Hi all, (wow, been a while since I've been posting )

two days ago I finally got G.Wilson's Double Take DVD. I own the tape as well, but of course, as with all learning videos a DVD is always better, e.g. jumping to a certain explanation etc.
But I have to say, I was hugely disappointed of the DVD. This is a not even a mediocre job of transferring a VHS to a DVD. They transfered and indexed it for the Chapters - that's it. The video quality is acceptable (that is friendly put!!) and there is not even an attempt to better the quality digitally. There are many VHS artifacts and even at one point (I think past 30mins) there is the famous horizontally line going from the top to the bottom of the picture - often seen with old tapes.
Does this affect the content quality of the product? Of course not! It is still IMO THE reference when it comes to Double Lifts and G.W. is an excellent teacher.
But for 25$ I expect a little more effort. Especially with the technology available nowadays. I am no video expert, but even I could have transfered my VHS to my PC, index it and burn it. And the ETMCM series is old too, but they did a better job!

Does someone else feel that way? Did I get a scam DVD? *bg*

It's not the best quality, but the info is valuable.

I was thinking of updating to DVD....now I think I'll just stick with my video.

Exactly. At least its not copied on a DVD-R. It ****es me off that people are doing that and still charging $30.00 without listing that it's a DVD-R.

as I said in my post above: It is still THE reference and the content is still the best. And I never said different.
But to have a VHS tape on a little disc is not worth 25$. IMO.

I think that this was filmed 10-12 years ago and recording quality has come a long way since then.

I also agree that as with most things, the recording quality has improved tremendously. Remember that the transfer from VHS to DVD can only be as good as the original master recording. If it was done on not swo high quality equipment then the result would be not so pristine (when compared with those made today!) I am just very happy that some of the old releases have been reisuued in this more convenient medium!

That's too bad. I was planning on trading my VHS copy for the DVD, but since the quality hasn't improved and the content remains the same, I will just do the transfer myself. Thanks for the notice, Neuromancer.

Actually, professional SD equipment from 10 years ago can easily match modern recordings in terms of quality. The original Doubl Take probably wasn't recorded on a high quality format, though.

I am sorry, but this is just simply wrong. There are very good techniques out there to restorate/remaster or just simply better the quality. The times, where "can only be as good as the original" was true are long gone. Especially when it comes to A/V.

And as I mentioned several times in this thread, I do NOT expect a DTS 5.1 product - that would be absoluteley unnecessary here. But if I buy a DVD for the full price as other DVDs, one can expect a little more than just "spool it to the DVD and index it for chapters". At least I do. Because the job they did, can be done with any VHS-to-DVD recorder from Best Buy.

It's still an invaluable tool for the close-up magician on the art of the DL. I actually use a DL that isn't even covered in the DVD, but I liked it just the same. The picture quality my be bad, but the same can be said for a lot of DVD's transferred from old VHS masters.

For my money, the worst transfer that I've ever seen is Richard Turner's "the cheat" DVD.

I actually just ordered this DVD today. Glad to hear that the content is good and now will be prepared for the suboptimal video quality