Review of Rick Wakeman: The Ultimate Anthology

Introduction

Erstwhile Yes man Rick Wakeman has quite a few DVDs already released and not having heard them I can`t say if this anthology is truly unique. Anyway, the man is a bit good with the piano/keyboards and plays music with the English Rock Ensemble. This DVD is a mixture of concert footage, studio piano playing and video. This DVD makes for good background noise...

Video

Presented with a 1.33:1 fullframe video transfer the overall quality looks okay. You get a bit of concert footage, some studio footage and interesting conceptual videos too. There`s different source material used for some of the pieces so the quality varies a little but it looks and plays fine.

Audio

You have a choice of two soundtracks: DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0. It struck me as odd that there isn`t a DD5.1 track as opposed to the DD2.0 offering. The DTS track here isn`t full bit rate, which is a shame, as there`s a lot of free space on the disc. It sounds clear with the music coming from the front speakers though you won`t hear anything of interest in the rear. The DD2.0 sound is nice and clear too.

Features

None.

Conclusion

I`ve not really listened to much Rick Wakeman before so this was an interesting DVD. Rick isn`t exactly a performer you can just sit and watch though so I had this DVD playing in the background while doing other things. I like the music, but I think I`d get more from a CD than this DVD seeing that CDs are cheaper. It`s nice to hear a DTS track, but this doesn`t enhance the DVD in any meaningful way, as it`s not a full 5.1 experience.

Perhaps fans would appreciate this DVD more than I could.