2015 Vizio Fiesta Bowl Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.0
Audio		1.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

2015 Vizio Fiesta Bowl Blu-ray Movie Review

A football game on Blu-ray.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 9, 2015

Team Marketing has released several college football games to Blu-ray, each covering the best and most important match-ups of the 2014-2015 Bowl season. The games are presented without commercial interruption and are, essentially, the television broadcasts transferred onto Blu-ray. This one, the 2014 Vizio Fiesta Bowl, was actually the second Fiesta Bowl played in calendar year 2014; the first was played on New Year's day between the Baylor Bears and the victorious UCF Knights. Round two was played 364 days later at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals, in front of 66,896 fans. The game matched the 11-2 Boise State Broncos against the in-state 10-3 Arizona Wildcats.

Brought to you by Vizio.

The Arizona Wildcats, essentially playing a home game only 130 miles removed from their home city of Tucson, entered the Vizio Bowl as the Pac 12 South Division champions but losers of the conference's championship game to National Championship game participant Oregon. Arizona, under Head Coach Rich Rodriguez, jumped out to a 5-0 start, including an impressive 31-24 road win against Oregon. The team would drop their home game the following week against USC, rebound to beat Washington State on the road two weeks later, and lose again on November 1 to UCLA. Rich Rodriguez's team regrouped and won four straight, including victories against ranked opponents Utah and Arizona State before dropping the Pac 12 championship game to Oregon.

On the other side of the Fiesta Bowl field was Boise State. Head Coach Bryan Harsin's Mountain West champions started the season 0-1, losing to then-19th ranked Ole Miss, 35-13, in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta, Georgia. The Broncos won three straight but dropped another game on September 27, this one against Air Force, by a score of 28-14. The high-scoring Broncos wound't taste defeat again all season. The team rattled off seven straight wins -- including a 50-19 drubbing of 25th-ranked Utah State -- en route to the 28-14 win versus Fresno State in the conference championship game. This would mark Boise State's third appearance in the Fiesta Bowl and first since 2010. The school won both previous games.

The 2014 December 31 edition of the Fiesta Bowl saw the Broncos lead comfortably throughout. They never put the game completely away and Arizona never gave up. The game remained largely competitive once Arizona State mustered up some offense and slowed down the Broncos after the team from Idaho jumped out in front 21-0 in the first on two Jay Ajayi touchdown runs sandwiched around a Grant Hedrick 57-yard TD bomb. Arizona's Anu Solomon scored a late-quarter TD to get the Wildcats back in the game at 21-7. Another Jay Ajayi run put Boise State back up by 21 early in the second. Arizona answered with a touchdown run and a field goal to decrease the deficit to a manageable 28-17, though a late Boise State field goal increased the margin to 14 at halftime. Following an Arizona field goal in the third, Donte Deayon's pick-six pushed the Broncos back up to 38- 20. With under a minute to go in the third, Anu Solomon heaved a 51-yard bomb to Samajie Grant to again bring the Wildcats scratching back to within reach at 38-27. Arizona's defense would clamp down and hold the Broncos scoreless in the fourth, but Boise State's defense likewise tightened up and allowed Arizona a lone field goal in the quarter. Final score: Boise State 38, Arizona 30.

This Boise State victory may very well garner repeat viewings in and around the Gem State, but chances are it'll be a sparse addition to any Blu-ray collection outside potato country. Team Marketing's release is a disappointment to say the least, a simple, no-frills, plopped-on presentation that does nothing the DVR cannot do beyond basic chapter skip and an absence of commercials. There's literally no other content besides the game and a bit of extracurricular footage at the beginning and end. True die-hard Broncos fans may be able to overlook the faults if this is something they'll watch time and again over the years, but even then they'll be left yearning for a superior presentation and at least something in the way of added value.

2015 Vizio Fiesta Bowl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

2014 Vizio Fiesta Bowl snaps onto Blu-ray with a fully disappointing 720p, 1.78:1-framed transfer, no surprise given the rather sorry state of the other college football games released onto Blu-ray on the same date as this. The image disappoints in every way, with only close-up shots revealing even a modicum of good, tangible textures on faces and uniforms. General overhead play-by-play footage looks crummy to say the least. It's soft and poorly defined with players appearing more like loosely-humanoid-shaped figures rather than richly detailed athletes. Even the turf doesn't find any real nuance, appearing more like patches of green rather than a truly textured field. ESPN's digital graphics are soft and murky rather than sharp and rich. The crowd, outside of extreme close-ups, is nothing but a glob and even stadium signage is only barely legible. Colors disappoint, with even bright jersey accents appearing fairly gaudy and overly saturated. Compression problems abound. Blocking is evident and aliasing, ringing, and noise appear frequently. Overall, this is a dull, lifeless image.

2015 Vizio Fiesta Bowl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

2014 Vizio Fiesta Bowl features a poor DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. Nothing impresses, not the booming, poorly defined play-by-play and color commentary; not the messy, scrambled fan cheers; not the harsh-edged close-up fan screams; not the band music, nothing. Each element lacks nuance, definition, and realism. Commentary is intelligible, crowd noise is identifiable as such, and so and so forth, but the track fails to find any sort of pinpoint, or even ballpark, clarity or attention to detail. There's at least decent center-stage imaging with the commentating.

2015 Vizio Fiesta Bowl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

2014 Vizio Fiesta Bowl doesn't contain any supplements, per se, but it does include the post-game trophy presentation, which is listed as a special feature on the back of the box (which is a DVD case, not a Blu-ray case). It's simply an extension of the program beyond the game, beginning at the 2:33:57 mark and lasting a little over 14 minutes. A few minutes' worth of pre-game footage is also included before kickoff by way of the "Nissan Pregame Rush." From the main menu, viewers may choose a "play all" option or jump to the start of any of the four quarters plus the aforementioned trophy presentation. A DVD copy of the game is also included in the case.

2015 Vizio Fiesta Bowl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

No fluff, no filler, and strictly for fans. 2014 Vizio Fiesta Bowl is nothing but the original ESPN broadcast dropped onto Blu-ray with team entrances featured at the beginning and the post game celebration added on to the end. There's no halftime show and no extras recounting the story of how both teams got to the game. Fans who want to relive the game time and again without worrying about it getting lost on the DVR are the target audience here. Picture and sound suffice and reflect the original broadcast, but in terms of raw quality both score rather poorly. Recommended to fans who will watch it enough to warrant the buy which, at the end of the day, holds true for most every release but rings particularly accurate here.