DVD Review - Jennifer Lopez - The Reel Me

[Chandler]

Jennifer Lopez - The Reel Me
NTSC
Region 1,4,5,6

Introduction

This DVD is a must for any Jennifer Lopez (can we lose "J-Lo" now please ;)) fan.  It contains all of the music videos she's made up until now:

If You Had My Love
No Me Ames
Waiting For Tonight
Feelin' So Good
Love Don't Cost A Thing
Play
I'm Real
I'm Real (Remix)
Ain't It Funny
Alive
Ain't It Funny (Remix)
I'm Gonna Be Alright (Remix)
Jenny From The Block
All I Have
I'm Glad
Baby I Love You

In addition to the DVD, you also get a bonus audio CD featuring additional remixes of some of her most popular songs.  The CD appears to be one of Sony's Super Audio CD's - it has 6 channel audio.

Before every video, Jennifer talks about it, explaining the source of ideas etc.  The videos are presented in their entirity without any on screen graphics.

Even if you're not a fan of her music, the music videos are worth seeing, something many of my (male) university friends agree with. ;)

Video

The video quality is probably the best that you can get for music videos.  There is a bit of variation in quality between them, but they are all Very Good - Excellent.  Play is the only one which stands out as being slightly blurry, but it isn't grainy like the music video channels show it like.

Everything is presented full frame 4:3 since this is what most of the videos are anyway (the "widescreen" ones are simply black masks over the full screen image)

Audio

Here's a bonus.  You get a choice between 2-channel 48kbps Linear PCM or Dolby Digital 5.1.  The LPCM version technically has the best quality, since it's not compressed, and is better than CD quality since it uses a higher sampling rate.  The mixes are the same as the album versions (or whatever was used in the music video originally).

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track has a different feel.  Some of the backing vocals stand out more (or some have been added).

Menus

The menu deserves special mention here, it features constantly moving video in the background (quite subtle).

Censorship

Unfortunately the tracks on this DVD are all censored.  The only exception is the DD5.1 mix of Play, she asks "Mr DJ, play my mother.... song" (with the LPCM it's removed - possibly an oversight).  They don't distract too much but the censorship is noticeable - the vocals go silent.  I would prefer to hear bad language than to have songs mutilized like this.


Overall Score: 8/10 (if not for censorship it would have got 9/10)