Director
Ron Howard

Cast
Matthew McConnaughey,
Jenna Elfman,
Woody Harrelson,
Ellen DeGeneres

Music
Randy Edelman

When Paramount's The Truman Show was released, Universal were hard at work on EDtv, which like the Truman show, was based on the premise of 24 hour screened voyeur TV.  In Truman, you had Jim Carey playing a guys who had been living in a TV set his entire life, and after 30 years only just became aware of this, but with EDtv Matthew McConnaughey's Character chose to have his life telecast live.  This is pretty much were the similarities of these two great films end.

At the age of 31, Ed Pekurny lives a simple life, he has no girlfriend, and works in a video store.  One night while playing pool at the local bar with his buddies, a TV crew are conducting interviews for a new TV show.  Ed's Brother Ray (Woody Harrelson) drops by, with his current girlfriend Shari (Jenna Elfman, TVs Darma), and Ray wants to be the one in the show.  During Rays interview he pulls Ed onto he camera and the Execs at the studio, decide Ed is the one to star in the new concept 24hr TV show.

With the show off to a very shaky and boring start, things are really spiced up when Ray is caught with another woman (seen just a bit naked on camera to boot), Shari dumps Ray, Ed and Shari fall in love, then break up to which he goes out with stunning and quite slutty model Jill (played perfectly by Liz Hurley), and just about every other soap opera story line you can think of (though no one gets married....thank god).
The overexposure of Ed's entire family causes a great deal of stress and embarrassment, problem is Ed is locked into a contact that prevents him from leaving the show.....So he must find a way out...

So How Does This Transfer Hold Up??
Though not a raging success at the cinemas, EDtv was a joy to watch, it was incredibly rich and vibrant with great detail, considering there is a lot of video taped footage used in the actual film, it was cleaned up exceptionally well for the big screen. 
This 16:9 Enhanced DVD comes very close to capturing the filmic quality, but only fails in the area of sharpness.  Though consistent, the sharpness is just a hair out, leaving it a tad soft. Other than that, the richness of colour saturation is a treat for the eyes, black level is also intentionally higher than normal (though thankfully not too black). and it's has a wonderfully grain free look. 
Running for nearly 2 hours, (though with only a piddly 18 chapter stops) EDtv is spread over an RSDL DVD, the layer change occurs barely after a line of dialogue from Rob Reiner (at 86:20), and was not that smooth on my machine...too abrupt).  A near pristine print was used for this transfer (being only a 1 year old film helps I'm sure)

Video Highlights
Ch 02 05:58 - 06:14 Hello There
Ch 05 28:53 - 29:33 Guy's Don't stop
Ch 06 41:20 - 41:37 Bathroom meeting
Ch 11 77:28 - 77:56 Little nibble?
Ch 13 90:27 - 90:44 You've My Father, Al

Though containing a fantastic range of popular songs, the DD5.1 track fails to deliver, given that it's the sort of film that could have quite easily utilised all channels, and on occasions did so.  Being a region 2/4 DVD there are 4 movie soundtracks, English, French, Italian, and Spanish.  Also included is 2 audio commentaries.
The front soundstage was quite well used, but the surrounds kicked in only on occasions.   Given the kinetic energy of this film with it's style of shooting, it would have been very well complimented with an active 5.1 mix.  Randy Edelman's Music was subtly used, and underplayed the action on screen nicely. 

Audio Highlights
Ch 03 08:47 - 09:13 The interview (used various scene props for sound output)
Ch 06 37:40 - 37:52 Uno Mas?
Ch 07 45:05 - 45:15 Zamboni
Ch 07 45:33 - 45:55 the lounge singing boyfriend
Ch 11 77:28 - 77:56 Funeral from a far

When EDtv was being filmed, the Eventual DVD release was being thought up at the same time, so extra bits and pieces where being made up for it.
Universal certainly know how to make a collector's Edition as EDtv clearly shows.
Though lacking the animated menus of some of the great collector's Ed DVDs, this one has enough goodies to make up for it.

- We are treated to 2 running commentaries, the first a solo effort by Director Ron Howard, and second a duo of the films' writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Neither commentaries are overly exciting (and are dull in parts), but do offer great insight into the making of the film. (commentaries really should be fun now and not a chore to sit through)
- The 30 minutes Featurette entitled Caught it he Camera's Eye is a good'n, with cast and crew interviews & behind the scenes footage.
-Most impressive is the Deleted scenes.  Generally we are only offered a few minutes worth, With EDtv we get a whopping 39 minutes of deleted scenes!!!! (These scenes are all letterboxed only at 1.85:1, and with so many a few chapters would have been nice)
- Outtakes adding up to about 7 minutes worth help things along, with a few funnies, mostly coming from Woody Harrelson
- A terrific addition is the Music Highlights section.  This feature allows you to select from 24 of the songs featured in the movie, you select the song, and you are taken to that part of the actual movie, so you are getting your very nice 16:9 Enhanced picture with Dolby 5.1 sound. You then jump back to the songs selection page after that particular song is over.
- Also included is Production notes, a 16:9 Theatrical trailer with DD2.0 sound, Cast and Crew Bios and the universal DVD-ROM web links page (it simply points to the universal home page..woohoo :-)

EDtv is quite an enjoyable film, with a fun attitude at hand, for the most part, and is not that bad as a Collector's Edition DVD either.

Review Equipment
TV: Pioneer SD-T50W1 (16:9 RPTV)
DVD: Pioneer DV717  (using RGB outputs)
Receiver: Marantz SR870 & Sony SDP-EP9ES
Speakers:-
     Fronts: B&W 602
     Centre: B&W CDMC-SE
     Rears: Jamo Magic 14
     Subby: M&K V125 

- Reviewed 27th December 1999