 |
 | Colorvision Spyder2 Suite (Win/Mac) |
 | "It's a start, anyway -- Amazon has a great price, too!" | 2008-07-01 |
I guess you could say when it come to ease of use -- in terms of just setting up this gizmo and running monitor adjustments -- it gets 4 stars, maybe 5, for ease of use. Install the software in a minute, position the sensor, start the program, lie to the software and say your monitor has no controls of any kind (Spyder will then kick off a completely automated, hands-free scan), and less than 10 minutes later you're home free. Unfortunately after over a dozen runs on 3 of my monitors, it's evident that Spyder's programmers are fascinated, maybe even obsessed, with the color RED. They must figure the redder the better, I guess. Finally I ignored one of their iron-clad rules: rather than leave the room totally dark or covering my monitor with a blanket during the scans, I turned on the rather subdued, soft lighting I use for PC video work (who the %$#&* works in total darkness? Do you? You can't even see your keyboard!). With some gentle ambient worklight (tungsten) nearby, I finally got a really nice adjustment from Spyder. Did a teentsy bit of tweaking with some of DVE's tv test patterns, and now it's about right. Tip: Don't calibrate in total darkness, run it in the same light you use for PC work, short of flashing strobes and circus floodlights. Caution: this will not make games or videos look "better" on your PC. Media players, games, and most other Windows programs have no way of recognizing .icm color profiles. Photoshop Pro does ($600), and Sony Vegas Pro does ($800), and a few Windows games that need $400 graphics cards -- but Windows Media Player, PowerDVD, most freebie photo printing programs, most Kodak photo-CD browsers, most consumer video editors, and most digital camera utilities do not use Windows or Mac color profiles. For that you'll have to run a manual setup on your CRT and push your own sliders. Sorry, LCD's have notoriously goofy picture controls, so don't be surprised if manual doesn't work with LCD's (anyone who uses LCD's for graphics work is fighting a losing battle anyway). Subtract 1 star because Spyder2 told me that before adjustment my monitor was too green. It wasn't. It was too blue. Otherwise, Spyder2 on auto did neat, quick work on 3 monitors and two laptops. With some qualifications in mind, I'd recommend Spyder2 over the usual calibration videos or test pics.
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 | Pennies From Heaven |
 | "They can't be serious- can they?" | 2008-05-02 |
Everyone in this misguided extravaganza tries hard -- maybe too hard -- to make something meaningful and entertaining of what amounts to expensive bloat. But for many viewers, it just doesn't work. For those who've seen the 1936 Depression-era original of the same title, the oldie has less but offers more, even if what it offers is sentimental Hollywood mush. Ah, but listen, isn't that what the lyrics of the title song are all about, how to make more from less? The original likely isn't the greatest film classic of all time, but it's a hopeful little bit of fluff with excellent performances and some of Crosby's nicest tunes. I was given the Steve Martin DVD of this title by a close relative (gift wrapped by Amazon, of course), so I suppose I'm obliged to keep it. But watching Martin's work simply made me more desirous of sitting back with a copy of the 1936 original, which I finally bought from Amazon and which I and everyone who watched it enjoyed much more.
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 | Pennies From Heaven |
| "They can't be serious- can they?" | 2008-05-02 |
Everyone in this misguided extravaganza tries hard -- maybe too hard -- to make something meaningful and entertaining of what amounts to expensive bloat. But for many viewers, it just doesn't work. For those who've seen the 1936 Depression-era original of the same title, the oldie has less but offers more, even if what it offers is sentimental Hollywood mush. Ah, but listen, isn't that what the lyrics of the title song are all about, how to make more from less? The original likely isn't the greatest film classic of all time, but it's a hopeful little bit of fluff with excellent performances and some of Crosby's nicest tunes. I was given the Steve Martin DVD of this title by a close relative (gift wrapped by Amazon, of course), so I suppose I'm obliged to keep it. But watching Martin's work simply made me more desirous of sitting back with a copy of the 1936 original, which I finally bought from Amazon and which I and everyone who watched it enjoyed much more.
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 | Thunder Road |
 | "Spoiler's Delight, but not all that bad" | 2008-03-20 |
Not the smoothest anti-hero flick ever produced, but sits on a ledge somewhere between film noir and B-movie standards. No sense adding a content rating to those already posted here, as this is a movie you either like or don't. While Mitchum and his crew did get into a bit of research to add a touch of authentication to this movie, a few gaffs stand out. First, it's apparent that neither Mitchum nor his writers ever spent time in Memphis in the late 1950's. The film has a car chase sequence that supposedly occurs in downtown Memphis on State Street; State Street in Memphis is in a residential area a long way from downtown and is only a block long. Keely Smith does a bit as a jazz singer in a type of club that didn't exist in Memphis in the 50's. Because of strictly enforced blue laws no one could buy a mixed drink in Memphis until 1972. In 1958 if you wanted to drink booze or wine or anything stiffer than 3.2 beer or Pepsi in a Memphis establishment, you brought your own bottle in a brown bag and a bartender kept it at the bar until you left. The outdoor shots and other elements of the movie might make you think Tennessee is "in the hills", but in fact southwest Tennessee is almost as flat as Kansas. The outdoor scenes have a conspicuous lack of pine, poplar, and magnolia that are replete in that part of the Mississippi Delta. There are many other anomolies present in the flick but this is, after all, a fantasy with a certain mystique and cult status that's difficult to put down. The real problem is that the depth of sleaze so dominant in the real-life characters this movie attempts to portray is almost entirely absent. The gals are way too clean-cut, the locals are too well-spoken and articulate, and nobody seems to have a valid Southern accent (except Keely, whose accent seems to be from Texas or western Arkansas and is probably the most "authentic" touch in the movie). So if you're eager to get some enjoyment out of this flick without spending 93 minutes scoffing and laughing, a willing suspension of disbelief is definitely required. Otherwise, I have no idea where these 5-star ratings are coming from.
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 | Thunder Road |
| "Spoiler's Delight, but not all that bad" | 2008-03-20 |
Not the smoothest anti-hero flick ever produced, but sits on a ledge somewhere between film noir and B-movie standards. No sense adding a content rating to those already posted here, as this is a movie you either like or don't. While Mitchum and his crew did get into a bit of research to add a touch of authentication to this movie, a few gaffs stand out. First, it's apparent that neither Mitchum nor his writers ever spent time in Memphis in the late 1950's. The film has a car chase sequence that supposedly occurs in downtown Memphis on State Street; State Street in Memphis is in a residential area a long way from downtown and is only a block long. Keely Smith does a bit as a jazz singer in a type of club that didn't exist in Memphis in the 50's. Because of strictly enforced blue laws no one could buy a mixed drink in Memphis until 1972. In 1958 if you wanted to drink booze or wine or anything stiffer than 3.2 beer or Pepsi in a Memphis establishment, you brought your own bottle in a brown bag and a bartender kept it at the bar until you left. The outdoor shots and other elements of the movie might make you think Tennessee is "in the hills", but in fact southwest Tennessee is almost as flat as Kansas. The outdoor scenes have a conspicuous lack of pine, poplar, and magnolia that are replete in that part of the Mississippi Delta. There are many other anomolies present in the flick but this is, after all, a fantasy with a certain mystique and cult status that's difficult to put down. The real problem is that the depth of sleaze so dominant in the real-life characters this movie attempts to portray is almost entirely absent. The gals are way too clean-cut, the locals are too well-spoken and articulate, and nobody seems to have a valid Southern accent (except Keely, whose accent seems to be from Texas or western Arkansas and is probably the most "authentic" touch in the movie). So if you're eager to get some enjoyment out of this flick without spending 93 minutes scoffing and laughing, a willing suspension of disbelief is definitely required. Otherwise, I have no idea where these 5-star ratings are coming from.
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 | 12ft VELOCITY S-VIDEO INTERCT |
| "Softens the image, looks too green" | 2008-03-08 |
This wire might be ok for tv's that look too red or for signal sources with a lot of video noise, but the image looks too green and detail is softened to the point of looking slightly smeared. You have to shove the plug tightly into its input jack, lest it slip out or make poor contact. I have generic no-brand s-video cables from RCA and Recoton that perform better than these. At least Cables To Go doesn't look as bad as Monster's overpriced rip-offs, but they aren't all that great. Has lower contrast and a less snappy image than I'm used to with other brands. In use this cable looks an awful lot like some Radio Shack stuff I once owned.
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 | Anchors Aweigh |
| "For one great moment, worth the price of admission" | 2008-01-31 |
Rather generic Sinatra and generic Kelly, both of whom must have made pretty much the same musical a dozen times for MGM. Not all that great a movie, really, but better than most Hollywood musicals, and it has does have its moments. The classical numbers from Jose Iturbi are better than Kelly's usual material, which Kelly repeated in one form or another for some fifteen years. Young Kathryn Grayson is irresistibly cute. The DVD color is gorgeous, a tribute to the 1940's golden age of Technicolor. I've always considered this a decent 3-star film overall. But if you're a Sinatra fan, consider this a Sinatra Essential: in the latter part of the film Frank sings a short song credited to C. Jackson and G. E. Stoll, "I Fall In Love Too Easily." -- probably one of Sinatra's most memorable moments in his long and varied musical career. It lasts only 90 seconds, but it's one of the best songs Blue Eyes ever crooned. Those are Axel Stordahl's strings in the background, which accompanied most of Sinatra's hits on Columbia in the forties and would later back up up the likes of Perry Como and others in the fifties. I love this on DVD, because it was getting to be a pain fast-forwading VHS tape to find this dandy little number. If one and a half minutes of magic is worth it to you, add this DVD to your collection. It's in mine.
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 | Anchors Aweigh |
| "For one great moment, worth the price of admission" | 2008-01-31 |
Rather generic Sinatra and generic Kelly, both of whom must have made pretty much the same musical a dozen times for MGM. Not all that great a movie, really, but better than most Hollywood musicals, and it has does have its moments. The classical numbers from Jose Iturbi are better than Kelly's usual material, which Kelly repeated in one form or another for some fifteen years. Young Kathryn Grayson is irresistibly cute. The DVD color is gorgeous, a tribute to the 1940's golden age of Technicolor. I've always considered this a decent 3-star film overall. But if you're a Sinatra fan, consider this a Sinatra Essential: in the latter part of the film Frank sings a short song credited to C. Jackson and G. E. Stoll, "I Fall In Love Too Easily." -- probably one of Sinatra's most memorable moments in his long and varied musical career. It lasts only 90 seconds, but it's one of the best songs Blue Eyes ever crooned. Those are Axel Stordahl's strings in the background, which accompanied most of Sinatra's hits on Columbia in the forties and would later back up up the likes of Perry Como and others in the fifties. I love this on DVD, because it was getting to be a pain fast-forwading VHS tape to find this dandy little number. If one and a half minutes of magic is worth it to you, add this DVD to your collection. It's in mine.
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 | Anchors Aweigh |
| "For one great moment, worth the price of admission" | 2008-01-31 |
Rather generic Sinatra and generic Kelly, both of whom must have made pretty much the same musical a dozen times for MGM. Not all that great a movie, really, but better than most Hollywood musicals, and it has does have its moments. The classical numbers from Jose Iturbi are better than Kelly's usual material, which Kelly repeated in one form or another for some fifteen years. Young Kathryn Grayson is irresistibly cute. The DVD color is gorgeous, a tribute to the 1940's golden age of Technicolor. I've always considered this a decent 3-star film overall. But if you're a Sinatra fan, consider this a Sinatra Essential: in the latter part of the film Frank sings a short song credited to C. Jackson and G. E. Stoll, "I Fall In Love Too Easily." -- probably one of Sinatra's most memorable moments in his long and varied musical career. It lasts only 90 seconds, but it's one of the best songs Blue Eyes ever crooned. Those are Axel Stordahl's strings in the background, which accompanied most of Sinatra's hits on Columbia in the forties and would later back up up the likes of Perry Como and others in the fifties. I love this on DVD, because it was getting to be a pain fast-forwading VHS tape to find this dandy little number. If one and a half minutes of magic is worth it to you, add this DVD to your collection. It's in mine.
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 | Cables To Go 3ft Velosity S-Video Interconnect |
| "Not bad for the price" | 2008-01-26 |
Excellent color and contrast. But the overall image is a tad soft compared to the cable I normally use (genetric RCA from Recoton and custom Belden 1808A from other websites), and has a little more cable noise than I'm used to. Far better than more expensive Belkin or AR and store brands from BestBuy, Circuit City, etc, whose image is either too blurry or lacks snap. Colors are much cleaner than Monster, which charges a lotta $$$ but just can't give clean colors (Monster's distorted flesh tones and noisy reds are more than I can tolerate). I still say the cheapo RCA/Recotons are a tad better at this price level.
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 | MONSTER CABLE TGHZ-2RF 2-Way 2-Gigahertz Low Loss RF Splitter |
| "One of few Monster products that's worth the price." | 2007-10-31 |
While I'm no big fan of typically over-priced and over-hyped Monster products, I'll readily concede that this beats any of the 9 or 10 other splitters I tried. I see comments here from users who say they can't see a difference with this product; my comment to them is that they need a better tv. I also noted one reviewer who somehow heard that this splitter can't be used with CATV (It can, and I've been using mine for over a year with my digital cable hookup). Advantages: less noise and grain than others I've used, and channels at the frequency band extremes look much better than my cable company's "free" piece of junk. Most notably, this splitter maintains excellent image contrast and has no visible chroma effects that I can see. Few splitters can manage all this. The only product I've tried that might beat this is a $75 job whose brand I don't remember (probably because I ain't spending $75 on a splitter, for any reason). Even if you're not crazy about Monster in general, you'll get your money's worth here. I'm using two in my setup with a CELabs booster amp.
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 | Samsung DTB-H260F HDTV Terrestrial Tuner |
| "Not perfect, but there's no other way for analog fans." | 2007-10-24 |
There's no chance I'm ditching my Toshiba and Sony analog CRT tv's. The pictures on both are gorgeous, better than any HDTV playing classic 4:3 movie DVD's, and infintely better than the visual damage inflicted by LCD's with their narrow brightness range and their habit of showing only 1/3 the colors and half the detail you see on a CRT. Folks, your eyes and ears are not digital: they're analog. So no matter how much "digital" stuff you have in your home, it all gets converted to analog before your analog brain can use it. Kapeesh? Samsung ostensibly created this monster so you could use it on analog equipment, then did all they could to make it unusable in that capacity. There's no way to setup this guy or program it thru its analog outputs -- you can't even see which channel you're on! So because you're dealing with engineers from Larry Curly & Mo Tech, you've got to have some way to get either HDMI or component video to run Samsung's setup. I did that by feeding one component output line (it doesn't matter which, blue seems to work best) to a composite input on my analog tv. The menus are monochrome that way, but they work. From there, I use the s-video, composite, or component outputs set to 480i for my tv. If anyone with a 32" or smaller tv (HDTV or not) can tell the difference between a digital image and a good, capable analog image, that person is from the planet Krypton. When HDTV, typical HDTV components, and typical digital cable boxes can reproduce an image without a stream of digital artifacts, mosquito noise, motion smearing, color blocking, etc., etc., I'll spend time and money on HDTV. But digital video and LCD's have a long way to go. I hooked up this Samsung via a cable splitter: one end goes to my Cablevision digital cable box, where I can see all the godawful video distortion with that box's cruddy DAC and slow-poke DNR circuits. The other end goes to the Samsung's RF input and picks up all the unscrambled stations thru my cable wire (thank you, Samsung, for including QAM circuitry in this toy). The Samsung picture is a vast improvement over that cable box. I also tried some indoor antennas in my coop apartment; the one that worked best was a $7 two-eared RCA VHF/UHF I picked up at Goodwill. Gets about 25 OTA stations with fine results. The Samsung costs $$$ and is really klutzy to use. But when it comes to results they have no competition under $500. One other big negative: you can't set a recording session manually by entering your own data. You have to use the Guide menu, which doesn't always pick up program data for every station. So you just leave the Samsung tuned to the station you want and set up your recorder for the day and time. As I said, digital has a long way to go. And when you get right down to it, everything gets converted to analog anyway.
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 | Midway (Collector's Edition) |
| "Too Bad This 3rd-Rater Has No Competitors" | 2007-09-13 |
An irrelevant, dopey, unbelievable subplot involving dad/son/Japanese girlfriend and other personal stuff, along with overacting by Heston and an inexplicably silly performance by Hal Holbrook, is very nearly cause for avoiding this half-baked war movie. I received this edition from Amazon as a gift from a relative. One previous reviewer noted that if the original movie's 30-minute intro section on the Tokyo Raid and Coral Sea had been retained for the DVD, this would have been a "much better" release. No way. Besides material stolen from Thiry Seconds Over Tokyo, Tora Tora Tora, and even John Ford's 1942 Pearl Harbor documentary (!), you have a shot of a swastika-clad German Bf109 being shot down by the Japanese (Messerschmitts at Midway? Mmm, no, I don't buy it); on a carrier deck, a pilot climbs into a 1942 SBD Dauntless and takes off in a 1945 Hellcat; in a sequence of quick shots of AA batteries aboard a Japanese carrier shooting at American planes, you briefly see a shot from an American carrier firing at kamikazes off Okinawa in 1945; a shot of a Jap carrier is labeled "The Kaga", but is another unnamed Japanese carrier, looks like the Soryu; there are plenty of shots of larger American Essex class carriers beyond CV-9, none of which had been built in June 1942; and there's lots of color carrier action news footage that's easily recognizable as film shot during the Marianas campaign in 1944. It's a shame, because by 1976 there existed more than enough authentic footage from early WWII to make three versions of this film. This movie does, probably by accident, have several seconds of slightly colorized b&w footage that was actually shot during the real battle of Midway. In case no one noticed, almost every American naval officer in this movie, and some of the Army personnel, are out of uniform. The 2 stars of charity I give here are for the last half of the film, which sticks at least fairly accurately to real events, though it short-changes some important ones and ends before the real battle did. The producers might at least have used WWII footage of PBY Catalina patrol planes, but the PBY's shown here have post-Korea paint jobs. Near the end, the film does accurately depict some of the serious horror and blood of carrier warfare. But overall, "Midway" doesn't come close to giving us the full import of this battle, which historians class as one of the most influential battles in naval history - - a list that includes Marc Antony's defeat at Actium, the sinking of the Spanish Armada, the Battle of Trafalgar, and even the Battle of the Coral Sea (which preceded Midway by less than a month, but which is cut from this DVD release). On the other hand, Amazon's price is almost reasonable if you count the battle sequence and added features. But don't expect too much from the battle scenes -- expect even less from the movie's first hour. Low budget or no low budget, this is not a fitting tribute to the meager but brave force that stood up to a huge enemy navy in the early, desperate days of the Pacific war.
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 | The Quiet Man (Collector's Edition) |
| "Great flick, poor video -- but still worth a try" | 2007-08-30 |
This raucously tongue-in-cheek, grand old movie has survived for what seems an eternity. The performances are so wonderful that every moment outshines a great many other classic films. So it seems a shame that I can't give TQM the 5 stars it deserves. But Artisan's Classic Edition DVD has far too many visual transgressions. The gorgeous bursts of color that won an Oscar for the 1952 release are almost totally absent in this third-rate digital print. The jacket blurb claims this is a "remastered" version; in fact it looks as if it were played on a cheap VCR; blurry, too dark (almost grimy and gritty at times), with no shadow detail whatever, color registration problems, badly oversaturated reds and blues, obvious flicker (odd for a "remastered" print), and with noise and digital artifacts galore. The blur and noise extend even into many segments of the added features. Looks out of focus on a good CRT monitor, and extremely annoying on highend LCD sets. On cheaper gear, it's nearly unviewable. I've seen comments in Amazon reviews saying that this edition looks better than earlier ones. Not true -- visually, they're all the same. On top of that, I have always had a problem with some oddities of John Ford's sense of humor: two big guys blasting each other with bare fists for the better part of an Irish afternoon isn't very funny, IMHO. In real life, these two would have spent a year in an IC ward recovering from wounds. It's likely that TQM will be one of many memorable films, like "The African Queen", that may never be seen in its original Technicolor glory. But it's to the movie's credit that despite the poor print, it remains an exceptional cinematic experience. The acting is superb in every way; Barry Fitzgerald and Ward Bond steal every scene they're in. Victor Young's music is beautiful, and the audio has the sweep and sweetness that I rememeber from 1952. Now, if only someone could give us a true and more conscientiouse visual restoration . . .
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 | The Quiet Man |
| "Great flick, poor video -- but still worth a try" | 2007-08-30 |
This raucously tongue-in-cheek, grand old movie has survived for what seems an eternity. The performances are so wonderful that every moment outshines a great many other classic films. So it seems a shame that I can't give TQM the 5 stars it deserves. But Artisan's Classic Edition DVD has far too many visual transgressions. The gorgeous bursts of color that won an Oscar for the 1952 release are almost totally absent in this third-rate digital print. The jacket blurb claims this is a "remastered" version; in fact it looks as if it were played on a cheap VCR; blurry, too dark (almost grimy and gritty at times), with no shadow detail whatever, color registration problems, badly oversaturated reds and blues, obvious flicker (odd for a "remastered" print), and with noise and digital artifacts galore. The blur and noise extend even into many segments of the added features. Looks out of focus on a good CRT monitor, and extremely annoying on highend LCD sets. On cheaper gear, it's nearly unviewable. I've seen comments in Amazon reviews saying that this edition looks better than earlier ones. Not true -- visually, they're all the same. On top of that, I have always had a problem with some oddities of John Ford's sense of humor: two big guys blasting each other with bare fists for the better part of an Irish afternoon isn't very funny, IMHO. In real life, these two would have spent a year in an IC ward recovering from wounds. It's likely that TQM will be one of many memorable films, like "The African Queen", that may never be seen in its original Technicolor glory. But it's to the movie's credit that despite the poor print, it remains an exceptional cinematic experience. The acting is superb in every way; Barry Fitzgerald and Ward Bond steal every scene they're in. Victor Young's music is beautiful, and the audio has the sweep and sweetness that I rememeber from 1952. Now, if only someone could give us a true and more conscientiouse visual restoration . . .
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 | The Quiet Man |
| "Great flick, poor video -- but still worth a try" | 2007-08-30 |
This raucously tongue-in-cheek, grand old movie has survived for what seems an eternity. The performances are so wonderful that every moment outshines a great many other classic films. So it seems a shame that I can't give TQM the 5 stars it deserves. But Artisan's Classic Edition DVD has far too many visual transgressions. The gorgeous bursts of color that won an Oscar for the 1952 release are almost totally absent in this third-rate digital print. The jacket blurb claims this is a "remastered" version; in fact it looks as if it were played on a cheap VCR; blurry, too dark (almost grimy and gritty at times), with no shadow detail whatever, color registration problems, badly oversaturated reds and blues, obvious flicker (odd for a "remastered" print), and with noise and digital artifacts galore. The blur and noise extend even into many segments of the added features. Looks out of focus on a good CRT monitor, and extremely annoying on highend LCD sets. On cheaper gear, it's nearly unviewable. I've seen comments in Amazon reviews saying that this edition looks better than earlier ones. Not true -- visually, they're all the same. On top of that, I have always had a problem with some oddities of John Ford's sense of humor: two big guys blasting each other with bare fists for the better part of an Irish afternoon isn't very funny, IMHO. In real life, these two would have spent a year in an IC ward recovering from wounds. It's likely that TQM will be one of many memorable films, like "The African Queen", that may never be seen in its original Technicolor glory. But it's to the movie's credit that despite the poor print, it remains an exceptional cinematic experience. The acting is superb in every way; Barry Fitzgerald and Ward Bond steal every scene they're in. Victor Young's music is beautiful, and the audio has the sweep and sweetness that I rememeber from 1952. Now, if only someone could give us a true and more conscientiouse visual restoration . . .
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 | 1m High Res S-Video Cable |
| "What's all the fuss about?" | 2007-06-30 |
Now and then I try a Monster product just to see if they've improved or reverted back to their higher quality of 15 or so years ago. This s-video (all Monster s-video cables have the same 30-ohm internal wire, regardless of price, and are not 75-ohm NTSC standard) makes a cheap tv with image brown-out look a little juicier -- but on better tv's the image is too red, skin tones are off, grays are muddy, blacks are blocked up and below valid YUV levels, skin tones and shadows bristle with cyan blotches. Not too bad on a good CRT tv but looks dreadful on LCD's, none of which have accurate color to begin with. All colors thru this wire have an unrealistic candy-cane look. If this is your preference, by all means spend your $$$. AR-ProII and Belden make much better s-video wire. Be careful with Monster's plugs: the pins break easily, and the fit is way too tight.
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 | The Miracle Worker |
| "Dated but still a terrific landmark" | 2007-04-01 |
From its earliest version as an orginal live-tv Playhouse-90 drama (gone are the days when tv could give us quality like this. We're stuck with 2nd-rate sex farce and toilet jokes), to the hit play, to the hit movie, this film displays almost every overdone effort made by Hollywood, starting in the late 50's, to mimick European "New Wave" techniques. It's to Bancroft's and Duke's credit that the production doesn't descend into total hysteria from beginning to end. The Playhouse 90 original, which I recall seeing as a teen myself, was somewhat more subdued and, IMHO, more powerful and effective in the final scenes. That said, this is still a remarkable piece of cinema -- despite the fact that there's not a single accurate ethnic speech coloration in the whole movie, and it has some of the laughably worst attempts at Southern accents I've heard since Gone With the Wind and the Tammy movies. It's incredible to think that the movie's imbecilic producers didn't want to import Duke or Bancroft from Broadway to recreate two of the most memorable dramatic roles of the 20th century. The excellent b&w print now seen on DVD is largely the work of Cuban director / photographer Ernesto Caparros who had been involved in cinema since the 1930's. Not only will tv never again give us work like this, but I can imagine how many car chases and napalm bombs Hollywood would have shoved into the script if "Worker" were produced today. Thanks to Amazon for including this very good DVD in their free-shipping list. Younger viewers who know Duke only from cable replays of her vapid tv sitcom will probably sit with mouths dropped and eyes popped open when they see how tv utterly wasted the supurb talent Patty displays in this movie.
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 | MONSTER CABLE MVSV3-1M - 1-Meter of S-Video Cable |
 | "Again, Monster has to be kidding (and they are)" | 2006-04-29 |
For some years I tried this and other Monster products, to the tune of over $1000 in Monster a/v gear. The more you learn about video and audio, the more you'll avoid anything with the Monster label. Specifically, this s-video meets no NTSC, DVD or IEEE standard; it is common 30-ohm hookup wire with ineffective shielding and a poorly designed, low-conductance connect plug that can wreck your input jacks and gives poor grounding. Has a sharp image, but includes a catalog of chromatic aberrations from off-color skin tones to color blotching, dirty grays, burned highlights, murky shadows, noisy reds, and poor color balance due to impedance mismatching that results in cyan errors and bleeding reds. Makes video test patterns look great, but who watches test patterns all day? Amazon offers many other brands at good prices, why waste your $$ on this stuff? I removed every piece of Monster from my system and replaced them with AR, Belden, Viewsonics and others from Amazon. Result: vast improvement in every respect.
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 | Monster Super Video 3 2m S-Video Cable - MVSV3-2M |
| "Again, Monster has to be kidding (and they are)" | 2006-04-29 |
For some years I tried this and other Monster products, to the tune of over $1000 in Monster a/v gear. The more you learn about video and audio, the more you'll avoid anything with the Monster label. Specifically, this s-video meets no NTSC, DVD or IEEE standard; it is common 30-ohm hookup wire with ineffective shielding and a poorly designed, low-conductance connect plug that can wreck your input jacks and gives poor grounding. Has a sharp image, but includes a catalog of chromatic aberrations from off-color skin tones to color blotching, dirty grays, burned highlights, murky shadows, noisy reds, and poor color balance due to impedance mismatching that results in cyan errors and bleeding reds. Makes video test patterns look great, but who watches test patterns all day? Amazon offers many other brands at good prices, why waste your $$ on this stuff? I removed every piece of Monster from my system and replaced them with AR, Belden, Viewsonics and others from Amazon. Result: vast improvement in every respect.
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![MONSTER CABLE MVSV3-6M - S-VHS Cable [6-Meters]](product_images/2527000/2527405_thumb.jpg) | MONSTER CABLE MVSV3-6M - S-VHS Cable [6-Meters] |
| "Again, Monster has to be kidding (and they are)" | 2006-04-29 |
For some years I tried this and other Monster products, to the tune of over $1000 in Monster a/v gear. The more you learn about video and audio, the more you'll avoid anything with the Monster label. Specifically, this s-video meets no NTSC, DVD or IEEE standard; it is common 30-ohm hookup wire with ineffective shielding and a poorly designed, low-conductance connect plug that can wreck your input jacks and gives poor grounding. Has a sharp image, but includes a catalog of chromatic aberrations from off-color skin tones to color blotching, dirty grays, burned highlights, murky shadows, noisy reds, and poor color balance due to impedance mismatching that results in cyan errors and bleeding reds. Makes video test patterns look great, but who watches test patterns all day? Amazon offers many other brands at good prices, why waste your $$ on this stuff? I removed every piece of Monster from my system and replaced them with AR, Belden, Viewsonics and others from Amazon. Result: vast improvement in every respect.
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 | MONSTER CABLE Super Video - 8 m. length - 26.24 ft.; |
| "Again, Monster has to be kidding (and they are)" | 2006-04-29 |
For some years I tried this and other Monster products, to the tune of over $1000 in Monster a/v gear. The more you learn about video and audio, the more you'll avoid anything with the Monster label. Specifically, this s-video meets no NTSC, DVD or IEEE standard; it is common 30-ohm hookup wire with ineffective shielding and a poorly designed, low-conductance connect plug that can wreck your input jacks and gives poor grounding. Has a sharp image, but includes a catalog of chromatic aberrations from off-color skin tones to color blotching, dirty grays, burned highlights, murky shadows, noisy reds, and poor color balance due to impedance mismatching that results in cyan errors and bleeding reds. Makes video test patterns look great, but who watches test patterns all day? Amazon offers many other brands at good prices, why waste your $$ on this stuff? I removed every piece of Monster from my system and replaced them with AR, Belden, Viewsonics and others from Amazon. Result: vast improvement in every respect.
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 | Monster Super Video 3 4m S-Video Cable - MVSV3-4M |
| "Again, Monster has to be kidding (and they are)" | 2006-04-29 |
For some years I tried this and other Monster products, to the tune of over $1000 in Monster a/v gear. The more you learn about video and audio, the more you'll avoid anything with the Monster label. Specifically, this s-video meets no NTSC, DVD or IEEE standard; it is common 30-ohm hookup wire with ineffective shielding and a poorly designed, low-conductance connect plug that can wreck your input jacks and gives poor grounding. Has a sharp image, but includes a catalog of chromatic aberrations from off-color skin tones to color blotching, dirty grays, burned highlights, murky shadows, noisy reds, and poor color balance due to impedance mismatching that results in cyan errors and bleeding reds. Makes video test patterns look great, but who watches test patterns all day? Amazon offers many other brands at good prices, why waste your $$ on this stuff? I removed every piece of Monster from my system and replaced them with AR, Belden, Viewsonics and others from Amazon. Result: vast improvement in every respect.
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 | Toshiba Dkr2 |
| "Don't Throw Away That VCR Just Yet" | 2005-11-09 |
The rave reviews posted here are a bit startling, when you consider that there are three major defects in this unit. First, the input noise reduction is so mild it's ineffective, and the output noise filters are simple blur effects that do more harm than good. Second, you can't get a true black or white level from this machine, so recordings look washed-out when played elsewhere (a professional proc amp doesn't help, either. This machine filters all input to 15 IRE and won't allow a true black from any source, including cable). There are settings for "Darker", "Enhanced", etc. - they do nothing for black-white levels, they just dim or wash out the image. Third, DVD-RW is a fantasy with this machine, they just won't work. It's a shame, because even at long recording times there are very few artifacts. Too bad Toshiba designers prefer lackluster images. They seem OK when played on this machine, but look closer and you'll see they're just dark, not richly colored. Another glitch: Record a home-made (not retail) VHS tape into this machine, and when you try to copy it to another DVD recorder the Toshiba will not allow it until you use a pro-level TBC unit on the Toshiba's output. In fact, you can't even make copies of your own, home-made DVD's. Supposedly many of these problems were corrected on later units, but newer Toshibas for 2006 might improve to the point where they could replace your high-end VCR. But don't count on it. Home DVD machines have a long way to go before they can compete with the 30+ years of evolution behind a quality VHS machine. IF this will be your one and only DVD player/recorder, you could live with it. Just don't expect good performance from your recordings if you have to replace this unit or give your washed-out images to friends.
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 | Driving Miss Daisy (Special Edition) |
 | "Fascinating, Memorable, Perfect" | 2004-06-25 |
Not much can be added to the praise of others here, or to the film's enthusiastic reception by the public. I feel that this is one of those rare films that is simply perfect from beginning to end. Even if you don't develop an affection for the characters, and even if you don't care for the story line, it's a stretch to fault this movie in any way. The Special Edition DVD is preferred (not many extras, but those included are worth the effort). After watching my copy 7 times and trying to get really picky with it, I juist can't find anything amiss with Beresford's beautiful production. SO why didn't he win a Director Oscar? Must've been the competition that year, but he certainly deserved to win. Only other disappointment: Freeman nominated, but didn't win. And to think this film was made for less than $6 million, and racked in a fortune and a handful of Oscars!
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 | Driving Miss Daisy |
| "Fascinating, Memorable, Perfect" | 2004-06-25 |
Not much can be added to the praise of others here, or to the film's enthusiastic reception by the public. I feel that this is one of those rare films that is simply perfect from beginning to end. Even if you don't develop an affection for the characters, and even if you don't care for the story line, it's a stretch to fault this movie in any way. The Special Edition DVD is preferred (not many extras, but those included are worth the effort). After watching my copy 7 times and trying to get really picky with it, I juist can't find anything amiss with Beresford's beautiful production. SO why didn't he win a Director Oscar? Must've been the competition that year, but he certainly deserved to win. Only other disappointment: Freeman nominated, but didn't win. And to think this film was made for less than $6 million, and racked in a fortune and a handful of Oscars!
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 | Grand Hotel |
| "A 5-star Movie in a 3-star DVD package" | 2004-04-28 |
The extra features on this DVD edition are highly desirable -- get the DVD for the features, but get a recent VHS tape for a better print. The DVD release is so grainy it's fuzzy and often seems out-of-focus. Contrast is murky is many scenes. In one specific scene: when Joan Crawford enters a dark room and discovers Beery standing over the baron's corpse; the grim heaviness of the textures and depth of shadows, the stark horror on Crawford's face -- these are lost in the fuzzy grain of the DVD but are clearly preserved on VHS. Having seen this film many times on the big screen and on tape, it appears that the DVD seriously lacks the smooth, almost lush visual quality of earlier issues. This is also one of those old-line films that looks gorgeous on a big theater screen but suffers dramatically on smaller devices. Despite the shortcomings of the DVD, this is still the grande ol' Grand Hotel of yore, a relic (but a magnificent one) of late Victorian melodrama (and dig Rachmaninoff in the background during Garbo's scenes!). But I'd still advise the VHS tape if you want the rich graphics of the original. It also appears that the master for this transfer, whatever its source, has visible physical defects that I don't see on earlier tapes. The 2-channel DVD sound is not representative of the weighty mono original, has a clearly audible hiss and too much treble. The sexy undertone of Garbo's voice is missing here, as is J. Barrymore's dramatic baritone (Compare scene 8 on the DVD when Barrymore mutters "I don't like your tone", with the VHS version -- audibly, the sound of that line on the tape is more darkly effective). The look and sound of the DVD fail to convey the unique, all-important "deco" qualities that somehow add so much to the original film's overall effect. I'd suggest that the VHS edition is something most classic movie fans will appreciate more than they would the DVD. An aside: originally, Garbo didn't want to share star honors with Crawford out of fear that Crawford would diminish Garbo's role. Garbo was partially correct: Crawford steals the show, but Garbo is still a sight to behold.
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 | Gone with the Wind |
| "Deluxe Box Preferred, But Still A Good Buy at $15" | 2004-04-28 |
The $15 box lacks special features, but if you can live without the extras you still get the same DVD print as in the Deluxe issue. GWTW (one of very few films whose title is so well known that it can go by an anacronym), though dated, certainly deserved all 10 of its Oscars. Considering the limitations of 1938 Technicolor, the photography is phenomenal. The script and story, a remarkable achievement in its day, literally swims in Victorian sentimentality -- as, indeed, did the 1860's. The DVD print, remastered from original negatives, is very slightly murky but is a vast improvement over the original and miles ahead of the flawed VHS edition. I know many who consider this classic to be little more than a soap opera, and it's presentation of the pre-war South is over-glorified, but it's depiction of the wartime and post-war period is the best that Hollywood ever produced. Note also that the set of downtown Atlanta and Peachtree Street in this period is not very accurate -- and as one who grew up in the South, I can verify that during the entire flick there's not a single accurate Southern accent. But GWTW is still a captivating work with powerful images (the inspired scene with Scarlett wandering through the wounded at the Atlanta railroad station is a masterpiece). Even if you don't like GWTW that much, get it solely to see Clark Gable's greatest performance; it is utterly flawless. Well-deserved Oscars for all concerned; Olivia is outstanding, and Hattie is truly remarkable. I give the package 4 stars, but in every other way GWTW is a 5-star classic.
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 | The Day of the Jackal |
| "No, it's not Baby Willis -- It's the REAL 'Jackal' !" | 2004-04-18 |
Not much to add to earlier comments, except this: if you're looking for that truly dreadful Bruce Willis disaster of a so-called 'remake', and were directed instead to this original 'Jackal' by mistake, then go no further. You don't know how lucky you are to have missed the pure dreck of the remake -- rather, you've found your way to another masterpiece from the director who gave us "High Noon", and much more. Think of it as having embarked on a snipe-hunt for junkyard trinkets but happily stumbling onto a real gem. The DVD print is excellent, right down to conveying the subtley bleached effect that I recall from the original release, and the classic "look" and texture of the old Schneider Panavision lenses and European lighting -- all effects that heighten the movie's authenticity and mid-60's ambience. This classic is a far cry from the phony, who-are-you-kidding cinematic comic books of today that try to emulate computer games for overgrown adolescents. The writing, directing and acting are lean and direct, the visual style is spare, efficient, exceptionally effective. When you consider that this is a well researched, fairly accurate telling of actual people and events, you have one of those rare movies that, like "The Third Man", seriously upped the stakes for the espionage/suspense genre, raising the bar to heights that its imitators can't even hope to reach.
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 | Red River |
| "Flawed, But Still An Essential, Classic Western" | 2004-04-16 |
One of the handful of timeless Westerns that essentially changed public expectations of the genre. The script and characters were unique for its day, when most Westerns had fallen prey to strict, good-guys-in-white-hats formulas, thus paving the way for for the likes of "High Noon" and "Shane". Wayne's and Brennan's performances are standouts by any measure, and the supporting cast of many John Ford-MGM stalwarts is equal to the task (you even find unique appearances by father-and-son veterans Harry Carey and Carey Jr, not to mention some B-Western bad guys from the Republic lot given a chance to do some real acting). Despite the contrived and awkward ending, the story and characters are riveting and exceptionally engrossing. Director Hawks seems to have had a field day here, as the production values are superb, especially for a western. The only obvious downside (and this is strictly a personal bias) is the shuffle-and-mumble Method techniques of Montgomery Clift, whose acting here and in later years remained somewhat contrived and stilted. As for that old standby, John Ireland, he reveals a more natural style that only highlights Clift's somewhat affected effort in the scenes they share. The ending aside, this is one of those classics that can be watched again and again to reveal new detail with each viewing. The DVD is a bit murky in spots, but it does convey the gritty, nearly film-noir visual style of the original. I was a kid when I saw the film's initial release. It's as impressive today as it was then. get it!
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