Taken from a 1st gen VHS, this is a pretty decent sounding mono recording. Because of the camcorder technology of the time, there isn't much low bass (<50hz) or much highend (>13khz). What is present actually sounds pretty good and solid. The band is well resolved and the audience is well behaved around the taper during the songs. There are a couple minor cuts* (end of YYZ, middle of Marathon), but nothing devistating. This is available mainly as an audio CD companion to the DVD version. No hiss or noise reduction was used during the remastering process. However, a 60hz cycle noise re-equalization was performed to remove camcorder motor induced noise.

The video is very steady (nearly tripod level) and does a great job focussing on the action. There are almost no obstructions of the filming at all which makes for a very clear and enjoyable video to watch. The shot is from about a 45 degree angle off of Geddy's side of the stage. So you get a lot of shots of Geddy playing with Neil in the background. There isn't a lot of Alex shots, but those that there are capture him at the right time (solos). The video can be a bit dark at times and given the camcorder technology of the era, that can make for some grainy looking footage due to the inefficiency of the CCD. The only editing done on the video were fades and transitions, clipping to remove video noise at the picture edges, and a couple minor picture tweaks.

Production details. The video was encoded at 8000kbps Constant Bit Rate (CBR), the highest quality bit rate allowed. All encoding options were set at the highest possible quality settings. The audio was preserved as full PCM 16bit/48khz uncompressed wave audio. The dvd's have full motion opening menu's, chapter menu's and full track indexing, and recording information. All in all, a very enjoyable video to watch due to the lack of obstructions. Once again, special thanks to Derek for lending me the VHS tape used for this production. This recording is for free trade only. (November 2003)    (2003-11-01)