Becky Kelly: Where's the Line to See Jesus? - Blu-ray Forum

HDTV1080P · 12-29-2011, 03:09 AM

Becky Kelly: Where's the Line to See Jesus? Blu-ray

WHERE'S THE LINE TO SEE JESUS?: Becky Kelly Official Music Video on Blu-ray (a brief review)

The “Where's the Line to see Jesus?” Blu-ray and optional audio CD are products for the Christmas season. The main target audience for the song and music video is the Christian population. The celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth is the reason for the Christmas season according to the message in the song and music video. I enjoyed listening to the audio CD and watching the Blu-ray music video “WHERE'S THE LINE TO SEE JESUS?”. The lyrics to the song has a very strong Biblically based message (click here to read the lyrics). Overall Becky Kelly and the studio team did a good job for this low budget audio CD and Blu-ray.

Click here for more information about the song and music video

Video quality

When I received the Blu-ray I noticed that the case did not have any shrink wrap on it (it costs more to shrink wrap Blu-rays). Also I noticed that the Blu-ray case that is being used was designed to hold two Blu-ray discs instead of just one. The extra empty slot in the Blu-ray case would be ideal for a CD audio disc but the CD is not included but an optional item to purchase separately. The packaging company for some reason is placing a single Blu-ray inside a Blu-ray case that was designed to hold two optical discs.This Blu-ray title must be sold in small QTY’s because there is no UPC code on the Blu-ray jacket and the Blu-ray case was not shrink wrapped. Also the Blu-ray is not a BD-ROM that was stamped in a factory but instead it is a BD-R disc. Some Blu-ray players have troubles playing BD-R discs but most will play the disc fine. Also this is the only Blu-ray that I have seen that does not contain any AACS copy protection to prevent a consumer from making a perfect copy of the Blu-ray on their computer Blu-ray recorder drive. 99.9% of Blu-rays purchased in the store use AACS copy protection and even some titles use the BD+ encryption system that protects content providers work from being pirated. This “Where's the Line To see Jesus?” Blu-ray is on a single layer 25GB BD-R but only 439MB of total space is used. The bit rate for video and audio plus the total space used on the physical disc is much lower than any Blu-ray video I have seen before. One of the reasons why the Blu-ray only uses 439MB of space is because the total length of the Blu-ray music video is 3 minutes and 43 seconds plus the bit rate for combined video and audio is lower than a average Blu-ray. The main Blu-ray disc menu is encoded at 1080p/24 resolution with a MPEG-2 codec. The music video itself is 1080P/24 using a MPEG-4/AVC codec at an average bit rate around 10Mbps for combined video and audio (The OPPO BDP-93 bit rate meter once peaked up to 22.6Mbps for a second for a fast moving bright scene in the music video. Many parts of the music video had a combined video and audio bit rates under 10Mbps while other parts were well above 10Mbps). Watching the music video at 72Hz on the Pioneer PRO-141FD preserved the smooth video HD type of look. The music video looked very good in some scenes while many other scenes had more of a soft look that appeared to lack fine detail that I am use to seeing in a HD quality presentation. This Blu-ray disc should have received a higher bit rate encode. Since this music video is only 3 minutes and 43 seconds the studio should have did a maximum video and audio combined bit rate of around 48Mbps for the entire music video, but instead the bit rate for combined video and audio averages around 10Mbps.

The music video also is encoded with English subtitle option for the hearing impaired (That is a great feature for those that need or want subtitles). What is disappointing about the subtitle option is that it defaults to on. Even after one turns off the subtitle selection on the main Blu-ray disc menu the Blu-ray disc is designed to automatically activate the subtitle track after one finishes playing the music video. So when one decides to watch the music video several times over and over without subtitles they will need to manually turn the subtitle selection off each time before playing the music video again. The program source code for the main disc menu is designed to automatically activate the subtitles when one returns to the main menu.

Audio quality

Since this Christian music video is a lower budget production I was not expecting any 7.1 or 5.1 surround sound audio like one finds on some secular Blu-ray music videos. The “Where's the Line to see Jesus?” Blu-ray offers two audio choices to choose from when watching the video. The standard “Play” option will allow one to hear the main music video in English 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo at 48k (3 minutes and 43 seconds length). The other option is the “Play (Instrumental with Choir)” which is also an English 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo 48k soundtrack that plays during the 3 minute and 43 second music video. The big disappointment about this Blu-ray disc is that there is no lossless audio track. All music videos released on Blu-ray should offer a lossless audio track with a minimum of 2.0 stereo (Either PCM, DTS-HD Master audio, or Dolby TrueHD). Lossless audio offers audio quality that is bit for bit the same as the studio master. So on this Blu-ray release one only has the 2.0 lossy Dolby Digital stereo options.

In fact the “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?” audio CD offers better sound quality when compared to the Blu-ray since the CD version was encoded with a 2 channel PCM soundtrack. The CD audio had more sonic depth to it compared to the Blu-ray version. The CD was also shrink wrapped with a UPC code on the back. I did notice that on the CD version Becky Kelly’s voice was louder coming out of the right speaker when compared to the left speaker. Perhaps maybe the studio purposely mixed the audio that way.

Summary

This 1080P Blu-ray title called “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?” has a very bold Biblical Christian message. Both the video and audio quality on this Blu-ray could have been much better. I have heard complaints from people when Christian Blu-rays and DVD’s are under 30 minutes in length. This Christian Blu-ray breaks a new record for being a very short length. If one listens to both audio tracks for the one and only music video on this Blu-ray it has a maximum running length of 7 minutes and 26 seconds. Christian Blu-rays sometimes are a niche market and production budgets are limited.

For those interested in purchasing the “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?” Official Music Video Blu-ray click here

Also the full audio and 1080P music video is offered for free online at the official “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?” website.

I was surprised to learn that the full version of “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?” audio track at below CD quality was made available for free for anyone that wants to listen to the song online. What even surprised me more was that they posted the “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?” music video in full 1080P quality on YouTube. The YouTube video has received over 3.1 million views. So if one has a computer and a monitor with a minimum of 1080P resolution then they can watch the music video for free in 1080P quality. Also most modern Blu-ray players and HDTV’s will stream YouTube videos on consumers large home entertainment displays. When comparing the 1080P YouTube video to the 1080P Blu-ray the Blu-ray had much higher video quality with less digital artifacts. So if you want the best looking version then buy the Blu-ray. If you want the best sounding version purchase the audio CD.

In my opinion the main reason the full music version is offered for free and the 1080P video is for free on their website is to spread the Christian message about the Christmas season. Many people will not purchase the Blu-ray and CD since there is a free lower quality version available online to watch and listen too.

Click here to listen to the full audio version of “Where’s the Line To See Jesus?”

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