’t talk
about painting as a language. We
don’t look for “syntactical” rela-
tions between green and orange
splotches in Jackson Pollock, or
between the breasts of dancing
women in Matisse.
In music, talk like this arises
only because (and forgive me for
getting technical) harmony –
chords and chord progressions –
can be talked about as if it fol-
lowed rules. From a music theorist’s point of view, what I’ve
just written is a laughably simplistic statement, but these
theorists, if they have even the lightest mist of compassion
in their blood, will forgive me for sparing you the full com-
plexities of their theories. What readers should understand,
though, is that Reynolds is way too impressed with the
mathematical explorations of music common among acade-
mic modernists, and has forgotten something very basic.
Yes, theorists can find all sorts of relationships among
chords, but any attempt to find something similar in other
areas of music – rhythm, loudness, and tone color, for
instance – has essentially been laughed away with the acad-
emic equivalent of a Bronx cheer.
So when Reynolds says he can create “syntactical” rela-
tionships from the spatial placement of sound, he’s whistling
in the dark. All he means is that he can create patterns of a
reasonably elementary sort – you know, like saying, “Hey,
w o w, Kenny dies in every South Park episode.” Anyone can
understand that this might give the show some continuity;
nobody claims it’s any kind of South Park syntax.
To me, the comments by Reynolds and his colleagues
are badly sunk in jargon. “Instantiation” (meaning the way a
sound begins), and “sense modalities” (meaning ways that
we perceive things) are two examples. When Schick, the
sober, well-meaning (and certainly skilled and sensitive)
percussionist referred to his “practicioning,” I was ready to
throw the DVD out the window. “In the course of my prac-
ticioning,” he said, “I’ve found…”
(or words to that effect). What he
means is not much more than
“When I play my percussion gigs,”
or, to stretch things as far as pos-
sible in his favor, maybe “When I
play a wide variety of percussion
gigs.” The benefit of all this jargon
is all too clear. It serves, con-
sciously or not, to inflate the
importance of Reynolds’ music.
And by distancing the conversa-
tion from everyday life (and, in
fact, from any kind of human emotion), it enables all con-
cerned to sidestep what seems quite plain to me, the unre-
markable mediocrity of Reynolds’ work.
There are four works on this DVD. The first, Eclipse, a
1980 piece for computer-generated sound, originally “spa-
tialized” on seven channels, is a collaboration with video
artist Ed Emshwiller, and it’s his contribution that makes
the time spent watching it worthwhile. Reynolds, ever the
conscientious modernist, evades direct comprehension of
his meaning by swirling shards of poetry around us in sur-
round-sound space. His processing of human voices leads
to wonderful moments, especially when the voices blend
together in an unexpected chord. But these are only
moments. To me, at least, the whole thing feels old-fash-
ioned, stiff, and, to use the word again, too conscientious.
Emshwiller, meanwhile, unfolds images that range from
The first music DVD with
full 5-channel capability:
The composer is a special-
ist in electronic music. A
pairing made in a
virtual heaven, or…?
gongs and cymbals shimmer from the depths beyond.
Within the piece E c l i p s e is a poem comprised of multiple voices that move in time and space to form shifting patterns of
c o m p r e h e n s i o n :
Female voice :Male voice:
On the night of the quiet moon Her luminary reflection
He would be awakened Her constancy under all her phases
By the fleeting train music Rising and setting by her appointed times
Of thunder dawns Waxing and waning
That brought on ruinous floods Her power to enamour
And left a desolation of tattered gowns To mortify
Of dead brides To invest with beauty
On the branches of the almond trees To render insane
Of the quiet moon The tranquillity
(repeats) Of her visage
(repeats) Her omens of tempest
At the former Dutch lunatic asylum! And of calm
Male voice :The admonition of her craters,
her arid Seas, her silence silence
silence
silence
Silence!
wandering, questing wiggles to a pulsing, stylized sun, all
choreographed to the music, but far more gripping. (Imag-
ine a dance with choreography more interesting than the
musical score.)
The largest, longest work we’re given is a 1996 compo-
sition with the name Watershed IV, and it’s a tour de force
for Schick’s percussion. He stands in the middle of a circle
of percussion gear, some familiar, some not, and at first I
hoped the surround sound would simply let us hear what he
hears, which would have been especially appropriate since
the conversation about the lengthy piece stressed its struc-
tural use of percussion sounds, drum sounds in one place,
maybe, succeeded by metallic effects.
What we get, however, is Peter Otto’s “spatialization,” or
in other words his processing of the sound to shift it around
in space, and sometimes in time as
well, to make the spatial effects
more noticeable. To put it different-
l y, he’s now applying his own kind of
c h o r e o g r a p h y, in this case a useful
m e t a p h o r, because he makes the
sounds move around in what might be some faint reminis-
cence of what dancers do. The only problem is that the piece
itself is unremarkable and in fact close to stultifying.
One obvious difficulty is its lack of any real rhythm,
astonishing in a work for percussion alone, and even more
so in a work this long. Why there’s no rhythm is suggested
by an excerpt from Reynolds’ written score, reprinted in the
DVD’s long, detailed (too detailed?) booklet. In what we’re
shown there, the percussionist is asked to play freely with-
in given spans of time, sometimes faster, sometimes slower,
but in rhythms he himself creates. In practice, these, to
judge from what we hear, tend to be remarkably uneventful,
essentially patterns of even notes. That creates a lulling
effect, not conducive to sustained listening. I could also say
that, while Otto is allegedly creating syntax by moving
sound in space, the most elementary kinds of rhythmic syn-
tax are completely missing. Odd. I couldn’t stay with Water -
shed at all. (Those with computer DVD-ROM drives can
check my theory; one added feature of this DVD is that they
can print out large sections of the Watershed score.)
The other items aren’t as striking, and to judge from the
blurbs on the back of the DVD package, which don’t men-
tion them, are essentially there to fill out the disc. First we
get an excerpt from The Red Act Arias, commissioned by
the BBC and premiered in 1997. The piece was originally for
live performers and 8-channel tape; we get just a little of the
tape segment, mixed down to five channels. I liked it,
maybe because it was short enough to be enjoyable just as
sound, without wearing out its welcome or making unjusti-
fied artistic claims.
And then came the best item on the DVD, a surprise not
mentioned on the box, in the booklet, or in the spoken com-
mentary. This is called An Odd Dream, and is a two-minute
excerpt from Watershed, with the visuals slowed down and
the sound processed to sound vague
and distant. The track is set to
repeat infinitely, and creates a uni-
verse of its own. I kept waiting for it
to end; I imagined changes that
weren’t really there, like the sound
getting more and more vague. That’s how the piece played
with my expectations. I myself became a participant, and I
think any listener would. Here, for once, we had something
that lived up to the high artistic claims made for Eclipse and
Watershed, something that really did change my percep-
tions.
This, in a word, was art. The rest of the DVD is acade-
mic timidity, though I’ll grant that the spatial journeys of
the sounds were interesting, and that 5.1 surround has
sonic potential that, outside of the obvious movie effects,
has only begun to be tapped. Reynolds, in the end, did me
one favor. He made me want to hear more music that uses
the full 360-degree rotation of real life – as long as we
understand that the spatial placement is just another kind
of color, another kind of narrative effect, similar to orches-
tration (playing music first on a violin, then on a clarinet),
or to the imaginative stereo mixes we already get on some
pop recordings. It’s not a new development in musical lan-
guage.
Shouldn’t the music
speak for itself?
I have transcribed this; it will give you a better idea of the
experience of listening to this piece. Both poems exist inde-
p e n d e n t l y, but taken together they convey a third.
Of course, the performance you experience will be defined
by which sounds you choose to listen to, and of course your
choice can vary from moment to moment, implying that you
subjectively can never experience the same performance twice
– a point that Roger Reynolds later pursues more blatantly in
“An Odd Dream,” which by repeating the same two-minute per-
formance creates a mantra that becomes a meditation and then
the ever-changing concentric reflections within a mandala.
M r. Reynolds is playing games, as he tells us in the accom-
panying interviews, and these are games played with our per-
ceptions of reality as distorted by time and space and the other
tricks in his sorceror’s cabinet.
As his percussionist Steven Schick tells us, at some point,
this stops being music and becomes ritual.
But we know the effect of endless repetition from cen-
turies of experience of ritual, so while the point is valid and
proven by this hidden bonus track, it is hardly novel. What is
novel is the use of new technology to “spatialize” the image,
and here Reynolds is in danger of becoming intoxicated by the
t e c h n o l o g y.
I think the composer has realized that one of the principal
advantages of this format lies in the improved control of the
room acoustic and he has used this to create a compellingly
robust sonic hologram.
This gives rise to a heightened realism that can be both
graphic and unnatural, and is carefully crafted by Reynolds. I
found the subtler, more “realistic” sounds beguiled my ear
more than those deliberately distorted by “spatialization,” and
by manipulations of the dynamic envelope. I should like to
hear this solidity of image achieved with no engineering, other
than the highest quality recording.
H o w e v e r, I think this a worthy experiment in a new medium
with some worthwhile results. And I did particularly savor the
utter tangibility of the imaging, even if each voice pops out of the
background like the illuminated red nose of a clown…
Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare.
Rhino 74469. $19.99 (DVD).
alvador Dali saw his
paintings come alive in it.
Groucho Marx said it was
great vaudeville and the last
chance that burlesque had of
surviving. Disney designed its
costumes. It combined ele-
ments of A Clockwork Orange,
What Ever Happened to Baby
J a n e, D r a c u l a, James Bond,
and Zorro. When it closed, the
likes of Elton John, Michael
Jackson, Kiss, and David
Bowie borrowed its concepts.
No, it is not Cats. It is 1975’s
Welcome to My Nightmare, rock’s very first full-scale theatri-
cal tour, complete with dancing, illusions, movies, melodra-
ma, and monsters.
Conceived by Alice Cooper and record producer Bob
Ezrin, Nightmarewas a huge gamble, costing over $600,000 to
design and hundreds of thousands more to compensate the
tour’s cast and crew. Such amounts may seem small in com-
parison to the mammoth pop productions we’ve witnessed
since then (U2’s four-story high TV screen on their 1997-98
Popmart Tour springs to mind), but conditions were consid-
erably different in 1975. Remind yourself that no rock artist
had ever staged a theatrical tour before. Cooper and Ezrin
paid for the entire venture with money from their own pock-
ets. Nightmare was so bizarre that it had two strikes against
it from the start. There was an enormous risk of failure; if the
tour bombed, Cooper’s career might have been over. Some of
the same uncertainties still exist now, but today Nightmare
would at least be underwritten by corporate sponsors and
Cooper’s record label. And don’t forget that the biggest gam-
ble of all is removed – theatrical rock tours have existed now
for 24 years, a parade that began with Cooper’s original vision.
The performance we see on DVD begins with a film
(another rock concert first) that depicts Cooper waking up
and rising from his bed in a cemetery. Dressed in pajamas, he
plays the role of a little boy who realizes he is interactively
immersed in an unshakable nightmare. From the moment the
concert begins, we experience the dream’s dementia and its
humor via Cooper’s lyrics and encounters, all of which are
scored to music, combining Cooper songs specifically written
for the staged presentation, and older, classic Cooper hits.
To fully appreciate how intense the
film is, consider that all its characters
and creatures – a legion of them – are played by an extremely
talented ensemble of only six people. With no pauses or inter-
missions, the cast is forced to change costumes quickly, cos-
tumes that range from a one-eyed Cyclops ensemble to silver
lamé space suits. The 18-year old woman who dances as a Day-
Glo skeleton, crawls as a Black Widow spider, and awakens as
the necrotic lover “Cold Ethyl,” to name but a few of her roles,
met Cooper during the Nightmare tryouts, dated him during
the tour, and is Cooper’s wife to this day.
Does Nightmare still work now? If we ask whether or not
it is fun to watch, the answer is resoundingly yes. Some of the
props and effects are outdated, but that adds to the charm.
What is most striking, though, is that two of Cooper’s stage
innovations seem as fresh today as they did in 1975: a movie
screen that erupts from the floor, and a giant spider web,
which also rises from the floor and spans the width of the set.
The way Cooper uses the movie screen has never been dupli-
cated. A performance of the song “Escape” begins, and we see
what is presumably a celluloid Cooper
in a cemetery on the screen. Four alien
Pop With a Twist
. . . . . . . . .
BOB GENDRON
creatures surround him, place him in a wooden
coffin, but suddenly, to our surprise, he bursts
out, runs through the screen, and lands on
stage, while the dancing spacemen remain in
the film. Soon, the aliens locate Cooper, and one
by one they smoothly jump from their places on film to the
stage. Before “Escape” concludes, Cooper and his pursuing
predators jump back into the film and onto the stage once
more, and the spacemen seize Cooper on stage. They carry
him off into the screen, where, on film, we see him taken over
the horizon, probably to his death. It is a scene that demands
perfect timing and careful choreography.
The performance on the Welcome to My Nightmare DVD
was filmed at London’s Wembley Arena in 1975. Sadly, even
though the original film was restored and its sound remixed,
the DVD still looks and sounds like a grainy B movie. It lacks
resolution, sharpness, and even cohesive audio. The sound
fades in and out, obnoxiously, as does the loudness of partic-
ular instruments. That Cooper was an alcoholic, and drunk at
Wembley (as he himself has said), doesn’t help either. He spo-
radically undershoots high notes and garbles lyrics, turning in
a below-average vocal performance.
If the quality of DVD is poor, why bother with it? Well, it’s
just too much fun to pass up. And despite its flaws, it comes
with an exclusive and highly informative 25-minute interview
in which Cooper explains his musical influences, supersti-
tions, and film heroes (Bette Davis, James Bond), as well as
the reasons why a male rock singer would invent a character
named Alice Cooper, and play that role onstage. There is
also an alternate version of Nightmare with a running
commentary by Cooper himself; as we watch, it seems
as though Cooper sits beside us while he describes the
film. He even mocks himself at times, saying that if he
could do Nightmare today, alcohol free, his vocals
would be better. Besides, Nightmare is a starting point
for those interested in the development of exotic fanta-
sy at rock concerts. And, I confess, the crude look of the
film gives Nightmare a certain cult-like feel. To put the
options on this DVD in context, I’d watch them in the
following order: The Cooper interview,Nightmare by
itself, and finally the version with Cooper’s commentary.
I can’t resist mentioning The Life and Crimes of
Alice Cooper [75680], Rhino’s new four-CD box set,
which makes a wonderful supplement to the Nightmare DVD.
The CDs arrange Cooper’s 32 years of music in chronological
order. If we listen in sequential fashion, we trace Cooper’s
rise, pinnacle, fall, and slight rebound. Discs one and two,
which span a period of 11 years (from 1966 to 1976), are
essential, and document Cooper’s most creative work.
From 1976 to 1985, Cooper battled drinking, spent time in
treatment, and recorded several forgettable concept albums
with which only he seemed to relate. Having lost most of his
original band to solo careers, Cooper chose to work with ses-
sion players rather than assemble a new group. In what may
have been an effort to lure the public, whose tastes lay with
disco at the time, Cooper embraced a disco-like sound, and
layers of excessive keyboards supersede his usual shrill, edge-
slicing guitars. He also drops his familiar diabolical snarl in
favor of a warm purr, a transformation that strips his music of
its adventurous edge. The team who assembled the box set
seem to recognize this; they included just 12 songs from the
six albums (all of them out of print in the US) that Cooper
released during these years,.
After alienating many of his fans, Cooper enjoyed a come-
back with 1989’s slick, hook-heavy Trash (which profited
from the last stages of the late Eighties hard-rock boom),
before sinking to an all-time low with 1991’s moronic Hey
Stoopid. Once fantastically original, Cooper’s lyrics and music
now became pathetic clichés. Several tracks on his later
albums, including songs from Trash and 1994’sThe Last
Temptation, remarkably reveal Cooper to be a proficient
mainstream pop writer, a facet that, thankfully for his hard-
core fans, didn’t surface in his earlier works. The main reason
you’d buy this box is for the first two CDs and the compre-
hensive booklet inside.
I’m compelled to close with a wonderful quote from an
affectionate essay, specifically written for the box set by none
other than John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols
fame): “There’s originality and then there’s always ten cheap
versions, and it’s a shame that it’s those versions people pay
attention to. They don’t want to find out the history of how
things emerged, and that’s too bad, because without any his-
torical perspective, nothing can make any sense…I love orig-
inality, and there’s nothing like Alice Cooper…before or since,
really. Alice Cooper…whatta man.” Indeed.
Radiohead: Meeting People Is Easy. Grant Gee (director).
Capitol. $19.99 (DVD; VHS).
The title is a sarcastic jab at music
journalists, hangers-on, and over-
zealous fans. The film, subtitled
“A Movie About Radiohead,” is a
chronological documentary that
traces the group’s 1997-98 tour
from its beginning to its conclu-
sion. M e e t i n g does not glorify
Radiohead’s live performances (as
R.E.M.’s Roadshow does) or rock
star lifestyles (like Marilyn Man-
son’s Dead to the World). Nope,
this is exactly the opposite – if
there ever was any true-to-life film
made about the emptiness of
being a successful rock band, this is it.
Meeting is made from what seems to be a callous and
uninviting point of view. After watching it, we sense that
Radiohead was uncomfortable with its new fame after releas-
ing OK Computer, an album that not only won a Best Alter-
native Record Grammy in 1997, but also received critical
acclaim all over the world, landing on nearly every critic’s top
ten list. The film gives us a first-hand look at life through the
band’s eyes. We are placed in hotel rooms where our privacy
is invaded, swept onstage where no matter what we do, the
audience still wants more, and dumped in the band’s
car/bus/train/Lear jet (the film’s point seems to be that, it’s all
the same after a while), where everything is uncontrollably
moving around us. All these frantic experiences, and more,
constantly accompany Radiohead on their tour.
P e r s o n a l l y, I find it difficult to empathize with rock stars,
but M e e t i n g confronts my beliefs that famous rock celebri-
ties are luckier than everyday people. I lost count of the crit-
ics hounding the band, the profusion of printed record
reviews scrolling across the screen,
and the many images of endless pave-
ment, tunnels, and indistinct automo-
bile headlights vaguely glowing from
neon-lit gridlock. Much rock journal-
ism might as well be printed in a
tabloid, because of its sensational pur-
suit of rumor and hype. This film
exposes the soap-opera mentality of
writing like that, with segments in
which sound check footage drowns
out interviews (the music audibly suf-
focates the press to symbolize the
insignificance of the media) and with a
revealing scene where lead singer
Thom Yo r k e ’s reluctant, wiry body
contorts under the onslaught of merci-
less flashing cameras. By the end of
the film, you will ask yourself, “Why?,”
the same question Radiohead probably
ponders as well.
Several scenes demonstrate the
g r o u p ’s occasional lassitude (an
expected side-effect of touring), but
none more so than the bored look on
Yo r k e ’s face when he’s performing
“Creep” in Philadelphia. As the audi-
ence chants the song’s verse, Yo r k e
apathetically stands like a cardboard
cutout, holding his mic towards the
crowd. He finally turns it inward with
apparent disgust, as if he imagines it
to be a painkilling dagger, and telling-
ly slurs the tune’s climactic line,“What
the hell am I doing here?” We can
barely hear Yorke against the din of
the band; all we clearly make out are
cries from the audience, “We love you,
Thom!” Still, compared to the exas-
perating journalists Radiohead
encounters in every town (and who,
among other offenses, ceaselessly fire
redundant questions and arrive at
interviews unprepared), the fans and
their blind lust for the band seem easy
to cope with.
Meeting is Capitol Records’ first
venture into the DVD market, and
s t r a n g e l y, the Radiohead DVD’s cover
art is obtuse, to the point where you
almost can’t see the band’s name. The
DVD has no chapters, which may
annoy those accustomed to selecting
particular slices of the movie for
repeated viewing. But the constant
alternation of black and white with
color footage, and slightly grainy film
with more vibrant stock, combines
with multi-perspective angles (many
shot with a minicam) in creating a
stimulating A/V presentation that
DVD, with its digitally clear resolution
and seamless flow, best
allows. Sonically, the
DVD has 5.1-channel
and AC-3 surround
sound that serves us
well. Since Meeting does not focus on
concert footage, but is instead a col-
lage of events and experiences, it’s
appropriate that the sound wraps us
in a cocoon, and lathers us with ambi-
ent electronic pulses, squealing fans,
and the echoes of interviews. In
scenes where we’re surrounded by the
crowd, the band, and the acoustic ric-
ochet of a concert hall, and simultane-
ously see strobe lights dance off the
band members onstage, the DVD
delivers a menacing, and almost claus-
trophobic, feeling.
Whether or not you like or know
Radiohead’s music is beside the point.
Tour documentaries have existed for
years, but Meeting assails your senses
and then dares you to think. You’ll
come away feeling as if you’ve been
through the grind yourself, and it’s that
realism, however unnerving, that
makes the film worth owning. Consider
it an introduction to media studies:
Meeting demonstrates how the media
manipulates and harasses rock stars in
an effort to glamorize rock stardom for
all it’s ($) worth.
Fugazi: Instrument. Jem Cohen
(director). Dischord 80. $18.00
(VHS only).
Fugazi is difficult to describe – the
band escapes classification. Even when
I state that Fugazi is a band, I fail to
provide the whole picture, because
Fugazi is more than a band; it’s an ideal,
a political concept, a paradox. I’ve had
an easier time explaining The Grateful
Dead’s 30-minute “space jams,” full of
guitar feedback, to people who wanted
to understand what that group was
attempting (if wasn’t just pure obfusca-
tion, which sometimes it was). In
Fugazi we have a band that distributes
its own records, books its own shows,
has never taped a music video, works
exclusively with independent promot-
ers, hawks no merchandise (not even T-
shirts), and charges only $5 for a con-
cert ticket. Think about it. Today, $5
wouldn’t even buy you a Rolling Stones
bumper sticker. Does all this sound like
what some artists are doing on the
Internet? Yes, indeed, but Fugazi was
practicing its independent philosophy before
“Internet” was even part of our vocabulary.
By remaining true to its standards, Fugazi is,
without question, in a league by itself. Champi-
ons of free speech, free thought, the homeless,
minorities, AIDS research, and the elderly, the group rejects
violence, racism, homophobia, war, alcohol, drugs, and slam
dancing. Not only does it charge a mere $5 for its cathartic
live performances, many of which are benefit shows, it man-
aged to price its albums at only $8 until 1997, when for End
Hits it raised the price to $10.
How is all of this possible? It helps that Fugazi’s founder
and leader, Ian MacKaye, also co-founded Dischord Records,
the now legendary Washington, D.C., punk label. MacKaye is
one of the last active members of the original D.C. “strait-
edge” (read: no drugs or alcohol) hardcore scene of the early
Eighties. By setting up networks of fans, print rags, and home-
grown record labels across the country, the D.C. scene thrived
without the help of the record industry. Among the D.C. bands
that took things into their own hands were MacKaye’s Teen
Idles and Minor Threat, both of which expressed their rage
and frustration at the Reagan era through one-minute punk
blasts. In 1987, MacKaye formed Fugazi with cohorts Guy Pic-
ciotto on guitar and vocals, Joe Lally on bass, and Brendan
Canty on drums and bells; MacKaye named the band Fugazi
after coming across the word in a dictionary that defined it as
a messed-up situation in Vietnam. Fugazi has released six full-
length albums, and a few EPs, and now the group has made its
first ever home video, Instrument, which started out as a pri-
vate documentary and evolved, 12 years later, into a visual
history for the public.
The spirit of the film is pure Fugazi. Most of Instrument
was shot using Super 8 and 16mm film (the director’s prefer-
ence), with more recent footage captured on video.
Videophiles may turn their noses up at the hardly high-tech
formats, but expensive professional filming would be out of
place for a band like this; the director notes that the two-hour
Instrument cost less to make than most three-minute videos
on MTV. And just like recent engrossing, low-budget indepen-
dent films (Gods and Monsters, C o o k i e ’s Fortune) that
oppose the omnipresent cross-corporate digital monstrosities
(G o d z i l l a, A r m a g e d d o n ), Instrument is better than the
majority of the “here today, gone tomorrow” videos flooding
the market. Instrument is about a band, its fans, music, and
mission; there’s no place for premeditated hype and sensa-
tionalism.
With scenes shown in non-chronological order,Instru -
ment gives us a seething mix of images. MacKaye erupts into
the microphone like a shark expanding its jaws before it
devours its prey; Picciotto plows his right hand into the gui-
tar’s scuffed body as if he were punching a hole through a
plaster wall; Lally plugs his bass as he staunchly stands like a
marine waiting for his superior officer to inspect him; and
Canty whacks the old-fashioned school bell that shares space
with the cymbals on his drum set, as if he were speaking to
the band in Morse code. A haze of distorted melody fills the
stage, drum beats resonate, and the resulting sound is perfect
– so natural that it seems to be unamplified. Meanwhile, as we
watch the video, we are up on stage with the band, close
enough to see that MacKaye’s worn black canvas loafers are
indeed without a brand name.
With interviews, recording sessions, and performance
footage, Instrument proves that like The Grateful Dead,
Fugazi functions as a “group mind,” able to improvise and to
stretch songs into long, cohesive jams without a predeter-
mined scheme. Other artists, such as Elvis, performed with-
out a set list, but they called out the names of songs they were
about to sing, to cue their bands. Nobody in Fugazi does this.
Rather, in order to segue from one song to another, Fugazi
relies on instrumental cues, hand signals, tempo shifts,
glances, and nonverbal follow-the-leader communication (the
leader being whoever first initiates the beginning of the next
song). To triumphantly pull this jazz-like feat
off, the band relinquishes any selfishness in the
name of a one-for-all mentality. Fugazi has stat-
ed that music will become powerless if it isn’t
unsettling, and a force for political change. The
record industry and all serious new artists of
today should take heed – Fugazi is in it for life
and wants long-term change. Its work isn’t fin-
ished just because it plays one benefit show; it
seems to recognize that social change doesn’t
happen so simply. This band may never change
the world, but what matters is that it will never
give up.
Of course, in order for a group to thrive in
such an alternative universe, it needs a two-way
relationship with its fans, one that is based part-
ly on trust, but more on respect. Fugazi has a
cardinal rule of thumb when it plays live: It
wants an audience of whole human beings, not
simple idlers or consumers. That’s why it plays
with such unnerving energy. While it’s true that
such an audience does not always exist,
F u g a z i ’s anti-marketing stance, low prices,
word-of-mouth promotion, and broad-minded
concert rules all help eliminate the coattail rid-
ers and drunks commonly found at the average
rock show. Furthermore, Fugazi’s principled way of being a
rock band doesn’t tend to appeal to the kind of people (i.e.
frat boys, wanna-be’s, rednecks) who attend rock concerts in
order to get high or smashed or both.
One thing Instrument does not provide is a sense of
Fugazi’s musical evolution. And so I urge you to listen to the
band, sans video accompaniment. The quartet’s first two
r e c o r d s , 13 Songs and R e p e a t e r, have brisk, abrasive
melodies and bracing stop-start rhythms; they are a perfect
hybrid of punk and straight-ahead rock. Straightforward, dri-
ven by an intense urgency readily identifiable in MacKaye’s
voice and Canty’s thwacking percussion, these records
besiege a listener, challenging our concept of what rock
should communicate. These are two of the most solid inde-
pendent albums ever released.
With 1991’sIn on the Kill -
taker, Fugazi branches out. Gal-
vanized distortion merges with
extended guitar hooks, and ten-
sion and suspense swell during
moments of complete silence.
Despite its occasional surrender
to generic racket, Killtaker man-
ages to add complex rhythms to
the combustion and cavalry-
charge energy of Fugazi’s earlier
work. 1995’s Red Medicine fuses
delicate piano and brass motifs
that crudely coexist with uptem-
po punk. Certain songs are sur-
gically precise while others,
with sounds of distracting laugh-
ter and talking, are coarse and
broken. Unfortunately, Fugazi
attempts too many rhythmic
variations and seems unfocused. The group’s usual thick and
jagged approach gives way to a soft, unrehearsed perfor-
mance, and for the first time, the music doesn’t flow or
breathe.
1997’s End Hits is less fragmented, but even though it
sounds milder, Fugazi’s social criticism still gives the music
bite, revealing the band to be more comfortable with its new
approach. 1999’s Instrument is a soundtrack to the film bear-
ing the same title, and a set of acute songs and instrumental
demos from 1989 to 1997. On all these records you will hear
the kind of striking depth and dogged precision you would
normally associate with the most scrupulous classical ensem-
bles. Although Red and End aren’t as good as they might be,
they only seem below average in comparison to Fugazi’s best
work, because the band sets such extremely high standards.
Which raises a question: If Fugazi’s later albums aren’t as
good as its first three, is that because the group failed to live
up to its principles, or weakened them? I firmly believe that
the band’s comparative decline was a by-product of evolving,
and experimenting with new sounds. Every great artist makes
at least one mediocre record. Most bands would consider End
a masterpiece, while for Fugazi, the album is a sign that the
group is back on track, even if the music is still a tad below
the almost unachievable standards Fugazi set earlier.
I’ll end by describing some unforgettable scenes from
Instrument. Cohen films people in line for tickets. Some are
young, some old, some white, some black, some brown –
most are dressed down, some gussied up in
business suits. And when you look at their
scarred faces, dim eyes, spiked hair, and pierced
lips, you may be quick to label them as punks,
delinquents, or losers, because they fit these
stereotypes. But really, this audience embodies diversity. It’s a
slice of ragged Americana, an assortment of folk not imagin-
able at most rock (or classical or jazz) concerts, which auto-
matically exclude poorer, younger fans because ticket prices
are so absurdly high.
At one performance, we see the front row of an audi-
ence being crushed into a guardrail by the push of hundreds
of swarming bodies. Seeing the crowd veering out of con-
trol, Fugazi abruptly stops playing. MacKaye announces
that someone’s head has split open and that the vicious
elbowing needs to cease. Vi d e o
scans of the crowd reveal six
a n g r y, drunk, insensitive
teenagers near the front row.
After issuing his warning,
MacKaye leads the band back
into the music. Moments later,
the band’s misgiving comes
true. Something flies onto the
stage and hits MacKaye, who
immediately signals the band to
halt. MacKaye, aided by two
enormous security assistants,
struggles to pull a young guy
out of the swaying audience.
Finally successful, MacKaye
grabs the teen, holds him in a
headlock, drags him to the
microphone, and demands a
public apology; the kid, appar-
e n t l y, had spit at him. MacKaye asks the fan to make
amends twice more, but the guy cannot manage to utter
anything discernible. MacKaye then picks the offender up,
informs the audience the youth is getting removed, and car-
ries him to security personnel backstage. The crowd erupts
in applause. Wow – of the hundreds of rock concerts I’ve
attended, never have I seen an artist give any offender even
one chance, let alone three, to redeem himself and remain
in the audience. Fugazi’s patience must be unwavering. As
the band walks off stage after playing its encore, the same
kids spit at them again.
When I was jolted by the seemingly frightening faces in
shots of the people in line to buy tickets, I became troubled,
even though I have been at concerts with people of the
same sort. Wanting to know why, I searched my soul and
thought of Fugazi’s fans as an antidote to inner fears and
prejudiced mindsets. We cannot allow our minds to vege-
tate so much that we openly embrace narrow-minded views.
If the only thing I n s t r u m e n t does is rattle our preconcep-
tions about youth or punk, I believe it’s done enough, and
perhaps we’ll be happier and more tolerant because of it.
This film and all Fugazi albums can be ordered, postage-
paid, directly from Dischord Records, 3819 Beecher Street
N W, Washington, D.C. 20007. Phone: 703-351-7491. We b s i t e :
w w w.dischord.com. Most titles are also available at rep-
utable record stores and on the Internet, but at slightly high-
er prices.
With scenes shown in non-
chronological order, Instru -
ment gives us a seething mix
of images. MacKaye erupts
into the microphone like a
shark expanding its jaws
before it devours its prey;
Picciotto plows his right hand
into the guitar’s scuffed body
as if he were punching a hole
through a plaster wall.
rom the moment of its rebirth two issues ago, The Per -
fect Vision has addressed itself squarely to the difficult
concept of “multimedia.” Essays from Greg Sandow
and HP in Issue 24 sought to define what multimedia is and is
not, and to imagine its possibilities. Sandow, in a piece that
touched on unfolding technical developments, offered the
computer game Myst as a “domesticated case of true multi-
media.” A bona fide specimen, perhaps, but not one that aims
very high. HP noted the limitations of currently available soft-
ware that present the marriage of music and images. He con-
sidered DVDs of an opera “gala,” a classical concert video, a
Sondheim musical, a pop music video – and found them all to
have shortcomings. He also described two potential multime-
dia experiences he had in the concert hall, both involving
music by minimalist Philip Glass: the opera Einstein on the
Beach and Glass’ score for the film
Koyaanisqatsi. These were, I’m sure,
intensely sensuous experiences. Still, for many listeners, the
repetitive nature of much of Glass’ cleverly constructed music
doesn’t demand attention on a moment-to-moment basis and
can induce a nearly physiologic contemplative state that, I
think, allows a listener to focus more keenly on whatever else
is before him, on the stage or screen. If this seems hard on
Glass, I don’t mean to be. It would just help if our early mod-
els for multimedia transcended issues of musical and narra-
tive style.
A useful prototype could be what visual artists call “mixed
media” – an oil painting with collage elements like fabric,
paper, or “found objects” incorporated into the canvas, for
example. The different materials have their own textures,
requirements for manipulation, and associations with both
artistic tradition and the real world. The challenge is to main-
tain their individual characteristics
and, at the same time, integrate them.
A Close Encounter
Voices of Light/The Passion of Joan of Arc
. . . . . . . . .
A N D R E W Q U I N T
Is this achievable with multimedia involving
music? Can the whole be greater than the sum
of its parts?
On a Monday evening in May, I attended a
production that was certainly a close approach,
one that suggests interesting prospects for multimedia’s
future. The occasion was a performance of Richard Einhorn’s
Voices of Light, along with a screening of the silent film mas-
terpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc at Avery Fisher Hall in
Lincoln Center. Details concerning the musical work and an
interview with the composer can be found in an article I wrote
for The Absolute Sound (Issue 115), but the background can
be laid out briefly. Einhorn is a New York-based musician
who, a decade ago, discovered the 1928 film, directed for a
French studio by Carl Dreyer. Cinema authorities routinely
cite The Passion of Joan of Arc as one of the most perfectly
realized and influential movies ever made. The unusual cam-
era angles, frame-filling close-ups, naturalistic acting, and the
manner in which the film is edited will impress even a casual
viewer as remarkably “modern.” The work derives much of its
power from Dreyer’s casting of Maria Falconetti, a stage actor
recruited from the Comédie Française, in the title role. So
truthful is her portrayal of Joan’s ordeal that the performance
can become almost difficult to watch. The actress reportedly
suffered a psychological collapse during the shooting.
Richard Einhorn used Dreyer’s film as the inspiration for
an oratorio on the subject of Joan of Arc’s final days – her
imprisonment, trial, and fiery death. The piece is written in an
accessible, but distinctive, musical language, largely tonal,
with dissonances applied sparingly. There are elements of
minimalism, but these are subtle components of the musical
texture, and the work has a fairly conventional dramatic
shape with a strong sense of forward impetus. Einhorn cap-
tures well the relentlessly claustrophobic quality of the movie
(all but the very end is filmed indoors), Joan’s vulnerability
and spiritual core, and the viciousness of her inquisitors.
Voices of Light has had an excellent Sony recording [SK
62006]. That CD features, as the voice of Joan, the four
women of Anonymous 4, a quartet that specializes in Medieval
polyphony and has achieved, by classical music standards,
something like star status. The work has also been successful
in concert, with dozens of public renderings since its pre-
miere in 1994. The composer invited HP, my wife, and me to a
special presentation of Voices of Light/The Passion of Joan of
Arc celebrating the 15th season of Marin Alsop’s Concordia
Orchestra. Alsop, who is also music director of the Colorado
Symphony and who has recently been named principal guest
conductor for several European orchestras, is known as a
tireless advocate for American music. She knows the Einhorn
piece well, and the participation of Anonymous 4 promised a
definitive performance. The auditorium was full and the
atmosphere expectant as the lights dimmed.
Technically and musically, the evening went splendidly.
The Dreyer film was projected on a large screen suspended
over the musicians, and the quality of the image was excel-
lent. Orchestral and choral execution were unassailable. But
although I knew Einhorn’s work very well from the CD and I’d
watched the movie on video several times, I was not prepared
for the emotional impact of the event. Somehow, I’d expected
the film and oratorio to be presented sequentially. Richard
Einhorn has emphasized that Voices of Light is not a film
score for The Passion of Joan of Arc, and he feels that any
attempt to compose one would be folly. As he told me a few
weeks after the Avery Fisher performance, “There have been
some 30 scores written for the film. This figure comes from an
article I’ve read; I’ve been able to document about 17. All of
them, according to my informants, are awful. The reason is
obvious. The movie is about as complete as it can be. The
rhythms of the film contradict any typical film score approach
– trying to Mickey Mouse the action, underscore the emotion,
etc.” But to present the two works
back to back would make for a very
long evening and would also be, the
composer noted, “a bit didactic,
like having everyone gather to read
Nietzsche after a performance of
[Richard Strauss’] Also sprach
Z a r a t h u s t r a.” So, the hall went
dark and, with Anonymous 4
singing the Old Testament passage
that opens Voices of Light, the film
rolled.
The movie and the music fin-
ished virtually simultaneously, and
along the way were many striking
correspondences. For example, a
section in the oratorio called “The
Jailers” began just as Joan, on
screen, is being abused by leering
guards. The texts at this point are
drawn from Thirteenth Century
misogynist verse (“When it comes
to women, men, hold your tongue! On the outside she’s reli-
gious, on the inside keen and venomous...”). This, and many
other instances, were not merely happy coincidences, nor
was the music meant to “accompany” the action. Rather, they
quite naturally fell out of Einhorn’s effort to follow the struc -
ture of Dreyer’s film in devising his own work. The result is
that The Passion of Joan of Arc and Voices of Light illuminate
each other. Seen together, they seemed inseparable; yet I
knew from experience that each was entirely self-contained.
This is new territory, and I found that some of my own
personal rules didn’t necessarily hold anymore. Walking into
Avery Fisher, I was disconcerted to see a large mixing console
halfway back in the hall. Every singer was miked, along with
the chorus and orchestra. But once the concert began, it was
apparent that this decision did not deserve the scorn earned
by much of the “sound reinforcement” heard in Broadway
musicals these days. True, I missed the nuanced delicacy of
Anonymous 4’s singing, as I’ve heard it in a Philadelphia
church. But the four vocalists, singing softly for most of
Joan’s music, would never have been heard in the large audi-
torium. In addition, Einhorn likes the aural sensation that
electronic enhancement engenders. “The sound of amplified
instruments is different from non-amplified. Not worse: sim-
ply different. If, say, a violin has a pickup attached and is
amplified so that it is far larger than life, it has an amazing
sound for me. It’s the aural analogy to the ‘magic realism’ of
South American writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”
Although the composer doesn’t insist upon amplification for
all performances of Voices of Light, it was certainly his origi-
nal intention. “It gave the music a hallucinatory quality that I
thought was entirely appropriate for a represen-
tation of Joan of Arc. It was also a sounding ana-
log to the visual displacements that are a hall-
mark of the visual style of Dreyer’s film.” So, the
nature of one medium informed the technical
realization of another.1
Was anything lost at the performance that night? One pos-
sible casualty, it occurred to me, were the words Einhorn had
chosen to set to music in Voices of Light. The texts are a rich
composite drawn from biblical sources, medieval female mys-
tics, and Joan of Arc’s own letters.
They are sung in the original lan-
guages: Latin, Italian, and Old and
Middle French. Needless to say,
translations are necessary and they
were provided in the program at the
concert, as they are with the Sony
recording. But in the darkened hall,
it wasn’t possible to follow along.
Would Einhorn consider projection
of the texts in some fashion – as
supertitles, or on something like the
LED screens that are installed on
the backs of seats at the Metropoli-
tan Opera House? “We have not
tried this yet and I would like to,”
said the composer. “It would change
the piece dramatically, but not nec-
essarily for the worse. By projecting
my texts, the balance of image,
music, and word would be shifted
to the word and to the tension
between the linear narrative of Joan’s trial in the film and the
non-linear organization of the music texts. I would love to find
out what that feels like!”
In fact, Einhorn was far less worried than I was about the
audience missing something. “The notion that the experience
of a piece of music begins and ends when the music begins
and ends is an odd one to me. If we are moved, we carry that
emotional experience with us for quite a while. In the case of
Voices of Light, I quite consciously wanted to provide an audi-
ence with more information than they could apprehend at one
performance. Why? Because that’s what makes art fun and
different from simply entertainment. You come back to it, to
experience something that you haven’t grasped before.”
The feeling, then, that there was more going on in the hall
that night than I could take in – this despite familiarity before-
hand with the component parts – may have been the best indi-
cation that I was in the presence of something different,
something we might truly call “multimedia.” I have a growing
understanding that it can be exceptionally demanding, can
mean abandoning some old ideas about how we should per-
ceive art, and that it can be very, very wonderful.
Andrew Quint has written on musical subjects and
reviewed classical recordings for The Absolute Sound. He
lives in Philadelphia.
1 Einhorn reports that reverb was added to the amplified signal. He’s not
certain if there was any compression or equalization, but said he wouldn’t
be surprised if there were; it’s a common practice with amplified music.
V I D E O
olor is critical to the performance of any home the-
ater. Most of us instantly recognize the problem with
our neighbor’s TV, orange faces that look painted for
Halloween or dull washed-out colors in a parade. We may
not have problems like that in our equipment, but even sub-
tle errors in color accuracy will produce unnatural flesh-
tones or destroy the carefully painted vision of a master cin-
ematographer. So I want to discuss some basics of color
that apply to video – the factors that are required for a dis-
play to achieve accurate color and how we measure and
present color accuracy to you.
1. The Physics of Color
The subject of color science could easily fill this book. But
all we need to know is that color is a characteristic of light
defined by its spectral content, i.e., the distribution of ener-
gy at different wavelengths. The visible wavelengths of light
are roughly from about 380 nm (nanometers) to 780 nm. An
example of one color of light is shown in Figure 1.
2. Human Color Perception
In the human eye, light enters through the pupil and forms
an image on the retina, which has photoreceptors that con-
vert light into signals that are processed by the eye’s neural
circuits, which then transmit information to the brain.
Vision in normal lighting depends on photoreceptors called
cones. (Our vision at night depends on photoreceptors
called rods that have no color-discrimination capability, so
we are all colorblind in dim light.)
There are three types of cones with different spectral
responses that are sensitive to long, medium, and short
wavelengths of light. They roughly match the spectral dis-
tributions of the colors red, green, and blue. Their respons-
es are shown in Figure 2. These response plots have been
VIDEO INSIGHTS
. . . . . . . . .
An Introduction to Digital Video
Part 2: Video Color Concepts
GREG ROGERS
Two conditions are necessary
to achieve perfect display
color accuracy. The grayscale
must maintain a perfect D65
color temperature across the
entire brightness range of
the display, and the CRT
phosphors must match the
SMPTE C standards…For this
reason, the blue-filter
method [of calibration] must
be considered an approxima-
tion for consumer monitors.
Fig. 1
normalized in the diagram. We are actu-
ally about 20 percent more sensitive to
the green curve than the red, and about 40 times less sensi-
tive to the blue curve.
As the wavelength of light varies, the probability that a
cone will absorb that light depends on its spectral response,
but all light absorbed by the same cone contributes equally
to its response regardless of wavelength. The relative
amounts of light collected by the three cone types, our tris-
timulus response, determines how we perceive a particular
color. This makes human color perception trichromatic
(three-color). The sum of the three responses determines
our perception of brightness, while the ratio between the
three responses determines our perception of hue and sat-
uration, the chromatic properties of light.
Interestingly, different spectral distributions can be per-
ceived as the same color if they provide the same tristimu-
lus response. Also notice that there are areas at the
extremes of the visible range where only a single type of
cone has any response. That means colors in those areas
will be perceived the same, since there is a response from
only one type of cone.
Colorblindness
About 0.003 percent of people can’t see color at all. About 8
percent of males and 0.5 percent of females are color blind,
which means they don’t see color the way most of us do.
About 2.5 percent of males see reds and greens as the same
color. The other 5.5 percent of colorblind males match col-
ors differently than the rest of us and differentiate small
color differences less well. This hasn’t much to do with
video, but it was too interesting to leave out.
3. Color Concepts for Video
Additive Color
All video display systems create colors by adding together
three primary colors of light, which is equivalent to adding
together their spectral distributions. Red, green, and blue
are used by video systems as primary colors because they
can create a wide gamut of visible colors.
To be a primary color, it is only necessary
that no primary can be created by a combination of other
primaries. It is also important to our video system that
adding the three primaries in some portions will create a
reference white color.
In video projectors, the three light sources are mixed by
overlaying them on the projection screen. In direct-view
monitors, phosphor dots or stripes of the primary colors
are arranged so closely together that the eye perceives the
light coming from a single location. The eye’s visual acuity
(ability to see detail) to color is related to the separation of
the cones on the retina.
Luminance
Luminance is a measure of our sensation of brightness. It
depends on the spectral sensitivity of human vision. Colors
closer to the center of the visible wavelength range (yellow-
green at 550 nm) are perceived as brighter, and therefore
have higher luminance than other colors with the same
energy.
Hue and Saturation
Hue is what we commonly refer to as red, green, yellow,
greenish-yellow, and so forth. It is related to the dominant
wavelength of a color.
Saturation is the purity of the color, what might be
described as its vividness or depth of color. The more pale
the color, as a pastel, the less saturated it is. A color can be
desaturated by adding white. If a color is formed by adding
portions of three primaries, some portion of white that con-
sumes one primary can also be formed. That portion of
white can be thought of as desaturating the color formed by
the remaining portions of the other two primaries.
The Color of White
It may seem that the color of white is unique, a black and
white matter. But of course there are many colors of white.
Compare the pages of this book, writing paper, or anything
else you normally define as white. They all have a distinc-
tive hue. In video systems, the color of a reference white is
crucial to generating all other colors. So it is critical to have
a precise method to specify the color of white required. The
physicist Max Planck determined that carbon heated to
extreme temperatures emitted light with broad spectral dis-
tributions (i.e., shades of white) determined by their tem-
perature. In physics these are called blackbody radiators.
Standard illuminants are defined by the temperature of a
blackbody radiator that most closely matches their color.
This is called the correlated color temperature, which is
measured in absolute degrees Kelvin (K). So the color of
white can be specified by a temperature. All of our current
video systems use a standard illuminant called D65, at a
correlated color temperature of 6500 K.
4. The CIE Color System
It is far too complex in practical applications like video to
specify colors by their spectral distributions. The CIE
(Commission Internationale de L’éclairage - International
V I D E O
Fig. 2
Commission on Lighting) was created in
1927, and in 1931 established a colorime-
try system to describe colors using a simple system of
numerical coordinates. I won’t delve into the details behind
that system other than to say it is based on the tristimulus
response principles discussed earlier and experiments that
were done with human observers. A result of their work
was the creation of a two-dimensional (x,y) chart called the
CIE Chromaticity Diagram. (Figure 3)
The CIE Chromaticity Diagram
The horseshoe-shaped curve in the diagram is called the
Spectral Locus, and consists of all colors with only a single
wavelength. The lowest wavelength color, ultraviolet at 380
nm, is located at the bottom left of the horseshoe, and the
wavelengths increase moving around the Spectral Locus to
infra-red, at 780 nm, on the far right. The Line of Purples
connecting the ends of the locus represents colors that can-
not be created with any single wavelength.
The line shown in the middle is the called the Plankton
Locus, or blackbody radiation curve. The color temperature
is infinite at the left end and drops to several thousand
degrees as the Plankton Locus converges with Spectral
Locus in the reds. The important D65 white reference, at a
correlated color temperature of 6500K, is at (0.3127, 0.329)
expressed as CIE (x,y) coordinates. It is a “correlated” color
temperature because it lies just off the Plankton Locus.
Brightness is not shown on the diagram, only saturation
and hue. The hue of totally pure colors is determined by
their position on the Spectral Locus, or Line of Purples. The
saturation is determined by how far the color lies from the
reference white point near the center of the diagram. The
pastel colors lie close to the center and the pure, fully satu-
rated colors lie on the horseshoe.
5. Display Color Accuracy
RGB Primaries – The Color Triangle
One of the properties of the CIE diagram is that any color
created by mixing two other colors will
lie on a straight line connecting them.
The distance along the line where the new color appears is
inversely related to the proportions of the two colors. Since
all single-wavelength visible colors lie on the Spectral
Locus, all visible colors must be inside the locus. Further-
more, it follows that all colors made from a combination of
three primary colors must lie inside a triangle formed by the
three colors. Colors outside the triangle cannot be repro-
duced because that would require negative amounts of light
from one or two primaries.
The red, green, and blue primaries of video systems are
chosen to enclose a reasonably large triangle that deter-
mines the entire gamut of colors that can be displayed. If
two displays have slightly different sets of red, green, and
blue primaries, the overlapping color triangles demonstrate
that the two displays cannot produce exactly the same
gamut of colors. (Figure 4)
Equally important, since the primaries are at different
locations, mixing the primaries with the same proportions
of light will generate different colors. Hence we see that to
reproduce the colors specified by video signals, it is critical
that the primaries be matched to the video system stan-
dards.
The NTSC primaries were specified in 1953 based on
phosphors available at that time. But over the years, TV dis-
play manufacturers continually used newer phosphors that
provided higher light output than the original NTSC phos-
phors. This created serious color errors. Finally, in 1971 a
new set of primary phosphors, called the SMPTE “C” phos-
phors were selected. (The SMPTE C phosphor specification
has been revised since then with very slight changes.)
These are the phosphors used in all professional broadcast
monitors. Unfortunately, consumer CRTs are still using
slightly different phosphors, and different phosphors from
one product to another. (The SMPTE C phosphor values are
given in Table 1.)
The obvious result of not using the standard phosphors
V I D E O
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
is that colors created by following the video signal’s “recipe”
for mixing light from the red, green, and blue primaries will
result in wrong colors. Hence, the colors from consumer
monitors must be wrong! How wrong is a function of their
deviation from the standard, and I’ll look at how to measure
it below. But that isn’t the only error that plagues color accu-
racy for consumer monitors and projectors. Another error is
usually much larger when consumer TVs are purchased.
White Reference Color Temperature
It is necessary, but not sufficient, that the chromaticity
coordinates of the primaries match the SMPTE C standard
to accurately reproduce color. It is also necessary that the
relative brightness of light from the three primaries be cali-
brated to produce the standard D65 white reference color,
otherwise the contribution of light from each primary will
not be correct when creating any other colors. White is
defined to be the color represented by equal red, green, and
blue values of an RGB signal. The color produced by any
other combination of signal values depends on the initial
calibration of the relative primary light outputs for the
white signal values. But what brightness of white should be
used when calibrating the color temperature?
Grayscale Color Temperature
The answer is that all brightness levels of white should pro-
duce the same standard D65 color temperature. That means
the relative light outputs from the three primaries must
track together as the total brightness changes. As a result,
any color generated by another mix of the primaries will
also stay at the same CIE (x,y) location regardless of the
brightness of the color. Grayscale is the term used to
describe the color temperature of the reference white over
the range from dark gray to peak white. The closer the
grayscale color temperature can be held to D65, the more
accurate the colors will be at all brightness levels within the
picture. For instance, if the color temperature increases to
the more blue-white of 7500K in the middle of the brightness
range, then colors will be seen with a bluer hue than desired
when they appear at that brightness level.
So we have seen that two conditions are necessary to
achieve perfect display color accuracy. The grayscale must
maintain a perfect D65 color temperature across the entire
brightness range of the display, and the CRT phosphors
must match the SMPTE C standards. It’s just that simple.
U n f o r t u n a t e l y, we can’t seem to get any consumer products
that exactly match the SMPTE phosphor chromaticity stan-
dards, and no one has ever built a display that can be cali-
brated for perfect grayscale tracking. It is interesting to note
that direct-view CRT monitors can usually be calibrated for
significantly better grayscale tracking than CRT projectors,
but CRT projectors can have primary colors that more close-
ly match the standard because each primary color is gener-
ated by a separate CRT. This allows more specialization of
phosphor selection and possible color filtering of the light
output from the CRTs.
Now that we know that no consumer display will be per-
fect, let’s discuss what sort of technique we can use to mea-
sure color accuracy.
6. Color Measurement
Color Bars
It is helpful to have some standard video test signals that
can be used to calibrate a display, or to measure the accu-
racy of the display’s color performance. The easiest signals
to generate are the common color bars that almost every-
one has seen at one point or another. (Figure 5)
Color bar signals are generated by creating all possible
combinations of the three primary colors with each of the
RGB signals set to the same value. The resulting colors are
red, green, and blue, their complementary colors, cyan
(blue + green), yellow (green + red) and magenta (red +
blue), and white, which is always defined as equal RGB sig-
nal levels. The most common color bars are those that use
75 percent of the maximum signal value. We rather obvi-
ously refer to those as 75 percent bars, but 100 percent bars
V I D EO
Table 1 SMPTE C Color Bars
White Yellow Cyan Green Magenta Red Blue
x 0.3127 0.421 0.231 0.310 0.314 0.630 0.155
y 0.3290 0.507 0.326 0.595 0.161 0.340 0.070
Fig. 5
are used in some circumstances.
Remember that although the signal lev-
els are the same, the actual brightness of light from each
primary is not the same, that is determined by calibrating
the reference white color to D65.
Changing the signal levels of all primary colors
together does not change the CIE (x,y) chromaticity of a
c o l o r. Color bars with 50 percent signal amplitudes would
have the same (x,y) coordinates as color bars with 75 per-
cent signal amplitudes. The difference is that the bright-
ness of the color bars will change with amplitude, but
brightness information is not included in the CIE Chro-
maticity Diagram.
Notice that a complementary color lies on the exten-
sion of a line connecting its missing primary and the refer-
ence white point. This follows from the fact that adding
equal signal levels of a primary and its complementary
color must create the reference white, and the rule that any
color lies on a line between the two colors creating it. That
latter rule also means that the complementary color lies on
the line connecting its two primary components. Hence the
intersection of these two lines geometrically locates the
(x,y) position of the complimentary colors. (See Figure 6)
The (x,y) coordinates can also be calculated using a
mathematical analysis based on the coordinates of the
phosphors and white point. The (x,y) coordinates for each
color in the color bars based on the SMPTE C phosphors
and the D65 white point is shown in Table 1.
We can measure the (x,y) coordinates for each color in
the test pattern directly from a display
using a sophisticated electro-optical
instrument known as a color analyzer (or a spectro-
radiometer) and plot the results along with the SMPTE C
standard colors to display the errors.
At this point you might realize that the color accuracy
for a display being driven by RGB signals is pretty cut and
dry. Once the primary colors are determined and the white
point set, the color accuracy
is determined. The variable
for any display is its variation
in grayscale color tempera-
ture, which means the white
p o i n t ’s (x,y) coordinates
change with brightness level.
If the white point moves
around, we can see from the
simple geometric analysis
that the complementary col-
ors will move on the edges of
the display’s RGB triangle. Of
course, the (x,y) point for
other color signals will also
move around proportionally
inside the color triangle cre-
ating errors.
Some of you may wonder
if it isn’t possible to convert
the RGB video signals from
the SMPTE standard to
match a non-standard set of
display primaries, thereby
avoiding color errors. The
answer is yes, within the lim-
its of the display’s color
gamut, but it is more complex
than one might expect
because the RGB signals are
non-linear. Why they are non-
V I D EO
Fig. 6
linear will be dis-
cussed at another
time, but with the availability of digi-
tal signal processing, such transfor-
mations are practical, but expensive.
Some approximate corrections can
be made more simply on consumer
displays.
7. Color and Hue
Adjustments
I have shown that color accuracy is a
function of grayscale and phosphor
accuracy when a monitor is driven by
RGB signals. However, no video
sources produce RGB signals direct-
ly. Instead we have composite, S-
Video, or YPbPr component video
from our sources. These signal for-
mats must always be converted to
RGB signals to drive the display
device, either in a TV monitor or per-
haps externally in a line doubler, or
other upconverter, to drive a projec-
tor. This introduces another source
of color errors. Hue and Color con-
trols are usually provided to calibrate
the conversion from the source sig-
nal format to the RGB signals.
Color bars are used to adjust
Color and Hue because we know
that the three RGB signal values
should be the same everywhere
they are used in the color-bar pat-
tern. Therefore, with proper cali-
bration, the same brightness of blue
light should come from each color
that contains blue (blue, white,
cyan, and magenta). The same is
true for red or green. Remember
that the brightness of red, blue, or
green is different and that was set
by adjusting the white color tem-
perature. But the brightness of any
one primary should be the same
everywhere it is used in the pattern,
including white.
Using this principle, calibration
DVDs like Video Essentials and the
AVIA Guide to Home Theater p r o-
vide filters (blue in Video Essentials
and red, blue, and green in AV I A) so
that the light from only one primary
can be viewed at a time. Most CRT
projectors provide a means to turn
on one primary at a time (or you can
cover the lenses), so filters are
u n n e c e s s a r y. The Color saturation
control adjusts the signal levels of
the primaries with-
out changing their
levels for the white color. It is
adjusted until the signal levels of
each primary alone matches its sig-
nal level, and therefore brightness,
in white. The Hue control varies the
relative signal levels of the primaries
to each other, except in white, so
that the brightness of any one pri-
mary is the same in two complemen-
tary colors. For instance, the bright-
ness of green should be the same in
yellow as it is in cyan. When the sig-
nal format conversion to RGB is cor-
rectly calibrated, the brightness of
any one primary will appear the
same everywhere it is used in the
color bars.
On many consumer monitors, it
is not possible to adjust the Color
and Hue controls for the proper
results. This means that the conver-
sion circuits are not capable of being
accurately calibrated to generate the
correct RGB signals. This can be an
intentional decision by the manufac-
turer who believes that the resulting
colors, although inaccurate, are
more likely to attract purchasers.
C o n v e r s e l y, Sony now includes addi-
tional service level adjustments in
its top-end products to improve the
conversion and color accuracy.
However, it should now be appar-
ent that even if the color decoding is
adjusted correctly, the colors will still
not be accurate unless the grayscale
is properly adjusted and the phos-
phors match the SMPTE standards.
The blue-filter method works perfect-
ly for professional broadcast moni-
tors be-cause the latter condition is
satisfied. In consumer monitors, this
method will produce colors only as
accurate as the phosphors and con-
version circuits allow. A highly
knowledgeable calibrator, who
understands all the concepts we’ve
discussed, can use a color analyzer to
adjust all parameters and achieve
better color accuracy. For this rea-
son, the blue filter method must be
considered an approximation for
consumer monitors. The AVIA DVD
provides an additional test pattern
that can aid in fine tuning the Hue
and Color adjustments, but that is the
best a user can do without e x p e n s i v e
instrumentation.
V I D E O
he ultimate in home-theater
display devices are the 9” CRT
projectors. Size matters in CRT
projectors because it enables higher
resolution and brighter images.
S o n y ’s new VPH-G90U has entered
this elite market at an attractive
$35,000 price to do battle with exist-
ing products from home-theater spe-
cialists Runco and Vidikron, priced as
much as 50 percent higher. The new
Sony may not be everyone’s Sony, but
home-theater enthusiasts who dream
of 9” CRTs may have come a little
closer to reality.
Physical
The G90 has a huge physical presence, not
unlike other 9” CRT projectors. At over 240 pounds, it is
one of the heaviest projectors I’ve encountered. It was deliv-
ered in a Styrofoam-padded cardboard box screwed to a
wooden pallet. It is also several handfuls, at nearly 30 inches
wide and 42 inches long. Fortunately it is only a bit more than
15 inches high, which improves handling somewhat. It is actu-
ally easier to carry and maneuver than many lighter projec-
tors because Sony has cleverly designed eight convenient and
sturdy handles into the perimeter of its case, each pair look-
ing a bit like bicycle handlebars. They pull outward from each
side of the projector and lock in place for use, then retract
back into the case, out of the way, when not needed. This
made it easy for four men to carry the projector up a flight of
stairs, and for two men to lift it into place on a sturdy table.
Although its case isn’t aerodynamically designed and
painted a bright racing color, it is sculptured to look quite
handsome in two-tone gray for ceiling or “tabletop” mounting.
For this review, I mounted it on a table below a ceiling-mount-
ed Runco IDP-980 Ultra. So I can’t relate to you the experi-
ence of lifting and attaching it to a ceiling, but I’m certain
those handles would have played a critical role.
Description
The front panel of the projector contains
only an IR remote control sensor. Above that
the huge 9-inch lens assemblies
protrude several inches in front of
the angled bezel, proudly pro-
claiming that this is one serious
projector. Just behind the lens-
es, the top panel swings open to
allow an installer to make
mechanical focus and one-time
aiming adjustments of the CRT-
lens assemblies. This is particu-
larly nice since the main cover of
the case remains closed, protect-
ing the electronics. The user
should never need to access or
repeat any of the mechanical
adjustments. All of the inputs,
power receptacles, switches, and
status indicators are located on the rear
panel. There are also two slots in the rear panel
for optional video input/output boards.
The top cover has a sliding door that conceals a complete
duplicate of the external remote control, only fixed perma-
nently in place and running off the projector’s power. This
makes it convenient, especially in a tabletop installation, to
use this panel for set-up. It also ensures that the user will have
complete access to all projector controls should you tem-
porarily misplace the remote.
The external remote is an almost square panel, about six
inches on a side, but quite thin for easy holding. A button on
the top edge turns on backlighting for all of the panel labels.
All of the controls are nicely grouped and logically laid out.
Two rows of calibration keys at the bottom can be covered by
a sliding plastic panel. They are also disabled unless unlocked
by a sequence of key pushes so that curious fingers can’t acci-
dentally disturb their settings. On-screen displays provide
numeric feedback for all the variable settings and status mes-
sages. What I like most about this remote is that all calibration
and normal usage functions have dedicated keys. On-screen
menus are provided for functions that are seldom used, such
as setting up the sync signal selections, or for obtaining status
displays of incoming signals. We so often criticize remote con-
trols that I want to acknowledge when one is
done this well.
R E V I E W S
Sony VPH-G90U Multiscan Projector
GREG ROGERS
The G90 comes with two manuals. One is an
operator’s manual that describes the basic user
controls and the other an installation manual.
The manuals are reasonably good but they could
have done a bit better job explaining the basic
memory system concepts. The service manual
also left out a key point, failing to note that the status mode
must be on before a specified series of keystrokes will enable
the service mode. I began setting the G90 up on a Saturday
and was stymied by this omission. Fortunately, a quick query
to an Internet newsgroup brought several correct solutions.
Many thanks to those who responded.
I/O Connections
The G90 includes the usual composite, S-Video, and RGB
inputs. It also includes YPbPr component video inputs for
standard-definition and high-definition sources with both bi-
level and tri-level sync capabilities. This means it will be com-
patible with virtually any video source existing or announced.
There are also two slots on the rear panel for additional I/O
modules, so it can be upgraded for any digital video interfaces
in the future.
The rear panel has an RS-232/422 interface. I put this to
use during my evaluation. The projector I was sent arrived
with version 1.02 firmware, which was missing a grayscale
calibration feature. I received the latest firmware version
(1.11) by email from Sony and downloaded it to the G90 in
less than 30 minutes.
Scan Rates
The G90 is compatible with just about any video format that
exists, including the most advanced scalers and upconvert-
ers. The horizontal scan frequency range is 15-150 kHz, and
the vertical scan range is 38-150 Hz. This also accommodates
a wide range of computer graphic resolutions. The RGB
bandwidth is 135 MHz for displaying the highest resolution
g r a p h i c s .
Installation and Set-up
I always recommend that ceiling mounting and initial pro-
jector set-up be done by professional installers and calibra-
tors. There are serious safety issues when mounting heavy
objects overhead on ceilings, and lethal voltages a r e
found inside projectors and remain stored there even after
they have been unplugged for long periods.
So never open a projector case for any reason.
In addition to safety reasons, projectors should be pro-
fessionally installed because positioning distances and
angles are critical to getting the best performance, indeed
even proper functioning. In ceiling-mounted installations,
it really pays to get it right the first time. It is also essen-
tial that the grayscale color temperature be correctly
adjusted. It’s ludicrous to spend a large sum on a projector
and then try to save a few hundred dollars by avoiding this
critical calibration step. It is pure fantasy to do this adjust-
ment without a sophisticated color analyzer, so be sure
your installer or calibrator has the proper electronic test
e q u i p m e n t .
Your installer will be able to make many mechanical and
electronic calibration adjustments to optimize the picture.
Beyond the standard CRT-Lens alignment and focus adjust-
ments, Scheimpflug adjustments are included for each CRT.
These mechanical adjustments alter the horizontal and ver-
tical tilt of the CRTs to alter the focal plane with respect to
the lens assemblies. This provides optimum focus at all
edges of the picture. After all of the mechanical focusing is
complete, an extensive array of electronic magnetic-focus
adjustments are made from the remote control for nine sep-
arate screen areas. Sony’s new hexapole focus adjustments
produce the small spot size and round shape that are so cru-
cial to the ultra high-resolution performance of the G90.
A complete professional calibration should be done at
the time of installation. That way you know that everything
involved in the installation process has been done correctly
and you are getting the best picture possible from your pro-
j e c t o r. Most current projectors provide picture geometry
and convergence adjustments using a remote control. It will
reward owners to learn how to make those remote control
adjustments to keep the picture in optimum shape, since
some drift is inevitable over time, particularly during the
first year of any projector’s life.
Some High End projectors are available with small
cameras that provide automatic adjustments, but manual
controls must generally be used to fine-tune the results.
The Sony G90 has no automatic adjustment capability, but
its geometry and convergence controls are among the eas-
iest to use and provide a versatile array of capabilities to
get near-perfect results. All the necessary test patterns are
built in, and skew, bow, size, linearity, pincushion, and
keystone adjustments are available for each color and for
different areas of the screen. Then each color can be fine-
tweaked for horizontal and vertical registration at 25 dif-
ferent locations on the display using the Zone adjustment.
The variety of controls, their effectiveness, and ease of use
are exemplary.
Operating Functions
The memory model for accessing different sources and dis-
play formats on the G90 can be a bit confusing at first
glance. The projector has 150 input memories, each storing
identification and calibration information for a particular
type of input signal. An input signal memory is selected
based on the signal scan-rate, signal type (S-Video, RGB,
Y P b P r, etc.) and the input signal port. All signals from a line
quadrupler use one input memory, S-Video signals another,
and so forth. Separate geometry, convergence, and grayscale
information is stored for each input signal type. Then 10
video memories store specific aspect ratio and picture con-
trol information (brightness, contrast, color, etc). When a
signal is input to the projector, the appropriate input memo-
ry is selected automatically. The user then selects one of the
10 video memories for the aspect ratio desired. The 10 video
memories are selected with numbered keys on the remote,
but can be named for on-screen identification with up to 18
characters each. Memories can then be selected by name
using the on-screen menu.
I set up a variety of input memories, including standard
NTSC through the S-Video input, and line-doubled and HDTV
signals through RGB and YPbPr inputs. I created video mem-
ories for 4:3, 4:3 letterboxed, and 16.9 enhanced aspect ratio
formats.
Other features include a picture-orbiting function to
help prevent CRT burns, which can be disabled if desired.
The user can also select between a 3-line-adaptive comb fil-
ter or a motion-adaptive 3-D comb filter when using the
composite input.
Performance
My overwhelming first impression of the Sony G90 was its
razor-sharp image clarity. The 9-inch CRT technology reveals
the resolution limits of projectors with smaller CRTs. I sup-
pose it was even more impressive that the first things I looked
at were HDTV pictures. But the differences in detail between
the Sony G90 and the excellent but smaller CRTs of the Runco
IDP-980 Ultra, were also noticeable on DVD. Edges were a tad
sharper and areas of fine structure appeared to have addi-
tional depth and contrast.
The G90 has an outstanding ability to differentiate subtle
levels of dark gray just above black. Plus there is virtually no
shift in black level with changes in average picture level
(APL). I confirmed this using the various PLUGE test patterns
provided by the Video Essentials DVD in title 17, chapters 2,
3, 5, and 7. The Video Montage sequence from this same DVD
showed how effectively the G90 held black levels constant to
increase contrast-ratio and reveal shadow details.
I was able to adjust the grayscale color temperature to
exceptional accuracy, 6500K +300/-50K at 7.75 ft-L measured
at the plane of my 1.3 gain screen, which equates to about 10
ft-L for on-axis viewing. The G90 provides a gamma adjust-
ment for individual CRTs that is found on few other projec-
tors. It enables better tracking of the three CRTs and a flatter
grayscale response. I believe I could have improved the
grayscale even further had I had more time. Without even re-
calibrating, I cranked up the light output at the screen plane
to over 14 ft-L and the color temperature only dropped to
6100K. So the projector is capable of much higher light output
than I used for comparison tests.
Despite the excellent grayscale results, I was less
pleased with the color accuracy. The primary reason (pun
intended) was the chromaticity of the green phosphor. It is
somewhat more yellow than the SMPTE C standard green.
(See measurements.) This eliminated the deepest green hues
from the color gamut, slightly desaturated the blue-greens
(cyan), and shifted the purple hues (magenta) toward blue.
The yellower-green can be seen in landscapes and fields
where greener pastures are expected. Skin-tones appeared
slightly pale or colder than normal. If the color temperature
is calibrated slightly more red than normal, the skin-tones
will be corrected and magenta much improved. I found that
a more pleasing picture.
The green phosphor may have been a deliberate choice to
maximize the light output of the projector. The G90 is rated at
1300 peak lumens and 350 ANSI lumens, impressive specs for
a CRT projector. In my testing, the G90 luminance dropped
only 2 percent when going from a small white window to a full
screen of peak white. That is amazing performance and
reflects its superior full-white rating of 500 lumens. The pic-
ture simply won’t dim on the brightest scenes. The white field
uniformity was also exceptional with very little variance in
brightness or color over the screen.
Fan noise on the G90 wasn’t nearly as loud as might be
expected from a projector drawing 1050 watts. I measured 51
dB “C” weighted, at three feet from the unit. The fan noise is
not high-pitched, but has a rushing-air sound that is often
masked by the music and dialog in a movie. It may be accept-
able in a ceiling-mount application without additional attenu-
ation, but I wasn’t able to experience that.
The Sony G90 includes a built-in video
upconverter that converts NTSC formats from
480i (active lines) to 960i interlaced video. Sony
calls its process Digital Reality Creation, or DRC.
It uses pattern matching in look-up tables to do
the conversion. Conventional line doublers or quadruplers
use entirely different processes to create 480p and 960p pro-
gressive video. I used the DRC to watch live basketball games
and DVD movies. Video-camera sources, like the basketball
game, will create some artifacts on any type of upconverter. I
found the artifacts on Sony’s unique DRC system to look more
artificial, dare I say digital, than other techniques. Artifacts
sometimes have a pixellated appearance. It comes down to
matter of preference, but I’m more accustomed and comfort-
able with the twitter artifacts of conventional line-doublers
and quadruplers. On movies the DRC did a better job but
couldn’t match the complete absence of deinterlacing arti-
facts from upconverters that use inverse-telecine processing.
But the DRC feature is included standard with the G90 and a
high-quality quadrupler will approach $20,000.
I used PBS broadcasts to evaluate HDTV on the G90. This
was where it really excelled. Projectors without 9-inch CRTs
simply don’t have enough resolution to fully display the hori-
zontal and static vertical resolution of 1080i signals. The G90
has what it takes. HDTV on 7- and 8-inch CRT projectors like
the Runco DTV-930 can look wonderful, but on the G90 the
picture achieves an astonishing clarity. PBS has many air-
borne sequences flying across agricultural and urban land-
scapes that are so clear that you will feel like you are actual-
ly skimming the tree tops and peering into office building win-
dows. A ride in a raft down the mighty Colorado river may
convince you that it might be better to watch on the G90 than
to actual participate. After sitting glued to my chair watching
this HDTV demo material several times for more than hour, I
can sing praises about the HDTV format and the incredible
resolution and 3-dimensionality of the G90 picture. It rivals
the best film presentations that I have seen at a well-main-
tained cinema. Sadly, few people will actually get to enjoy this
experience.
Summary
The Sony VPH-G90U will produce stunning picture resolution,
surpassing the definition, contrast, and image depth of 8” or
smaller CRT projectors. It is one of the very few CRT projec-
tors, or display devices of any kind, capable of producing
HDTV’s available resolution. Audition it when you are select-
ing from among the ultimate home-theater projectors.
SONY VPH-G90U MULTISCAN PROJECTOR
Sony Electronics Inc
1 Sony Drive
Park Ridge, New Jersey 07656
Phone: (201) 930-1000
www.sony.com
Source: Manufacturer Loan
S/N: 2000039
Price: $35,000
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
ne of the more exciting announcements at the last
Consumer Electronics Show was the introduction of
the Runco DTV-930, which significantly altered the
price-performance curve for CRT projectors. The DTV-930
was cloned from one of Runco’s most successful products,
the widely acclaimed IDP-980 Ultra. Conservatively built and
highly reliable, the IDP-980 Ultra has been a favorite in pre-
mium home-theaters for its excellent picture quality and easy
to use features. A year ago, it was priced at $23,000. The DTV-
930 with point convergence option is now $16,195. To sweet-
en the deal even further, Runco offers a DTV-933 package that
adds an external line-tripler for another four large. I haven’t
evaluated the tripler yet, but I’ll review it separately in a
future issue.
You are probably asking what you give up, other than
cash, for nearly a 30 percent reduction in price. The answer is
very little for home-theater applications.
Specifications
The DTV-930 was created by limiting the maximum horizontal
scan-rate of the IDP-980 Ultra from 100 kHz to 50 kHz. This
positions the DTV-930 to handle nearly all video applications,
but leaves a little room at the top-end for Runco’s higher
priced CRT projectors. The DTV-930 is fully compatible with
line doublers, triplers, and any of the ATSC HDTV standards
including 1080i or 720p. Its 50 kHz scan rate will accept a
maximum computer display resolution of 1024x768 at 60 Hz.
The DTV-930 has a bandwidth of 80 MHz, while the IDP-
980 Ultra bandwidth was specified as 100
MHz, but this difference was only significant
for the higher resolution computer
graphic display capabilities of the IDP-
980 Ultra. It doesn’t affect video perfor-
mance, where the highest bandwidth
requirement is a flat response to 30 MHz
for HDTV. The only other change from
the IDP-980 Ultra is the deletion of a
scan-line dithering board, a feature I
never used anyway.
Curiously, the DTV-930 is listed as an
8-inch CRT projector, which Runco
quickly volunteers really uses liquid-
cooled, 7-inch electromagnetic focus
(EMF) CRTs. The decision to list it as an
8-inch CRT projector dates back to the
introduction of the IDP-980, apparently
as a way to differentiate it from inferior
projectors that used 7-inch electrostatic focus (ESF) CRTs.
Runco says they intend to revise their specifications in the
future. Electromagnetic focus CRTs mean smaller spot size
and higher resolution, so they hope this distinction will be
understood by buyers comparing projectors by CRT size
alone.
The DTV-930 uses the same (USPL HD-144) color-correct-
ed, air-coupled lens assemblies that have been used for sever-
al years on the IDP-980 Ultra. (Runco’s webpage is outdated
on this point.) Light output is specified as 1100 Lumens peak
and 225 ANSI Lumens. The former spec is more descriptive of
video performance, which has relatively low average lumi-
nance levels, while the latter better describes computer
graphic display capabilities.
Description
The DTV-930 is available in black or white, 24 inches wide and
30 inches long, weighing about 124 pounds.
The case is about 12 inches high at the front
G R E G R O G E R S
Runco DTV-930 Multiscan Projector
to accommodate the three lens assemblies and input connec-
tors, and then slopes gently downward toward the rear. There
are no handles or other means for lifting the projector so it
can be quite awkward when lifting to a ceiling mount position.
The three lens assemblies are recessed into the case with
just their rims exposed on the front bezel. The entire top
cover is hinged at the rear and swings open to mechanically
aim and focus the CRT-lens assemblies. All input connectors,
the power switch and line-cord receptacle reside on the front
panel, slightly recessed from the lens bezel. When the projec-
tor is ceiling mounted all of the connectors are above the lens-
es, which keeps cables out of the way. A remote control jack
is provided that can be used with one of two supplied cords
(13’ and 52’) to save batteries during long calibration sessions.
Two IR remotes are provided, one for installation and
another for user operation. The installation remote contains
dedicated keys for almost all calibration functions to avoid
going through the on-screen menus. The remote is backlit for
working in the dark. The smaller user remote runs only on
batteries and is not backlit.
The rear panel contains status lights, a two-digit diagnos-
tic display, and a small collection of keys for navigating the
on-screen menus. The latter need never be used since set-up
and operation is more easily done from the remote control.
Inputs/Outputs
BNC connectors are provided for RGB and sync inputs. Com-
posite or separate H and V sync, as well as sync-on-green can
be used. Composite and S-Video inputs are provided using an
unusual 15-pin D-connector. A short breakout cable is includ-
ed to provide a standard mini-DIN jack for the S-Video and a
BNC jack for composite video. These inputs are compatible
with NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. Curtain control switching is
provided via DC voltages on another D-connector.
There are no YPbPr component video inputs. Line dou-
blers and other video upconverters provide RGB outputs. But
some HDTV set-top boxes provide only YPbPr outputs (Pana-
sonic, Pioneer), while others provide RGB outputs (Sony,
RCA) or both. This is a common limitation of a large installed
based of projectors, so hopefully future set-top boxes will be
designed with both RGB and YPbPr outputs to maximize their
market opportunities.
Installation and Set-up
A professional installer should always be used for mounting
projectors on ceilings. Projectors are heavy, and proper
mounting is a safety and performance issue. Furthermore, a
professional calibrator must be used to do the initial
set-up. This requires mechanical adjustments inside the pro-
jector where there are lethal voltages that remain present
even when the projector is unplugged,which again is both
a safety and performance issue.
The projector used for this review was mounted on the
ceiling and an 89-inch wide, 1.85:1 Stewart Filmscreen was
used for display. As with all CRT projectors, the correct dis-
tance and height relative to the screen must be set correctly.
The distance from the screen to the lens for the DTV-930 must
be 1.33 times the screen width when using multi-aspect-ratio
widescreens. Runco has superb technical phone support and
should be consulted to find out the exact height and distance
dimensions you would need for any screen size and one of
their projectors. A professional installer should mount the
projector and do the mechanical adjustments,
which consist of setting two knobs on each lens
assembly for the correct projection angle and
screen size, aiming the CRT-lens assemblies to
converge at center screen, and adjusting focus
rings for best center and edge focus for each
CRT. From that point, all other calibration is performed elec-
tronically using the remote control.
The grayscale color-temperature must always be calibrated
by a professional using a color analyzer. Don’t avoid this step,
and make certain your calibrator has a color analyzer. The
color accuracy of this projector is excellent, but it depends, like
all display devices, on an accurate grayscale adjustment that
can only be done using sophisticated test equipment. The pro-
fessional calibrator should also ensure that all set-up adjust-
ments are individually optimized for multiple aspect ratios and
different sources. This projector is remarkably stable and
touch-ups are required infrequently after an initial burn-in and
calibration period of six months or so.
Built-in test patterns consist of cross-hair, focus, white-
w i n d o w, and multiple cross-hatch and dot patterns. When a
projector has electronic remote-control adjustments for geom-
e t r y, convergence and focus, as this one does, I encourage
enthusiasts to learn to do these adjustments. Part of the fun of
projector ownership can be tweaking the picture to optimize
the image quality. But don’t alter the grayscale adjustments or
you will need a professional to put it right again.
An excellent array of adjustments is provided to optimize
geometry and convergence. Each CRT has tilt, skew, ampli-
tude, linearity, pin-cushion, and keystone adjustments for
both vertical and horizontal axis with separate control over
the top, bottom, left and right picture edges as required. Elec-
tronic focus is included for each CRT with adjustments for
center, top, bottom, left and right sides. But the user should
not readjust the blue focus, which will alter the color balance.
In addition there are astigmatism controls with two-pole
adjustments for 8 different areas of the screen. It is time con-
suming, but with effort you will be rewarded with a fine spot
size uniformly over the entire screen.
I found all the adjustments easy to make and logically
organized. There is also a contextual help button on the
remote control that brings up one or more text screens
describing the function and usage of the current adjustment.
I think many users will be quite comfortable in tweaking these
adjustments to keep the alignment in pristine condition.
There is even a function that automatically guides a novice
user through the calibration adjustments in order, a step at a
time. Once all parameters are adjusted for best performance
the point convergence option is remarkably quick and easy to
use. By moving a cursor on a 16x13 grid you can adjust for vir-
tually perfect convergence over the entire screen, which is
always critical for the best picture, but crucial for HDTV. Be
sure you get the point convergence option.
Operating Functions
This is one of the easiest projectors to use. There are 100
video memories that store individual picture formats includ-
ing the input source and all display parameters. Each memo-
ry includes the source scan-rate, display aspect-ratio, and a
complete set of calibration values for that picture format.
Each memory can be individually named by the user, such as
“16.9 DVD” with up to eight characters. The first 10 picture
Accurate color reproduction depends on how well the
projector’s red, green, and blue primary colors match
the SMPTE C standard phosphors, combined with the
accuracy of the white-point color temperature. The projector’s
white point has been calibrated to match the D65 standard
white-point at 75 IRE. The projector’s primary and complimen-
tary (yellow, magenta, cyan) colors (circles) are compared to
the SMPTE C standard colors (squares) on the CIE diagram.
Changes in the grayscale color temperature will shift the posi-
tion of the complimentary colors and the color accuracy.
The Runco DTV-930 RGB color triangle almost completely
overlaps the SMPTE triangle so nearly all colors in the video
signal can be reproduced. The blue and green primary colors
are close to the SMPTE standard phosphors and the red pri-
mary is shifted to the right. The resulting color accuracy is
excellent.
The green primary of the SonyVPH-G90U is shifted toward
ye l l ow. This results in a gap of non-reproducible colors
between its RGB color triangle and the SMPTE C triangle. The
cyan color is desaturated (shifted toward white) and magenta
is shifted toward blue.
If the VPH-G90U color temperature is lowered by moving
the white point slightly toward red during calibration, the
resulting color accuracy will be significantly improved with bet-
ter skin-tones and more accurate purples. The eye is more sen-
sitive to errors in blues and purples than it is to equal distance
errors in yellow or cyan on the CIE diagram.
formats can be selected directly from the remote
control. The entire 100 picture formats can be
selected by an on-screen menu that shows the
memory number, name, video source and date
created. When a memory is selected the source
is switched and the display is setup with all of
the individualized calibration settings for that picture. The
memories can be copied, moved, deleted and renamed for
selection convenience or to expedite creating new entries.
Although 100 memory set-ups may seem like overkill, 10-
20 wouldn’t be enough for me. You will need separate memo-
ries for 4:3, 4:3 letterboxed, and 16.9 enhanced aspect ratios,
and I have special set-ups for 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 movies. Most
of these are duplicated again for a doubler, tripler, quad, com-
posite video, S-Video, and my 3Dfusion progressive-scan DVD
player that has a 72 frame-per-second output. Then add 720p
and 1080i for HDTV and several set-ups for computer dis-
plays. Finally I have some special picture formats for watch-
ing 4:3 sports presentations cropped and expanded to fill the
entire 1.85 screen. You may also want to keep a duplicate set
of everything just in case you accidentally mess something up
while tweaking.
Each memory has a counter and a timer to keep track of
how many times it is used and for how many hours. This is
convenient for knowing how much time you’ve used the CRTs
for watching 4:3 pictures or widescreen pictures. Two sets of
timers, one that can be reset by the user, are also included for
total CRT and projector hours.
Color temperature can be selected from 3200K, 5400K,
6500K, 7500K, and 9500K for special applications. Incoming
Convergence Labs Test Report Greg Rogers
horizontal and vertical scan frequencies and other source
information can be displayed at any time. A phosphor saver
function is provided to periodically shift the horizontal and
vertical image position on screen to avoid a CRT burn. This
function can be turned off if desired, although I believe it is a
worthwhile function to use. If a very slight overscan is added
to the picture the effect of this screen saver function will not
be noticed.
Performance
I used a Runco IDP-980 Ultra for this evaluation. Its video per-
formance is identical to the DTV-930 with the point conver-
gence option, for everything discussed in this review.
Color accuracy is primarily dependent on two factors,
grayscale accuracy and how well the red, green, and blue pri-
mary colors match the SMPTE standard. The latter is fixed for
each model of projector based on its CRT phosphors and any
additional filtering in the lens-CRT assemblies. The grayscale
accuracy must be calibrated and will degrade if the projector
is asked to supply too much light because the blue CRT phos-
phors will begin to saturate at high output levels. To achieve
the best grayscale accuracy, and therefore good color accura-
cy, the screen size and image brightness must be appropriate
for the projector. Generally, the larger the CRTs the more light
output they can provide while operating in a linear grayscale
range.
For this projector I used an 89” wide screen and set the
contrast for 7.75 ft-L measured at the screen plane, which
equates to about 10 ft-L on axis for the 1.3 gain screen. This
combination is about the reasonable limit to achieve an
acceptable grayscale and good color accuracy. If you want a
larger display you can select a higher gain screen, but you will
probably find hot-spotting and color variations across the
screen unacceptable if you have a critical eye. The projector
is also capable of much higher light output levels but the color
accuracy will suffer as a result.
Using this set-up I adjusted the grayscale for the SMPTE
standard color temperature of 6500K, +/- 400K over the range
of 20 IRE to 100 IRE. These adjustments were made while
using a Faroudja VP250 line doubler. Since the scan lines
don’t overlap with a doubler, a tripler would provide even flat-
ter grayscale results since the blue CRT will provide more out-
put before the onset of phosphor saturation. The colorimetry
of the green and blue phosphors is quite close to the SMPTE
standard and the red phosphor is a slightly deeper red. The
result is near perfect color-bar patterns and excellent color
accuracy on movies. Skin tones look exceptionally accurate
while full color-saturation is maintained elsewhere in the pic-
ture. With good DVD transfers there is no need to reduce the
line doubler’s color control to prevent overly red faces that
would desaturate (washout) other portions of the picture.
(See measurements.)
Other key performance characteristics of any video dis-
play are its ability to provide a geometrically stable picture
and constant black levels as picture luminance levels change.
The latter can render black-levels gray and dynamically
reduce the contrast ratio of the picture. These attributes are a
function of good high-voltage power supplies for the CRTs.
Some products, particularly RPTVs and direct-view monitors,
suffer size or geometry changes as the average picture level
(APL) varies. Examples include static changes when a bright
object enters a dark scene, or momentary effects during
bright flashes. On this projector the high volt-
age system holds picture size and geometry
rock solid regardless of steady state or tran-
sient changes in APL. The new Alien DVD is
an excellent test of these capabilities with its
dimly lit interiors that are punctuated by
bright flashing strobe lights in one scene. Black level is also
well maintained with APL changes.
Spot size and focus uniformity across screen is excep-
tional for CRTs of this size. I compared resolution and picture
definition on some of the best DVDs to the performance of the
Sony G90’s 9-inch CRTs. Alien and The Fifth Element are two
movies that have some of the best detail. The G90 provides a
modest increase in the sharpness of fine details in direct A/B
comparisons. Both projectors are capable of performance
beyond the resolution limits of the DVD format.
A line doubler will work well with this projector when
viewing 16.9 enhanced and 4:3 DVDs on a widescreen from
about 4 PH (picture heights), but scan-line structure will be
visible on 4:3 letterboxed DVDs. If you are sensitive to scan-
line visibility, then a line tripler would be better for non-16.9
enhanced letterboxed sources and it will allow you to move
up to the “ideal” 3.3 PH if you desire a wider field-of-view.
It’s well established that 9” CRT projectors are required to
reproduce the full resolution of 1080i HDTV. But does that
mean HDTV looks blurry or unimpressive on this projector?
Definitely not! HDTV broadcasts look breathtaking and clear-
ly distance themselves from the best DVDs. I used PBS broad-
casts as my HDTV source. It was no contest with any of the
rear projection HDTVs on which I’ve viewed the same mater-
ial. Picture clarity and definition on the Runco is far superior.
The gap between the Runco and the Sony G90 is not as wide,
but the G90 really does capture that sense of looking through
an open window. Perhaps the Runco is more like looking
through a double-pane window. The G90’s detail and sense of
depth is significantly better in direct comparisons, but unless
you’ve already acquired a trained eye for HDTV on a 9” CRT
projector you’d better sit down, because the Runco DTV-930
will knock you off your feet.
Summary
If there is anything in home theater priced a few DVDs over
$16,000 that can be considered a bargain, it is the Runco
D T V-930 with Ultra option. If you are in the market for any-
thing less than a 9” CRT projector, you owe it to yourself to
see this projector optimally set-up and calibrated. But you’d
better hurry. The chassis used for the DTV-930 was a last
time buy for Runco, and when they are gone, they are gone
for good.
RUNCO INTERNATIONAL
2463 Tripaldi Way
Hayward, California 94545
Phone: (510) 293-9154
www.runco.com
Source: Reviewer purchase
Price: DTV-930 $14,995;
DTV-930 w/point convergence $16,195
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
Any home theater that uses a CRT front projector capa-
ble of graphics- or data-grade resolution needs a way
to reduce the visibility of scan lines and remove inter-
lace artifacts, which become painfully unpleasant on a big
screen. Until recently the devices (line doublers) for doing
this with credible quality have cost over $7,500. For my own
modest home theater, with a 7-inch CRT front projector and 6-
foot wide screen, this price was beyond budget. My first pri-
ority was to find a way to convert the YPbPr component video
outputs of my DVD player to work with the RGB inputs of my
projector. I also needed input switching for my laserdisc and
VCR viewing.
The least expensive YPbPr-RGB converter, without line
doubling, is about $900 from Extron. I was about to buy one
of these when I discovered the $2,495 IEV Turboscan 1500 line
doubler. This unassuming black box performs the conversion
I needed, has switching functions, and does line doubling.
This remarkable device also includes separate adjustment of
video parameters (brightness, contrast, color, tint, and sharp-
ness) for each input, and overall adjustment for red, green,
and blue gain and offset levels. The former is important to me
for matching the slightly different output levels of my
laserdisc player to those of my DVD player. The latter is use-
ful for fine control of color temperature, especially for a pro-
jector like mine that doesn’t have digital controls for this func-
tion. Imagine my delight to find all of these features in a box I
could afford!
Description
The back panel of the Turboscan sports an on/off switch (nor-
mally left on), a power plug input, and a large array of video
input/output connectors. The composite and S-Video inputs
include buffered loop-through outputs. There is also an RJ-11
connector for a remote infrared control (IEV can supply this
or you can buy from a third party) and an RS-232 connector
for computer control of the unit (RS-232 programming com-
mands are in the manual).
My only complaint is that the VGA input connector
should be female, not male. All the readily available con-
nector cables, including VGA to 5-conductor BNC, or com-
puter to VGA monitor, terminate in a male VGA connector.
To use these on the Turboscan you have to use a female-to-
female adapter, creating a potentially unstable connection.
For an RGB input, the Turboscan can automatically
detect whether it is already progressive (as all computer
VGA outputs are) or whether it is interlaced; it can also be
forced into one or the other state. Thus I set up the Tu r-
boscan to accept a computer signal on the VGA input con-
nector (which also includes my 3Dfusion progressive DVD
player) and pass that through without dou-
bling. For laserdisc, I use the S-Video input
and for cable TV (via a VCR tuner) I use the composite
i n p u t .
The front panel of the Turboscan is clean, showing only
a small LCD panel and a touch panel control with left-right-
up-down arrows. The menu commands, displayed on the
LCD panel or on a simple onscreen block, are logically
linked in a circle, all accessible by the left-right arrows on
the front panel or the remote.
Remote Control
The Turboscan 1500 has many features beyond its line dou-
bling capability, most of which I have already mentioned. As
supplied by IEV, it comes with the excellent Home Theater
Master SL-8000 universal remote that includes the control
codes for over 500 devices (audio, satellite, TV, VCR, cable,
CD, DVD, and auxiliary). My Turboscan, along with my Elec-
trohome projector, came from Hi Rez Projections, Inc., of
Boston (www.hometheater1.com), which include Home The-
ater Master’s better remote, the SL-9000 with learning capa-
bilities. Both these units are wonderful, exceeded only by
remotes costing several hundred dollars.
Line Doubling = Deinterlacing
The name “line doubler” is misleading. These devices don’t
increase the total number of scan lines per video frame.
They deinterlace conventional NTSC video by replacing
each interlaced video field, which alternately displays only
the odd or even half of the frame’s scan lines, with a pro-
gressive video frame containing all of the scan lines. Dein-
terlacing is a complex process because the fields from a
video camera represent the image at different moments in
time. Simply merging fields together would create double
images of objects in motion, while interpolating new lines
between existing lines of each field produces a softer image.
Deinterlacing video sources is where most line doublers fall
down, the IEV included. That is not to say that it does a bad
job, though.
Film sources are converted to video by a telecine device
that repeats video fields at regular intervals, to convert the
2 4 - f r a m e - p e r-second film to 60-field-per-second video. This
is called 3-2 pulldown and creates an opportunity for a line
doubler to detect this pattern and reverse the process to
generate progressive video. For many years, only Faroudja
had special patented circuits to detect film sources with 3-2
pulldown and perform an inverse-telecine process to ideally
deinterlace them. (See Issue 24 for details of the inverse-
telecine process.) The Turboscan does not have inverse-
telecine deinterlacing and must process both video and film
sources using other techniques. The question is, how well do
they match up to the Faroudja standard?
The IEV Turboscan 1500 performs well with
B I L L C R U C E
IEV Turboscan 1500 Line Doubler
film sources but doesn’t match the quality of inverse-
telecine deinterlacing.
Performance
My primary source for evaluating the IEV was a Sony DVP-
S7000 DVD player, using its composite, S-Video, and compo-
nent outputs to test the various Turboscan inputs. I also used
a Pioneer CLD-97 laserdisc player with its composite and S-
Video outputs. As a progressive video reference, I used a
3Dfusion PC video card with an Mpact-2 processor decoding
from a DVD-ROM drive to produce RGB output. The 3Dfusion
creates progressive video without deinterlacing artifacts
when playing film source DVDs, equivalent to the result of
Faroudja’s inverse-telecine processing. It is not nearly as
effective at deinterlacing DVD video sources, nor does it
accept any sources other than DVD. (See Issue 24 for a review
of the 3Dfusion and a discussion of its deinterlacing process.)
For display I used an Electrohome ECP-4100 front projec-
tor on a 6-foot wide Stewart Studiotek 130 screen (16.9 aspect
ratio). For a brief time, I was able to compare the Turboscan
to a Faroudja VP-250 line doubler on a Runco IDP-980 Ultra
front projector. (A line doubler requires a TV with progressive
video inputs and higher than normal scan-rate capabilities,
but these inputs and capabilities are standard with any graph-
ics-grade front projector.)
With real-world material, it was evident that the Tur-
boscan was not doing 3-2 pulldown removal, as the Faroudja
and 3Dfusion do (each in different ways). The Turboscan
sometimes displays line twitter artifacts on moving objects,
and while not nearly so objectionable as the artifacts seen
with non-line doubled sources, they make the Turboscan dis-
play slightly inferior to that seen from the Faroudja or 3Dfu-
sion. For example, in the opening scene of The Fifth Element
(chapter 3, absolute time 03:20-23), one can see fine line twit-
ter in the tent ropes and moving “jaggies” on camel backs at
the center of the screen as the camera pans left to follow the
running boy. In chapter 9 (absolute time 28:23-42), twitter arti-
facts appear as the camera zooms in on the curved top left
edge of the chamber that LeeLoo is kicking to get out of.
The Turboscan has a “motion filter” that appears in the menu
only if you have “Input Setup” turned on. The filter
slightly softens the image, but IEV recommends
that this filter be turned on for video. However,
there are examples where the image looks much
worse with the filter on. The horizontal pan of the
bridge during the video montage segment on Vi d e o
E s s e n t i a l s is one. The vertical cables of the bridge break up
badly as they move horizontally with the camera pan. In other
cases the filter reduces, but doesn’t eliminate, some residual arti-
facts, such as jaggies in the hair of the pink T-shirted girl with the
b i c y c l e .
I used the Video Essentials DVD and the Dolby Labs DVD
(DVD-TEST1) to explore other aspects of the Turboscan per-
formance. The tests on these discs are rigorous and repeat-
able, even though they are much more demanding than what
you will usually notice on real-world video images.
With its sharpness control set at “0,” the Turboscan had a
significant high-frequency roll off above 4.2 MHz in all input
modes, but at a sharpness setting of +6, it became reasonably
flat to 5 MHz without outlining artifacts. This sharpness con-
trol isn’t the equal of Faroudja’s adaptive detail-enhancement
circuit, but it is useful for reducing the nastiness of some
DVDs with overdone edge enhancement; it is also handy for
slightly boosting the sharpness of soft video sources, espe-
cially many laserdiscs. You can set this control individually
for each of the three input sources.
The Turboscan showed minor artifacts on color-bar pat-
terns that were not present with either the Faroudja or the
3DFusion. For a component source, there was a faint light
band along the cyan side of the vertical yellow/cyan transition
and along the magenta side of the vertical green/magenta
transition. S-Video and composite sources did not display the
same artifact. Instead they had a black smudge along the two
transition regions characteristic of the lower chroma band-
width of these video formats. Some luma-chroma delay was
evident on the red vertical stripes against a white background
(title 18, chapter 4 of VE-DVD). There was a thin black line
along the left edge of the white/red transition, just inside the
red bar. On S-Video and composite sources, this artifact was
replaced by a smeared black region on both inside edges of
Faroudja VP251 IEV DVDO
Turboscan 1500 iScan Plus
Line Doubling Yes Yes Yes
Line Quadrupling No No No
Line Scaling (Other) No No No
Inverse Telecine (Film Mode Deinterlacing) Yes No Yes
Video Cal - Color,Tint,Brightness,Contrast All All None
Detail Enhancement Adaptive Detail Sharpness Only None
Noise Reduction None None None
Composite Video Inputs 1 1 1
S-Video (Y/C) Inputs 1 1 2
Component Video Inputs 1 (YPbPr/RGB) 1 (YPbPr/RGB) None
Component Video Pass-thru Yes Yes None
Input Loop-thru All Inputs Composite/S-Video None
Stored User Settings 4/Input 1/Input None
Other Features RGB Pass-through Input RGB Gain/Offset Film-Mode LED
Price $7,500 $2,495 $700
Key Features: Video Upconverters
the red bar.
At the horizontal edge between the cyan bar
and magenta patch (or the magenta bar and cyan
patch) on the VE disc color bars, there were two
or three dark blue scan lines; these were partially
broken up into rows of jiggling dots above and
below the transitions. There was also some bleeding of the left
magenta block into the white block beneath its left corner. Fur-
thermore the color bars displayed some video noise, especially
in the green. The blue scan lines were evident on the 3Dfusion,
but were not broken up into jiggling dots; nor was there any
bleeding of magenta into white or any obvious video noise.
Fortunately, although the color bar tests can be used to
discriminate between doublers, I didn’t find any glaring evi-
dence that the Turboscan’s artifacts significantly affected per-
formance on real-world film sources.
Summary
At first I used the Turboscan for viewing DVDs from the Sony
DVP-7000. Later I discovered the joy of watching line-doubled
laserdiscs from the Pioneer CLD-97. Laserdiscs look very
good through the Turboscan, as long as you don’t have an
anamorphic DVD for comparison. They look softer (owing to
the lower luma bandwidth of LDs) and there is some color
bleed (owing to the lower chroma bandwidth of LDs), but
these are small imperfections, inherent in the laserdisc for-
mat. My current reference source is the 16.9 (“anamorphic”)
DVD progressive-scan output of the 3Dfusion; however the
Turboscan is essential for watching my library of laserdiscs,
many of which will either never make it to DVD or which
aren’t worth the expense of duplicating on DVD. In fact, given
the bargain-basement prices for which laserdiscs can now be
found, the frugal movie fanatic should give serious considera-
tion to the viewing of line-doubled laserdiscs.
There are some things in life that, no matter how well I
understand them, I marvel that they actually work: air-
planes for example. Every time I take a flight, I can’t
believe that I’m really in the air, even though I fully under-
stand the physics. Combination CD/LD/DVD players are
another example. They will play just about every home-the-
ater optical media available, automatically adapting for the
size and format and moving the laser into the appropriate
position.
But why would anyone buy a combi player, given the
increased complexity of the mechanical and electronic sub-
systems? Well, you may have a laserdisc collection or a near-
by rental store that still carries LDs. There are also many
movie titles still available only in that format (Star Wars, for
example). If you want to buy a new laserdisc player, you have
no option; the only ones available are in
combi players (and the only company still
making the player mechanisms is Pioneer).1
Last issue we looked at the upscale Theta Voyager, based
on the Pioneer 919 combi player. This time we look at Pio-
neer’s top-of-the-line Elite combi player, the DVL-91, to see
what is the best available from the company that has single-
handedly supported the laserdisc market for many years. This
unit will play CDs and CD-Videos (an MPEG-1 video disc more
popular in Asia than the US), but our primary interest is in its
LD and DVD performance.
Look and Feel
The DVL-91 has that special Pioneer Elite look: high-gloss black
enamel, gold trim, and polished rosewood
side panels. It has the usual assortment of
gold-plated outputs on its rear that you
would expect from a component of its
stature: two analog stereo audio, two coaxial
digital audio (one PCM only, one PCM/AC-
3/DTS), one optical audio (PCM/AC-3/DTS),
one AC-3 RF (for LD only), two composite
video, two S-Video (Y/C), one set of compo-
nent video, and an in/out set of connectors
for Pioneer SR control signals. You must
select from the player set-up menus whether
you wish DVD output to be via component or
Y/C-composite; the mode not selected still outputs a luminance
signal (helpful in navigating the menus to switch the type of
o u t-
IEV INTERNATIONAL, INC.
3855 South 500West, Suite O
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115
Phone: (800) 438-6161
www.iev.com
Source: Reviewer purchase
Serial number: 2134
Price: $2,495
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
Pioneer Elite DVL-91 Combination CD/LD/DVD Player
1The Faroudja LD1000 laserdisc player mentioned in
Issue 25, based on the Pioneer Elite CLD-99, is no
longer available. The final unit was sold in April 1999.
B I L L C R U C E
put). From the setup menus, you also select whether you want
16.9 formatted video output. This is called “wide,” which might
not be self-explanatory but the on-screen graphic makes the
meaning clear.
You can also select whether you want the digital audio out-
put to be 24 bit/48 kHz or 24 bit/96 kHz, the latter available only
on some DVDs. Older outboard DACs and digital preamps or
receivers will not accept 96 kHz bitstreams, so it is important
to pay attention to this. If you select the 48 kHz output in the
set-up menu, then any DVD audio track containing a 96 kHz sig-
nal will be downconverted to 48 kHz by the DVL-91 for back-
wards compatibility with older components. The DVL-91’s
internal DACs are 20 bit/96 kHz devices. The player will also
pass a DTS surround signal through its digital outputs. The set-
up menus allow you to configure such things as onscreen lan-
guages, menu colors, etc. One idiosyncrasy of the DVL-91, like
the Pioneer-based Theta Vo y a g e r, is that the set-up menus must
be accessed with a disc inserted, but stopped. The
kind of menu you get depends upon the kind of
disc you put in. The onscreen display, besides
having the usual chapter and time information,
includes a digital bit-rate meter, with both a bar
graph and numerical information. As with the
Theta Vo y a g e r , it is an accurate meter, unlike that on the Sony
p l a y e r s .
The front panel of the DVL-91 is sparsely populated with
controls. These include power, play, stop, forward, reverse,
side change (for LDs), display off, and the display itself. There
are also separate eject buttons for CD/DVD and LD. The
remote repeats all of these controls but has no separate eject
buttons, instead responding to what disc is in the machine or
which format was last used. The remote also contains menu
navigation controls, programming and search functions, a
numeric keypad, and a jog dial with shuttle ring. Unfortunate-
Pioneer Elite DV L-91
The Pioneer Elite DV L-91 is compared to the Th e ta Voya g e r
r ev i ewed in TPV 25, our Pioneer Elite DV-09 DVD refe r-
ence playe r, and the Pioneer Elite CLD-97, one of the best
s tandalone laserdisc players from a previous generation. Th e
DVD frequency response differences are insignificant. The DV L-
91 laserdisc playe r’s horizo n tal frequency response, like the Th e ta
Voya g e r, is excellent to 4 MHz (320 TV lines per picture height),
but then falls off rapidly at 5 MHz (400 T V L ) .
Frequency Response ( d B, MHz)
MHz 0.5 1. 0 2 . 0 3 . 0 4 . 0 5 . 0
DV L-91 DV D Y P b Pr 0 0 . 1 0 . 4 0 . 3 - 0 . 6 - 2 . 4
Voyager DVD Y P b Pr0 . 0 0 . 1 0 . 4 0 . 4 - 0 . 3 - 2 . 0
DV-09 DVD Y P b Pr0 . 0 0 . 1 - 0 . 2 0 . 2 - 0 . 3 - 1. 9
DV L-91 LD S - Vi d e o - 0 . 5 - 1. 0 - 1. 4 - 0 . 8 - 0 . 8 - 10 . 9
Voyager LD S - Vi d e o - 0 . 3 - 0 . 6 - 1. 2 - 0 . 9 - 0 . 9 - 9 . 0
CLD-97 LD S - Vi d e o - 0 . 3 - 0 . 5 - 1. 0 - 0 . 8 - 1. 9 - 8 . 9
The DV L- 9 1 ’s luminance noise is excellent for a laserdisc playe r
and will not be visible above the background noise of most
discs.
Signal to Noise (dB rm s ) Vi d e o L u m i n a n c e
C o m p o s i t e S - Video (Y/C)
DV L-91 Voyager LD CLD-97 DV L-91 Voyager LD CLD-97
15 kHz-Fu l l 4 9 . 2 4 9 . 7 4 9 . 8 5 0 . 1 5 0 . 8 5 0 . 1
NTC-7 wtd 5 4 . 2 5 5 . 2 5 5 . 7 5 4 . 8 5 5 . 9 5 5 . 8
The DV L- 9 1 ’ s chroma noise did not equal the CLD-97, the best
of the standalone laserdisc players from a previous generation,
continuing the trend found in combi players. The noise is visible
on test patterns but somewhat less so on movies. Measure-
ments are for maximum chroma noise reduction settings since
no adverse effects were found using that setting and noise
i m p r ovements were significant. Chroma noise is far worse on
the composite video output, so use S-Video with laserdiscs.
Signal to Noise
(dB rms) AM Chroma Noise PM Chroma Noise
C o m p o s i t e DV L- 9 1 Voya g e r CLD-97 DV L- 9 1 Voyager CLD-97
L D L D
100 - 500 KHz 42.0 40.2 5 1.0 43.1 4 0 . 7 4 1. 0
100 Hz - 1 MHz 40.2 3 8 . 5 4 5 . 9 4 0 . 5 3 8 . 2 4 0 . 2
S - Video (Y/C)
100 Hz - 500 KHz 5 1. 1 5 0 . 2 5 4 . 1 4 5 . 6 4 0 . 6 4 7. 0
100 Hz - 1 MHz 4 8 . 4 4 5 . 3 5 1. 7 4 3 . 5 3 8 . 8 4 6 . 5
DVD component-video noise performance is excellent.
S - V ideo noise levels are ve ry good and shouldn’t be visible on
a n y discs. But Y P b Pr component video should always be used
to get the best chroma bandwidth and color deta i l .
Signal to Noise
(dB rms) S - Vi d e o Y P b P r
U nwe i g h t e d YC - A M C - P M YP b Pr
DV L- 9 1 DV D 7 2 . 1 5 6 . 1 4 9 . 2 74 . 7 7 7. 1 7 5 . 8
Voya g e r DV D 74 . 7 6 9 . 9 4 8 . 8 74 . 6 8 0 . 0 7 7. 5
DV- 0 9 7 5 . 9 6 6 . 0 4 5 . 6 7 5 . 4 74 . 8 7 5 . 5
Component-video signal alignment was excellent. A 12 nS
luma to color- d i fference signal delay is less than 1/6 pixe l .
YPbPr Delay ( n S ) Pb to Y Pr to Y Pb to Pr
DV L- 9 1 - 11. 8 - 11. 6 - 0 . 2
Voyager DV D - 18 . 2 - 17. 2 - 1. 0
DV- 0 9 3 1. 8 - 4 2 . 9 74 . 7
Convergence Laboratories Test Report Greg Rogers
-12
-10
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
0.5
MHz 1.0
MHz 2.0
MHz 3.0
MHz 4.0
MHz 5.0
MHz
Frequency Response
dB Voyager DVD YPbPr
Voyager LD S-Video
CLD-97 LD S-Video
DVL-91 LD S-Video
DVL-91 DVD YPbPr
Frequency Response
ly, the remote of the DVL-91, like that of the
Theta Voyager, has no back lighting. Given the
small size of many of the buttons, it is easy to hit
the wrong one in the dark.
Like all of Pioneer’s recent combi players, the
DVL-91 has a small drawer on the front to pick up
CDs or DVDs and a larger drawer for holding LDs. Fascinated by
the whooshes and whirrs of sliding trays and turning gears (rem-
iniscent of Dark City), I opened up the DVL-91 and found an engi-
neering work of art. I l o v e watching the laser carriage move from
front to back and roll over, which it seems to do whenever the
disc drawers open or shut. (Pioneer should really consider releas-
ing a special edition in a transparent case.) A good part of this
machinery is Pioneer’s famed Epsilon-turn mechanism, which
moves the laser head from side A to side B of an LD in 10 seconds,
about half the time of the CLD-97. Part of the turn mechanism is
housed in a small box protruding from the back of the case.
DVD Performance
Now that DVD players have reached their “third generation”
and 10-bit video DACs have become the standard, video per-
formance looks much the same no matter the brand or model,
certainly in the $1,000-and-up range. The exception are DVD
players such as the Pioneer Elite DV-09, with additional video
signal processing to adjust picture parameters like color satu-
ration, or to provide advanced adaptive detail enhancement
and noise reduction. MPEG artifacts are now rarely seen –
untrue of many first-generation players. The DVL-91 produces a
DVD image that is largely indistinguishable from that of my ref-
erence player, the Sony DVP-S7000 or the newer Sony DVP-
S7700 (on either Y/C or component outputs). On tests from the
Vi d e o E s s e n t i a l sDVD [DVDI 0711], it appears to have good fre-
quency response to at least 5 MHz; color bars are solid and
without apparent noise. All of this is reflected in good perfor-
mance on a variety of movies. The DVL-91 can display below-
black levels from a DVD, which not all players can do. This is
important for using test patterns to properly set up black levels
on a video display device.
Two areas in which DVD players still differ in perfor-
mance are (1) quality of downconversion from 16.9 format
DVDs to 4:3 displays and (2) motion control. These are areas
in which the Sony DVP-S7700 sets the standard and in which
the Pioneer DVL-91, like its cousin the Theta Voyager, falls
short. On a variety of 16.9 format DVDs, the DVL-91 produced
aliasing artifacts while downconverting, most prominently
observable in images with closely spaced horizontal lines, par-
ticularly if those images move slowly in a vertical direction. In
the opening scene of Goldeneye [MGM 906035], where an air-
plane flies low over a dam, the top of the dam has two close-
ly-spaced horizontal lines. On the Pioneer and Theta Voyager,
these lines twitter a little but are sharp; on the Sony they are
stable but with a slightly softer focus. This is a common dif-
ference between downconversion algorithms: stability with
softer focus or sharpness with aliasing artifacts. I prefer the
non-aliasing appearance of the Sony; you may disagree. Some-
times the aliasing artifacts can be seen on suit jackets with
fine patterns, as in Contact [Warner 15041] at the beginning of
chapter 5, in Tom Skerrit’s jacket, and at the beginning of
chapter 9, in Jody Foster’s. In both instances, the Pioneer and
Theta produce a slightly sharper detail but with twittering,
whereas the Sony produces a slightly softer focus but with a
steady image.
While the DVL-91 is fine for playing movies, I found it
quite difficult to control many of the special features of DVDs.
Slow motion and still-step must be done via the jog/shuttle
control and use of this is awkward, at best. (Perhaps I would
enjoy it more if the player had a faster response time.) I pre-
fer the simpler button controls of the Pioneer 919, also on the
Theta Voyager, or the even better buttons on the Sony 7000
remote. Homing in on a series of still frames, such as on the
Video Essentials test disc, is not as easy as with the Sony 7000
series. The DVL-91 does not provide smooth slow motion in
reverse, but neither do most other DVD players; Sony still sets
the standard here. The DVL-91 is also noticeably slower than
the Sony to jump to different spots on a disc; there are long
delays when jumping to different parts of feature menus. The
DVL-91 also has a limited ability to function with DVD menus
that have multiple layers. The main place I’ve encountered
this is with test discs such as Video Essentials or AVIA [Ova-
tion Software], so it may not concern those who just want to
watch movies. The presence of a single “menu” button, which
functions for Player Menus, Disc Root Menus, and Disc Title
Menus, may contribute to this awkwardness.
LD Performance
The laserdisc performance of the DVL-91, while acceptable,
like the Theta Voyager does not match Pioneer’s last stand-
alone laserdisc players, the CLD-97 and CLD-99. All of the
Pioneer DV-09 Theta Voyager Pioneer DVL-91
Progressive Video Output No No No
Component Video Output YPbPr YPbPr YPbPr
Advanced Digital Video Processing YNR,CNR,H-Detail,V-Detail None DNR
Y/C Delay
Video Calibration Adjustments S-Video Color, Black Level None None
Below-Black Video Output No Yes Yes
96 KHz/24-bit Digital Audio Output Yes Yes Yes
DTS Digital Audio Output Yes Yes Yes
5.1-Channel Audio Priority No No No
Other Laserdisc Player Laserdisc Player
Price $2,200 $6,500 $1,800
Key Features: DVD Players
In the last issue, we previewed a prototype of the DVDO
iScan Plus line doubler, a breakthrough product at $699. Its
price and key feature, inverse-telecine processing, threatens
to restructure the line-doubler market. Inverse-telecine is a
process that can convert interlaced video from film sources to
progressive video without creating deinterlacing artifacts.
Until recently it has been protected by patents making it avail-
able only on line-doublers and video upconverters more than
10 times the price of the iScan Plus. (The inverse-telecine
process is explained fully in Issue 24.)
I have now received a standard production iScan Plus and
can update our earlier evaluation. The inverse-telecine pro-
cessing continues to work as flawlessly as before to deinter-
lace DVD and laserdisc movies, as well as anything shot on
film for broadcast TV. Deinterlacing material shot with video
cameras, where the inverse-telecine process no longer
applies, continues to be rather mediocre. That is actually a
much more difficult technical challenge, so I didn’t expect
anything better for this price.
The complete iScan Plus feature set is implemented on
the production unit, which includes one composite and two
S - Video inputs, but no component video inputs. It is disap-
pointing to give up the higher chroma bandwidth that com-
ponent video inputs would have provided for DVD. Yo u
also don’t get the conventional video picture adjustments
for contrast, brightness, color, tint, and
sharpness. The black level of the produc-
tion iScan Plus was set too low, but this can be compensat-
ed with the projector’s brightness control. I believe the
absence of a color control will be the feature missed the
most. There is very little control over color levels on cable
TV and digital satellite broadcasts, and chroma levels on
laserdiscs and DVDs are sometimes variable, reflecting the
judgement and taste of the telecine colorist.
The performance of the YPbPr and RGB outputs were
essentially the same when connected to a Sony VPH-G90U
front projector. I also didn’t see any of the earlier VCR
Macrovision problems using my Sony SLV-R5 S-VHS deck.
My primary concern with the prototype’s performance was
a significantly softer picture than its more expensive competi-
tion. Here DVDO may have overreacted. The production ver-
s i o n ’s picture appears much sharper, but that has been
achieved by excessively peaking the horizontal frequency
response in the 2.5-3 MHz region. This creates edge-outlining
artifacts, a ghostly white halo adjacent to dark vertical edges
that can most easily be seen against light backgrounds. It isn’t
as bad as the severe edge-enhancement that I have been com-
plaining about on some DVDs, but it is more than I wish to see.
The NTSC decoder in this product has a wide range of hori-
zontal bandwidth settings, so it would be a benefit if DVDO
turned this peaking back down, or somehow provided user
control. A slightly softer picture is preferable to edge-outlin-
ing. Otherwise, the iScan Plus would be the
line-doubler deal of the century.
players mentioned have a similar flat-frequency response to 4
MHz with a rapid fall-off at 5 MHz (seen as a weak image in
the 5 MHz band on a multiburst test pattern, e.g., on the Video
Essentials laserdisc). There is a strange moiré or rainbow
color in the 5 MHz burst on the DVL-91 that I haven’t seen
before. I couldn’t find any examples of this in real-world
images from laserdisc playback, possibly because few
laserdiscs have any content at this frequency.
The DVL-91, like the Theta Voyager, has its weakest per-
formance in chroma noise. On color bars or full-frame color
displays, the noise is best described as “worms” in the image.
This is most prominent in blue and cyan, but is also present in
red, magenta, green, and yellow. The noise can be significant-
ly reduced by turning the variable digital noise reduction (V-
DNR) to max, but is still visible, even with that setting. Fortu-
nately this chroma noise does not often intrude
on laserdisc playback. I noticed it most on older,
noisy laserdiscs. Their inherent noise, added to
that of the DVL-91, created a noisier image than
from the CLD-97/99. The DVL-91 also has an
exaggerated chroma delay: See the Video Essen -
tials test pattern with two red bars on a yellow background.
There is smear of the red bar to the right, into the yellow
background, and it includes an irregular pattern of red dots.
The awkward controls, which I mentioned above for DVD,
also apply for laserdisc. Pioneer’s earlier CLD-97 and CLD-99
had better controls for still step than does the DVL-91, and
their jog/shuttle controls worked better.
Summary
The video performance of the Pioneer DVL-91 is essentially
equivalent to that of the Theta Voyager. It is particularly
impressive as a DVD player, but like the Voyager, doesn’t
equal previous generation state-of-the-art laserdisc players.
However, for $1,800, you get a combination LD and DVD play-
er, which is not a bad deal, especially if you have a collection
of laserdiscs and need a new LD player. There is also the con-
venience of having just one set of hook-ups and one remote
control for all your home-theater optical disc needs. Of
course, as with any stand-alone DVD or LD player, you also
get a CD player in the bargain.
Further Thoughts:
DVDO iScan Plus Line Doubler
PIONEER ELITE DVL-91
Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.
2265 East 220th St
Long Beach, California 90810
Phone: 1-800-Pioneer
www.pioneerelectronics.com
Source: Manufacturer Loan
Price: $1,800
M a n u f a c t u r e r I n f o r m a t i o n
G R E G R O G E R S
Edinburgh Intl. Film Festival
August 15 – 29, 1999
Edinburgh, Scotland
Montreal World Film Festival
August 26 – September 26, 1999
Montreal, Canada
Black Filmworks Festival
of Film and Video
September 1 – 3, 1999
Oakland, CA
Telluride Film Festival
September 3 – 6, 1999
Telluride, CO
Toronto International Film Fest
September 9 – 18, 1999
Toronto, Ontario
International Broadcasting
Convention
September 10 – 14, 1999
London, England
Le Nombre D’or
September 10 – 14, 1999
London, England
Empire State Film Fest
September 14 – October 9, 1999
Mohawk, NY
British Short Film Festival
September 16 – 23, 1999
London, England
Mostra Rio
September 16 – 30, 1999
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Athens International Film Festival
September 17 – September 24, 1999
Athens, Greece
Independent Feature Film Market
September 17 – 24, 1999
New York, NY
Bangkok Film Festival
September 17 – 26, 1999
Bangkok, Thailand
Drama Short Film Fest
September 19 – 25, 1999
Drama, Greece
Aspen Film Festival
September 22 – 26, 1999
Aspen, CO
South Bronx Film Festival
September 23 – 25, 1999
Bronx, NY
Manhattan Short Film Festival
September 24, 1999
New York, NY
New York Film Festival
September 24 – October 10, 1999
New York, NY
Spokane Film Festival
September 25, 1999
Spokane, WA
Screens on the Bay
September 29 – October 1, 1999
Rome, Italy
Saint Louis International
Film Festival (8th Annual)
October 29 – November 7, 1999
St. Louis, MO
The Rehoboth Beach Independent
Film Festival
November 11 – 14, 1999
Rehoboth Beach, DE
Cairo International Film Festival
November 25 – December 8, 1999
Cairo, Egypt
SEE HEAR
Celebrate Film.
A publ i c ser vi ce of The Per fect
o many Americans, Roberto Benigni and his film Life Is
Beautiful materialized out of nowhere. Who was this
odd foreigner who suddenly jumped to the front of the
line and garnered three Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film,
Best Actor (a first for an actor in a foreign subtitled film), and
Best Dramatic Score? Recently, in television interviews and in
print, Benigni has been depicted largely as a crazy but charm-
ing buffoon who says he loves everybody and spews mangled
English in long incoherent sentences.
But our ignorance has been our loss, for this masterful
comedian is not a Johnny-Come-Lately, and he is nobody’s
fool. His name is a household word in much of Europe, where
he is respected and adored for his large body of work as
writer, director, and actor. Benigni has been a major figure in
Italian cinema for well over a decade, though making only
occasional appearances in American films. He is so well loved
in Italy that there was an astonishing show of public jubilation
– literally, dancing in the streets – when he
won his Oscars. The Pope himself request-
ed a private viewing of Life Is Beautiful –
apparently only the third film the Pontiff
had ever seen.
Unlike many contempo-
rary comedians and comic
actors whose memory of their field goes no further back than,
s a y, Monty Python or the original Saturday Night Live, Rober-
to Benigni has been drawing from the well of the pioneering
masters – particularly the silent ones: Charlie Chaplin, Buster
Keaton, Harold Lloyd. There are also shades of Laurel & Hardy,
the Marx Brothers, Jacques Tati, and Peter Sellers throughout
his work. Fans of silent and classic comedy have been drawn
to him; he appears to be the living embodiment of the traditions
of slapstick and pantomime – rechanneling the magical aura of
these past greats and reinventing it for audiences today. While
he draws inspiration from these comic geniuses, he steals noth-
ing – for he has a unique persona and a style all his own. His
appearance, stance, walk, voice, and gestures are already
unmistakable and are fast becoming as well known as Chaplin’s
once were. What wonderful gifts this man has to offer! His
warmth, charisma, his lust for life, are infectious – and a bit of
fresh air in these cynical times. What makes him an even more
endearing figure is his warm public and pro-
fessional relationship with his wife, actress
Nicoletta Braschi (who calls him “a poet”).
Benigni often includes her as his co-star and
leading lady, referring to her as the “light-
ning” or electricity that ani-
mates his work.
FILM & MOVIES
Classic Comedy’s Second Coming:
Roberto Benigni
A L I C E A R T Z T & B R U C E L A W T O N
Benigni with
Wim Wender
in 1993.
Though a number of films in which Benigni
appears have not reached the US, many of his ear-
lier efforts have been available for some time on
home video in this country. As of this writing, none
of his films have been released on DVD (with the
exception of the just released Seeking Asylum – see sidebar).
But while you wait for the soon-to-be released laserdisc of
Life Is Beautiful, consider the following five films on LD and
VHS:
Down by Law
1986 • 107 minutes
Writer/Director Jim Jarmusch’s starkly photographed black
and white film about three losers – all victims of circumstance
who end up together in a New Orleans jail cell and who subse-
quently escape – was Benigni’s first American (and English-
speaking) feature. The film has a decided “watching paint dry”
pace, particularly in the beginning, which shows the malaise
and boredom of the surroundings – while the visuals and nar-
rative keep things interesting. The first half hour is taken up
with one day in the lives of a hot-shot pimp (John Lurie) and a
down-and-out disc jockey (Tom Waits) leading up to the “set-
ups” that put them behind bars. Around the 20-minute mark,
Benigni makes his first appearance – with his back to the cam-
era – appearing like a vision to the drunken Tom Waits. He says,
“ I t ’s a sad and beautiful world,” in a thick Italian accent, to
which Waits replies, “Buzz off.” Rather than taking offense,
Benigni takes note of this new expression (perhaps a greet-
ing?), practices saying it with different inflections and in differ-
ent contexts – “Hello, How are you and buzz off to you, too!”–
writes it in his little black book for future reference, and disap-
pears. Throughout the film, in an effort to improve his fractured
English, he carries around this little notebook and writes down
any phrase he hears, usually having no idea of its real meaning.
When not spouting Italian translations of American poetry and
p h i l o s o p h y, he innocently and happily parrots these phrases in
incongruous situations.
While he’s an unlikely fellow to find wandering around
Louisiana (almost like a friendly alien from another planet),
Roberto (who goes by his real name in this picture) nonethe-
less becomes the heart of the film. Not long after Lurie and
Waits are jailed, Benigni joins them in their cell. His manner
and demeanor upon entering his new surroundings are not
unlike those of Stan Laurel. Like a child, he is cautious of – yet
curious about – his new “friends.” He studies them, attempts
to make conversation and tries to learn better English from
them. While they are at first reluctant to befriend him, Rober-
to manages to bring them out of their shells. In doing so, he
serves as the glue that gradually brings these two surly, self-
ish, brooding American rebel-types together. While they ben-
efit from his ingenuity (it is he who discovers a means of
escape from the prison and keeps them from starving in the
wild), they also benefit from his warm kindness and friend-
ship. They clearly become better people just from knowing
this “good egg.”
Toward the end of the film, the beautiful NicolettaBraschi
(also going by her real name) appears as a lonely café owner
with whom the fugitives find refuge. The highlight is a loving,
sensuous dance between her and Roberto to the Irma Thomas
song “It’s Raining” on the jukebox. There’s a feeling of blissful
irony and cosmic justice that these two warm souls – Italians
in a foreign land – should meet and fall in love. While the ulti-
mate fate of all the characters is left in question, you can’t
help but suspect that Roberto and Nicoletta will go on to a
happy life together.
The film was released years ago on VHS through the Fox
label, Key Video – then disappeared. It was finally remastered
and re-released on VHS in 1996 by Polygram Video ($15),
which led to its first domestic laserdisc release [ID3911PG]
through Image Entertainment in the same year. The disc is
now an out-of-print collectors item.
Johnny Stecchino
1991 • 102 minutes
Even before Johnny Stecchino (“Johnny Toothpick”), Benigni
had written, directed, and starred in several Italian films (all
of which have yet to be released on video in this country).
However, Stecchino went on to become Italy’s most success-
ful box-office hit until The Monster and Life Is Beautiful, and
thus received a theatrical release here, where American audi-
ences got their first impression of what the multi-talented
Benigni could really do.
Following in the grand film comedy tradition often used
by Peter Sellers, Benigni plays two roles: that of Dante, a free-
spirited bus driver who yearns for romance and has a propen-
sity for stealing bananas (by sleight of hand from fruit mer-
chants), and that of Johnny Stecchino, a macho mafioso
forced into hiding by a feud with a rival family. While the first
role is one that we’ve come to equate with the warm Benigni
Benigni with Claudia Cardinale and Blake Edwards in 1993.
persona, it is the second that gives us a glimpse of his remark-
able chameleonic abilities as an actor. While comical, gang-
ster Johnny is also a menacing figure and one to be feared,
even if not taken completely seriously. This basic premise is
not unlike that of the little known Buster Keaton film, The
King of the Champs-Elysée, a 1934 French comedy in which
Keaton plays both a variation of his usual screen character
and a ruthless gangster.
Through a chance meeting with Johnny’s wife, Maria
(played by Braschi), the unknowing Dante is invited to stay
at the Stecchino villa – to be used as a decoy to deflect atten-
tion away from the gangster in hiding. Numerous farcical sit-
uations ensue, the most hilarious running gag being the inno-
cent Dante’s impression that he’s being dogged by those
around him for banana theft, when really he’s being pursued
by hit men and betrayed m a f i o s i. Another is his being misled
into believing that cocaine is really a miracle medicine for
diabetes! The film is full of such gags and yet remains a light
and bittersweet piece of sublime entertainment. The jaunty
evocative musical score by Evan Lurie is also a treat.
The film was released on VHS and laserdisc [ID23244LI]
by New Line Home Video in 1993 and is in Italian with English
subtitles. The transfer is quite nice and brings out the rich col-
ors of the Italian locales, although several cropped shots
show that it could have benefited from letterboxing. The retail
price of the laserdisc was recently reduced to $20 (down from
$40), although the disc appears to have just gone out of print.
The VHS, which also retails for $20, is still available.
Night On Earth
1991 • 128 minutes
Jim Jarmusch just couldn’t keep himself from using the great
Benigni in yet another of his quirky films. Night On Earth is a
unique concept film (sporting a lurching Kurt Weillesque To m
Waits score) that proves that variety is the spice of life. The
gimmick: five taxi cab rides which take place in succession in
different major cities on Earth (Los Angeles, New York, Paris,
Rome, Helsinki). While all five stories are interesting, the New
York and Rome segments are the most piquant. Benigni, of
course, is featured in the Rome episode and gives a tour de
f o r c e of hilarity in his characterization of Gino, an eccentric,
whacked-out cabby who picks up a weary priest (played with
beautiful comic restraint by Paolo Bonacelli, who also
appeared to great effect in Johnny Stecchino). Upon picking up
his holy fare, Gino spews a barrage of conversation at the padre
– and then gets a bright idea. Since he hasn’t been to church in
quite a while, he asks the priest to hear his confession.
Undaunted by the priest’s protestations, Gino relates with great
gusto his rather odd string of sexual escapades – starting from
puberty! Only an artist of Benigni’s winning personality and
temperament could pull off such an outrageous routine without
appearing sleazy. The sequence is a comic gem,
arguably the highlight of the film.
Both New Line Home Vi d e o ’s VHS and laserdisc
[ID2246LI] releases derive from the same solid
widescreen (1.85:1) transfer that really can’t be fault-
ed, considering how much of this film takes place in dark cabs at
night, lit by the streetlights of the different environments. The
VHS retails for $15 while the laserdisc is one of the most sought
after out-of-print titles around.
Son of the Pink Panther
1993 • 93 minutes
Let’s face it – when the great Peter Sellers died, he took the
key to the Pink Panther series with him. The five “Clouseau”
films that he and comic director Blake Edwards created are
classics of the genre and still constitute the most successful
feature slapstick series ever created. After Sellers’ death,
Edwards and United Artists tried to revive the series with two
companion films produced at the same time. Using many of
the series regulars, he fashioned Trail of the Pink Panther
(1982), which utilized sequences from the previous films as
well as unused ones to tell the story of the “missing” Inspec-
tor Clouseau. This was followed by Curse of the Pink Panther
(1983), which attempted to revive the series by introducing
Clifton Sleigh (Ted Wass) as the second worst detective in the
world. The mediocrity of these two entries appeared to bring
an end to the Panther.
But then a decade later there appeared a beacon of hope.
Comic sensation Roberto Benigni would be a natural to revive
the series – and what better way to bring him on board than to
fashion a premise where he could play Clouseau’s long hidden
(illegitimate) son – the product of a brief romantic tryst with
Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer’s character in A Shot In The
D a r k , now played by Claudia Cardinale, Princess Dala in the
Roberto on the Internet
If you are internet savvy, you can check out Benigni’s up-to-
date filmography on the popular Internet Movie Database at:
http://uk.imdb.com/Name?Benigni,+Roberto.
A delightful “Un-Official Roberto Benigni Fan Site” can be
accessed at: http://lavender.fortunecity.com/wildbunch/334/.
Seeking Asylum (Chiedo Asilo)
1979 • 112 minutes
In what is, I hope, only the first of numerous home-video
unearthings of Benigni’s past work, Image Entertainment
has just released Seeking Asylum [ID4771SI] in Italian with
English subtitles on VHS ($20) and on DVD ($25). (The cas-
sette we viewed had a serious glitch for the first few minutes,
which we assume was particular to our copy and not an arti-
fact of Image’s master.) The film stars Benigni as a unorthodox
kindergarten teacher (named Roberto – what else?) whose
anarchic manner with his pupils is not unlike the school scene
in Life Is Beautiful. But as the film goes on, we see that he
regards his charges more as experimental material than any-
thing else. Suspicions of comic ideas and glimpses of the
Benigni to come are in evidence here – not surprising since he
was a co-writer on the film. However, while shot in a sponta-
neous and improvisational manner, the film is mired in ennui
and ambiguity (and ends on a strange and unexpected mysti-
cal note) thanks to its writer/director, the late Marco Ferreri.
Considering Ferreri’s controversial cinematic output, this film
seems to be his most conventional – which is not saying a lot!
If you love Benigni, it’s worth a look, but don’t expect an urge
for multiple viewings.
The transfer appears to be an old one, which, short of let-
terboxing, could have used some attention in the composi-
tional framing department.
The Only DVD…
original Pink Panther film – go figure). Sad to say,
though, the film just doesn’t work. The dramatic plot
of international intrigue (the kidnapping of the
Princess of Lugash played by Debrah Farentino) is
murky and uninteresting. The comic plot with which
it is intertwined – that of Commissioner Dreyfus’ (the great Her-
bert Lom) discovery of a bumbling yet dedicated Gendarme
(Benigni) who causes the return of his familiar paranoia and
accompanying facial tick, is an inspired concept. Naturally,
Benigni is delightful as Jacques Gambrelli-Clouseau, Jr. – and
though there are a number of hilarious moments and bits of busi-
ness, the direction is stale, and the poorly realized script doesn’t
give Benigni enough to work with. For Benigni fans, it is worth
watching for those fun moments, and it includes Braschi in a
cute cameo – which perhaps hints at a sequel.
MGM/UA Home Video released the film in pan-and-scan on
VHS (which is out of print, but seemingly about to be reissued)
and in widescreen (2.35:1) on laserdisc [ML103044], which origi-
nally retailed for $35 but can now be had for $10. The disc also
includes the trailer, which gives the impression of a much better
film. With its scope framing and chapter markers, the disc is a
great way to savor Benigni’s best bits. Oddly, the jacket lists both
the aspect ratio and running time incorrectly.
The Monster (Il Mostro)
1994 • 111 minutes
Produced right before Life Is Beautiful, The Monster is a near
perfect comedy of mistaken identity, making it an obvious
companion piece to Johnny Stecchino. (Like Stecchino, t h i s
film also sports a nifty score by Evan Lurie.) Benigni plays
Loris, a clever fellow who gets by on part-time odd jobs, sup-
plementing his resources through inventive small-time
scams as he manages to stay one step ahead of his creditors
(a character not unlike Chaplin’s Tramp). Through a hilari-
ous risqué incident and subsequent misunderstanding, Loris
is pegged by the local law enforcement as the elusive sex-
crazed serial killer they’ve been after. Sure that they have
their man, they put the unknowing Loris under surveillance,
and as they misconstrue every innocent move he makes,
they become progressively more convinced that he is the
m u r d e r e r. Obsessed with catching Loris red-handed (and
finding out what makes him tick), the police psychologist
(splendid French star Michel Blanc) enlists the assistance of
a policewoman named Jessica (again, the enchanting
Braschi) to go undercover as “bait.” Pretending to look for
an apartment, she ends up rooming with the unsuspecting
Loris, who is mystified at her relentless attempts to be
provocative. The comic situations and developments that
take place under these circumstances are nothing short of
hysterical. The ending (a topper to a running gag) is exquis-
ite and serves as a loving nod to Chaplin. The film is brim-
ming with brilliant gags and bits of slapstick resulting in
farce on a grand scale. That, combined with the vibrant char-
acterizations of the entire cast makes this one of the most
satisfying comedies of all time. This may be just the begin-
ning of what Benigni, along with Braschi, has in store for us.
The film was released in Italian with English subtitles on
VHS through Columbia TriStar Home Video in 1997 and has
just recently come down in price to
the $20 range. The transfer is service-
able although it’s clear throughout
that the film would have greatly bene-
fited from letterboxing. It’s worth not-
ing that the version available here
omits an early four-minute sequence
that, while not essential, is quite funny
and sets up certain adversarial relation-
ships that follow.
Alice Artzt is a professional classical
guitarist who has performed world -
wide and recorded extensively. She
writes on music for The Absolute
Sound.
Bruce Lawton is a motion picture and
video specialist, serving for five years
as archival director of New York’s Kil -
liam Shows, where many silent clas -
sics are stored. He has produced and
edited documentaries and presenta -
tions for public and international
television, and has presided over
home video and laserdisc releases for
Republic Pictures Home Video and the
Voyager Company. He writes for
Sound and Vision, and BraiPlay.com,
and produces “live” film presenta -
tions (including The Silent Clowns
series) in New York City.
he fanatics among you will know, by the time you
read this, that the long-awaited Stanley Kubrick
boxed set of seven films, released through Warner
Home Video, is a great big disappointment.
I am, at the time of this writing, just experiencing that
first wave of anger and incredulity. The DVD set was
released, officially, on the very day this article had to be
turned in, and I only managed by wit and ingenuity – hardy-
har – to scrounge the Kubrick package a few days earlier,
no thanks to Warner’s folks.
And small wonder.
The set consists of Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A
Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The
S h i n i n g , and Full Metal Jacket. MGM issued three other and
earlier Kubrick films separately: K i l l e r ’s Kiss, The Killing,
a n d Paths of Glory. K u b r i c k ’s director- f o r-hire flick, the epic
S p a r t a c u s , evidently had been disowned by the man.
I have no idea why the three earlier films weren’t
included in the “official” Stanley-approved set. Maybe, as in
the case of Spartacus, he didn’t consider them equal to his
best. What we were told, by Warner, was that Kubrick
designed the package and approved its contents. In which
case, double the mystery and double my doubts about cer-
tain of Kubrick’s judgments. None of the discs are “anamor-
phically” enhanced, which is a crying shame. And most of
the transfers have been done at relatively low bit rates,
which results, in too many cases, in soft pictures – even on
a standard monitor.
Lolita, Strangelove, and Barry Lyndon fare best in
terms of picture quality (read: definition), even though the
film stock used in shooting Lolita (as seen in the theater)
wasn’t of consistent quality: Exteriors are sometimes soft in
focus, while the interiors are just jim-dandy. Exactly the
same may be said for Strangelove, which also has more
speckles than you’d ever expect from an element that ought
to be in better shape. (But, then, so does The Shining in
places.) Lyndon looks spectacular, better than I’ve seen it
on any transfer. Note particularly the available-light scenes,
shot with only candles for illumination, which are now
sharply defined with much less color saturation and much
more natural skin tones.
2001 is regrettably exactly the same transfer (unen-
. . . . . . . . .
Special Editions:
Kubrick and The Space Monsters
hanced) that came from UA/MGM some months ago,
with all the flaws of that release, including the image
“sharpenings” that leave everyone, from man to
apes, outlined by fine miniature halos. The picture is soft
and the colors a bit on the pink side (on both my viewing
devices). I doubt that 2001 should ever be seen on home
video, no matter what the size of the screen. It was best pro-
jected in Cinerama (the single lens variety) and shown on
a deeply curved screen. Its grandeur disappears and the
architectonics of its set design and special effects are
reduced to the equivalent of a postcard replication of Vi n-
cent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” – that is to say, with noth-
ing like the impact and awesomeness of the original.
Once, and the first time I saw it, at the long -gone George
Cinerama in Atlanta, I noted during the film’s opening
moments that, as the camera rose upward to reveal the
alignment of the planets deep into the background, I actu-
ally had the sinking feeling that I was rising as well. See-
ing it on other big screens, but not in a Cinerama installa-
tion, I did not find the sort of involvement I felt with the
opening scene, nor did I have the intense rush of adrena-
line during the now widely imitated “light show” that was
2 0 0 1 ’s penultimate thrill. For that matter, the entire mas-
sive scale of the film is shriveled and with it, much of the
awe 2 0 0 1 could inspire is lost. Instead of the feeling of
great spaciousness that Kubrick manages to work in to
almost every scene, we get a tamed “instant” version of
what was once really a “space” odyssey. On this DVD, we
are not even treated to a picture-book replica of the origi-
nal, but something, in terms of quality, that approaches the
look of an upscale comic book.
Consistency is not much in evidence in the set. F u l l
Metal Jacket and The Shining are shown in their full-frame
versions, not in the 1.66:1 aspect that Kubrick evidently pre-
ferred – 2 0 0 1 being Kubrick’s only foray into multi-channel
sound (which he used with indifference to its potential) and
a very wide aspect ratio. Played back, however, on a 16.9
screen, both The Shining and Full Metal Jacket play better.
In The Shining, for instance, such picture cropping covers
the shadow of the helicopter from which the opening
sequence was filmed. I can’t imagine that Kubrick didn’t see
this as he watched the film on video, just as I am puzzled by
the exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel, where no maze is to
be seen – why the incongruity? And the transfer of The Shin -
i n g appears to be identical with the full-frame version
released on 12-inch laserdisc, and not materially better. It
suggests, Kubrick-approved or no, that the package –
evidently originally intended to accompany Eyes Wi d e
S h u t’s July release – was pretty much thrown together
from existing transfers. We get zilch in the way of special fea-
tures – save for an interview with Arthur C. Clarke on the
2 0 0 1 disc and a Vivian Kubrick directed documentary about
the shooting of The Shining on that disc. Otherwise, nada.
That said, the documentary on the making of The Shin -
ing is tantalizing and, sad to say, all too brief a look at the
director at work, fleshed out with Jack Nicholson’s on-and-
off-set antics and a not very flattering glimpse of some of
Shelley Duval’s diva-like (in the “difficult” sense of diva-
like) tactics during the filming.
With the exception of Barry Lyndon, which I would
much, much rather have seen in a widescreen “enhanced”
version, these transfers are far from the state of the art. I
despised the look of 2001 and found the “softness” of too
many images in A Clockwork Orange distracting (it may
look better on a direct view, small-screen monitor, but you
won’t want to blow the image up to front-projection size).
Both Clockwork and Full Metal Jacket exhibited pinkish
skin tones on both systems here.*
So what do we have? All of the releases from Lolita
through Barry Lyndon at the correct aspect which, except-
ing 2001, is basically 1.66:1 All, save 2001, are monophon-
ic Dolby, with the sound on Barry Lyndonoverly ripe in the
bottom octave (which plays havoc with the e’er-circulating
Vivaldi theme) and not so good as the laserdisc issue. All
appear to be taken from older transfers. There are few
“goodies” for the avid moviegoer in the way of extras. And,
top it, no enhancement. Bad show.
The other big news in boxed sets was the early June
issue of The Alien Legacy from Fox.
For the four movies therein – Alien, Aliens, Alien3,and
*The direct viewToshiba IDTV set, a 32-incher, was set up by Joe
Kane and has always exhibited a breathtaking color fidelity, especially on
hard-to-capture reds. The recently installed Barco is promised a color ana-
lyzer check out of its grayscale and color temperature. I believe it could
use some fine-tuning of its color balance.
**For those who care, the goodies include, on Alien, an interview with
Ridley Scott, the movie’s storyboard, the original score on its own audio
track, some deleted scenes, one of which surely ought not to have been
deleted, given its importance to the versions that would follow, and this
is the scene where the survivors find the first victims of the alien all bun-
dled up in their gooey cocoons. On Aliens, we have an interview with
James Cameron, some behind-the-scenes footage, and the restored 17
minutes missing from the Dolby Digital laserdisc issued last year. On 3,
we have a “making of” feature, original trailers (but, who cares?), and
so on.
Alien Resurrection – we find each at its correct
aspect, 2.35:1 for all save the James Cameron-direct-
ed Aliens, done here at 1.85:1. All are enhanced for
widescreen displays. All are in Dolby 5.1 surround, which,
as we shall soon learn, is not always an unmixed blessing.
And all have value-added features, ranging, at the simplest,
from Resurrection’s making-of featurette, to the chock full
of goodies on the original Alien, now in its “20th Anniver-
sary” edition.**
The bad news? The sound on Alien is stinko. In earlier
laser transfers of the film, the sound is quite remarkable,
especially in terms of low-frequency weight and articula-
tion and in overall dynamics. Considering its l979 origins,
the surround sound was most effectively deployed.***
But on this DVD, there is no low bass to be heard, and lit-
tle in the way of dynamics. Indeed, if you want a notion of
how far off the sound is, you don’t have to look up the earli-
er editions; all you have to do is select and play back the
music track itself (one of the nice features of the disc) and
see how vitiated, anemic, and jejune the sound has become.
Castrated is the word that pops to mind, if not to body.
This disc should be recalled, a new attempt made to
squeeze its wideband response into Dolby Digital’s narrow
band of bits.****
Vi s u a l l y , it’s a hard choice. I think my Palme d’Or for visu-
al excellence would go to A l i e n s (viewed in enhanced fash-
ion), which is up there with the best in my experience. *****
Nearly, maybe just as good is Alien Resurrection, but
what a mess its script is, and its director Jean-Pierre Jeunet
(Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) brings little of his
outrageous visual flare to bear on the proceedings. Given
its box-office reception, nearly as bad as the critical drub-
bings it took, I doubt there will be another in the series,
although I find the implied prospect of aliens loose on a
futuristic planet earth yummy (maybe they would physical-
ly morph into the sleaze-spitting Matt Drudges of the world
to come). Alien3, which repulsed me when I saw it in the
theater, actually plays better on the smaller screens of the
home theater. ******
It certainly makes more sense. The look that
director David Fincher (S e v e n) bestowed on it was
radical in several senses and made following its con-
voluted goings-on, particularly where the monster was con-
cerned, difficult on first viewing. 3 i s n ’ t as bad a movie as I
first thought, though it is not in the same starry pantheon as
the first two movies. Is it heresy to say that Cameron’s only
two good films are the original Te r m i n a t o r and A l i e n s? If so,
so be it. And the restoration of the 17 minutes he had to cut
to accommodate the marketing powers that be makes sound
emotional sense in the deepening of Ripley’s character,
although I think I could have done without the prolog of
what happened to the colonists. The film works better, I
think, if the way the aliens connected with the people in the
off-world settlement is left a mystery. I find it particularly
objectionable that it is the parents of the one survivor who
first got alienated, so to speak. Too pat. Being pat to the point
of obviousness is one the things I object to most about
C a m e r o n ’s work. In Terminator II, he throws away suspense
and the unexpected, unanticipated shock for the gratuitous
special effect. If the morphing villain of I Icould change him-
self into anything including the floor, the suspense of where
he’d pop up next ought to be killing, but Cameron doesn’t
once take advantage of this inherent license to scare the
remaining wits (not much these days, judging from what’s
making money at the box office) out of the audience.
These discs are available separately, to be sure. So you
might save a buck or more by cherry-picking the best of the
series. I don’t recommend the Alien disc and won’t short of
a remastering (unlikely, I’d think) to solve its sonic woes.
Aliens is a must. Whether or not you go for the other two
would depend entirely on your compulsiveness about these
things. I think you could pass, but then I didn’t, did I?
Special Editions:
A Few Weird Thoughts
I seem to have developed a kind of journalistically induced
schizopolis when it comes to the “added value” stuffings found
in laserdisc and DVD special editions. I deplored the lack of
these features in the Kubrick set and have wondered what
else, beside the kitchen sink, might be found on the DVD of
What Dreams May Come.
As a general rule, I have no use for the “making of” fea-
turettes on DVDs since they are basically promo stuff that
adds virtually nothing to my understanding of the background
of what I’ve just seen. Exception: The all-too-short film made
during the filming of The Shining. Proving the rule: The film
accompanying the release of Gods and Monsters ( “ Worlds of
Gods and Monsters: A Journey with James Whale”), which I
expected to further enlighten me about the life of that director.
It didn’t.
O d d l y, I think, given my endless fascination with film tech-
n o l o g y, I really don’t want to know how every special effect has
been done – some things are better left mysteries, as any prac-
ticing magician can tell you. And I find some of the blather from
directors self-indulgent to the point of narcissism. I under-
stand, from a standpoint of pure ego, the desire of directors
and stars to leave behind some sort of permanent record that
***I saw a 70mm blow-up of this film in one of Long Island’s best the-
aters, before United Artists split it into three theaters and finally razed it
to the ground. The sound design helped scare the pants off me and virtu-
ally everybody else who was there.
****I intend to undertake a lengthy analysis of the all-too-often crum-
my AC-3 sound on DVDs. I have tarried for DTS capability, on the thought
that the DTS soundtracks that haven’t been souped up to the high Andes
might provide a useful comparison, provided I can find a DTS disc that
has not been dicked with.
*****I am working on a comparative listing, in terms of visual excel-
lence alone, for an upcoming Super DVD compilation. So far, for those of
you who cannot wait, that list would include Starship Troopers, Crash,
Austin Powers (but not for content - yes, I just don’t get it), Dark City,
Ronin, Elizabeth, and Gods and Monsters, to name but a few.
****** I saw, with Tom Miiller some years ago, the opening day show-
ing of John Carpenter’s The Thing in a 70mm blow-up, and it left me feel-
ing queasy with stomach over easy, much as did a reading recently of
Thomas Harris’ Hannibal, which cannot, without the dread NC-17 rating
hovering overhead, be translated faithfully to the screen. Those who have
read the ending will know what I mean. When I again sawThe Thing, in
the first of its two laserdisc editions, I found it fascinating and what had
been repulsive was tamed almost into an objet d’art field day for the gift-
ed Rob Bottin. The home-theater experience seems to favor feeling over
impact, expanding our ability to identify or “read in” to the emotional
context of a film, while shrinking the film’s ability to overpower, trans-
port, or disgust.
goes beyond the film itself, since through video we have
come to, essentially, the preservation of film history. But
is, for instance, The Last Starfighter really all that his-
torically significant in the pioneering of digital effects as its
liner notes proclaim, as does an included documentary? Do I
really care, I ask myself, hoping by the asking I can pump up
some enthusiasm for the subject? Nope, not really and truly.
But then again, sometimes I do. I would have loved any
commentary from Stanley Kubrick about his aesthetic sensi-
bility and how he applied it to film. (As noted above, I watched
the documentary on The Shining before I checked out the
quality of the movie’s transfer, and normally a behind-the-
scenes documentary I could care less about.) I would even
liked to have known how some of the Steadicam shots in that
film were made, and whether the evil smile Jack Nicholson
gives the camera as he throws dishes at it was on purpose. I
would like to know how some of the shots in Wo l f e n w e r e
made – and how they got an obviously terrified Albert Finney
to go up on the Williamsburg Bridge’s topmost spans. Ditto for
a director’s cut of Wo l f e n and some commentary about how
he, Michael Wadleigh ( Wo o d s t o c k ) , used sound to tie the the-
matic elements of the film together. *
Or what he originally had in mind before the picture was
taken away from him. I wouldn’t even have minded hearing
from John Frankenheimer about the spectacular last car
chase in R o n i n: DeNiro looks terrified and he appears to be
doing much of the driving. How did they manage the mechan-
ics of driving two high-speed cars the wrong way on a Paris
freeway (and through a tunnel that looks suspiciously like the
one where Princess Diana met death)? And I’m always inter-
ested in seeing the sexy stuff they cut out, e.g., the 65 seconds
of Eyes Wide Shut, which Kubrick fudged on to avert an NC-
17 rating in America, but which will be shown as shot (private
parts and all) elsewhere in the world. Postscript: Wo u l d n ’t it be
an event, if not one likely in this or any other realm, to have a
commentary about his work from Terence Malick?
Maybe I’m just wondering aloud if I am the only movie col-
lector who could do without the sometimes intimidating array
of bonuses that come increasingly on DVD, even for movies
that are quite ordinary. Too much of what passes for “special”
features on DVD is drivel and only partially treated sludge, cre-
ating an illusion of importance and “permanence” for movies
that are quite ephemeral in the sense of having lasting value,
even if such features are therapy for the egos of the
moviemakers, and aromatherapy, in the more odious sense,
for the rest of us.
Worth a Look:
(Relatively) Recent Arrivals
G a l l i p o l i . Peter We i r, director. 1981. 5.1 discrete
surround. 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Enhanced for 16.9.
111 minutes. Paramount.
As it proved with its DVD issue of Days of Heaven, P a r a-
mount is no slouch when it comes a startlingly good video
t r a n s f e r. And of late it seems that Paramount has put itself
solidly back in the camp of those who “enhance” their
transfers for widescreen viewing on a 16.9 sized
screen. (It started out with “enhanced” releases, then
abandoned the practice, now “enhancement” is back on their
recent releases, including, most notably The Ten Command -
m e n t s . )I believe than fans of this early Peter Weir movie (fea-
turing a baby-faced Mel Gibson) will be in hog heaven with
this release. The movie is exquisitely beautiful in this transfer.
Weir knows how to use the widescreen, and this disc could
well be a demonstration for the virtues of preserving a film’s
original aspect ratio. Pan-and-scan, a phrase that always
reminds me of the early California gold miners, hurts this film,
reducing it to a buddy movie when that is only the super-
structure around which Weir has built a picture of the Aussie
and his sensibility, then as now.
What Dreams May Come. Vincent Ward, director. l998.
5.1 AC-3 sound. 2.35:1 aspect. Enhanced for 16.9. 114
minutes. THX. Polygram.
Vincent Ward has made two fascinating films. One is called
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, the other is Map of the
Human Heart.
The Navigator is a wondrous strange little film, about
some medieval villagers, on a kind of crusade (looking for
a cross) who stumble across time and into contemporary
New Zealand. It is a film full of odd and quite gripping
moments, none finer, to my way of thinking, than their con-
frontation with a freeway, which they must cross if they are
to succeed in their venture. Map of the Human Heart,
which is available on a laserdisc you must not buy, is a film
that works best and only in its wide aspect ratio. If you see
the pan/scan version, you won’t have the vaguest notion
why us modern-day Romantics find it such a gem of narra-
tive storytelling. (Even the versions shown on satellite’s art
movie venues, usually home to widescreen issues, are
pan/scan.) I don’t know how to explain what happens. But
somehow the heart has gotten cut out of the film.
What Dreams could have been every bit as good as the
two earlier films if only Ward could have had a Tom Hanks
or some latter-day Jimmy Stewart in the lead, instead of a
pompous, smug, condescending Robin Williams, who, I’d
guess, isn’t into the material at all. Lacking that kind of High
Romantic’s sensibility, he would be bound to a kind of con-
fusion about the character he is playing. We have to believe
in a man who loves his wife to the point that he would give
up all hope of Heaven to find and to rot beside her in Hell.
So Williams slaps on a goofy, sweet grin, the one that has
carried him through so many other mushy roles, and tries to
look sincere. He’s as out of place in this fantasy as I’d be at
a militiaman’s convention. And it wrecks the picture. We
can’t believe in him, so we don’t believe in it. By a mile, it
was the worst performance by a major male star last year
(and he still had Patch Adams ahead of him).
Williams dies, in more ways than one, early on in the
picture and goes to a Heaven that seems to consist of his
wife’s paintings, evidently meant to be her idea of heaven,
though it is not quite clear why it should be his. This gives
the special effects “artists” – and in this movie they are that
*This movie is still available on laserdisc and is a showcase, even in
matrixed form, for the use of surround sound.
– opportunity to run riot with the colors and they do.
Dreams has some of the most beautiful visuals you’re
going to see short of the next world and this transfer
does them full, full justice. It is one of those rare instances
where high-tech movie reproduction in the home is fully
justified by the visual content of the film you’re seeing.
Which only makes me the angrier at whoever did the cast-
ing (they needed a star for box-office gross; that didn’t save
the investment in this case, just the opposite). It’s too bad
they can’t digitize him out of the film and put Jimmy Stew-
art in. That way the elaborate structure and plotline of the
movie would have had the solid foundation it needed.
Yes, you should rent. And I guess fairness requires me
to say that the film is developing a cult following; some
folks quite like it. I did not. I squirmed and watched the
clock and picked holes in every illogical loop in the film,
which I wouldn’t have done had I “bought in,” that is,
believed in the ability of the main character to love with
that degree of passion and sacrifice. (Oh yes, the ending is
just as sappy as a maple in Vermont.) What a beautiful,
beautiful looking DVD. Oddly, I don’t remember a thing
about the sound, so engrossed was I in the visual.
Barbarella. Roger Vadim, director. l968. Dolby mono.
2.35:1. 98 minutes. Paramount.
At last, B a r b a r e l l a done justice. The laserdisc widescreen
transfer was nowhere near so good as the one here and the
mono sound on that issue was shrill and horrid, like some of
the music tracks on an Italian horror film. Not so here –
smooth as could be and given the importance of the
Bacharach-alike score to the film, a genuinely lovely surprise.
Jane Fonda has long since turned her back on sex-kitten
(or even sexy) roles, and so it is easy to forget just exactly
how beautiful she was when she was married to Roger
Vadim. She alone is worth the price of admission and you
certainly would get more than one eyeful. The film’s PG rat-
ing gave me pause for thought. It would, with its acres of
revealed skin and suggestive, how is it they say it – “sexual
situations”? – get a sterner rating today.
I like the quality of the transfer. It is just shy of being in
my top ranking (but nevertheless, some thing like an A-) and
has made me try to devise sub-categories for the best DVD
transfers. The differences between the best and those just
below that exalted level are actually quite small. And I’m not
yet sure how to quantify those most minor differences. The
very best transfers have a quality of coherency, almost like
the concept of “continuousness” I devised for audioland edi-
fication, about the image, maybe a smooth fluidity and con-
sistency of resolution that makes the picture seem, especial-
ly on a big screen, almost seamless.
Noted in Passing
The Last Starfighter. 1984. 5.l Surround. 2.35:1.
Enhanced for 16.9. 101 minutes. Universal.
Fairly simple and sorta sweet story about a guy and his video
game, called “The Last Starfighter.” The object is to shoot
down alien spaceships. What he doesn’t know is that,
upon becoming the highest scorer, he will actually get
a chance to do just that in fact. It’s a recruiting tool.
Lotsa digital effect of the sort Disney pioneered in Tron
(which was the film of genuine historical importance for
these kinds of special effects). Nice widescreen transfer, if
a little soft looking despite a high bit rate, with quite good
sound in terms of bass, dynamics, though with not too
much emphasis on surrounds per se.
On the other hand, the movie’s fairly bland, maybe a
once-a-year sort of thing to entertain undemanding friends.
Silverado. Lawrence Kasdan, director. 1985. 5.1 sur-
round. 1.85:1. Enhanced. 135 minutes. Columbia.
The box says the movie’s aspect is 2.35:1, but ’taint so. Sil -
verado was originally shot in what they call Super 35, a
process favored by James Cameron, one that I don’t find
Super visually. The idea is to shoot the movie full frame,
while also composing for an aspect of 2.35:1 within the
frame for theatrical release (the full-frame version thus
goes to video, where there is, as some would have it, near-
ly twice as much picture information). It was a treat in its
wider aspect; much is lost at 1.85 in terms of the film’s look
and architecture. And I think portions of the transfer look a
bit brown and grainy. Not to my liking. Silverado itself,
despite flaws, is a hugely entertaining western. I hope it will
be done “right” one of these days. But this wasn’t that day.
The Ugly. Scott Reynolds, director. l998 (US release
date). 2-channel Dolby. 1.85:1. Not enhanced. Trimark.
This sharp-looking and beautifully edited Down Under horror
film from New Zealand looks like the work of a major new tal-
ent. Its first 40 minutes (or so) are as good as anything I’ve seen
lately on the horror circuit. The sleek visuals and high-intensi-
ty color schemes add measurably to the pleasure of watching
it. And the sound is surprisingly good, if entirely too heavy on
the subterranean bass (á la the madhouse scene in Silence of
the Lambs) and a bit light on some of the dialog (unfortunate-
ly no subtitles to help us over the rough patches). During that
first 40 minutes, before we know which way the writer is going
with the story, the movie is filled with real possibilities of being
a minor classic in the mind-bender school of horror noir.
You begin to wonder if the mad patient in the asylum
h a s n ’t driven everyone crazy and what a picture it would
have been had this been the way it went. Alas, despite
some wonderful near-psychic touches, which the movie
d o e s n ’t follow through on, things take a predictable turn
toward the conventions of the genre. The use of black
blood for the gore sequences actually struck me as an art-
ful way of distancing us from the slaughter – it is far from
the only imaginative touch, but all to little avail. Shown
unenhanced on the big screen in Room 1, it was a terrific
looking disc. Not all that different from the average
“enhanced” disc. The liner notes on The Ugly say the
movie is for “16 x 9 widescreens” which led me to believe
it had been enhanced, but no, it wasn’t.
Elizabeth. Shekhur Kapur, director. With Cate Blanchett
(Elizabeth), Joseph Fiennes (Leicester), Geoffrey Rush
(Walsingham), Christopher Eccleston (Norfolk), Richard
Attenborough (Cecil). 1.85:1 Widescreen. Dolby 5.1.
Polygram Video. Enhanced for 16.9.
Mrs. Brown. John Madden, director. With Judi Dench
(Queen Victoria), Billy Connolly (Brown), Antony Sher
(Disraeli). 1.85:1 Widescreen. Dolby Four-Channel
Surround. Miramax Classic Widescreen.
Gods and Monsters. Bill Condon, director. With Ian
McKellan (James Whale), Brendan Fraser (Clayton
Boone), Lynn Redgrave (Hanna), Lolita Davidovich
(Betty), David Duke (David Lewis). 2.35:1 Anamorphic
Widescreen. Dolby Digital 5.1. Universal.
Enhanced for 16.9.
ineteen-ninety-eight was another banner year for the Virgin
Queen. As acted by the great Judi Dench, Elizabeth
played a small but memorable part in Shakespeare in
L o v e.1As portrayed by giggly, gimlet-eyed Cate
Blanchett, in Shekhur Kapur’s
gaudy Gothic meller Elizabeth, she got
an entire “coming of age” movie of her
own. All things considered, she was considerably better off in
the supporting role.
Not only does this so-called “historical drama” play
fast and loose with the facts,2it does so in particularly
unhappy ways.
Lord knows, England was in a “parlous state” when Eliza-
beth came to the throne, to quote Richard Attenborough’s
weak-kneed Cecil. The wounds of the War of the Roses, only
75 years past, were not yet healed; the cultural, economic, and
religious divisions that would throw all of Great Britain into
Civil War a mere 40 years after Elizabeth’s death were setting
Englishman against Englishman. Yes, there were court
intrigues. Yes, there were plots against Elizabeth’s life and
crown. But to present virtually every major character, from
lovers to conspirators, as curly-eyed, saaaasssy young things
– all of whom look like pirates who were kidnapped by royal-
ty when they were babies, all of whom speak a hilarious quasi-
Elizabethan version of the superheated, crisis-mode dialog
SECOND RUN
. . . . . . . . .
Biopics: Three British Royals
1 Despite the fact that Dench had a total of eight minutes screen time in
the witty but lightweight Shakespeare, she was awarded the Oscar for Best
Supporting Actress of 1998 – a classic example of the Academy’s biennial
“consolation” award, making up for the Best Actress Oscar that Dench
should have won – but didn’t – for her performance as Queen Victoria in
Mrs. Brown.
2 For instance (and, zounds, how many “f’r-instances” there are in this
film!), Sir William Cecil (Richard Attenborough) is portrayed as a doddering
old buffoon, when, in fact, he was a mere 13 years older than Elizabeth and
served her faithfully (and well) for better than 40
years, dying just five years before she did.
J O N AT H A N VA L I N
you regularly hear on ER, all of whom act as if they were in a
Tudor version of The Godfather – is to turn high drama into
high kitsch.
Director Kapur’s florid, melodramatic visual style only
makes bad matters worse. Kapur dotes on short, punchy,
M T V-like takes, in which he typically ratchets up the fore-
boding (the one effect he seems to have mastered) by shoot-
ing in very low light from lots of quick, “arty” angles. He
loves setting his actors in frantic, pointless motion and then
tracking them restlessly down dark, column-lined corridors.
He is also far too fond of crosscutting, in hackneyed fash-
ion, between pretty sunlit or candlelit idylls and ominous
shots of horses galloping across moors or armed men strid-
ing dark castle halls. When this whole calliope of clichés is
set to David Hirschfelder’s dreadful, pounding, prophetic
score, the saga of Elizabeth’s transformation from princess
to Virgin Queen is turned into Gothic camp. The Castle of
Otranto 90210.
Although the producers of Elizabeth went to great
extent to film in authentic locations (as if keeping faith
with the past were simply a matter of keeping up appear-
ances), their true intentions are clear from the start. The
movie has been written, shot, and cut strictly for the high-
adrenaline, short-attention-span Gen-X market. There are
flashes of romping-through-the-fields romance and dirty
dancing for the girls; dusky romps in the hay and violent
revenge for the guys; and a cast that was clearly selected,
coifed, and costumed with an eye to what would appeal to
young viewers of each sex. Polygram ordered the old girl
and her courtiers to lively up themselves – and figured
they’d ordered up a hit.
A hit the movie was, although not, as you can tell, in the
Valin household. Cate Blanchett, who is perhaps the only rea-
son to sit through this kitschy claptrap, looks great and acts
well in a tough part, but even she goes over-the-top on occa-
sion. (Take a look at the scene in which she is forced by Cecil
to accept the Duke of Anjou as a suitor, while simultaneously
trying to deal with her jealous lover, Robert Dudley [1:9, c. 50
minutes]. Blanchett flies about, with Kapur’s camera doing its
usual ring-around-the-rosy, twisting her hands and screwing
up her face like a bad actress in a bad silent film.)
E l i z a b e t h is a very good-looking transfer, with a powerful
Dolby Digital soundtrack and a lot of thunderous low bass – for
what those things are worth, which isn’t much, in my opinion.
* * *
If Elizabeth turned out to be a major disappointment, Mrs.
Brown, another film about another great English monarch,
turned out to be a surprising success.
Unlike Shekhur Kapur, director John Madden is a pro with
a straightforward, serviceable visual style that never gets in
the way of the storytelling. As a filmmaker, he has the virtues
of modesty, faith in his actors, and good taste in scripts.
(Shakespeare in Love was his next project.) All of which
means that Mrs. Brown, which starts from a far less promis-
ing (and sexy) premise than Elizabeth, holds you for almost
its entire length by the power of its plot-line and the pleasure
of its performances.
As I said, the premise is not promising, though more accu-
rate historically than anything in Elizabeth. After the death of
her beloved consort, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria sank into
a years-long depression. While she sat in Windsor and
mourned, her country was left virtually without a monarch,
giving the crown’s enemies in the House of Com-
mons, Gladstone and the Liberals, room to maneu-
ver and giving her son, Albert, the opportunity to
promote his own regency.
In an attempt to revive her spirits and head off
a constitutional crisis, some of the Queen’s advisors decided to
call on John Brown, a Master of Horse at Balmoral Castle in
Scotland, whom Prince Albert had greatly admired and who
had once saved the Queen’s life after a carriage accident. The
thought was that the rugged, affable Brown could entice Vi c t o-
ria to go riding – and that once out-of-doors, out of Wi n d s o r
Castle, her depression might begin to lift and her mourning end.
What none of the Queen’s counselors realized was that
Brown was an extremely independent and headstrong Scot,
with his own firm ideas about how to raise the Queen’s spirits
– and with an absolute devotion to her person. Beginning with
their daily rides, he gradually won Victoria’s trust – and, to
everyone else’s horror, her heart. Before long, he was the
most powerful man in court – able to persuade Victoria to
move her royal family and retinue to Balmoral, in the High-
lands, able to control the Queen’s daily regimen and official
schedule, able to head off her son, Albert, whom he treated
with utter disrespect.
The court and Commons began to gossip about Brown and
“Mrs. Brown,” raising the possibility of a monarchy-wrecking
scandal and leading the Queen’s Prime Minister Benjamin Dis-
raeli (Antony Sher, in a marvelously arch and supple perfor-
mance) to visit Balmoral and try to negotiate with Brown the
return of the Queen to London – and the public eye.
Nothing sensationally dramatic occurs in the course of
Mrs. Brown – certainly nothing like the bloody intrigues and
hot liaisons of E l i z a b e t h . Queen Victoria and John Brown
d o n ’t even share a kiss. And yet the love that grows between
them – and the way that love transforms the Queen, giving
her the strength to carry on – is enough to keep us highly
entertained.
Although Billy Connolly does a superior job as burly John
Brown, the faithful servant, his performance grows a bit one-
note as he bangs against the limits of the belligerent Scot’s
foursquare character. One gets a bit weary of hearing
Brown/Connolly bray things like, “Woman, why y’no listen to
me?” in that booming brogue. On the other hand, Judi Dench’s
Victoria, which is acted within an even narrower expressive
compass than Connolly’s Brown, is a thing to marvel at.
Given Vi c t o r i a ’s infamous sense of propriety, Dench has to
express the Queen’s love for Brown primarily by indirection –
rather than through words or deeds. The glint of her smile, the
subtle movements of her eyes or hands become barometers of
what her character is thinking and feeling. That a performer
can make such gestures consistently expressive of complex
and shifting emotional states – without hammering them too
hard, without going over-the-top – is acting of the highest order.
In its modesty and restraint, Mrs. Brown may well be the
ultimate Victorian love story, but that does not keep it from
being a moving one – or keep Dench from giving the best per-
formance of 1997. * * *
For the best performance of 1998, you’ll have to turn to anoth-
er type of British royal – expatriate film director James Whale,
whose life and death are the subjects of Bill Condon’s deeply
affecting biopic, Gods and Monsters.
Whale made his reputation in Thirties Hollywood, direct-
ing a number of successful mainstream films such
as Waterloo Bridge (1930), Showboat (1936), and
The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). But it is his
wildly popular horror films – Frankenstein (1931),
The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man
(1933), and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – for which he
is chiefly (and rightly) remembered. (The title of Gods and
Monsters is taken from a scene in Bride, in which Franken-
stein’s assistant, Dr. Praetorius, toasts Frankenstein’s brave
new world of god-like scientists and their creations.)
In the early Forties, Whale fell out of favor with the studios
and the public. Whether because of his sex life (he was openly
gay at a time when gay Hollywood was deeply closeted), or,
more likely, a series of failures at the box office, he retired from
filmmaking into genteel disgrace – living a life of dilettantism
and dalliance that ended when a series of strokes incapacitat-
ed him in 1956. In the following year, Whale drowned himself in
his backyard swimming pool, leaving a note for his ex-lover, the
film producer David Lewis (Arch of Tr i u m p h, Raintree Coun -
t y): “The future is just old age and illness and pain.... I must
have peace and this is the only way. ”
Director Bill Condon, himself a dabbler in horror films
(Strange Invaders), has taken this cautionary tale of Holly-
wood excess and managed to fashion it into something a good
deal closer to Death in Ve n i c e than Death in Brentwood.
Indeed, the film is a triumph of style, producing, at its wordless
denouement (and in a final wordless scene following its
denouement), an ache of genuine sadness the likes of which I
h a v e n ’t experienced from a film in many a year.
How Condon has done this is chiefly a matter of four
notable successes: a hauntingly beautiful score commissioned
from composer/arranger Carter Burwell; an unusually intelli-
gent and inventive script (that Condon himself wrote, based
upon Christopher Bram’s novel, Father of Frankenstein); a
visual style that perfectly matches the intelligence and inven-
tion of the script; and, finally, what was and will remain – so
beyond doubt, question, or debate that the voting contingent of
A M PAS ought to have its collective membership revoked – the
finest performance of the year by an actor in a leading role. Sir
Ian McKellen, who is himself openly gay (the first openly gay
Britisher to be knighted), brings this sad, witty, complex man to
the most vivid life imaginable. It is the role of a lifetime and a
c a r e e r-crowning achievement.
Like Mrs. Brown, Gods and Monsters is about the myster-
ies of love and friendship, but it is also very much about the
ways art and life grow knotted together, like vines in bark.
Indeed, as in the novel it is based on, the film attempts to under-
stand Whale’s life and death as variations on the very story that
Whale himself made famous on film – F r a n k e n s t e i n .
At times, the parallels to the novel (and Whale’s version of
i t ) makes this extremely well-crafted film seem somewhat
overwrought, as if Condon were intent on having every shot of
every scene answer to some aspect of the myth. For example,
in his excellent commentary track on the DVD, Condon talks
about how he deliberately photographed Brendan Fraser in bits
and pieces through the opening credit sequence – his feet, his
face, his torso, never his whole body. The point being that Fras-
e r ’s character, Clay, is like the monster – inchoate, just parts –
until he meets his “creator” in James Whale, who “reassembles”
him into a “whole” person.
While this sort of thing is tough to see on the screen (even
when you know it’s coming), it says something about the wit
and subtlety with which the film was made. And without doubt,
that wit and subtlety – and, yes, Condon’s overriding metaphor
– pay off emotionally. I have rarely seen a film in recent years
that is so intricately crafted to such powerful effect.
Gods and Monsters begins in 1957, after a series of mild
strokes has already begun to take a heavy toll on Whale physi-
cally and mentally. Haunted by bad memories and the nearness
of death, Whale attempts to maintain his spirits and his sanity
by doing what he’s always done – flirting, drawing, trying to
preserve the illusion that his life is as orderly and urbane as it
once was. It is through flirting that he meets Clay, a tall hunk of
a gardener, fresh out of the Marine corps, with a handsome,
square-jawed, high-browed face and huge physique that
reminds Whale (and us, a little) of Frankenstein’s monster.
Whale pretends that he wants to use Clay as a model for his
sketching (although, as we find out late in the film, Whale’s
mind is so disordered that he can no longer sketch). Once he
discovers that Whale is the director of the F r a n k e n s t e i n f i l m s
– “Just the first two,” Whale notes, with characteristic asperity.
“The others were done by hacks.” – Clay agrees to pose.
The exceptionally naïve and very straight Clay truly believes
that Whale is interested in him as a subject – as a person – and
is flattered by the attention. To Clay, Whale represents a life, a
level of culture, that he’s seen only in movies. (His own life is an
aimless ruin.) Even after he learns that Whale is gay, he contin-
ues to sit for him, although the thought that Whale may be see-
ing him as a sex object (which Whale innocently denies) clearly
upsets him. It’s as if Whale were a god, and Clay his grateful,
adoring creature – eager to learn, eager for friendship. The par-
allel with the Frankenstein story is patent.
Whale, who has only been pretending to sketch the boy in
order to get him to take off his shirt and have some fun ogling
him, begins, almost against his will, to talk to him candidly.
Whale explains this sudden candor by saying that there is
“something about your face that brings out the truth,” only it is
not Clay’s face but his trust that makes Whale so helplessly sen-
timental. That trust reminds Whale of another boy who trusted
him absolutely – a secret from the past which is not told until
late in the film.
Whale as Frankenstein and Clay as his Creature are scarce-
ly the only parallels this film draws between life and art. Con-
don is intelligent enough to see that Whale was both Franken-
stein a n d the Creature – both a creator of mythic films about
monsters and himself a charming monster, born of wishful con-
fabulation and sheer will power.
W h a l e ’s miserable youth, which he spent a lifetime repress-
ing, is presented in flashback memories during his talks with
C l a y. Born of a poor family in northern England, he was, as he
later confesses, like a “giraffe given to a family of farmers. What
could they do but hook the giraffe up to a plow?” Rejected by
his father, who despised his effete manner and artistic ambi-
tions, he was forced out of school and set to work in a factory
while still a boy.
W h a l e ’s experiences in the First World Wa r , also presented
as flashback memories, made him – and destroyed him. As an
officer in the trenches, he adopted the manner of the upper
crust and discovered his talent to direct men. He also had a
homosexual affair with a handsome young adjutant, who
adored him and whose horrible death (and the terrible imprint
it left on Whale) is the guilty secret at the heart of the film.
In Hollywood, Whale the director managed to reinvent his
past, as so many in Hollywood have done. Like Frankenstein
and the Monster in one, he killed off the poor, undereducated
outcast he was born and – using pieces of other lives real or
imagined – reconstituted himself as the sophisticate he always
wanted to be. The only vestiges of the old “Jimmy Whale” are
found in his films, which, like the patchwork monsters they’re
about, turn the bits of horror, loneliness, and alienation that
Whale repressed from his past into an art that was quintessen-
tially about death, loneliness, and the pain of not belonging.
What makes this movie so deeply moving is the way these
long-suppressed truths come to light. It is the film’s conceit that
W h a l e ’s stroke, while not completely debilitating, leaves him
defenseless against images and scenes from his youth and
young manhood; they flood in on him in hallucinations that are
heartbreakingly sad. It is Clay – the least likely (or perhaps, as
a stranger and straight one at that, the most likely) of confi-
dantes – who gives Whale the chance to bring these disowned
memories back into focus – a last chance to confess to anoth-
e r, and to himself, the unvarnished truth.
Empowered by Whale’s friendship and candor, Clay also
finds his way to telling the truth about his own past of grinding
p o v e r t y, alienation, and rootlessness. These two men, so com-
pletely different in culture, achievement, and sexuality, some-
how discover what they share, and that they d o share these
things, in spite of the vast gulf between them, is what makes
their unlikely friendship so affecting.
Having used the Frankenstein myth as a metaphor for
W h a l e ’s life and art, Condon goes the final step at the film’s cli-
max, where art becomes life.
Unable to bear the sadness of the past or his growing help-
lessness in the present, Whale tries to use the bond of affection
that has grown between him and Clay to put an end to his suf-
fering. In a terrible act of desperation, Whale accosts Clay sex-
ually – deliberately turning the younger man’s love into some-
thing ugly in the hope that Clay will react with violence and kill
him, as Frankenstein is killed by his monster. Although we
understand the despair that motivates him, Whale’s cruelty has
a devastating effect on Clay, who, as he tearfully says, is not a
m o n s t e r. It isn’t hard to know at this point in the film who the
real monster is – and Whale, to his credit, realizes this. His apol-
ogy to Clay – and Clay’s acceptance of it – is a thing of great
grace and pathos.
That night Whale commits suicide. We do not see the act.
Instead, Condon gives us the most remarkable sequence in the
film – a wordless dream-like fantasy, in which Clay (dressed as
the Creature) leads Whale to his rest, to sleep beside his long-
dead lover in the death-filled trenches of Passchendaele. It is,
the movie suggests, the place in time that Whale never really got
beyond – and it is one of the saddest scenes I’ve seen on film.
There is yet another sequence at the film’s close, long after
W h a l e ’s suicide, that has almost as touching an effect. I will not
spoil it for you, save to say that it caps off this great movie – and
I truly believe that Gods and Monsters is a great movie (high
among the very best of last year, or any year) – perfectly.
I am happy to report that Universal’s DVD transfer is sen-
sationally good, visually and aurally. It and the movie get my
highest recommendation.
HP Comments:
I think His Nitpickingness is being grumpy and hypercritical.
Misappropriating a line from Apocalypse Now, complaining
about inaccuracies in a historical film (or any of today’s “true”
stories) is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
What makes E l i z a b e t h work, despite the necessary
time compression and factual revisionisms (several
of which are more serious than the example he
cited), is the way it suggests the constant danger
she faced in the early days of her rule, and how she
persevered through enormous force of will, an inner toughness
she used to reshape herself from sweet young thing into iron
maiden. And her performance captures every nuance of the
changes she underwent, from the aflutteredness of a young
woman onward. The mafioso-like plottings of even her inner
circle justifies the G o d f a t h e r borrowings and help give the
movie an irresistible pulse. (If Valin wants to see real MTV- s t y l e
editing, he ought to check out Run, Lola, Run.)
The visual quality of E l i z a b e t h is among the best. But, I
w o n d e r, what is it about British films and pinkish skin tones?
C a n ’t figure it. The sound is big, bold and dramatic, with con-
siderable bass energy, a definite improvement over that in the
theatre where the dialog was drowned out consistently. M r s .
B r o w n is a pretty good transfer, even though it isn’t enhanced -
why can’t Miramax cut against the Disney corporate grain,
which has decreed, for now, no enhancements, and do its trans-
fers the honor that many so deserve?
Gods and M o n s t e r s has the best color rendition of any DVD
I can think of, beautiful 2.35:1 framing – it looks better on this
disc, in terms of color fidelity and saturation, than it did in the
t h e a t e r. The sound, even though two-channel, is superb, but I
wonder why Universal didn’t go the extra mile, and use the orig-
inal four discrete tracks instead of their matrixed version?
Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut
. . . . . . . . .
yes Wide Shut is one of those films that has the main-
stream movie reviewers (I don’t dare use the word crit-
ic in this context) in cloud cuckooland, with their
assessments reading more like Rorshachs than having much
to do with Stanley Kubrick’s last film. If you’ve seen the pic-
ture, reading the reviews can be a bucket of fun, especially if
you have an idea of what’s really going on in the film.
First of all, E y e s is a horror movie, and has more in com-
mon with The Shining than with any other Kubrick opus.
The Shining failed, finally, because Kubrick never success-
fully connected the ghost story with his hero’s descent into
madness. He is far too literal a director to hurl himself with
abandon into the conventions of a ghost story. And so you
get two-thirds of a great movie that, for all practical pur-
poses, ends when the “ghosts” let Jack Torrance out of the
food-storage room.
What The Shining is really about is the fragility of the
family and its susceptibility to attack. It fails because Kubrick
cannot correlate Jack Torrance’s inner demons with those
that exist independently of him or are functions of his own
subconscious projections. The Overlook Hotel represents the
ghosts of the past, and the ghost in Torrance’s past is the bot-
tle, which, of course, the ghosts are quick to provide (in the
form of Jack Daniel’s). The drinks, we may assume, are not
real, but the alcoholism – or its root cause – is, since it
unleashes his inner demons.
In Eyes, the family is once again under attack. And the
trigger is, once again, an external one – the wife (Kidman),
whose confession of a passing crush unleashes her
foursquare (doctor, played by Cruise) husband’s demons of
sexual jealousy and sends him on an Odyssey through New
York’s sexual underworld – a demimonde depicted in cool,
stylized, and, at its core, highly ritualized fashion. His preda-
tory curiosities, once evoked, threaten both him and his fam-
ily. Kubrick once again fails, and by a wider margin than he
did in The Shining, to correlate his mythic hero’s journey into
the underworld of the subconscious with the externals of his
life as we are shown them.
Making the connection with The Shining e x p l i c i t ,
Kubrick films a party sequence near the opening in much the
same fashion (and exactly the same colors) as he did the
haunted Ballroom sequences of the Overlook; he even plays
some of the same music. The party’s host is Sidney Pollack,
playing a corrupt Manhattan patient of Cruise; Pollack’s avun-
cular manner notwithstanding, he serves the function of
Charon in Cruise’s journey to the far shores of Hades. And it
is he who, toward the film’s end, will try to explain away much
of what has threatened Cruise as a “charade.”
The film’s central tableaux is a ceremonial sexual rite
(set in a mansion in Glen Cove, Long Island, which drew
huge laughs at the local theater) and it is more frightening
than anything in The Shining – with the possible exception
of the baseball bat sequence. All of the guests – Cruise
being the party crasher who is about to be exposed – are
dressed in cloaks and masks and resemble nothing less
than an army of c o m m e n d a t o r i from A m a d e u s. The music,
the chanting, the sepulchral spaces, and the mechanical,
stylized sexual couplings all suggest sexuality run rampant,
that is, sexuality without feeling. (One has to look no fur-
ther than the S&M community for insight on how the trap-
pings of sex become a substitute for love.) And sexuality
without love, that is, outside the family, Kubrick views with
p.c. heterosexual suspicion.
This sequence surely wasn’t meant to be pornographic or
sexy; it strips bare the intellectual threadbareness of the
MPAA and its consummate white-bread (and childish) fear of
sex. What Kubrick suggests, I would argue, is that this form of
sex is a form of death and that is why it was without anima-
tion – there was no need to cover up the soft-core behavior of
the mannequins. What the scene reveals is both the charac-
ter’s and the director’s fear of death, as represented by the
death of love. Indeed, what could be more explicit than the
offer of a young woman to stand in Cruise’s place once he is
discovered and about to be sentenced to death? She saves
him, and the next day he learns that she is really dead. Cruise,
of course, is way out of his depth here. He is surrounded by
vampires and he’s incapable, Top Gun-style, of showing the
slightest bit of fear (the horror of a big shot looking weak!).
Nor can he suggest layers of depth within the repressed doc-
tor, much less the presence of lusty subconscious urges; he
flirts more with a gay hotel clerk – a wonderful bit by Alan
Cumming of Cabaret – than with anyone else in the film, prob-
ably because he can be playful in this scene, freed from the
darker depths Kubrick may have wanted him to explore.
The ending is particularly unsatisfying. In a long, badly
played, clumsily staged scene, the Pollack character tries to
explain away the happenings of the evening before and the
threats on Cruise’s life as part of the stylized goings-on.
Instead of being ambiguously disturbing, it is just a mess, leav-
ing the audience to wonder. (Certain disturbing things are left
unaccounted for, including an explanation of how the mask
Cruise wore to the ball turns up on the pillow next to his
sleeping wife.) Whether the goings-on where real or a dream
– and they are played straight – the final word of the film,
uttered by Kidman, suggests the solution for the couple is to
go home and “fuck.”
The Seventh Seal. Ingmar Bergman, director. 1957.
B&W; 96 minutes; 1.33:1; Dolby Digital Monaural.
Criterion DVD.
he Seventh Seal was the film that made Ingmar
Bergman internationally famous. After The Seventh
Seal (and Wild Strawberries, which appeared later that
same year, 1957), Bergman the brooding Swede was an inter-
national succès d’estime, instantly elevated to the top tier of
the art-house pantheon alongside Fellini, Antonioni, Kuro-
sawa, Truffaut, Ray, and Buñuel. Marxists, existentialists,
avant-gardists, humanists of every sect claimed him as their
own. And the truth is that there are aspects of The Seventh
Seal that justify all of these claims. And yet, 42 years along,
with the post-war Age of Anxiety behind us (or fitfully so), the
consensus seems to be that The Seventh Seal is not really a
very good motion picture, after all.
Robin Wood, than whom none can be more prescient (or
dogmatic), puts his finger squarely on the problem in his fine
book on Bergman’s films.1When we think of The Seventh Seal
we think of individual images – chalk-faced Death spreading
his cloak like a raven’s wing to engulf Max Von Sydow’s
knight; the game of chess on the beach, so artfully lit by
Bergman’s cinematographer Gunnar Fischer that the contes-
tants glow as if reflecting the fires of Apocalypse; the ghastly
parade of flagellants, dragging that great cross through the
dust like Christ on the road to Calvary; the burning of the
witch in the dark woods, with its conscious homage to Drey-
er; par excellence, Jof’s vision of the final Dance of Death
across that distant hillside beneath that lowering sky. Wood’s
point is that a series of still pictures, no matter how memo-
rable, is no substitute for narrative movement, “not just phys-
ical movement from image to image but the inner movement
of thought and feeling it embodies.”2The Seventh Seal lacks
that narrative movement. It is a cold,
s h o w y, supremely well-crafted photo
album that coheres as a gallery of effects rather than as a nar-
rative whole and, even at that, is never as disturbing as
Bergman meant it to be. This is hard, but not altogether unfair.
The Seventh Sealis an episodic film, built up of groupings and
tableaux, like church art or tapestry. It does move us more by
the power of its imagery (and often by the poetry of its lan-
guage) than by the unity of its story line or our emotional
engagement with its characters. Yet, in spite of this, I find
myself wanting to defend it as an extraordinary work of cine-
matic art. While I don’t see The Seventh Seal as a substantial-
ly different kind of film than Wood does, I do see more “inner
necessity” – and less commercial exigency – in it than Wood
is willing to allow. This does not make The Seventh Seal into
the kind of wrenching character-based drama that, say,Win -
ter Light is. But it does add a moving personal subtext to the
film’s play of “important and impressive” ideas.
It is time to come to terms with the fact that The Seventh
Seal is an allegory of man’s fate in a Godforsaken universe –
and every bit as serious as that sounds. As such it reflects the
personal spiritual crisis that Bergman was going through at
that moment in his life. It also, quite obviously, reflects the
larger public crises in post-war Europe, where the horrors of
the Second World War and the new horrors of the Nuclear Age
were casting dark shadows backward and forward in time.
Set in the holocaust of the Fourteenth Century, when
bubonic plague was killing off that portion of Europe that had
not already been killed by war or famine, The Seventh Seal is
clearly meant to apply to our own age of holocausts – or to
any time when God seems most distant from suffering
mankind. Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow), a knight who has
returned to Sweden from the carnage of the Crusades, is one
of the film’s protagonists; his squire Jöns (Gunnar Björn-
strand) another. The idealistic knight still yearns for a God in
From Art to Cult
. . . . . . . . .
1 Robin Wood, Ingmar Bergman (Praeger,
1970). [Hereafter, Wood.]
2 Wood, p. 87.
J O N AT H A N VA L I N
whose existence he can no longer quite believe;
the cynical squire has learned to take life as it
comes, without the prop of divinity. Together they
are Everyman (and Bergman), and together they
face the questions that vexed and haunted the
Fourteenth Century and our own: In a world beset by evil, in
a world that God has seemingly deserted, in the face of cer-
tain annihilation, how does one live one’s life with value, and,
without the goodness of God, whence does that value come?
The film’s opening montage thrusts us immediately – and
nearly wordlessly – into the heart of the matter. A gorgeous
shot of a sea eagle, floating aloof, predatory, and majestic in a
storm sky; a picturesque cusp of mountainous beach; a brief
voice-over quotation from the Book of Revelations about the
silence in heaven following the Lamb’s opening of the Seventh
Seal; and then the shingle where the knight and his squire lie
sleeping among the rocks, looking as if they’ve been tossed
up, half-dead, from the sea. Their horses lap at the surf. A
chess set sits on the stones by the knight’s kit. The knight tries
to pray, perhaps for his safe deliverance and return, but can-
not complete his prayer. Getting to his
feet, he awakens his squire who grouses at
him mockingly, and out of nowhere there
is chalk-faced Death (Bengt Ekerot) in his
black cassock come to claim what is final-
ly and always his.
As in the Church emblems that
Bergman daydreamed over when he was a
boy, where Death and a Knight (represent-
ing Mankind) confront each other over a
chessboard, the knight seeks to delay his
doom by challenging Death to a game of
chess. Although the knight doesn’t fear
Death, he fears a death without meaning,
without the judgment of a God he can’t
quite believe in or forsake. He plays for
time – to do one last meaningful thing, and
continue his search for grace. The film is
ostensibly about this quest to do good –
about the very possibility of good in an evil
world where all but death is uncertain.
In other films that attempt allegorical effects, the symbol-
ic values of characters and events are meanings derived from
the action as it unfolds – not essences from which we start.
Bergman simply presents us with Types – Death, Spirit, Rea-
son – as if we were watching a latter-day Mystery play, and
only later goes on to give them human dimensions. Even
those who appreciate the film’s ambitiousness may find the
opening allegory rather too portentous, and wonder whether
such blatant symbolism can sustain an entire movie.
Not content to present us with an allegory of the eternal
contest between Death and Man, Bergman quickly tries some-
thing that is in some ways even more delicate and dangerous
– and potentially just as prone to travesty. He gives us Inno-
cence in the form of a family of itinerant players, also jour-
neying through Sweden: a father called Jof or Joseph (Nils
Poppe), a mother called Mia or Mary (Bibi Andersson), and
their infant child. This grouping is clearly meant to suggest
the Holy Family (or the “holiness of the human spirit,” as
Bergman has it). But the literalness of the allegory begins to
break down here, and something more personal to make its
way in.
To begin with, Jof is scarcely a holy personage. He is an
acrobat, a singer, a performer – albeit a bad one – a charming
and persistent liar, a writer of sweet quasi-religious love
songs, a bit of a thief, a childlike braggart, and a self-professed
seer blessed with second sight (although no one else truly
believes in his visions). In short, he is in show business. His
innocence, though sweet and real enough, is not the Inno-
cence of the Lamb of God, but the innocence of the artist,
whose childlike imagination isolates him from the hurly-burly
of the world of the knight and the squire – but, just as impor-
tantly and vitally, reflects the world of the knight and the
squire back to them, turning its terrors and wonders into play.
While the mask of Death that Skat, the “director” of the small
troupe of actors, wears and then hangs from a tree limb is a
symbolic reminder that death is everywhere present in the
brutal world of this film, it is also a reminder that not even
this fearsome mystery is beyond the ken of imagination.
Indeed, the entire film is an illustration of this.
Jof and Mia reflect something else that troubled Bergman
throughout his life and in this period particularly: his intellec-
tual’s isolation from other people. Of
all the characters in The Seventh Seal,
Jof and Mia are the only two who
express love for one another, the only
two who make a family. Everyone
else is alone; after ten years’ separa-
tion, even the knight and his wife,
when they finally meet again, are
strangers to each other. Although
there is something infantile about
Jof’s love for Mia – closer to the love
of a child for his mother than an erot-
ic attachment – it is an attachment (or
an acceptance) that Bergman explic-
itly says he hungered for.
Allegory has an inner movement
of its own, dictated by the dialectic of
its ideas. It can work itself out like a
straightforward argument, as in Pil -
grim’s Progress, or it can cloak its
meanings in mystery, like The Pearl.
The Seventh Seal is somewhere between. Bergman has clear-
ly invested his symbolic characters with fundamental aspects
of his own personality. But he has set them on a broad public
highway that leads past tableaux of the downfall of civiliza-
tion and culture, through a wasteland of medieval horrors that
have very modern parallels. The ghastly fascistic parade of
flagellants, which interrupts the players’ whimsical play about
death and suffering with the terrible reality of death and suf-
fering, the senseless burning of the girl witch, who after tor-
ture can only, and rightly, see the devil right beside us, are in
the film because they must be in the film – the allegory of
good and evil demands it. Bergman does all he can to make
these scenes memorable, including the superb lighting and
photography and the marvelous set design. But there remains
a formality in them that sets them off as separate episodes,
like frames in a diorama, without the naturalistic probability
of realistic narrative. This is not a complaint, but an observa-
tion. Allegory is the route Bergman chose, and episode is how
allegory works itself out.
Robin Wood notwithstanding, there are many scenes in
The Seventh Seal where the strength of Bergman’s personal
feelings breaks through the allegory with moving power. The
great set piece on the hillside, where the knight and the squire
share “communion” – here a bowl of milk and a plate of straw-
berries – with Jof and Mia has a beauty of spirit and gor-
geousness of language that are as deeply moving as Bergman
intends the scene to be. In spite of a few false notes (the
Plog/Lisa/Skat subplot, the knight’s “confession” to Death), a
good many of the tableaux are equally touching or horrifying.
And Jof’s final vision, and the biblical language that accompa-
nies it, is unforgettable.
And then there is the salvation scene, which has its own
special resonance. In choosing to spare Jof and Mia – and
what suspense there is in the film involves their salvation –
Bergman is saying two things, one overt and “public,” one, I
think, covert and personal. The overt and public meaning is
dictated by the allegory: Innocence is magically saved. But
what Bergman is not quite openly saying – or saying in a way
cloaked by this other meaning – is that, for him, the answer to
the riddle of death, to the quandary of faith, to the isolation of
pure reason is also bound up with the childlike imagination of
the artist and the bond of love. These are the meaningful
things worth saving, even if they can’t ultimately save the
artist’s life. The sentiment is so personal – and perhaps more
dear for that – that it is presented half-disguised by the “Inno-
cence” metaphor that the allegory requires. But it is there
amidst the obvious symbolism, like a secret wish.
There is another artist in The Seventh Seal, the church
painter (Gunnar Olsson) whom the squire encounters paint-
ing the very terrors that Bergman used to ponder in his youth.
By means of the painter, Bergman says:
I present my own artistic conviction. [The
painter] insists he is in show business. To sur-
vive in this business, it’s important to avoid
making people too mad.3
To believe Bergman’s witticism just a little bit is to see
how he went about wrestling with his tangle of personal con-
flicts and violent historical realities by representing them
through signs and symbols, and, finally, to see him put his
faith not in the “important and impressive” ideas of God or
Reason but in the play of art and the acceptance of love. No
matter that these solutions would soon seem jejune to the
Bergman of Winter Light and other films. At the time he pas-
sionately cultivated his themes to their fullest, and The Sev -
enth Sealremains, in Bergman’s words, “one of the few [of my
own films] really close to my heart.”4
C r i t e r i o n ’s new digital transfer of The Seventh Seal i s
superb, far superior to their earlier excellent laser transfer
or to any other print or transfer of this film I have seen. (Cri-
terion actually gives you side-by-side examples of the laser
transfer and the new digital one in a special feature includ-
ed on the disc. You’ll be astonished at the improvements in
c l a r i t y, contrast, and noise on the DVD.) All in all, a disc well
worth owning.
3 Ingmar Bergman, Images: My Life In Film (Arcade, 1994), p. 238. [Here-
after, Bergman.]
4 Bergman, p. 235.
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1 = Minor
5 = Major
First consumer Dolby EX products go on sale Q4 1999 Q4 1999 Q4 1999 1
High-resolution, multi-channel digital audio output Q4 2000 Q4 2000 Q1 2001 4
on DVD-A and SACD players (IEEE1394 or Universal I2S)
C: Important to achieving formats’ sonic potential.
Electronic cinema (digital video projection in theaters) exhibited in ten cities Q2 2003 Q2 2000 Q4 2002 2
Digital download kiosks appear in music-retail stores Q1 2000 Q1 2000 Q3 1999 3
C: Any kiosk can download any title at any time; no more out-of-print
music, no more out-of-stock stores.
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happen this year by DirecTV.
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A: It will be important when they fall below $3000.
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C: Multi-channel editing infrastructure not yet in place; two-channel SACD
set for September 1999 launch with 50 - 60 titles.
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B: Important for the ultimate market success of high-quality
multi-channel music recordings.
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probably without SACD playback.
Controllers and receivers with IEEE1394 or Universal I2S input go on sale Q4 2003 Q4 2000 Q4 2001 3
Next generation (beyond Dolby Digital) audio 2002 2003 2005 5
A: DD and DTS are available today, and that is all that is used on film.
I don’t expect to see SDDS or 6-channel DD on DVD ever.
B: One of the most important things on the list; high fidelity for film.
C: Would require a format revolution such as HD DVD.
Stand-alone consumer-recordable DVD available Q4 2000 Q4 2000 Q1 2002 5
A: Most important thing on list. This will begin the replacement of
VHS tape.
C: Copyright issues could delay introduction.
Portable music players using removable memory-card technology available Q3 2001 Q4 1999 Q2 2000 2
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