Customer Reviews

1998 Winter Olympics Figure Skating Gift Set [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoy all Olympic coverage and this was no different. On the competition tape, the complete programs of Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski are a good enough reason alone to buy this set. But there was a noticeable lack in the Ladies coverage by not showing Chen Lu's gorgeous "Butterfly Lovers" - her bronze medal-winning LP - after she overcame enormous odds just to appear in these Olympic Games. The Ladies coverage was disappointing and very USA-centric - none of the Ladies competitors from outside of the US were even mentioned much less shown.

Also, since the majority of the programs on this tape are edited, the video comes across as rushed and choppy. What's there has been done well but seeing so many brief, edited clips of programs will leave the dedicated skating fan disappointed and wanting more.

Overall the tape quality is great, very crisp and clear. And it will definitely bring the excitement of the games back to you! They've done as well as can be expected when fitting over 20 hours of televised Olympic skating coverage into 80 minutes.

The exhibition tape is much better than the competition tape. All of the performances shown are uncut and it's extremely fun to watch. This is definitely the better tape in the set!

Attention skaters: if you're buying this DVD because you think you'll be able to examine complex moves beautifully executed in slow motion, forget it! This DVD is encoded so that that "operation is prohibited." You can pause it, but that's it. (And no, it's not my DVD player; I have 2 players, both of which can go slow motion through other DVDs, but not with this one.)

Moreover, I found the extra features that do exist, like the on-screen bios, more of an annoyance than an asset. More skating, less talk & fluff, if you please!

That said, it might be worth buying for heartthrob Philippe Candeloro's swashbuckler routine.<P...

We are big skating fans in our house, and we were glued to the TV for these '98 Olympic competitions, but this dvd production does not do it justice. The multi-angle feature is good, the picture and sound are naturally first rate, but the amount of content (lots of things are clipped or not shown at all) and the strange fact that one cannot observe the content in slow-motion nor pause the picture (! for a sports production? ) drops this dvd from being as good as it could have been. If the main performances are all you want, and the drawbacks do not put you off, you may genuinely enjoy this dvd. I expected a lot more.

Well, it's overally good dvd, but as one of the reviewers wrote, you can only pause it during watching. I don't know who made such decision and why - there's really no point in it. But the good news is - if you have PC, it's very easily to overcome such minor annoyance - just copy all the stuff to your hardrive, and enjoy it to the fullest.
So my final scores are:
TV + standalone DVD: 2 stars
PC + internal DVD: 4 stars

I thought that this video definetely brought beauty, grace, and drama, to the normal figure skating fan. The only little problem that i had was that in the Ladies' competition, they only focused on Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan. I wish that there were other ladies to watch as well, like some more on Nicole Bobek, Tanja Scepshenko, Surya Bonaly, Vanessa Gusmeroli... many more. But the pairs competiton was beautiful: Mandy Woetsel/Ingo Steur had a program i would never forget, and Kazakova/Dimitriev had a great performance as well. Besides the little flaw with the ladies competition, this video will delight any fan of the Figure Skating World. I cant wait for Salt Lake City in 2002.

I recommend this video to anyone. It brings the full beauty of the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. And I agree with Colette! I cant wait for 2002!

I thought this tape was outstanding. It has full routines (short and long programs) from Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan. Full long routine for Ilia Kulik.

I recommend to all those people that love Figure Skating to buy this video, it is something that you don't need to let pass.

This a very good video that I can find for figure skating. It runs about 80 minutes. The video presents programmes from all the excellent medal winning skaters of 1998 Winter Olympic. Free from the pressure of the judges, the exhilarathing, free-form, anything-goes exhibitions will delight any fan of the art of skating.