Customer Reviews

2005 F1 Formula One World Championship Review

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

 

 

Pro: 220 minutes to cover nineteen races. Nice to get the in-car for qualifying. Nice insight into the races, particularly the US GP and the Michelin-farce.

Con: This DVD, without a doubt, has the worst image quality I've seen on any F1 annual DVD. Including the first one. A LOT of MPG compression and pixelation. It's even pixelated on the menus. Check out the first lap at Spa for a good representation. A cloud of MPG noise is in front of Montoya's car. The TV broadcasts looked better...and I'm stuck with DirectTV, which is saying something. I'm sure that there's lots I've missed- I've only watched about 20 minutes.

For those in the know, I did a service-mode convergence adjustment on my TV two days ago. And my DVD player is a Denon DVD2900.

It looks horrible. Maybe next time they'll spend 30 cents more and use a DVD9 instead of this single-layer DVD. You've been warned.

Documenting in satisfactory detail the news, events and people of the 2005 FIA Formula One World Championship, this DVD is a must-have for any F1 aficionado.
Round-by-round coverage of each race (usually between 10-15 minutes on each) combined with mini features on drivers, teams and new circuits are some of the many strengths of this DVD. Unfortunately, while the DVD takes a step forward in many areas over previous incarnations, it also has some areas that prevent it from being perfect.
The race-by-race coverage is very solid and the DVD does a good job covering the top highlights from qualifying and the race. It also does a decent job covering the BAR fuel tank scandal, the F1 U.S. Grand Prix debacle and F1's first race in Turkey.
My favorite new addition to the DVD has to be the driver-narrated in-car laps that are featured for every race. It adds a nice dimension to the DVD and you get to see and hear the drivers from a more personal perspective, adding a side of humanity that is often buried behind the helmet and the names. Also, unlike previous versions, when you go to the race-by-race menu and choose a race, the DVD will not go back to the race-by-race menu once that particular race is over. Instead, it will move on to next race in continous fashion. And it is for these reasons that I would recommend this DVD to any F1 or racing fan.
However, there are some features of this DVD that hurt it. First, the picture quality doesn't seem as good as previous reviews. There is a lot of pixelation at various times throughout the review (usually on in-car cameras) and, while not horrible, it does sour the experience, a little. Second, it's a shame they had to sacrifice the in-car pole position laps (as seen on the 2004 DVD) for driver commentary laps. Why couldn't they put both in?
While there are some shortcomings, it is still a strong and comprehensive review and I would recommend it to any F1 fan.

My family and I are Indy 500 regulars who will be attending the U.S. Grand Prix for the first time in July, 2006. Since Formula One races are not carried on any of the channels in our cable package, we needed a way to educate ourselves about what's been going on in F1 lately (who is Alonso?). The 2005 F1 World Championship Review DVD seemed perfect for this purpose, and I decided to purchase a copy. However, after I read the reviews of the DVD on Amazon.com, I got the impression that it would be of low quality, so I decided not to buy it. A couple weeks later, I changed my mind and decided to go ahead and buy it anyway. I am now very glad I did - the DVD turned out to be terrific! It performs perfectly on our DVD player and TV, and the sound and picture are excellent. The race coverage is everything I had hoped it would be, and the DVD also includes in-car footage for each track, including Indianapolis. This DVD far exceeded my expectations, and I highly recommend it.

A great season in F1 only to be spoiled by this vhs like DVD release. The picture quality absolutely ruins the viewing experience! Pixels everywhere! Anything that moves on the screen just blurs up. It's hard enough to get a good look at these beautiful F1 machines up close, that's the beauty of pausing a DVD player to capture a true sharp digital image, but here you might as well get all those vhs tapes out of the garbage cause blurry and ragged is the new F1 way it seems. Why spend so much money on a sport only to release a review that shows none of it? 5 star show with 0 star picture quality. Hey F1, this isn't 1982 with Keke winning the championship! Next year better be better or you've lost my twenty bucks.

From the main menu, each race has one in-camera lap view, narrated by the driver onboard. These are not the pole laps like last year's disk, but an apparantly random selection. It was obvious that they wanted to have many different drivers contribute to this DVD, instead of just a few pole drivers. It is neat to see each driver talk to the camera, and in some cases it is hilarious what they say and do. Also, be sure and see the very end of the disk, it has some interesting items.

Otherwise the disk has brief summaries of each race. I still think they could have put many more in-car sequences to make a really fantastic disk.

The 2005 Formula One season was probably the most exciting in recent memory as there was switch in the story line of years past which had been 'Michael Schumacher and Ferrari take the top spot while some other folks finished as well'. With a slew of victories to various teams, the fight for the championship was between McLaren and Renault with the constructor's championship being decided at the final race of the season! How is the review? Well, I can say that they are getting better and better as the years go by. I have been a Formula One fan for several years and I have quite a few season reviews on DVD. The White Star company has been producing these reviews since 2001 I believe and they are getting longer each and every time. One of the major gripes that folks have had regarding these reviews is that they seldom have on-board camera footage of the track. Well... your prayers have been answered. Each track review contains a lap by one of the drivers and they explain how they made their run. The descriptions vary from straight explanations of "Brake here and then accelerate" to "Enter the turn a little light on the brakes because it's a high-speed corner followed by a long straight before you're hard on the brakes again." Some of the drivers seem downright excited that they were interviewed for the lap review while others seem that they could care less. I didn't realize that this was part of the package until I started watching the DVD event by event. If you play the review in it's entirety it will play each one in sequence from Intro to round-up. However, if you look at each one in the event by event selection, you will see the hot lap selection at the bottom. Many may miss it on the first go-around and that's a shame. Overall picture quality is good though most of the footage seems to have been shot with a blue filter to tone down the bright sunlight which bathed almost all the races of the year save Suzuka. If you are a Ferrari fan, you will be disappointed though Michael does feature in the races where he's prominent. His brilliant pass of Jenson Button is briefly shown but Raikkonen's pass on Fisi is given it's due highlight. Overall it's a great review and I'm going to be watching them all in anticipation of the 2006 season starting soon enough!

One of my favorite sporting events to watch on TV is Formula One, and the break in between the seasons sometimes is way too long....sure enough is nothing like NASCAR, Thanks God, way too many races and turning left....BORING!!!! So when the season review for Formula 1 comes out, gotta have it, even though Ferrari did not win the title on this paticular year, it was still pretty exciting, good commentators and good video clips!!!

At the moment this is my favorite F1 DVD to watch, mostly because at this point it has the best balance of good content and good video quality. I like the in-car footage of qualifying, although as in the 2004 dvd you have to go to the individual race menu for each event to see it. It's funny how in most of these they have a driver of the same nationality present a qualifying lap for each track.

Overall this DVD is excellent. The video compression seems only applied to the qualifying laps, so the rest of the footage doesn't appear to show any problems with quality. Also, for some reason the in-car footage is more exciting on this volume, especially on tracks like Spa or Nurburgring which have lots of elevation changes, or just because you aren't seeing all pole laps so you hear the drivers describe whatever mistakes happen and how much time it might have cost them.

These Championship Reviews are great to have if you have any interest in Formula 1. The footage is exciting and the scenery is beautiful as well. This is also the year that Ralph hit the wall at Indy for the second year in a row (this time he walked away, thankfully), prompting the controversial Michelin incident that resulted in a mere six-car race.

This 2005 F1 review is very exciting, very good. However, it is a long video because the season is long and there are a lot of good and bad things happened in this 2005 F1 season. The 2005 F1 season consists of 10 teams and 20 cars just like usual. But, there are some changes in 2005 compared with 2004. Red Bull makes debut that year after they purchased Jaguar end of last year. It is a long season with 19 rounds with the regular circuits that they had last year plus the new round in Istanbul in Turkey. The season is very different that we see before. This year saw Ferrari finally out of the top after 5 years of dominance from 2000-2004. Especially for Michael Schumacher, he and the team finally lost the title after 5 years. In the first 4 races, Renault drivers take victories including Giancarlo Fisichella wins the season opener in Melbourne, Australia and Fernando Alonso wins the following three races in Malaysia, Bahrain and San Marino. The Grand Prix of Malaysia and Bahrain, there is one driver change in each of them. In the race of San Marino, Fernando Alonso wins while Michael Schumacher finally gets on to the podium for the first time of that season with Jenson Button third in his BAR. However, his third place finish is under threat when his BAR car and Takuma Sato's BAR car (you can say the BAR team) is under the legal weight limit. This incident is put on trial for the hearing in the FIA court. After the hearing, the result is made. The BAR team is disqualified from the San Marino Grand Prix and handed a 2 race ban by the FIA. So, for the Spanish and Monaco Grand Prix, there are only 18 cars racing. Then, Kimi Raikkonen wins the two races in Spain and Monaco. But, Kimi then had bad luck in Europe and Alonso wins. In Canada, it is one of the most exciting race in that year saw Kimi took a step forward for the championship battle. But in US, it is one of the very disastrous grand prix we see in a long while. This race sees only 6 Bridgestone cars take part of the racing due to the 14 Michelin cars pulled back into the pit garage before the start due to the tire safety concerns and the fans are very angry and disappointed. Michelin decides to refund those fans and the team will purchase tickets for compensation and distribute to the fans and watch it for free for next year's event. For the remaining season, it is very exciting until Brazil; the driver's title competition is over while Alonso becomes the youngest driver to win the driver's title. However, the constructor's title battle is not over until China, while Renault wins the constructor's title with Alonso's victory. For the race in China, there are three teams reach the end of the chapter, the yellow Jordan cars will become Midland after Eddie Jordan sold the team at the beginning of 2005. Minardi will become Red Bull Torro Rosso after Red Bull purchased the team. More importantly, this is also Sauber's last race after the purchase by the BMW. Actually, the Sauber name will stay in 2006, as it will be called "BMW Sauber". Overall, this is a very good one. Also, the 2005 F1 season sees overall excitement is finally returned again. This DVD of 2005 F1 review is strongly recommended.