Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII Blu-ray Movie Review

Even Ravens fans might not be thrilled with this corners-cut release.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 9, 2013

There was so much going on to start the 2012 NFL season that the eventual Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens weren't really in the conversation leading up to week one. Make no mistake, plenty of experts picked them to repeat as AFC North division champions -- no small accomplishment with the perennially excellent Pittsburgh Steelers, the up-and-coming Bengals, and the improved Cleveland Browns in the division -- but to say that these birds flew under the national television and talk radio and office water cooler radars would be an understatement. Before the season began, all the talk was about Peyton Manning's arrival in Denver and that team's chances to advance to the Super Bowl against the defending world champion New York Giants (with the other Manning under center), likely having to go through the vaunted New England Patriots to do so. Meanwhile, both Heisman Trophy winner-turned Washington Redskin quarterback Robert Griffin III and 2011 sensation (and also former Heisman winner) Tim Tebow's role in the New York Jets offense also dominated headlines around the league. It seemed like all the talk was about the individual, but the Ravens were about to prove the value of the team concept while rallying around their injured superstar's return just in time for their postseason run.

Ray Ray on Blu-ray.

None of that talk matters on the field, though. It's a lot of noise at best and bulletin board material at worst. The Ravens, under the guidance of Head Coach John Harbaugh, marched through the regular season to a 10-6 record and another division title, much of which was accomplished without future Hall-of-Fame Linebacker Ray Lewis, the superstar lost to a triceps injury in a mid-October game against the Dallas Cowboys. It wasn't quite so easy, however. The team emerged hot and stayed hot for the first three-quarters or so of the season, racking up nine wins in the first eleven games but dropping four of the last five, beating the defending Super Bowl Champion Giants at home but falling to four tough opponents, including hated rival Pittsburgh and three playoff bound teams: Washington, Cincinnati, and Denver, the latter of which the club would see again in the postseason. The Bengals also finished with a 10-6 record, but divisional tiebreakers awarded the Ravens the AFC North crown and a date with the upstart Indianapolis Colts in the opening round of the 2012 playoffs.

Winning the division on a tiebreaker and limping in losers of four of the season's final five games might look on paper like a formula for an early exit, but then again it might also mean a team on the mend, with a bad stretch out of its system and ready to show the world that two division titles and a trip to the AFC Championship game a year earlier was no accident. The Ravens would surge past the Colts' rookie signal caller Andrew Luck and inspirational Head Coach Chuck Pagano, the latter out much of the season recovering from leukemia, with a 24-9 home field victory, the only 2012 playoff game to be played at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium. Round two paired the team with preseason favorite Denver. The game didn't disappoint as a high-scoring affair until overtime -- two overtimes, that is -- when the Ravens finally broke through and left the Broncos and their mile-high fans feeling down. The championship game paired the Ravens with 2011's AFC title game nemesis, New England. This time, the results were different as Joe Flacco and the Ravens toppled Tom Brady and the perennial favorite Pats 28–13. The road to the Super Bowl would go through all things Harbaugh as John would clash with brother Jim's San Francisco 49ers. A lengthy power outage early in the third quarter at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome with the Ravens up big would fuel the 49ers to a furious comeback, but not enough to overtake Baltimore, its big halftime lead, and the 13 points it would add to the final tally in quarters three and four to be crowned world champions.

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII is really quite the disappointing package. Quite like the recent college football bowl game Blu-ray titles, this is almost nothing but the game edited down without commercials and without, even, some of the between-play analysis, replays, and commentator banter. Yes, there are times when the ball carrier is tackled and the program cuts to seconds before the next play's snap. There are also times when the flow is just as it was on television, with no interruption between plays. The cuts severely interrupt the flow of the presentation. No plays are missing but it just doesn't feel complete, yielding instead a jittery sort of sensation that sucks the viewer out of the game with each cut. Even most of the blackout from the third quarter has been removed; after the initial event and a brief explanation, the action picks up moments before the first snap after power was restored. This is a very simple, very straightforward release. The Colts and Broncos games appear on disc one while the Patriots and 49ers games appear on disc two. And other than a trivia track (see supplements), that's all there is. It's basic, basic, and basic -- to a fault.

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The rest of the package is nothing special, but at least Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII features a decent high definition video image. In essence, it replicates the quality of the television presentation. It's fairly stable, with only a bit of shimmering and jaggies around graphics. Details are quite good; overhead shots reveal the texture of the playing surface, and close-ups nicely show grass stains, uniform textures, and skin details. Image clarity is strong, and it's sharp all the way around. Colors are satisfying, too. Whether green turf, Raven purple, or Bronco orange, the palette proves nicely balanced and consistently crisp and accurate. Fans who watched on television will know exactly what to expect; it's pretty much a perfect replica.

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII features an unbalanced DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. Take a listen to the beginning of the Broncos game. At reference level, the play-by-play and color commentary booms and sometimes comes through with a harsh, muddy tenor. Crowd noise picks up and drops down not always with the flow of the game but instead seems to play with a terrible imbalance with absolutely no sense of accuracy, clarity, spacing, or other critical attributes. It comes through as nothing more than a wall of static that's only occasionally recognizable for what it is, particularly when the crowd has been worked up into a frenzy. Background music at the stadium comes through well enough considering the feel of the rest of the track. Like the rest of this Blu-ray presentation, this is a serviceable listen but nothing more.

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII contains only one supplement. Trivia Track Detailing Key Information from Super Bowl XLVII displays text blurbs overlaying the original Super Bowl broadcast with random trivia. The pop-up boxes occasionally mask other graphics.

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Baltimore Ravens: Road to XLVII feels like its own mini power outage. This package does almost nothing other than show the Ravens' four 2012 playoff games, and even those have been, ablest modestly, edited down. No, all the plays are intact, but some of the between-play pieces have been removed. Also gone is the vast majority of the Super Bowl blackout (it would have been cool to see again how CBS handled the outage) and there's no halftime show, either. In fact, fans don't even get the post-game ceremonies; there's only about 90 seconds of footage after the Super Bowl clock strikes zero. All around, it's a serviceable but still disappointing package. With no supplements and decent but unremarkable picture and sound, only diehard Ravens fans should fork over the money required to buy.