BluRay Music Video Poll Elton John - ELTON 60 LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN [Blu-Ray]

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Rate the Blu-Ray disc of Elton John - ELTON 60 LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

  • 7:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2:

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Poor Fidelity, Poor Surround Mix, Poor Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    17

JonUrban

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Please post your thoughts and comments on this HD title. If you feel so inclined, include info on the type of equipment you are using for playback and your setup (i.e. - 5.1, 7.1). (y):phones(n)

Please note that for voting purposes, concentrate on the audio and the surround mix instead of the video. However, feel free to comment on the video aspect of this release in the thread. (y):phones(n)
 

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Is there a different region coding system for Blue-Ray DVD's than for ordinary DVD-Videos?

I notice that this Elton release has region=ALL and that the David Gilmour release has region=A.

Ordinary DVD-Videos has region=1 for the US and region=2 for Europe...

Can someone please enlighten me.


Thanks,
Ulf
 
Yep, Blu has Region A as the Americas and Eastern Asia, Region B is generally Europe, and Region C is whatever's leftover.

I've got this disc but my backlog is growing. I'll try and watch it (and Queen) this weekend.
 
Interesting to note the Universal logo, the music label and affiliates support Blu-ray while Universal Studios is HD DVD exclusive. It is just another little matter to confuse the consumer, the logos look very similar if I recall.

Chris
 
Is there a different region coding system for Blue-Ray DVD's than for ordinary DVD-Videos?

I notice that this Elton release has region=ALL and that the David Gilmour release has region=A.

Ordinary DVD-Videos has region=1 for the US and region=2 for Europe...

Can someone please enlighten me.


Thanks,
Ulf

A big majority of Blu-ray releases are coded for all regions and I have seen a list of all releases through some date that identified what releases use single region coding. Fox insists on single region coding for all releases as far as I know and Sony, Disney, and Buena Vista have used it a few times. Warner has never used single region coding for Blu-ray. There is a definitive list somewhere by title I can find again if you are interested. I don't know the Universal Music Group plan regarding single region coding.

Chris
 
I watched (most of) it tonight. I have to say that it's a pretty impressive concert, just look at the set list. One of the things I don't like about going to a live concert by a "mature" artist is that it turns out to be a Greatest Hits kind of thing, and quite frankly if I have liked the artist since the '70s, I've about had it with the "hits".

Well, there are plenty of "hits" on this disc, but there are also a slew of gems that just flat out make a real fan smile. "Roy Rodgers", "High Flying Bird", "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters", "All the Young Girls Love Alice", "Empty Garden", "Holiday Inn" to name a few make the hits seem fresher. When he gets to "The Bitch is Back", the place is rockin' to the max.

Back to the Blu-Ray disc, first off, it looks AMAZING! It jumps off my 1080i plasma and flat out gleams. The audio quality (uncompressed 5.1) seemed to be lacking a bit of low end, but that could be my setup. It's the first time I'd used my Panny 30, and I had yet to totally do the setup. The surround mix is a typical "stage" deal, audience firmly in the rears (which really sounds cool on the sing alongs), and at times there are parts of the orchestra and choir back there, but not isolated. In the case of this concert, the 5.1 mix works, but again, it's nothing spectacular.

I get tired of saying everything is a 10 or 9, so I'm going to make this an 8. It's a MUST BUY, however, if you have BluRay and like Elton. The picture is a 10, the audio is a 10, but the surround mix, while appropriate, is probably a 6 or 7.

This disc is not very expensive, and it's a very long concert, so it's well worth it. I do not have the standard DVD to compare the sound and video to, but if you are interested and do not already have this on DVD, grab the Blu-Ray. You'll be happy you did.
 
Thanks, Jon. I too appreciate the album tracks as much if not more than the hits we have all sleep-learned. It might take my mind off not having the other should-have-been SACD releases...
 
One annoyance to be aware of: If you buy the standard DVD, you also get a second disc containing rare old Elton television performances. If you buy the Blu-Ray, you don't.

I'm tempted to get a Blu-Ray player to match my HD-DVD in large part because of the track listing of this concert, but that little stunt irks me to the point where I'm also tempted to rent the bonus disc and [censored] it, adding the [censored] to the Blu-Ray case.

I can understand not wanting to put the ancient TV footage on either HD format, but why couldn't the standard disc have been included? If you buy the new "Blade Runner" 5-disc set, three of the discs are HD, two of them are SD. No big deal.
 
Interesting to note the Universal logo, the music label and affiliates support Blu-ray while Universal Studios is HD DVD exclusive. It is just another little matter to confuse the consumer, the logos look very similar if I recall.

Chris

Actually Universal Music Group (UMG) has been a Blu-Ray exclusive firm from day one, just as Universal Studios has been a HD-DVD exclusive firm from the start.

Strange but true !
 
I just revisited this disc to check out the audio track and maybe make a DVD-A for the car.

When I got the tracks into the PC, I could clearly see that it is in fact quite a discrete mix for a live performance. There are no "instruments in the back" to annoy purists, but this concert includes a rather large vocal group/chorus of kids ranging from small to large who sing along, and they are clearly panned to the rears. Listening to the rears alone allows you to hear their hand claps, vocals, and other sounds as well as the thunderous applause between songs. The center is Elton's vocal and piano with other instruments from the stage added, almost as if it was taken straight from Eltons mike on the piano.

Clearly a spectacular Blu-Ray, and aside from the fact that Elton's voice is 60 years old and he doesn't have the range he had when he was in his 20's (duh!), this one is a great Blu-Ray music demo. The picture is perfect, and the audio is great as well.

For you "techies", here's a peek at some of the wav file for the audio. Note the section without LFE is during the songs "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters" and "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word". Since the disc is over 3 hours long, you're only looking at a small section of the audio. I didn't want to have a file so big it was tough to work with. :mad:@:
 

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The audio quality (uncompressed 5.1) seemed to be lacking a bit of low end, but that could be my setup. It's the first time I'd used my Panny 30, and I had yet to totally do the setup.

You are probably aware of this by now, but Panasonic did acknowledge the issue with low LFE output and reportedly fixed it by firmware update a few weeks ago. So I don't believe it is the disc that caused that issue. From what I have read, it appears the fix works if you haven't downloaded and installed it.

Chris
 
For you "techies", here's a peek at some of the wav file for the audio. Note the section without LFE is during the songs "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters" and "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word". Since the disc is over 3 hours long, you're only looking at a small section of the audio. I didn't want to have a file so big it was tough to work with. :mad:@:

Thanks for the great information, Jon. Too bad the FL & FR are brick-walled.
 
Actually Universal Music Group (UMG) has been a Blu-Ray exclusive firm from day one, just as Universal Studios has been a HD-DVD exclusive firm from the start.

Strange but true !

Actually not true. Universal Music Group supported both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. For instance, the Nine Inch Nails concert was released on both formats. UMG was a member of both the DVD Forum and the Blu-ray Disc Assoc.
 
I only own 7 Blu-Ray discs so far but this one is by far the best from a video perspective. It is absolutely incredible. I know that this is a surround forum but when it comes to BD the video most certainly has to be taken into account because this is really at least half of the reason to buy BD over the standard DVD version. The audio being LPCM 5.1 24 bit is also very good. However, based on this and the other 4 concerts I have, I am starting to think that the audio on these discs is ahead of the people who are mixing the concert soundtracks. The higher resolution picks out all the flaws. Don’t get me wrong, it still sounds great. But I can’t help thinking that this was “modern” mixed. Brick walling is mentioned by someone else earlier in this thread. I can hear that happening here but at the same time Elton’s voice and the piano are very clear. It’s like they didn’t fudge with those elements. I think that recording engineers are going to have to realize that they have to do something different if they are going to put these concerts onto something such as a high resolution audio track which reveals much more than Dolby 5.1 or DTS does. Anyway, this is definitely the best Elton John concert I have overall and I think I have 6 of them now. He really outdoes himself here and plays tracks that he hasn’t played for years. Also, looking at the audience is looking at a who’s who, Clinton, Brian Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne and a lot of movie actors, the list goes on. As far as the surround goes I think Jon has covered that off. Mainly crowd noise along with elements of the choir in the rears. So if I was going to rate this from a surround persepective it would have to be a 2. If I was rating it as a total package including the video quality it would have to be a 9 with one point being deducted for not fully utilizing the dynamic range capable of the hi-rez bitstream being used. So I'm not sure if I am going to vote at all actually because I hate to give it a 2.
 
I voted 8.

It is an amazing concert and the PQ is the best I have seen so far. What is missing for getting a 10 is:
1. The mix - Elton's voice and piano are perfectly mixed, but on several song they have mixed the guitar and backing vocals etc so low in the mix so you can hardly hear it at all.
2. The overall lack of bass - the bass is there but certainly need more punch and space in the sound stage to be to my liking.

Still, an excellent concert and BD.

//Uffe
 
A "10".

The video is almost 3D it's so lifelike!

The sound, while a bit "overloud", is still incredible.

I love this disc in every solitary way. More, please, Elton!
 
I've owned this blu ray since it first came out. I have most of EJ's surround discs and they are superb. While this concert isn't on par with the audio in the surround discs it's an incredible amount of great content on one disc. For content I would give it an 11 on a scale of 1-10. Even though EJ's voice isn't what it was when he was younger he's knows his limitations; as we all know a good man knows his limitations and he is a good man(on this disc). 3 hours of great music with superb video and good audio is almost too much to hope for in the contemporary blu ray concert marketplace. If someone out there doesn't have this disc you should grab it; it's very reasonable on amazon here

I'm giving it a 10!
 
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