Customer Reviews

TV Commercials: The Ultimate Collection

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

 

 

4 words:

Same old, same old.

The commercials on this set were downloaded from the Prelinger Archives. You don't need to fork over money for any of these, because they're readily downloadable over the web at the Internet Archives.

The worst thing with this set is that they actually managed to screw up the audio on the ads! It's tinny sounding, echo-y, and nothing like the mpegs you can download for free off the Web.

And they cut corners when they engineered the DVD. You cannot skip through any of the commercials if you've seen one; you have to fast-forward. As somebody who can burn professional DVDs, I give this outfit a big fat F for laziness.

Bottom line: Don't waste your money.

First off, what amazes me are the 'reviewers' who complain that there's no 5.1 surround. How pampered can you be when you gripe about the lack of surround sound ON MATERIAL THAT HAD NONE TO BEGIN WITH? Give me a break!

Ooh, poor you, who can't bear to watch this for what it is - a fairly fascinating look at the advertising methodology and techniques used back in the day. Some of these are more than fifty years old, so if the black and white doesn't look razor sharp on your HDTV, grow up and get over it and go watch 'The Matrix' for the thousandth time.

This set runs around three bucks a disc, for ten hours worth of programming. That sounds to me like a pretty decent bargain. So what if they're 'downloadable' from another website? I actually have a job, so I don't have time to sit and burn blank DVDs that would cost more than this set did to begin with.

The 'wow' factor, or the "I had one of those" phrase comes to mind quite often, especially in the disc involving toy commercials. In addition to the toy disc, you get a disc of cigarette commercials, celebrity commercials, a 'miscellaneous' disc, a disc of car commercials, and a disc of food and beverage commercials.

Oh, and one more thing - the fast forward button isn't all that difficult to manage. Sorry that the DVD authors didn't put chapter stops on every single one of the more than six hundred commercials here. But, if watching thirty and sixty second pieces of video is too time consuming for you in the first place, this probably isn't the set for you.

I love this collection. It brings back memories of a simpler time. Sure, as others have stated, you can find a lot of these commercials for free on the internet - I've seen them - but I've got better things to do than sit around for days on the computer searching for the 613 commercials included in this set, downloading them, and then compiling them myself. Then there are those that complain that the picture or sound quality is not up to current standards. For gawd's sake, these things are old, and I doubt that the original source material was as well taken care of as, say, "Citizen Kane". No 5.1 sound? Give me a break! I remember it as a kid in 1.0 mono, and that's the way I want to hear it again. Anyway, for the price of one new release DVD, you get 6 discs of nostalgia - and you can't beat a deal like that.

As another reviewer noted, there are a few glaring deficiencies in this set. The set I purchased (not from Amazon) would only play about 50% of the content. Each of the Discs starts out well but after a few minutes you get pixilations, freezes and otherwise unplayable content.

Save your money.

There is plenty of nolstalgic amusement in this set. For those of us who lived through the time of these commercials, it is a fun experience to watch the way the things were and consider how far technology has come. The visual quality and sound are as good as one can expect from forty-to-fifty-year-old archives. I watch these dvds while I'm washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen. If I miss a word here or there, it is of no great consequence. Invariably, whenever I watch one of these dvds in my kitchen, I will look around and find that one or more children have gathered around and are more than willing to help clean up as they watch.

Tv Commercials was a very nice trip down memory lane. It was very well edited and brought back alot of memories. The Seller was very good and the item was reasonably priced.

A great look back at all the classic commercials from the birth of TV and beyond. I would have rated this collection a "5", but as noted in another review the sound is horrible. There is no 5.1 surround sound, or Dolby Digital that I could find. As far as being re-mastered I would hate to see what they looked liked before the process. The B&W is not sharp at all, and the color ones are faded to say the least. That said, I did feel I got my money's worth, but no more.

A good way to set back and enjoy the evening... in a kookie kind of way.