411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 (2002) (NTSC) |
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411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 (2002) (NTSC) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Sports |
Additional Footage-Check Up - Mike Vallely, Private Property - Steve Berra Additional Footage-Wheels Of Fortune - Steve Nesser And Greg Lutzka |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2002 | ||
| Running Time | 60:53 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | None Given |
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Studio
Distributor |
Stomp Visual | Starring | None Given |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | None Given |
| Video (NTSC) | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 480i (NTSC) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
For those interested in skateboarding, 411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 (2002), will have you "frothing", as this DVD provides over an hour of young skaters pulling off some seriously "sick" manoeuvres.
411VM provide an extreme sports, DVD-based magazine. Their issues are dedicated to either skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding/skiing, or BMX riding. For further information, and details about their latest DVD issues, check out www.411vm.com.
Presented in a magazine show format, 411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 has a number of features and articles. As a "Best Of", this particular DVD has collected the year's best articles and skateboarding footage, and put it all on one disc. There is very little dialogue, and there is no host. Indeed, after the initial introduction, there is virtually no dialogue throughout. What follows is about an hour of great skateboarding footage which range from skate-parks and ramps, to street skating, rail-skating, and extreme stunts and tricks.
411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 features: Star skate-rookies, Colt Cannon and Rodrigo Teixeira; Skate road trips to New Zealand and Spain; and features on star skaters, Jason Odell and Bob Burnquist.
One annoying feature of 411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 is that there are commercials throughout the DVD's content. Another annoying feature is that after 20 minutes or so, I was sure that some of the footage was being repeated. I think more creativity was needed when selecting the content, as a lot of the skate tricks and stunts, while impressive, are all very similar.
The transfer is limited by its source material, which seems to be a collection of DV camcorder footage.
Sadly, the transfer is presented in NTSC, and an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. This makes it resemble a VHS tape. Considering that the DVD is trying to be 'hip and funky', a PAL widescreen presentation would have suited the DVD's content much better.
The sharpness is generally good throughout. The shadow detail is a little variable. The footage has the very high contrast that camcorder footage has, especially when shot with natural lighting in bright sunny conditions. There is also some footage shot at night, but these scenes are quite dark, and have a much lower visibility as the lighting is usually limited to one spotlight.
The colour is good throughout.
While MPEG artefacts were never a problem, some scenes did show signs of slight pixelization.
The main problem, however, are film-to-video artefacts. There is a serious amount of aliasing throughout, such as the shimmer on the rails at 12:25 and on the stairs at 17:46.
Shot on DV tape, and then transferred to DVD, there are no problems with film artefacts.
There are no subtitles present on this single-sided, single-layered disc. However, as there is virtually no dialogue, the absence of subtitles is not a problem.
| Sharpness |  |
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| Colour | |
| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts |  |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
There is only one audio option on this DVD: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).
In terms of the introduction, the dialogue quality and audio sync are fine.
There is no musical score, but a number of hip hop, cool funk, and chill out songs are performed by Sol, Box Car, Mucho Tequilla, Ursula 1000, and many more.
As a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, there is no surround presence or activity. There was some re-directed bass, and at times, the subwoofer was used to support the deeper bass of the music.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use |  |
| Subwoofer | |
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There are a few extras.
A very simple menu
Additional Footage-Check Up
About four minutes of footage of Mike Vallely, his band, his new brand, and his new skate film Drive.
Private Property
About five minutes of Steve Berra and his friends skating.
Additional Footage-Wheels Of Fortune
About three minutes of Steve Nesser skating.
Additional Footage-Wheels Of Fortune
About two minutes of Greg Lutzka skating.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 (2002) will have the same content (and NTSC transfer) in both R1 and R4.
411VM-Skateboarding: Best of-9 (2002) is interesting to begin with, but then becomes far too repetitive. As a DVD-based magazine, it might be worth a rental, but based on the content, I would only purchase it if it were $10 or less. If this sounds too cheap, I Surf produce an excellent DVD Surfing Magazine for just $10 per issue. Check out www.isurfdvzine.com.
The video quality is acceptable for what it is.
The audio quality is also acceptable.
The extras are reasonable.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-535, using S-Video output |
| Display | Grundig Elegance 82-2101 (82cm, 16x9). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Sony STR DE-545 |
| Speakers | Sony SS-V315 x5; Sony SA-WMS315 subwoofer |