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Not what you'd expect from the History Channel
I was greatly dissapointed in this 4 disc set from the History Channel. I have VHS versions of some episodes, and they are much superior in both picture and sound quality. What happened? The editing/compilation of the DVD's is VERY poorly done, the intro to each segment (by Peter Graves) is much louder than the following program, so you constantly have to run the volume up and down ( and not just a little +/- 100% ). The resulting sound is muddy, with severe flutter and poor dynamic range ( film not kept tight on the sound drum during transfer ). The narration of the episodes is hard to hear, while the sound effects and music come blaring out at you - drowning out everything. The overall effect is about what you might expect of a high school kid's first attempt at making a home movie - and only a C- at that. There is no capability to play the entire disc, you must select each episode from the main menu, and then select "play this episode" again from the sub-menu, repeated seven times for each disc. I was supremely dissapointed - I have many History channel DVD's, and this is far and away the worst - a prime example of "let's make a quick buck - people are too stupid to care" thinking...The History Channel ought to be ashamed of themselves !!! if I had paid the $ 60.00 list price I would have really been outraged - as it was for $ 40.00 I still felt cheated and ripped off. It is hard to imagine what the producers of the original series would think - this was one of the finest original programs ever shown on TV - and to have the DVD's be so crudely done - no attempt to clean up the picture, no effort put into making the sound anywhere close to even, some episodes are very loud ( even distorted ) and some you can hardly hear, the inconvienient playback features, and cheesy packaging all contribute to the worst transfer, poorest DVD watching experience I have ever come accross. A Golden Rasberry candidate if ever there was one.
November 2003 · Movies and TV · verified purchase