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 - You're going to buy it anyway....If you're a cycling fanatic, you're going to buy this set anyway, but the other reviewers are correct: there are definate issues with the DVD authoring and sound mixing used for this set. The video itself is the same you would have seen on OLN or virtually anywhere else. The video is clear, except when transmission is blocked due to mountainous terrain. That's the video issue mentioned by another issue. It's not that the DVD transfer is bad or anything - it's the same as what you saw on OLN - brief interruptions and assorted glitches. The audio is another issue. The sound mixing is bad. I found that if I kept the volume at a medium level, it wasn't bad, but the background noise is often too loud to hear the commentary very well - you hear a lot of helicopter noise, crowd noise, etc. They may have been thinking it added to the realism, but they they are wrong - it's annoying. However, it's tolerable. On one of the discs, the bonus features menu was screwed up. The menu said it was one thing, but it was actually a repeat of a bonus item off the previous disc. That's just bad QA. Obviously they had to pick and choose which bits of the race to show, and I think in general they did a good job of it. The race always seems exciting, and you get to see most of the major tactical moves. The bonus features are nice, generally two extra video segments per disc, and are the sort of "behind the scenes" stories you might have seen when the race was broadcast, but it's not OLN's videos, which might be a good thing if you already saw that on OLN's coverage when the race was actually happening. Rating:  - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEYPLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS VIDEO. The quality of this video is that of a high school student. I pre-ordered this video and AM NOW SEEKING A FULL REFUND. The audio is HORRIBLE. The sound mixing is HORRIBLE. The sound quality is as though someone is speaking in a drum, and the next second the helicopter sounds are so loud you have to mute your sound system; and, then the commentary is so low in volume all you hear is static. It is a shame that World Cycling Productions put this on the market. DO NOT BUY IT. I really do not know how to get this thru to you, JUST DON'T BUY IT. Rating:  - Great DVD but terrible sound quality!I own all of the 12-hour DVDs of the TdF from 2001-2004, and while the content is just as amazing as you'd think it would be, the sound quality of five of the six disks is TERRIBLE. Whoever mixed the sound should lose his job! The sound of motorcycles, helicopters and insane cycling fans (oh my goodness, those Basques!)drown out a lot of the commentary by the legendary Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. Sometimes the background noise is loud, sometimes it's not. You'll have to mess around with the audio controls of your system to get to hear much of disks 2 and 3. And the stages are labelled incorrectly on Disk 5, which is such an amateur mistake! I still HIGHLY recommend this DVD, though; the story of Lance Armstrong's history-making 7th Tour is just as riveting and exciting as it was when I watched it live. The extra features are fantastic, especially the ones on Thor Hushovd's Mom and the LA pictorial retrospective on Disk 6. Rating: - Of course, I'm assuming it's good, but....I'd like to give a review of this item, purchased months ago but as of today, October 16, has still not arrived despite the fact Amazon has a shipping date of October 1 and receipt date of October 14, at the latest. There, that's a review but not necessarily of the item in question.
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