These performances were conducted on the main free stage at the corner of "Ste Catherine O." and "Jeanne-Mance" during the annual International Jazz Festival in Montréal for the year 2008.

The CBC entitled their coverage of the show as "Everybody Knows" which I think may have been the name given to Cohen's world tour at the time. An entirely irrelevant piece of trivia of course.

These shows, given for free in 2008 have over the years been acquiring owners "while nobody's looking" so to speak. Sony, of course, taking the lead.

I should be more specific when I say "free":

The performances were given for "free" where free is defined as follows:
   • Immediate spectators (*unselected* audience members) were not required
     to pay an admission charge.
   • The performers were not reimbursed "for the act of performing" [*See below]
   • Set materials (equipment), advertisement, related content distribution
     charges etc. were paid through
      a) Local government via the collection of taxes.
      b) Voluntary donations (ie. payment without expectation of reimbursement)
         by local businesses.
      c) The use of federal government funds and publicly owned communications
         networks (CRTC & CBC).
      d) Internet services also paid for by federal government agencies
         (again CRTC & CBC).

* The performers were probably reimbursed for travel expenses and accommodation charges during their stay in Montreal. This does not constitute payment for performing. The reason being that, at the end of the day, none of them would have obtained any *monetary* profit as a result of the act of performing.

In any event, this AVI does not include all of the performances. I only selected the ones I liked which were as follows:

1. Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye (Adam Cohen and Serina Ryder)
2. Sisters Of Mercy (Serena Ryder)
3. Suzanne (Leonard Cohen & his band)
4. Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen & his band)
5. Who By Fire (Lhasa de Sela)
6. Closing Time (Leonard Cohen & his band)

The original MPEG-PS file (possibly obtainable throughwas a 2000 Kbps video / 224 Kbps Audio file with dimensions 720x480 (3:2) containing a 4:3 aspect, internally letterboxed video where the content itself is in a 16:9 ratio (the extra black space being used for side-advertisements and heads-up overlays).

I have thus cropped out the extra black space and enhanced the content section (mostly through initial "pixel packing" using "Any Video Converter" and then using "HSV adjust" through Virtual Dub (~10% increase in saturation) in order to produce this HDTV version, now at 1280x720 and about 5000 Kbps video. The resulting AVI specs are detailed below (the original file's details to follow below):

Enhanced Video Details (enhancement by me, "Any Video Converter" and "Virtual Dub"):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General
Complete name                            : Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows (CBC Special 2008-11-09).avi
Format                                   : AVI
Format/Info                              : Audio Video Interleave
File size                                : 1.07 GiB
Duration                                 : 29mn 12s
Overall bit rate                         : 5 230 Kbps
Writing application                      : MEncoder r33883
Writing library                          : VirtualDub build 32842/release

Video
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile                           : Advanced [email protected]
Format settings, BVOP                    : 2
Format settings, QPel                    : No
Format settings, GMC                     : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default (H.263)
Muxing mode                              : Packed bitstream
Codec ID                                 : XVID
Codec ID/Hint                            : XviD
Duration                                 : 29mn 12s
Bit rate                                 : 4 994 Kbps
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.181
Stream size                              : 1.02 GiB (95%)
Writing library                          : XviD 64

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : MPEG Audio
Format version                           : Version 1
Format profile                           : Layer 3
Mode                                     : Joint stereo
Codec ID                                 : 55
Codec ID/Hint                            : MP3
Duration                                 : 29mn 12s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 224 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 46.8 MiB (4%)
Alignment                                : Split accross interleaves
Interleave, duration                     : 33 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration             : 500 ms


********************************************************

Original Source (provided by the CBC from their website: http://www.cbc.ca/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

General
Complete name                            : Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows (CBC Special 2008-11-09).ps
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 716 MiB
Duration                                 : 44mn 9s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 2 268 Kbps

Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Custom
Duration                                 : 44mn 9s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 000 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Top Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.193
Stream size                              : 631 MiB (88%)

Audio
ID                                       : 192 (0xC0)
Format                                   : MPEG Audio
Format version                           : Version 1
Format profile                           : Layer 2
Duration                                 : 44mn 9s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 224 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 70.8 MiB (10%)


********************************************************

To see an example of the format of the origial, you can find some clips on YouTube. Here is one example:

Which was poorly encoded by me (before I knew anything!) but at least gives you an idea of the intended video's dimensions.