Customer Reviews

About Tap [VHS]

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

 

 

This was one of the first videos I got a hold of when I started tap dancing & I'm still picking up new steps every time I see this video. It is one of the few videos containing the dancing of these greats. All in all, a wonderful display of different tap styles with 3 of the best tappers ever, In my opinion.

must have.

This show was originally a PBS production. It is really wonderful to see old time tappers talking about their history, but it would have been even better if it was longer. Not so much dancing and a fair amount of reminiscing, but fun nontheless.

Although, the content of this documentary would probably have received five stars from me, the poor picture quality of this DVD would only rate at most a one. I was really excited to find this DVD because I met all of the tap dancers featured except for Gregory Hines. I was massively disappointed when I played it because the video quality is so very poor. The color and tones are awful. Steve Condos had green hair! The picture was murky and the colors faint. In fact, it is the worst quality of a DVD I've ever seen. I think that they took a VHS tape and just transferred onto DVD. You can actually see thick video lines across the screen. Ordinarily, a line would appear straight but on this video because of the poor resolution it appears jagged. I was further shocked and actually angered when at the end of the video it made it clear that it was originally shot on film! Since this was so, why couldn't the producers have spent the money and given us a nice new digital transfer from the original film?

I know a little about film and transfers as I produced a 75 minute movie on film, The Deserter, and had it transferred onto professional digital tape. My DVD was longer, About Tap is 27 minutes, and I received no donated funds from PBS or any other organizations as the maker of About Tap did. The picture quality of my DVD is far superior, even on a big screen television, than About Tap is.

The only reason I gave this "video" two stars is because the content is good so that brings the rating up a bit. If I had known the picture was so bad I would never have purchased this film. It looks like the resolution of the worst Youtube video you could imagine. Until the time that the producers release this with a new digital transfer don't bother purchasing this awful quality video.

This video was inspirational for me and my kids. We live where we don't have access to performances. The video showed some amazing classical tap performance. My son started working on cleaning up his tapping as soon as the video was over. He stayed inspired for a good week. I saw a nice jump in his growth as a tapper.