Review of Ultimate DVD SIlver, The

Introduction

Once again I`m going head to head with a DVD that`s making big claims for itself. This one calls itself "The Ultimate DVD" but plays that down slightly with the epithet "Silver".

So what do we have on offer ? Read on....

Video

A selection of formats available here, after all that is partly the point of the disc, to showcase the differences. All of the video is NTSC on this Region 0 release.

You get to see a clip in 4:3 (a pan`n`scan), non-anamorphic widescreen (letterbox) and anamorphic widescreen. This is a pretty good example, and could be useful for demonstrating the differences to people.

Most of the other content is presented in 4:3 though, which is perhaps a bit of a let down. The quality is fine, but I would have expected more widescreen stuff on a DVD that`s supposed to showcase DVD.

Audio

As with the video, there are a selection of formats available here, again part of the point of the disc is to showcase the differences between formats.

Except it is difficult to do that as you don`t get each clip in each format. There are some DTS clips, some DD5.1 clips, some 48Khz PCM clips, some 96KHz PCM clips. But these aren`t all of the same thing, making comparison rather difficult.

There`s a blues tune which sounds great turned up loud, with nice deep bass, but other than that, nothing that sounds sonically excellent.

Features

Erm, no special features really, but that`s not really the point of the disc. There`s a nice menu on the "Serengeti" clip though.

Not strictly an extra as it`s part of the disc, but there`s a DD5.1 trailer here that I`d not seen before. And is it me or should the people at THX be having words with the people at dts. I`d not seen a dts trailer before, but the one here does seem a little bit similar to a THX one.

Conclusion

The Ultimate DVD doesn`t really live up to its name. The ability to see the common formats (4:3, non-anamorphic 16:9 and anamorhic 16:9) side by side is useful. There are some good examples of the sound formats. But you can`t compare those as they`re not all of the same thing.

There are some nice shots of buildings blowing up (good if you watched the recent BBC 2 series MasterBlasters and if you like that sort of thing), with a dts soundtrack.

You can even find a use for the multi-angle button, and watch cars being smashed up on test rigs from seven different angles.

But ultimately (no pun intended) it is a bit of a let down. The sort of thing that could be played in shops to show some features of DVD, but if you`re looking for discs to show off the capabilities of DVD you`d be better off with bits from individual discs. The sort of disc you`d borrow from a friend, not something you`d really want to go out and buy!