You are here

U2 2005-05-24 Boston AUD NTSC [DVD0268]

U2
Vertigo Tour
2005-05-24
Fleet Center
Boston, Massachusets

Tour : Vertigo Tour
Leg : Leg 1 - North America
Date : 05.24.2005
Country : USA
Town : Boston
Place : Fleet Center
Type : Video + Matrix Audio
Support : DVD+/-R
Integral : Complete
Camera : Amateur
Nb Cam. : 1
Format : NTSC
Resolution : 720x480
Sound : MP2
Ratio : 4/3
Authoring : Yes (by titles)
Menu : Yes

Video Source
Taper : pramirezm
Taper's location : 1st balcony behind and to the right of mixing desk
Material : Sony DCR-HC90 (mini DV cam) + ECM-HQP1 mic
Source: Mini DV
Generation : Master
Video lineage : Sony DCR-HC90 > Sony S-Video cable > ATI AIW-9800-Pro > ATI MMC > MPEG2 file
Audio lineage : Sony DCR-HC90 > Firewire cable > ScenalyzerLive > wAV file
Final mix lineage : MPEG2 + WAV mix with Womble MPEG Video Wizar > MPEG2/PCM file > MPEG2/PCM + massu2's WAV mix
with Womble MPEG Video Wizard > MPEG2/MP2 file > TMPGEnc DVDAuthor 1.6 > DVDShrink 3.2 > VIDEO_TS > You

Alt. Audio Source
Taper : massu2
Taper's location: GA, inside the ellipse
Rig : OKMIIr > A3 > D100
Transfer : 7 Pin Cable > Phillips CDR775 > FLAC to WAV > Goldwave for pitch adj.
Mastering : daveydave
Conversion : EAC Ver. 0.9 > WAV > CEP 2.0 > CDWAVE > mkw Audio Compression (SHN)

============================================================

Setlist

(2:03:19)
1. Wake Up (Arcade Fire)
2. Intro
3. City Of Blinding Lights
4. Vertigo / Stories For Boys (snippet)
5. Elevation
6. Cry / The Electric Co.
7. The Ocean
8. Beautiful Day / Blackbird (snippet)
9. Miracle Drug
10. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
11. Love And Peace Or Else
12. Sunday Bloody Sunday
13. Bullet The Blue Sky / Please (snippet) / The Hands That Built America (snippet) / Johnny Comes Marching
Home (snippet)
14. Running To Stand Still
15. Hallelujah (snippet) / Declaration of Human Rights
16. Pride (in The Name Of Love)
17. Where The Streets Have No Name
18. One
19. Encore
20. Zoo Station
21. The Fly
22. Mysterious Ways
23. All Because Of You
24. Yahweh
25. "40"

==========================================

Comments:

My first upload to u2torrents and an absolute exclusive, never released before recording!!! It's a pleasure to
share with all of you my own video recording of Boston 2005-05-24. It seems to be the only video source available
for this show, as no other one has surfaced yet.

This is the entire show, right from before Wake Up and up to lights-on with the outro music. There're
only three gaps here and there because of tape and battery changes. In the first gap there're 30+ seconds missing
at the beginning of SYCMIOYO; the other two gaps are in the encores, so you only miss crowd noise.

When I decided to make a DVD from these miniDV tapes I began to look for an alternative audio source from the
same show to fill the gaps, and in 2008 I was able to download from u2torrents the excellent audio recording by
massu2, which is one of the three available sources from this show, according to achtungbootlegs. I have never
heard the other two sources as they have never showed up at u2torrents since I joined the community in 2007.

So, after contacting massu2 to request permission to use his source, which he kindly gave, I put my hands to work
starting with the syncing of my video with massu2's audio to fill the missing gaps, using the audio track from the
video source as a reference. While doing this I realised how wonderful the two audio tracks sounded when played
simultaneously. I'm not an audio expert, but to my ears massu2's source has excellent clarity but is low in bottom
end, while the audio of my video source is exactly the opposite and also has more ambience. Our different locations
could be the reason. This discovery encouraged me to try a different approach: instead of using massu2's audio
only as a gap filler, I'd mix both audio sources (matrix style) with the video signal. Of course this involves a
lot more work, but I think it was the right decision as the final result is much better.

Regarding the video itself, it's important to mention that I choose to do wide shots most of the time, for several
reasons: first, my low and far from stage location made very difficult to do close-ups. Second, my seat was in a
removable bench, which was shaking a lot with all the people around jumping and dancing, so it was impossible to
keep the camera steady enough every time I was doing a close-up (you can notice that during Vertigo), and for this
reason most of the close-ups were done during the downbeat or lesser known songs. Third, I wanted to do a lot of
wide shots to keep a better record of all the visuals and lighting effects during the show. This is by no means
detrimental to the excellent quality of this recording, in fact, I think it makes it very enjoyable because you
get a better feel about the atmosphere during the show.

Hope you enjoy it.

==========================================

Further notes about lineage:

The camera used for this recording was a Sony DCR-HC90, which was the top standard def. model of the Sony consumer
line at the time, coupled with an ECM-HQP1 mic, in 16-bit Stereo mode, at 48Khz. Same camera was used for playback.

The process of converting miniDV video to MPEG2, for DVD authoring, has always been subject to controversy. The
starndard method is to "transfer" the miniDV .avi files to your computer, either through USB or firewire, and then
"encode" the .avi files into MPEG2. Sofware and settings choices are critical for a good encoding, and I've tried
many (paid stuff, not freeware junk), but I've never felt satisfied with the final result. As it's a given that
whenever you encode video you loose quality, I developed my own method: instead of the "transfer"-"encoding"
process, I just "capture" the video/audio signal in my computer as MPEG2, at the desired bitrate, thus there's no
need to encode. For this I use an ATI AIW-9800-Pro video capture card, using the S-Video port for the best possible
quality. The capture software is ATI's own Multimedia Center. Video was captured as 720x480 NTSC at a bitrate of
8000 Kb/s, and the result is excellent in my opinion.

This capture has an audio track, but the settings are not relevant because it's only used as reference for latter
synching. For the definitive audio track I still prefer to use the standard method of "transfering" the original
16-bit Stereo, 48Khz audio signal through a firewire port and into a WAV file, without any coversion/encoding
involved. The software used for the audio "transfer" was ScenalyzerLive.

Then, the "captured" MPEG2 video is synched with the "transfered" WAV audio using Womble MPEG Video Wizard. The audio track from the MPEG2 serves as a reference, but then it's overwritten once you merge the WAV audio into the MPEG2 file, and the result is a new MPEG2 file with PCM audio.

At this point massu2's audio recording enters the scene. First I decoded all FLAC files to WAV, then those were
merged into a single large WAV file and upscaled from 44.1 Khz to 48Khz, using Goldwave. This large file had to be
pitch adjusted to 99,99%, also with Goldwave, in order to make it sync with the MPEG2 video. Then both files were
synched and merged with Womble MPEG Video Wizard into a new MPEG2, but this time keeping the audio of the new MPEG2, effectively creating a new matrix. The level of the PCM audio of the MPEG2 file had to be lowered a bit to keep it at the same level of massu2's source. The audio of the new MPEG2 file was re-encoded to MP2 at 384 Kb/s to reduce file size. Titles were added at the same session.

Next step was DVD authoring using TMPGEnc DVD Author, adding menu and chapters, and finally the resulting VIDEO_TS
folder was reduced with DVDShrink to make it fit into a single DVD. This means that the video was
re-encoded/compressed, but after watching the final result I'd say that the quality loss is minimal, as well as in
the case of the MP2 audio instead of PCM.

I decided from the start that this video would be shared as a single DVD, as it seems to be the support of choice
by most of the users, and also that will allow most people (for ratio reasons) to download and enjoy this source.
But if anybody (quality freaks like me) wants the uncompressed video source with the original PCM audio, it'll be
available for trade as a double DVD (with a total size of 8.11 Gb, it doesn't fit in a single DVD+R/DL).

==========================================

Please don't use or re-encode the files without my permission.
Don't upload at dime, TTD or any other site, I will do it myself. Respect Taper's wishes, thank you.
And of course, never sell this.

Thanks to massu2 for allowing to use his source.

pramirezm

==========================================

Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer