Queen Greatest Video Hits 2 - release date 03/11

Joe Pineapples · 30-10-2003, 12:56 PM

Great news for Queen fans like myself

details here

bowenjones · 30-10-2003, 1:49 PM

Excellent news

I hope Justin Shirley-Smith has done the surround mixes
on this set as he did a fantastic job with the re-mixes for
Queen's The Game dvd-audio.
There are some really "stand-out" tracks on this dvd that I
can't wait to here in 5.1 .
Although I'm not that interested in the video's themselves,
I do hope that they did a better transfer this time around -
i.e. if they were filmed in 4.3 then keep them that way not
the cropped versions that we had on the vol. 1. - i'd much
prefer to have the black bars on the sides than to have the
picture "zoomed in" to fill a w/s telly therefore losing some pic.
quality (have they heared of 4.3 anamorphic ?).
The extras look really promising though.
But, it's the music that I'll be buying this set for as I've been a fan of Queen since I was a kid and to here some of the all time classics re-mixed into surround sound using modern technology
breathes new life into them. Can't wait!

Mr Cat · 30-10-2003, 2:55 PM

NOoooo..!!! anyone but Queen, please...

Joe Pineapples · 30-10-2003, 6:44 PM

Quote:

NOoooo..!!! anyone but Queen, please...

dont like? - dont post - simple as that really

Kevo · 31-10-2003, 1:01 AM

They've gone and cropped all the vids to 16:9 AGAIN!

Will they never learn?

This time I sent an e-mail to Brian May himself and surprisingly got a reply from him!

"People with WS TVs would complain that we looked 'fat' if we kept it in 4:3"

Can you believe that, and I thought he was highly educated!

bowenjones · 31-10-2003, 1:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kevo
They've gone and cropped all the vids to 16:9 AGAIN!

Will they never learn?

That is a shame

Never mind, as long as the sound quality is good then I
will be happy.
I wonder if all the tracks will be 5.1 this time instead of the
majority being 4.1 like the last set.

bowenjones · 31-10-2003, 1:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by babble
NOoooo..!!! anyone but Queen, please...

I leant my copy of The Game to my mate who absolutely
hates Queen's music and he was so impressed by the
quality of the surround mix that he went and got himself
a copy!
What is so bad about Queen's music babble?
Not sombre enough?

bowenjones · 31-10-2003, 1:36 AM

As a matter of interest (Kevo, perhaps you'll know the answer to this), "Another one bite's the dust" sounds so much better in dts
on "The Game" dvd-audio compared to the version on the Greatest Hits 1. Is the bitrate higher on The Game or did they spend a little more time doing the mix for the dvd-audio?

Kevo · 31-10-2003, 9:27 AM

I agree it does sound better on The Game DVDA, but I don't know why. I would assume, like you said they spent more time on it as there was no 'Xmas deadline' to release it like with GVH1.

MikeNelson · 04-11-2003, 6:54 PM

Just listened to the GVH2 DTS disk and it's excellent again. The video's nice too.

Kevo · 04-11-2003, 8:12 PM

Still haven't received mine from Play

B*****n postal strike backlog

bowenjones · 04-11-2003, 8:27 PM

And I'm still waiting for mine from Loaded 24 7.
Once they've sorted all the backlog of mail, I should
receive it just in time for xmas!

bowenjones · 11-11-2003, 1:01 AM

Well, having just listened to the dvd I must say that the
sound quality is, yet again, excellent. The rears are in
constant use and some of the panning effects are really well
done.
But, this time all the tracks are 4.1. Why?

The lead vocals are always dead centre so why didn't they
utilise the centre channel? They advertise this as being a 5.1
release so they should be reported to trading standards and
made to pay for their sins!

Seriously though, I really enjoyed the surround mix and can't
wait for their next dvd-audio release whatever it will be.
The video quality was a massive improvement on the last set
which is understandable - even the cropped versions looked
ok IMO. It was nice to see the videos to Back Chat and Calling
All The Girls as I hadn't seen them before and they were also
mixed in dts 4.1 too

Kevo · 11-11-2003, 10:54 AM

The decsion to leave out the centre channel was made by Brian May and sound enginner Justin Shirley-Smith.
They felt the natural front L & R soundstage was more true to the vocals than with them coming out of the centre speaker!

I still thought it sounded good though.

As for the aspect ratio.......WELL!

This has to be one of the most bizarre and abusive use of anamorphic 16:9 that I have ever seen on a DVD.

They've used every technique in the book and even made one up themselves.

Here are some screen grabs to explain better....
(These are exactly how you would see them on a WS TV in it's anamorpic wide mode)

A KIND OF MAGIC

Fat Fred!!
Stretched 4:3. Not sure if this was intentional or they just forgot to remove the WS flag. Easily rectified by manually overriding the TVs AR to 4:3.
What's strange is, the video was made in approx 1.66:1 so they had room to do a decent conversion here, but opted to simply stretch it horizontally instead

RADIO GA GA #1

This is an original 4:3 image in a 16:9 window, much like they do when showing foreign footy on UK TV where they use coloured vertical bars (aka 'pillar boxing')

RADIO GA GA #2 (Chorus)

Same song but now the image fills the 16:9 frame, much like reverting back to the studio in the footy comparison above.

IMO, this is the best of the bunch and they've been really clever with this one as the video was made in 4:3 but the choruses used a sort of 'Squashed WS effect'. So they removed that effect and use a full natural looking WS image instead. EXCELLENT.

INVISIBLE MAN

Original 4:3 left intact.
I've no idea why this video alone was left in 4:3 OAR.

HAMMER TO FALL

THIN FRED!

BIZZARE to say the least.

I have no idea what they have done here and why.
Bear in mind the original video was shot in 4:3.
They seem to have stretched it horizontally x1 and vertically x 2!!
Why not simply crop it to 16:9 like they did with most of the others?
I'm pretty convinced that this along with Magic is a technical error and would even warrant a recall (ala BTTF).

The other videos fair pretty well and three of them were actually made in WS (I Want It All, Hard Life and Princes), but they would have been better off leaving them ALL in 4:3 OAR rather than try and put 'square pegs inton round holes', as they have clearly struggled with some and it shows hideously!

All in all a big improvement on Hits 1 but not in the same league as WWRY or Wembley.

Kevo · 11-11-2003, 11:00 AM

Why do my pics show as hyperlinks instead of the image itself?
I've use the same path and pics before OK?

[EDIT]

Apparantley [IMG] was turned off in the Music forum but good old Spectre has turned it on, so the pics are there for all to see

[/EDIT]

JohnG · 11-11-2003, 12:18 PM

As an old git, I prefer the early days of Queen. Can someone recommend a good DVD that has stuff from the first few albums (upto and including News Of The World)

PS I already have the Live At Wembley Stadium DVD

Kevo · 11-11-2003, 12:27 PM

Don't bother with Hits 1 unless you really want the DTS 5.1/4.1 sound.

Otherwise I'd recommend the Greatest Flix 1 and 2 promo DVD.
Issued in Germany as freebie to some early Panasonic DVD players.

You should be able to get this from ebay for around £20-30, which is where I got mine from.

It's of 'laser disc' pic quality but all the videos are in 4:3 OAR and look MUCH better than their butchered 16:9 counterparts on Hits1.

The sound is in mpeg and PCM 2.0 though.

[EDIT]
They are also availble seperatley as Brazilian 'semi official' releases which can also be found on ebay and usually cheaper than the above.
I've no idea of what the quality is like (probably laser disc conversiosns) and they claim to be in DD 5.1 which they are NOT.
[/EDIT]