Method Man – Live From The Sunset Strip (HD-DVD + DVD-Video/Music Video Distributors/MVD Visual)

 

Picture: B/C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C     Concert: B-

 

 

Method Man is one of the better, more interesting and more enduring Rappers in the business.  He has out-survived the genre’s decline, started in the groundbreaking Wu-Tang Clan and is softly becoming one of its elder statesmen, but is far from a legacy act, still out there recording and touring.  He is now the first outright Rap artist to have product arrive in the new HD-DVD format.  Live From The Sunset Strip (2007) first arrived in late ’07 on DVD only and the HD-DVD now joins it.  The concert now arrives in HD-DVD and is one of the only Soul music releases of any kind in either HD format.

 

Running over an hour, the show is consistent, has its share of energy and is rarely lax.  Even if it is not your kind of music, you’ll be impressed enough that the combination of performance and the way this is shot is not the same old tired, static approach that has made more than a few HD concerts flat.  Fans in particular will be satisfied and maybe more so with tracks including:

 

1)     Bring The Pain

2)     Ice Cream

3)     All I Need

4)     Grid Iron Rap

5)     How High

6)     What The Blood Clot

7)     Suspect Chin Music

8)     Fall Out

9)     Ya’meen

10)  Is It me

11)  Problem

12)  Say

13)  Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ To F#@! Wit

14)  Triumph

15)  Shimmy Shimmy Ya (Tribute To ODB)

16)  Brooklyn Zoo

17)  Judgment Day

18)  Da Rockwilder

 

 

The 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital high definition image is not bad, but has detail and some depth limits due to the older type of HD used.  Color is very good and in a first for home video, the DVD-Video was not even anamorphically enhanced.  Therefore, the improvements in picture from the low def DVD to this HD-DVD are more noticeable.  Both also offer the concert sound in Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 mixes, with the 5.1 being a bit better, but the HD-DVD has pumped up the sound so much (without calling it Dolby Digital Plus) that it should be better than the DVD.  However, some strange kind of compression is present in both mixes foiling the playback.  Extras are the same on both, including stills, a hidden scene and interview footage in low def.

 

Fans may enjoy this release, especially in HD-DVD, but others will not find it as smooth as the R. Kelly HD-DVD we just covered, which was technically better.  Now we’ll see if MVD does this one in Blu-ray.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo