Search - Complete History of WWII on DVD

Decent documentary hampered by factual and technical details

Maverick77 | Nyack, NY USA | 09/05/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Being a WW2 buff I purchased this DVD collection recently.

The video portion of this documentary is very good... pretty much all of the footage is authentic historic footage... even though sometimes the footage repeats itself couple of times...
But generaly the video portion is very strong with editing and the added news reels are extra bonus.

Sound is a different story. The narrator's voice is actually pretty good with all the english accent and such... but whoever was mixing the narration and the music should be fired immediately. The music is just too damn loud in some parts, pretty much drowning the narrators voice with very loud score. The fact that the music repeats itself constantly is noticeable when you are watching couple of the episodes back to back. I've also noticed that at the end of Episode XI - Overlord the sound is cut off completly for roughly a full minute before the episode ends...

Another thing is the historical accuracy. The collection is actually pretty good but there are some VERY BAD portions... The one that really got me was the narrator's line in Episode VII - The Day of Infamy stating that the japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on the 11th of December 1941 - and couple of lines later stating the correct date of 7th of December 1941... OOPS!!!... now that is a big mistake that should not be tolerated on this so called "historical documentary"

Another very bad thing is the sheer number of typos.. in the documentary itself, in the DVD navigational menus and the DVD printed package... misspellings like Operation Bar Barossa (correctly Barbarossa), Battle of Kirsk (instead of Kursk), Operation Overload (instead of Overlord), Divine Win (instead of Divine Wind), Air Suppremacy (instead of Supremacy) should not be tolerated!!!... This makes me wonder what is the "quality control" at the publishers office...

If these important mistakes were corrected I would have given this collection 4,5 to 5 stars... but as it is stands now all of these very bad mistakes are dragging this DVD collection to the ground...
I was able to purchase it for $19.00 so if you get the chance to get this 5 DVD collection for the same amount or less it is worth it just for the video by itself..."

Fantastic content. Lousy audio

S. Manos | Western, NY | 11/29/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Overall, this is a fantastic DVD, with tons and tons of details. However, the audio in some spots is absolutely horrid. The music is overpowering and you can barely hear the narrator. Too bad. Otherwise, this is and excellent DVD set."

Great Content but some sound issues

Fr?jen | Austin, TX | 02/20/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I really enjoyed this series. It is an EXCELLENT deal. Dollar for dollar this is my best investment in my DVD library. There are eleven hours of footage. It includes old newsreels as a bonus.

It's a lot like a talking history book. It was written from a British perspective, which is enlightening for Americans like myself. It was very informative and links all the way back to the treaties after WWI and pushes forward past the end of WWII. It was very descriptive about the details of every year of the war and flowed well.

On the down side: Disc 2 has some parts where the background music is louder than the narrator. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles available, so it's next to impossible to understand those sections. I tried playing on several systems and it still sounded bad, so its probably not my audio configuration. However, the problem is limited to only certain sections of that one disc. The majority of the series does not have that problem."

Great info, needs some work on the music editing

Jeff Bell | Canada | 09/21/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Fantastic DVD except that the music editor should have been fired, over all the background music is too loud and in some parts quite distracting.The rest of the DVD's are fantastic and well layed out, so if you can put up with a few spots of over baring music it's a must see."