Yes 9012 Live
by Steven Soderbergh
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alan White, Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Tony Kaye (II), Trevor RabinDirector: Steven Soderbergh
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Live, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 69 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-18
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Image Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Yes 9012 Live
Movie Review: Great show, good DVD, poor audio mastering
Summary: 4 Stars
It goes without saying that this is a virtually priceless treasure for any true Yes fan as it is, to my knowledge, the only professional grade video/audio recording from this tour available. The inclusion of the documentary and interview footage makes this all the more valuable. Not to be overlooked is the companion CD "9012Live The Solos" (sold separately), which includes solo segments from this tour not included in this video, as well as better-quality reproductions of the same performances of "Hold On" and "Changes".
The following technical complaints about the audio may seem redundant with other reviews, but I have endeavored to provide a little bit more detail and context to try to explain the nature of the problem, and speculate as to how it came to be this way.
Just to clear up some possible misunderstanding: the "5.1 mix" or "5.1 upmix" is simply a stereo mix encoded as 5.1 with audio existing only in the front left and right channels, the four remaining channels containing only silence. The other audio option is a mono mix encoded as dual stereo, with the same mix in both L and R channels.
The "5.1" mix doesn't even split off the low end to the subwoofer channel, which would have been an easy thing to do in the reportedly "careful" remastering. As a result, on some home theater systems which have poor low end response in the front mains, this may sound a bit lacking in bass, unless there is some feature in the system to split it off to the subwoofer for you.
To make matters worse, the stereo mix is mastered at an extremely low volume level (unbalanced, with L channel peaks below -21db and R channel peaks below -24db), and since ac3 5.1 uses a "lossy" compression algorithm you are effectively getting only a fraction of the fidelity possible. Cranking this up loud enough for enjoyable listening will amplify the inherent noise in every stage of your home theater system, as well as quantization noise and artifacts of the lossy compression inherent to the source encoding.
Presumably, the low volume levels found here, as on many multi-channel encoded DVDs, is a hedge against possible clipping in playback situations where the equipment at hand performs a very simple summing of multiple channels when downmixing to stereo or mono. Clearly, this was not as valid a concern when 4 out of 6 channels contain silence. This leaves me to suspect that the engineer performing the "upmix" and mastering from the available stereo source was lacking in either tools or knowledge, or just didn't care enough to adjust anything from preset defaults.
The dual mono ac3 audio track has the lone redeeming characteristic of being mastered at a higher volume level, making better use of the available headroom/resolution of the medium. Too bad it's mono.
I understand the limitations of working from the 2nd generation video master, but little ingenuity or care was expended on giving the available source the best possible presentation on this format. By far, the best solution would have been to encode this as uncompressed linear stereo PCM, utilizing the full headroom available. There would probably be ample space on a double-layer disc to include this audio format if the other two formats were excluded, as well as the completely unnecessary 2nd complete copy of the "Charlex" version which is inexplicably included on this disc (which I found using "mplayer", for a total of three complete copies of the concert on this one disc). As it is, the sound on my original VHS HiFi release (which is FM encoded stereo) is superior to this DVD. Presumably, the original LD release had even better sound, but this is a very hard item to find.
Even with all of these audio complaints, I am thankful that there was no attempt made to fake a full 5.1 mix from the stereo source.
Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile purchase for the documentary and interview material alone, as well as the alternate cut, especially if you do not have an older copy on another format with better sound in good condition.
Musically, this lineup was best when playing their own material, of course. If only they had enough of their own material on this tour to fill out the set, as their renditions of "classic" yes songs are interesting curiosities, but come off as sub-standard "cover" versions, rather than authentic performances of the band.
I wish there were a widely commercially available recording of the "Union" tour, as this was the only time when music from both major lineups were given true justice, and new life, in a single concert. Even then, you would still treasure 9012Live for the great Rabin-era songs which were not performed on the Union tour.
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