U2:Best of 90-00

This DVD has very poor encoding. Most of the time it looks like bad digital cable or internet streaming. Blocky and poor contrast (look at the One video, for instance, YUK!).

In addition, my copy (in Canada) was not compatible for 2 channel stereo playback. So, if you don't have a surround system, but play it through your TV or stereo, you will get a horrible sound quality. Everything has an echo to it, as the vocal channel was mixed so low and the background so high. In Electrical Storm, for instance, there is a constant whine of stupid background noise, and Bono's vocals are lost in the background. This is the case for most, but not all of the tracks.

What a pitiful effort by the world's most filthy-rich band.

Save your money on this one. If you want some U2 get the excellent Elevation DVD, which is superb.

Not sure if you'd notice on a smaller TV set, but on any large screen with a decent picture, especially if you have a good eye, you won't be able to stand the lackluster encoding. In fact, "lackluster" is a compliment. This is dreadful DVD encoding. I would expect this quality from one of those '3 for 1' ... horror movie DVD's...but from U2!!??

I couldn't make it too far through this DVD once I saw the bad quality was consistent all the way through, but of the ones I saw, the digital muck was most evident on "One". Probably just the dark quality of the video makes the defects and artifacts all the more obvious.

To make matters worse, the mix sounds terrible on my Sony DVD player. Through every video I watched, there was an ongoing echo quality, as if the background sound was overwhelming everything. It was especially annoying on "Electrical Storm." Now, I don't have a surround setup, so I'm playing through a 2 channel downmix, but I can't imagine it being very good on any setup(?).

What pi**es me off, though, is how a band like U2 can pass off such a lazy effort on their fans, and show such disrespect to their own material. It just seems like they have no concern with the product. It's just easy $$$.

My Depeche Mode video compilation blows this one away a hundred times over. Can't even compare the two. I watch it all the time, and love the incredible quality.

But, this U2 one is going straight to the trading shop on Monday. What a rip.