It looks new, it looks exciting -- and in a way, it is. It's the first collection of Carpenters videos ever released on DVD in the United States.
But take a look at the track listing. Looks familiar, huh? It's Yesterday Once More (the video) on DVD. Exactly. Well, except for the title screen, which says "Gold" instead of "Yesterday Once More." No extra videos (not even the "I Need to Be in Love" video that's on the Asian DVD version of Yesterday Once More), and no bonus materials at all.
And while the video is nice and clear, it hasn't been cleaned up -- some of the older videos, like "Superstar," still have the little visual artifacts (like dust spots) that they had on the video and laserdisc.
What baffles me isn't the fact that it's the same old video with a new title, though. I'm puzzled as to why we have a U.S. release of a video companion to the Gold CD when the Gold CD wasn't even released in the U.S. to begin with! You'd think Universal would be smart enough to have released the CD at the same time as the DVD...
I know I'm complaining a lot. I really am grateful to have a Carpenters DVD in the U.S. I just wish there had been *some* effort put into this DVD -- at least some bonus DVD stuff like a discography, biograpies, a few bonus videos. Or how about all the songs remixed for 5.1 channel Digital Dolby or DTS sound?! THAT would be cool.
Well, we can always hope for future releases...
By the way, my copy of the DVD is region 0, meaning that it will play in DVD players in any part of the world. It is in the NTSC format, though, so players in countries that use PAL or SECAM as their video standard might have trouble playing it.
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