Rockpalast 1983 DVD

[Brad]

Looks like Hudson/Street is releasing a DVD of the entire gig on September 9...

Out Of Control
Twilight
An Cat Dubh
Into the Heart
Surrender
Two Hearts Beat As One
Seconds
Sunday Bloody Sunday
The Cry/The Electric Co.
Gloria
New Year’s Day
I Will Follow
40

[Brad]

Cover art here:



They looked really mature in 1983, eh? 

[santiago2u]

Looks like Hudson/Street is releasing a DVD of the entire gig on September 9...

Out Of Control
Twilight
An Cat Dubh
Into the Heart
Surrender
Two Hearts Beat As One
Seconds
Sunday Bloody Sunday
The Cry/The Electric Co.
Gloria
New Year’s Day
I Will Follow
40

:::: Great setlist...

the great McGuinness machines are aware of this release???

oh God, I don't wanna be in their shoes right now

[God, Part II]

Bought this new for $10 and change with free U.S. shipping at DVDPacific.

[Brad]

the great McGuinness machines are aware of this release???

oh God, I don't wanna be in their shoes right now

I would guess that Westdeutscher Rundfunk, the German broadcaster who televised Rockpalast, must have retained the broadcast and distribution rights to the video, then recently sold them or licensed them to Hudson Street (NuMedia).  I don't think there's much Paul McGuinness can do about it if my presumption is correct that U2 never owned the rights, but I'm sure he's steaming mad about it.  I just hope my DVD ships before he sues for an injunction. 

[slaneman]

There's a great moment during the show when the TV camera pans over to a shot of the Rhine Valley. Here's a bad screen cap I made from a 69th generation copy of the TV broadcast---



There's better images here--

http://www.superstock.com/stock-photography/Lorelei

I think the concert site lay across the river from the Lorelei cliffs. I sailed down the Rhine past those cliffs on a tour boat, but that was before cameras were invented.

As every good German language student knows, Heinrich Heine wrote a famous poem about the cliffs of the Lorelei. Many composers, including Liszt and Schumann wrote arrangements to the song using Heine's poem.

Here it is auf Deutsch with English translation--

http://www.business.uiuc.edu/vock/poetry/lorelei.html

Here's some more info--

http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=1957

It's cool to know a bit about this location, which is a major landmark and tourist attraction for Germans and foreign visitors. For Americans, it would be like U2 playing at the foot of Mt. Rushmore.

Hopefully this "release" will have better audio and video than the copy I have.

--prof. von slaneman 

[Brad]

I ordered a copy directly from the distibutor and they shipped it yesterday.  I guess they don't mind busting their own street date.  I should have it in a couple of days, so I'll let you know about the quality.

[Brad]

I received my DVD yesterday.  The audio and video quality are like, well, a TV broadcast from 1983.  The quality is good, but not what you would expect from a professionally mastered DVD these days.  This is definitely a direct copy of the TV broadcast, right down to the WDR logo in the upper right corner of the screen.  It does look like a first generation copy, though, slaneman. 

There are absolutely no extras and the DVD menus are as bare bones as you can get, just "play all" or "chapter select." 

The aspect ratio is interesting.  I'm watching on an upconverting Bluray player, and it appears to be mastered in a widescreen aspect ratio, but then there are thin black bars on each side, so it's wider that standard 4:3 but not as wide as 16:9.  I don't know if that's German television or what.  There's also a bit of color artifacting on the far right of the screen, the kind of thing that would be cut off by overscan in a typical TV broadcast.

At any rate, this appears to be mastered directly from the original 1983 broadcast, it is what it is, and I consider it a very nice companion disc to the Red Rocks remaster later this month.  It would have made a very nice bonus disc or easter egg with that release.

I'll try to post a couple of screen caps in a bit.

[Brad]

BTW, the "Send In The Clowns" snippet has not been edited out of this version.

[Brad]

Screen caps as promised.  You can see what I mean by the aspect ratio...


Look familiar?


Send in the clowns.


Edge and The Explorer.


Adam has always looked cool.


Larrycam!


Preparing for the encore...

[santiago2u]

::::Wait Wait

I already have this one...it's an infamous VHS I got back in the 90's...I love the show, and they recorded the songs from UABRS here...

is it worth to buy this one?

[Brad]

It's better quality than the boots I have seen, and it's nice to have it on DVD.

It was worth 10 bucks to me.

[slaneman]

Oh yeah it's much better. Thanks for the pics. I'll get it.

Seems half way between 4/3 and 16/9. I agree it's probably what the broadcaster used to compensate for bad overscan on most people's TVs back then. Very cool to get the TV studio version.

[slaneman]

Got it. 

They cut off the front part of the announcer's intro. Otherwise, like Brad said, the company did zero production,which is a shame since this was such a great show. It's quite cheesy. Nothing inside the cover except the DVD. It's a bit cleaner reproduction than the bootlegs.
It flat out wouldn't play on my HP laptop, but worked ok on my Sony player.

It seemed like some U2 fans pooled their money to buy the rights and pressed the dvds in their basement.

I guess if this is "official" a collector should get it while he can.

[M.l.J]

Hi,I've ordered DVD and waiting for delievery, can anyone let me know if audio is stereo or mono.cheers