VAN HALEN - 625 / 50 - The PAL Rarities

Musical

Notes from the author >>>
For sometime now, I have been thinking about putting a VH compilation together to offer up to everyone here. Many of you will already know that I have been video trading for 6 years now and have been collecting TV footage since 1982. My thinking was to put together a collection of footage that is either rare, or that I have a better copy of than what is commonly previously available. For instance I have used a TV master of the Hot For Teacher Donnington 84 pro-shot and a DVD master of YRGM from German TV 1980. So I looked through my lists and picked out the items that have been the most popular over the years. As it turned out, most of it originated in the PAL TV system, which is what we use here in most of Europe and also in Australasia. Much of the footage here you may have seen before, but you may not have seen such a good copy.

So here it is then VH 625/50, the double DVD set of footage that originated in the PAL TV system. Why did I call it 625/50? Well this is the technical standard for the PAL TV system – it has 625 lines and 50Hz frame rate (as opposed to NTSC which has 525 lines and 60Hz) VH like album titles with numbers in, so it seemed to make sense.

As the majority of traders on this site are in the Americas, I have authored 2 versions of this set. An NTSC one for USA, Canada & Japan etc and a PAL one for Europe and Australasia. As a TV video engineer by trade, I have put a lot of effort into making the quality as good as possible. For the NTSC version, I used a high quality standards converter - GTH Electronics ACE converter http://www.gthelectronics.com/featurec.htm For some of the items here, I have loaned tapes from the traders who provided the footage for me, to help improve quality. Both discs have menus with thumbnail pictures for each title, plus chapter markers at the start of each song. They were authored on a Philips DVDR 880 stand alone.

Date: 1980-00-00 - 1998-00-00
Venue: 625/50 – The PAL Rarities
Sets: PC181mins
Media: DVD
Number: 2
Source: see notes
Quality: see notes
Notes: OSKY PRODUCTIONS

These are NTSC format DVDs from PAL-land

Van Halen - 625/50 – The PAL Rarities
Double DVD set – Total Running time - 3 hours

Disc 1 – Dave Era (61 mins)
1. Rock Pop – ZDF TV Germany 21/6/80 – You Really Got Me (A+ - DVD master of Nov. 2003 re-broadcast) And The Cradle Will Rock (A- 2nd gen with a few satellite sparklies, but still pretty good) lip-sync – total 6 mins

2. Loss of Control – Promo – colour version - from Australian TV 1980 – a bit glitchy but much better than the 47th generation B&W copy that crops up on some Dave era compilations! (B+) 3 mins

3. Pink Pop Festival, Landgraaf, Holland 26/5/80 – Dutch TV - very short clip of band playing RWTD + interviews with fans and groupies with the sound of VH playing live in background - generated with some colour drop-out but very rare (B-) 4 mins

4. Music Box – German TV 1981 – Unchained + short interview – lip-sync – (A-) 4 mins

5. US Festival San Bernadino 29/5/83 – recent re-broadcast on RAI TRE Italian TV - RWTD, Pretty Woman, YRGM + Happy Trails – (A)( fantastic quality 1st gen, I have never seen a better recording of this!) 12 mins

6. Ear Say - UKTV 1984 – Dave interview + I’ll Wait – promo (no band apperance, filmed by TV station) – VHS master > DVD (A) 6 mins

7. BBC Old Grey Whistle Test – Castle Donnington Monsters of Rock Fest. Leicestershire, UK 18/8/84 – interview with Dave and Al in hotel room about gig (also includes interviews with Angus and Brian from AC/DC) – (A) 6 mins

8. BBC Old Grey Whistle Test – Castle Donnington Monsters of Rock Fest. Leicestershire, UK 18/8/84 – Hot For Teacher – live – this and no. 7 are straight VHS TV master! - (A) 4 mins

9. Swedish TV news reports from Rasunda Stadium Stockholm, Sweden 25/8/84 (Monsters of Rock) – live clips and interviews w/Dave – some small tracking problems but still very viewable (B) 3 mins

10. German TV news report on a gig from September 84 (either Karlsruhe 1/9/84 or Nuremburg 2/9/84) – clip of Jump live + interviews with fans – (B) 2 mins

11. Danish TV 1984 - Short interview with Dave + a comment from Lars Ulrich in Danish! – (B+) – 1.5 mins

12. French TV 1985 – ‘Enfants Du Rock’ interview with Dave for his solo EP while he was still in VH , (interesting as he strongly hints that he will be departing from VH soon). – (B) 8 mins.

Disc 2 Sammy and Gary Eras (120 mins)
1. MTV Europe Headbangers Ball special – interviews with the whole band, live clips from secret club gig 27/1/95 Luxor Holland, Ed and Al on Dutch radio (Ed speaks a little Dutch) and a guided tour of Eds guitars, amps and effects rack by Eddie himself. – digitally edited (no ads or promos) SVHS>VHS>HD>DVD – (A) 59 mins

2. Milan Italy 30/1/95 – Italian TV special from a small club - 1st gen PAL Hi Fi Stereo VHS digitally edited (no ads or logos in middle of gig) > DVD – (A) 46 mins

3. Rock im Park Festival, Nuremburg, Germany 29/5/98 – 3 songs and a short interview (dubbed in German) from BR3 German TV – great outdoor daytime pro shot – 1st gen VHS > DVD (A) 15 mins