Arthaus Musik DVD - An Overview
This page discusses general aspects of DVD presentation and is intended to
be read in conjunction with Gary S. Dalkin's reviews of Arthaus classical
DVDs.
Before DVD was introduced we were promised three things. In relation to VHS,
greatly improved picture and sound. Special features. A selling price of
no more than £1 extra than the comparable video version of the same
product. Small surprise then that when 20th Century Fox attempted
to sell James Cameron's Titanic on a DVD with no anamorphic enhancement
for widescreen TVs (though the picture was still excellent), no special features
except the original cinema trailer, and with an official price of £25,
there was outright rebellion from not only from large sections of the DVD
buying public, who refused to purchase the product, but many retailers who
refused to stock it. James Cameron appears to have taken the message on-board,
and the recent American (region 1) releases of his films The Abyss
and Terminator 2: Judgement Day have proved object lessons in what
can be done with the DVD format. This are wonderfully well-filled discs which
provide untold hours of genuinely fascinating behind the scenes material,
from complete screenplays to interviews to production footage to audio
commentaries. Most DVDs, of course, fall somewhere between the two extremes,
being more than simply a video transferred to DVD, but stopping a long way
short of the fullest use of the medium.
The DVD price promise was never kept, but with today full-price new issues
generally retailing at either £15.99 or £19.99, it is surprising
that Arthaus Musik feels confident to set prices, as advertised in the November
2000 issue of Gramophone, of up to £34.99 for a single disc. If £25
is too much for a copy of the most expensive film ever made, £35 for
a transfer from video source material of a live opera production is simply
titanic. Perhaps given the price of opera tickets, or buying a full-price
2CD set, it is considered reasonable.
With regards to Special Features, the most that the Arthaus range normally
provide is the option to turn subtitles (in a variety of languages) on or
off. Which at least is better than having them permanently 'burned' into
the video image. The only other Special Feature I have found on any Arthaus
DVD - and I say found deliberately, because it wasn't mentioned on the packaging
and I stumbled across it while experimenting with the remote control for
my DVD player - is a multiple angle feature on the Mozart Requiem disc
(Arthaus 100 036). Otherwise these discs make no use whatsoever of the enormous
potential offered by the medium.
Finally, regarding picture and sound quality, Arthaus DVDs fall into two
categories. The discs featuring recent events appear to have been shot with
digital broadcasting, high definition television and DVD in mind. They offer
superb anamorphically enhanced 16:9 widescreen pictures of marvellous clarity,
stability and detail combined with Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks (and a stereo
option for those without the necessary equipment) which genuinely fulfil
the promise of superior sound and vision. However, many discs depend on transfers
of older material, often shot under the constraints of 'live' lighting, on
professional analogue video for VHS release and/or conventional 4:3 aspect
ratio TV broadcast. The sound on these is usually PCM stereo, with a Dolby
Digital 2.0 option. Such methods were perfectly adequate in the 80's and
early 90's, but inevitably reveal considerable limitations when transferred
to DVD then compared directly with material shot for the new medium, or with
that transferred from 35mm cinema films. It is not Arthaus' fault, but due
to the limitations of the source material many of the discs presenting older
material offer little better than VHS quality in either picture or sound.
Given this, together with the lack of special features, more conventional
pricing would make these titles a much more attractive proposition.
Gary S. Dalkin
Crotchet
