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Dom Robinson reviews

Ricky Martin
The Video Collection

Distributed by
Sony Music

Cat.no: 502059
Cert: E
Running time: 40 minutes
Year: 1999
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 12 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Stereo
Languages: English, Spanish and Spanglish (?!)
Subtitles: None
Presented in Fullscreen
16:9-enhanced: No
Macrovision: No
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £19.99
Extras : Scene index, Discography, Behind the scenes footage, Biography

The Ricky Martin Video Compilation is a 40-minute soujourn into the life of the man who hit the top slot last year with the Latino sound of Livin' La Vida Loca and released his eponymous album.

Despite hitting the big time last year, you'd have thought the UK had never heard of him before as he was pronounced as a 'great new talent' and nothing was mentioned of his two previous chart hits, (Un Dos Tres) Maria and The Cup of Life, the latter being the Offical World Cup Song for the France 98 championship.

His singles chart history to the end of 1999 is as follows :


Sep 97	No. 6	(Un Dos Tres) Maria
Jul 98	No.29	The Cup of Life
Jul 99	No. 1	Livin' La Vida Loca
Nov 99	No.12	Shake Your Bon-Bon

The picture quality varies depending on the promo video of choice, but it's as good as it will get and there's certainly nothing to worry about with the encoding process as there are no artifacts on view. The average bitrate is an excellent 9.16Mb/s. I've noted the ratio of the disc at the start of this review as fullscreen, but some of them have a pseudo-widescreen look.

The sound comes in Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 and bellows out perfectly loud and clear.

Extras. :

Chapters :

There are 12 chapters on the disc, which leads to 9 songs, the Sony Music logo, an intro and the end credits. The songs on the disc are as follows :


1. Livin' La Vida Loca

2. She's All I Ever Had

3. La Bomba

4. Perdido Sin Ti

5. Livin' La Vida Loca (Spanish)

6. Vuelve

7. (Un Dos Tres) Maria (Spanglish ?!)

8. Bella (She's All I Ever Had) (Spanish)

9. The Cup of Life (Live Grammy Performance)

The bizarre thing is that all of these appear on the disc twice - once topped and tailed by logos and credits and the other on their own for the scene selection menu, which is pointless as the chapters were already on the disc for the main programme. Sony haven't done that before so I can't think what prompted them to do it this time.

Languages & Subtitles :

As stated before, the sound is in Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1 and songs are in their respective languages as above, but there are no lyrics onscreen.

And there's more... :

The extras menu tells you there's a Ricky Martin Biography and yes, I too would be surprised to learn that they managed to write ten pages about his life to date. The 16-minute Behind-the-scenes footage mixes clips of his songs with various bits of inane chatter about himself.

Menu :

The main menu is static and silent, reflecting the front cover and the sub menus have various pics of Mr. Martin.

Overall, this video compilation is too short to be given a recommendation for spending a penny under twenty notes, but if you're a big fan and can get it second-hand at a cheaper price, it's worth a look, particularly if you're going to be rewinding it a lot or freeze-framing.

On the other hand, I could tell you to buy lots of copies at full price and make him lots of money so that he never returns to acting and anyone else who saw him in General Hospital (circa 1994) will know what I mean.

Another Ricky Martin DVD, One Night Only is also available from Sony.

FILM	 		: ***
PICTURE QUALITY		: ****
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: *
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ***½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

Check out the Sony Music DVD Web site.

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