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The Universal Classics DVD Sampler
Universal Classics/Universal Music . R4 . COLOR . 85 mins . G . NTSC

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“See how great they sound!” shouts the front cover of this sampler for Universal Classics’ current DVD catalogue. And as big fans of truth in advertising, we’re happy to tell you that Universal is right on the money with that one. Because the one thing that almost all of the excerpts on this disc have is that they sound terrific; it’s just a shame that this quality doesn’t extend to the video.

With a classical DVD catalogue that’s been slowly but steadily growing in recent months, it makes sense for Universal to offer an introduction to their range in the form of a sampler disc, and that’s exactly what you get here (albeit a sampler that retails at the same price as a full DVD). Encompassing all three of the big Universal classical labels – Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Philips – it offers a short sample of 21 discs from the Universal catalogue of 37 discs (at the time this sampler was assembled). And if nothing else, it emphasises just how strongly biased classical DVD is towards opera, ballet and vocal music at the moment; there’s not a symphony in sight here, and aside from a brief Beethoven violin sonata the closest you’ll come to that end of the classics is a Strauss march.

DG have more material on offer here than the other two companies, largely because they seem perfectly happy to recycle their old laserdisc masters as-is; Philips and Decca, meanwhile, go to considerably more trouble by sourcing 5.0 or 5.1 surround audio to bring their DVDs into the 21st century.

There’s no denying the strength of talent on display here – conductors like Bernstein, Karajan, Levine, Gardiner, Chailly and Boulez share disc space with famed performers like Bartoli, Mutter, Carreras, Domingo, Bocelli, Nureyev and of course Pavarotti. Those interested in (but new to) opera will get the most out of this disc, though, and if you’re looking for a nice overview of what classical music has to offer, this isn’t quite it; the fact that you can’t actually play the entire 85 minutes of content in one go doesn’t help, though there’s no denying it takes full advantage of DVD’s interactive menus.

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If you were hoping for a visual feast here, then prepare to be disappointed. Most of the material here is very old, most of it has been issued on video before, and in most cases the very same video master has been used here. The worst offender is Deutsche Grammophon, who cheerfully opt for ancient 4:3 video masters done for laserdisc even when the source material is 16:9 high definition widescreen. Everything here is in NTSC regardless of source format, and aside from two items, it’s all 4:3 full-frame or letterboxed as well. The two 16:9 items (one from Decca, one from Philips) are not as pristine-looking as you’d expect, and while the non-DG video material looks noticeably better than the famous yellow label’s offerings, none of this is especially state of the art. Video noise is a constant throughout, with MPEG encoding problems running rampant throughout; during a couple of DG’s Verdi pieces, there is actually a nasty “pulsing” veil of noise clearly visible across the screen that surely wasn’t on the original master tapes.

Fortunately, the audio’s a lot better. While DG sticks to the plain old stereo sound of their original video releases, at least they’ve taken some care in mastering the audio tracks for DVD, where they’re offered as PCM 16/48. Decca and Philips also supply stereo tracks in PCM, but go one step further by also offering Dolby Digital 5.0 or 5.1 as an option. Regardless of the age or condition of the video soured material, there’s nothing to complain about with Decca’s and Philips’ audio, which invariably sounds absolutely lovely, spaciously and naturally spread across the surround sound stage in a truly involving way. It’s quite clear that while the big classical record labels have the audio side of things predictably well in hand, they’ve got a lot to learn about achieving similar quality in the video department.


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  •   And I quote...
    "If you were hoping for a visual feast here, then prepare to be disappointed... fortunately, the audio’s a lot better."
    - Anthony Horan
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Sony DVP-NS300
    • TV:
          Panasonic - The One
    • Receiver:
          Sony STR-DB870
    • Speakers:
          Klipsch Tangent 500
    • Centre Speaker:
          Panasonic
    • Surrounds:
          Jamo
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Monster s-video
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