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Dom Robinson reviews
The Video Collection
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 Compilationis a 40-minute soujourn into the life of the man who hit the top slot lastyear with the Latino sound of Livin’ La Vida Loca and released hiseponymous album.
Despite hitting the big time last year, you’d have thought the UK had neverheard of him before as he was pronounced as a ‘great new talent’ and nothingwas mentioned of his two previous chart hits, (Un Dos Tres) Maria andThe Cup of Life, the latter being the Offical World Cup Song forthe France 98 championship.
His singles chart history to the end of 1999 is as follows :
Sep 97No. 6(Un Dos Tres) MariaJul 98No.29The Cup of LifeJul 99No. 1Livin’ La Vida LocaNov 99No.12Shake Your Bon-Bon
The picture quality varies depending on the promo video of choice, but it’sas good as it will get and there’s certainly nothing to worry about with theencoding process as there are no artifacts on view. The average bitrate is anexcellent 9.16Mb/s. I’ve noted the ratio of the disc at the start of thisreview as fullscreen, but some of them have a pseudo-widescreen look.
The sound comes in Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 and bellows out perfectlyloud 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 toppedand tailed by logos and credits and the other on their own for the sceneselection menu, which is pointless as the chapters were already on thedisc for the main programme. Sony haven’t done that before so I can’t thinkwhat prompted them to do it this time. Languages & Subtitles :As stated before, the sound is in Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1 and songs arein 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 abouthis life to date. The 16-minute Behind-the-scenes footage mixes clipsof his songs with various bits of inane chatter about himself. Menu :
The main menu is static and silent, reflecting the front cover and thesub menus have various pics of Mr. Martin.
Overall, this video compilation is too short to be given a recommendationfor spending a penny under twenty notes, but if you’re a big fan and canget it second-hand at a cheaper price, it’s worth a look, particularly ifyou’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 priceand make him lots of money so that he never returns to acting and anyoneelse who saw him in General Hospital (circa 1994) will know what I mean.
Another Ricky Martin DVD,One Night Only
is alsoavailable from Sony.FILM : ***PICTURE QUALITY: ****SOUND QUALITY: *****EXTRAS: *——————————-OVERALL: ***½Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.
Check out theSony Music DVD Web site.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.