Customer Reviews

Victory at Sea - The Legendary World War II Documentary (History Channel)

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

The History Channel and NBC NEWS should be ashamed of themselves for putting out this long awaited DVD version of Victory at Sea. I watched these shows as a kid back in the 50s and waited for the DVD version. I was warned by someone that the sound wasn't great, but I bought the set anyway. Big mistake. You have to watch some of them with a remote in your hand to constantly raise and lower the sound. The narration is too low and the music is too loud. A review on another website defending the DVD set said that there is a warning on the box that says "audio levels may vary". Yeah, right, but the sites that sell the DVDs don't point that out. This was very disappointing. I can't, and won't, recommend this set to anyone.

I was greatly dissapointed in this 4 disc set from the History Channel. I have VHS versions of some episodes, and they are much superior in both picture and sound quality. What happened? The editing/compilation of the DVD's is VERY poorly done, the intro to each segment (by Peter Graves) is much louder than the following program, so you constantly have to run the volume up and down ( and not just a little +/- 100% ). The resulting sound is muddy, with severe flutter and poor dynamic range ( film not kept tight on the sound drum during transfer ). The narration of the episodes is hard to hear, while the sound effects and music come blaring out at you - drowning out everything. The overall effect is about what you might expect of a high school kid's first attempt at making a home movie - and only a C- at that. There is no capability to play the entire disc, you must select each episode from the main menu, and then select "play this episode" again from the sub-menu, repeated seven times for each disc. I was supremely dissapointed - I have many History channel DVD's, and this is far and away the worst - a prime example of "let's make a quick buck - people are too stupid to care" thinking...The History Channel ought to be ashamed of themselves !!! if I had paid the $ 60.00 list price I would have really been outraged - as it was for $ 40.00 I still felt cheated and ripped off. It is hard to imagine what the producers of the original series would think - this was one of the finest original programs ever shown on TV - and to have the DVD's be so crudely done - no attempt to clean up the picture, no effort put into making the sound anywhere close to even, some episodes are very loud ( even distorted ) and some you can hardly hear, the inconvienient playback features, and cheesy packaging all contribute to the worst transfer, poorest DVD watching experience I have ever come accross. A Golden Rasberry candidate if ever there was one.

Ever since I had my first DVD player I wanted to get Victory At Sea. It turned out to be quite a disapointment. The sound track leaves much to be desired. When the DVD starts the music is wonderfull, as soon as the first part goes on you know the sound and effects will be and are awfull.The sound is low and lifeless.The sound is most of what makes the stories come alive. I own the CDs of this music and they are great. These DVDs seem as though they were copied from an old tape and never enhanced. I know the stories, I have the tapes, these DVDs are a rip off.
Joel Powell

This is a vintage series created when TV was in its infancy and sound recording much simpler than today. However, a great deal of the battle photography is unsurpassed.

No series brings together so much authentic warefare footage from the naval dimension of WWII. Editor Isaac Kleinerman worked with what would be considered a shoestring budget and primitive equipment by today's standards. But he did a spectacular job of retrieving and assembling archival footage. Some of the camera operators were right in the line of fire or on the burning decks. Some scenes show vast panoramas of ships the world will never see again. V at S also does justice to the supply and logistics side of the conflict, which too many fictional and documentary accounts ignore.

Some portions are dramatizations or staged, but these are less obtrusive or contrived than half of what the History Channel or our Pentagon puts out these days.

The only thing really missing from V at S is interview or narative support from sailors, merchantmen, and commanders who were still alive and whose memories were fresh. However, this documentary technique did not really become standard until the 1970s. The Salomon / Hanser script, read by Leonard Graves, fits the style of the period, and can be appreciated accordingly. It would not (and could not) be done the same today. But this is no more a detraction than to say that Hollywood can do no real remake of any classic.

People who ask for a digital "restoration" of the sound are mistaken to think there is a Richard Rodgers score for each episode and sequence. There never was. Rodgers wrote some excellent pieces of music, some of which were released in mono and stereo albums over the years. However, the series soundtrack required substantial arrangment and improvisation. Robert Russell Bennett, the NBC Orchestra conductor, with some studio experts, had to make lots of adaptation and write in things Rodgers did not.

Don't anyone forget that, even today, the sound of most feature and documentary films is 80% or more a product of studio mixing, imagination, and ad ons. Some of it is "faithful," but little comes staight from on scene mics in sync with a camera. When V at S came out, audiences were less spoiled by the sorts of audio enhancements now standard, and film people knew that none of the original field footage had on-location sound anyway.

I bought this great documentary and was appalled by what I saw AND TRIED TO LISTEN TO. The makers of this DVD should immediately issue a refund to all who have purchased this disgraceful production. It is simply inconceivable in this day and age that a product so sloppy and horribly mixed could be issued to the public. Even a child could do a better job of equalizing the sound levels between the almost-inaudible narration and the overpowering music. SHAME ON ALL CONNECTED WITH THIS ABORTION. How ironic that I myself waited so long for the DVDs to come out (rather than buy the videos) so that I would be able to maximize the pleasures I remembered from the series in the 50's, and my reward was probably the most absymal DVDs ever issued by so-called "professionals". It would be fitting if they were never ever allowed to practice their non-existant skills again and were condemned to listen to this audio atrocity for eternity.

If you are familiar with this classic World War II series, you know that it deserves the praise it has accumulated over the years. Do not, however, buy the DVD version. The sound is absolutely terrible! I bought the DVD set only to return it. I bought it again from a second source only to run into the same poor quality sound problem. There is no excuse for this wonderful documentary to be released on DVD in such inferior quality.

There is a review by John Stachler "jpstax" here and he states he's ordering the 26 episode collection from a company called Emson. I bought this set and it's AWFUL!! Yes, the sound is good, but the video is HORRENDOUS!! They used a compression algorithm that is WAY to tight. In order to get the episodes on 2 discs, they compressed the H*** out of it and it is almost unwatchable. The highlights are all blown out and it's absolutely bad, bad, bad. Do NOT waste your money!!

After reading so much criticism about the sound quality of the A&E version of this series, I double-checked mine because I hadn't noticed similar problems.
The narration and music sounded as they should for something out of 1952 and made for TV. At least one episode - "The Pacific Boils Over" - was lifted from a 16mm print, and that certainly didn't help the quality. As far as I can tell, the master was the same used for the Embassy VHS version.
I have a HD TV with good speakers, but I don't expect this early TV audio to sound like a modern digital track. After all, optical sound is limited to about 8500 Hz or so. My advice is to accept it as it is and enjoy it. Mono it was and mono it should stay. Some home audio is just to sophisticated (and gimmicky) to do justice to this masterpiece. The History Channel has done us all a favor here.

No one need recount the huge undertaking this documentary represents and the resulting epic, monumental, award-winning work that resulted. The importance of this work and its place in television and motion picture history is legendary. So no need to go there. But to the failure of this DVD set, much should be said by way of warning to those who love this work and expect the DVD set to be at least an accurate if not enhanced representation of the original. Most unfortunately, it is not.

One of the most important elements that made Victory At Sea the emotionally charged half-hour of television that had ever been acheived in that medium at the time and saved it from what could have been a dry history lesson, was the magnificent music score by Richard Rogers that was woven throughout each episode. Not to have remastered the score it in full stereo or to not have given the sound effects some stereo imaging or further enhancement leaves one feeling a great disappointment. Is is especially true because lovers of this work more than likely have already heard the beautifully recorded Victory At Sea LP or CD release in very full and impressive stereo; most of us have memorized every cut. To then be treated to such a lackluster rendition, knowing what it COULD sound like, well, let's just say, it's a total rip-off. It looks like they did no more than go to a release print and transfered it as-is. Although, that may be giving them much-to-much credit because I can't imagine that the original broadcasts had such wildly varying levels between narration and music. I was just a kid when I saw it, but even at that young age, I certainly would have noticed if the audio sounded as bad as it does on this botched release.

I say, if you MUST buy this release, also go out and get the CD or even dig up the LP from somewhere (I believe both are on the RCA label) and listen to Roger's melodies and the rich, lush and appropriately appehensive orchestrations of Russel Bennet. THEN watch the DVD; at least then you will have some appreciation of how the music should enhance the entire experience.

My disappointment with this DVD set stems from my expectations. I thought that time and effort would have been taken to enhance the video in the this digital format since Victory at Sea series
is a classic. In comparison with my VHS version of the series the video is no better or worse. Where the DVD is truly lacking is the audio which of its self is a great part of the cache of
the series. The audio was so poorly done as to be upsetting. I had to turn up the volume control of my system by three time the setting I used with the VHS tapes which I used for a comparsion. The voice of the announcer was not melded in with the sound level of the music as was the case with the VHS tapes. Consequently,I was fidgeting with the volume control frequently. Cannonade from artillery or of the large guns
of ships would boom the volume of the audio off scale requiring another audio adjustment.
My advice to anyone interested in this series-truly a classic-would be to buy the VHS tapes.