Customer Reviews

2004 Tour de France 12-hour DVD

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

 

 

As with the previous Tours I've purchased, this one parallels the same basic format. As some people think showing the mountain stages close to their entirety is a "waste of DVD space", I believe they do this specifically because these stages hold a higher interest to most people. It is in the mountains where the tour is won and lost. They show the highlights of the flat stages, and all of the sprint finishes, however the majority of the time is spent in the mountains. Once again the commentary is done brilliantly by Phil and Paul. If your a Tour fan, you'll definitly enjoy.

Thanks.

This is the year of the Tour de France that a NASCAR fan could love - bad weather and crazy scheduling combined to produce a cluster of wild sprints in constant rain at the beginning of the Tour - as a result there were lots of crashes. Because of rule and scheduling changes, it took Lance Armstrong a very long time to reach the yellow jersey - and, when he did, he was totally dominant, with five stage wins in seven races beginning at stage 13, and a spectacular time trial win straight up L'Alpe d'Huez at its most jam-packed with spectators. I have viewed 8-hour, 10-hour, and 12-hour summaries of the TDF, and I like the longer versions better - they show more highlights of an 80-hour race. Rural France is so beautiful, it's not unpleasant to see more of it. I have bought three of these videos, and plan to buy the 2005, which is available now on Amazon at a price which is less than that charged on the production company's (WCP's) own website (although they have better deals/availability on the older Tour videos, say, before 2003). It is worth noting that there are no better announcers in any sport than Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. In 2004, they proved that the commentary is "live" (not dubbed in later in post-production) by incorrectly predicting the winner of just about every sprint during the last 1000m of the sprint finishes. Still, their insights into big-time cycling are worth the price of the DVDs.

Just another great year for Lance and the Tour. The main reason I bought this DVD was for the Alp Dues (stage 16) which is where Lance dominates in an individual time trial. They show most of the event, cutting out some early parts where the crowd was almost impossible to ride through. Because of that it only got 4 stars instead of 5. They cut out what has to be one of the hardest parts of an event like that... all the people in your way... moving at the last second. The did show some of it, but not the whole thing to give you the real perspective on how crazy it was that day!

Yet another historic ride. The first 6th win in the Tour de France. And it only took 101 years to get there. When watching this, and all the others for that matter, remember...THIS IS LIVE TELEVISION. You are watching the action as it happens. They do not go back and digitally master the video afterwards. That includes all the other Tour videos. And yet, they are all worth buying. Watching Lance is like watching poetry in motion.

From the likes of the (few) other reviews, my six-DVD set suffered from 3 technically-inferior discs. #2,4 and 6 all froze intermittently, usually at insignificant places, but unacceptable for $90. I don't own the other years, although friends have said great things about '01-03 especially. I'm returning this to Amazon for full refund, to my surprise since usually defective 'software' usually only merits a replacement. I'm disappointed with the product, but continue to be overwhelmingly impressed with Amazon, and they continue to warrant as much of my business as they earn.

This DVD set consists of 6 x 2-hour DVDs covering 21 stages of the 2004 Tour. If you missed stages 12, 13, 15, 16, and 17, you see them in almost their entirety as they eat up about 8.5 hours of the 12 hours. The 2 hours or so of downhill coasting that you see uninterrupted throughout those five stages is wasted DVD space. The first ten stages are crammed onto one DVD. My guess is that DVD one is the same in both the 4 hour and 12 hour versions. Additionally, the set would have benefited from a highlights montage of all the stages linked together with music at the end. Not a lot of effort put into this DVD set.