The Happy Holiday Hearth proudly proclaims that it is "a virtual fireplace for all occasions": exactly how many different occasions there are that might call for a virtual fireplace, I'm not sure, but it's true that the virtual fireplace could be used all year round. Hankering for a crackling fire in July? No problem! Want to toast marshmallows in April? No prob... no, wait, toasting marshmallows would be a problem on a virtual fireplace. No wood, no smoke, no... heat. Oh well, so much for that idea. Well, given that I sadly don't have a real fireplace in my current home, The Happy Holiday Hearth seemed an appropriate adventure to try in the middle of the Christmas season.

The Happy Holiday Hearth offers sixty minutes of crackling flames, so I settled down to see what it was like. The menu offers me three audio choices to accompany the Holiday Hearth itself: crackling fire, holiday music, or crackling fire plus holiday music. I decided to go for classic "crackling fire" first.

The video starts with the fire already well established and burning merrily, which was a bit of a let-down, as I'd hoped to see it grow from tiny flames to a roaring blaze. However, to its merit, the fire is certainly well-made, with good-sized (but not oversized) logs arranged in a nice pyramid, allowing for plenty of oxygen to get to the flames. Chalk a few points up to the production crew for knowing how to build a good fire. Given the lack of popping sparks, it looks like we're seeing hardwood logs burn here: no cheap pine. OK, good for them.

I was starting to get into the whole virtual-fire experience, but a shocking turn of events was about to catch me by surprise. I had been intently following one of the initially unburned logs in front, which was starting to catch fire, and another log in the middle that was slowly starting to fall. (At 16:00 minutes, it distinctly moves!) I was looking forward to seeing the fire evolve, when suddenly I realized that we were back to the initial configuration. The sliding log was back in its original spot, and the front log was barely starting to smoke: The Happy Holiday Hearth had looped back to the beginning! Yes, it's true: we only get twenty minutes of actual fireplace footage, which is recycled twice to get the full sixty minutes. I felt cheated. So much for the adventure of seeing the logs char, fall, and become glowing coals. Bah, humbug.

Now, the whole virtual-fire experience is a new one for me, but watching The Happy Holiday Hearth opens up a whole new vista of fireplace simulation DVDs. Why are we stuck with only a brightly burning fire? It's indeed quite festive, but I'd also have enjoyed some footage of a low, softly flickering fire for a romantic evening setting. The realism quotient would also have been enhanced if the fire had been allowed to grow and die down, and if someone had poked the fire once in a while and added some logs.

Well, let's move on and explore the rest of the DVD. Choosing the "holiday music" option means that twenty-three Christmas songs play while the fire burns merrily away. (They do say "holiday" all over the place, but it's just Christmas music. Then again, are there even songs for holidays like Thanksgiving?) The music selection is quite pleasing, with the opening songs being more contemporary ("White Christmas," "Let it Snow," "I'll Be Home for Christmas") and then shifting to more traditional carols like "Jingle Bells," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "Good King Wencelas," "We Three Kings of Orient Are" and "The First Noel." The songs are fairly traditional arrangements, which is a distinct pleasure in this age of pop-song carol versions, and are sung by a chorus of men and women with clear, pleasing voices. The one disappointment is that there are no chapters: it's not possible to skip to individual songs on the soundtrack. Then again, since all the songs are good, it's not a big deal. And for those who want the festive Christmas music plus crackling fire, the third menu option does the trick, letting us hear the Happy Hearth popping and crackling away in the background of the Christmas carols.

OK, I've been writing this review with a humorous slant (but hey, even the back-cover blurb on the DVD is rather tongue-in-cheek) but in truth The Happy Holiday Hearth does have merit, even if it doesn't live up to its potential. The fire is cute, in an odd sort of way, but it's really just an adjunct to the audio track. The music is very nice, offering a solid hour of pleasantly traditional vocal Christmas carols; I ended up just turning off the TV and listening to the DVD without the fireplace visual.

The DVD

Video

The Happy Holiday Hearth is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. On my widescreen set, this meant that the fireplace illusion wasn't very convincing; but as it turns out, using the "stretch" feature worked like a charm, as the amorphous shape of the flame looked fine in that format as well. The Happy Holiday Hearth DVD doesn't exactly lend itself to easy rating of the video: it's a sixty-minute stationary video of a fire burning. For what it's worth, the fire is bright and shows yellow, orange, and white elements, and the darker areas of the wood are clearly brown even in shadow. The print is clean and sharp. For a fire, it looks nice.

Owners of projection televisions will want to be cautious when playing The Happy Holiday Hearth, though, on account of the potential for screen burn-in. The image of the fire remains approximately the same size and shape for the entire sixty minutes, and one portion of the screen remains very bright the entire time, which is potentially harmful to the projection screen. For that reason, I eventually turned off the screen and just listened to the music alone. This won't be an issue on other types of television, such as CRT or plasma, though.

Audio

The various sound options for The Happy Holiday Hearth are delivered on Dolby 2.0. The fire by itself sounds reasonably realistic, and when it's played along with the music, it settles into the background nicely, not overpowering the music. The music track is quite pleasing to listen to; it's center-focused but definitely makes use of the stereo channels, and offers a clear, rich sound for the Christmas carols.

Extras

Since I'm considering the music track to be part of the main content of the DVD, I'd say that The Happy Holiday Hearth doesn't have any bonus content.

The DVD does have the feature that it automatically loops back to the beginning after reaching the end of the DVD; if you're playing the DVD as background image and sound at a family gathering or holiday party, this could be quite useful.

Final thoughts

The Happy Holiday Hearth is a bit odd, but it's really rather charming. The virtual fire itself doesn't really substitute for a real one, and won't get a whole lot of play on my projection television anyway due to burn-in concerns, but the solid hour of nice, traditional Christmas carols included on the DVD makes it worth getting just for the music.