Bob Dylan: The 30th Anniversary Concert Collection is
presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Columbia Records and Legacy with an AVC
encoded 1080i transfer (mostly) in 1.78:1 (some of the archival footage is in
1.33:1). This is a clear and detailed enough looking release when the cameras
capture the artists in close-up, but it's relatively soft looking by
contemporary standards quite a bit of the time, something that's only
exacerbated by the often red or blue lighting scheme. On the plus side, despite
the interlaced presentation, there are few if any noticeable combing artifacts,
and even the aforementioned stage lighting rarely results in typical live
concert bugaboos like pasteurization. In the more brightly lit segments, colors
are accurate looking and nicely saturated. The blue and red lighting schemes
tend to make flesh tones take on slightly weird looking casts at times.
Softness is most obvious in some of the wide shots (especially those of the
audience), where the image lacks little definition and clarity and becomes more
like moving blobs of color.
