Search - I Love Big Machines on DVD

Great machines, but hard to watch

*R*L* | Texas USA | 12/09/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"We got this for our 2 1/2 yr old son who is a big machine lover. Based on other reviews (for this product and others) we expected lots of great footage. I was quite disappointed, and so was our son.

The single DVD contains two tracks: "I Love Big Machines 1" and "I Love Big Machines 2". These aren't a series, and really have nothing to do with each other. They are very different quality productions. ILBM 1 is a series of disjointed images of machines, flashed up on the screen for 1-5 seconds. The images are shuffled so that there are hot air balloons, diggers, ducks, bulldozers, bridges, etc. in just random order. Completely baffling to me and my son. In the beginning and the ending, they flick through the images very rapidly, showing them only a split second each. I found this disturbing, and so did my son. I don't know why the producers of this DVD would want to encourage short-attention span viewing of something that can otherwise captivate a child. If there were negative stars for rating I would give this part of the DVD a -5.

I Love Big Machines 2 was completely different. It came on with some music and a coherent narration by a child. A variety of machines were introduced and nice footage was shown at a good pace -- fast enough to keep a child watching for the next bit, but long enough that they can see the dirt dumping out, or the gears turning, or whatever. The narrator tells us what the machine was called and what it does, while we watched footage of it working. I would rate this part of the DVD 4 stars... but...

The sound quality of the whole DVD is muffled and at times hard to understand. I might have raised my overall rating of this DVD to 3 stars if the sound were better.

Overall, this was not a bad purchase, but we prefer DVDs that have a more coherent string of thought. My son does not suffer from a short attention span, and can watch diggers and trucks for literally hours. (We live in an area where there is a lot of construction, so I'm referring to watching the real things, not just videos.) He loves the Dave Hood productions/ Real Wheels Travel Adventures (especially "There Goes a Bulldozer") as well as "All About Construction", and Totally Trucks "Dirt Monsters". I would recommend any and all of those DVDs above this one.
"

Limited and Lame

C. Lewis | Seattle, WA USA | 02/09/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"My son loves trucks and vehicles. I bought Twenty Trucks (which is great and fun for kids and parnets) after renting it at the library about 20 times.

I Love Big Machines was suggested one I would like. I did not. The editing is abrupt and the volume oscillates. In short, frustrating to watch no matter how much your tot likes big machines (my son tuned out quickly and he has a long attention span for vehicles on film.)"

Incomprehensibly weird

GadgetChick | 11/06/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"My son loves trucks, machines and trains of all kinds. We got him a few DVDs so we could rotate them and not repeat the same one too much. Without question, this one is my least favorite. As another reviewer mentioned, there are montages of images that have NOTHING to do with machines - including a hot air balloon and a montage of real ducks interspersed with a "Baby Einstein" type image of a tin toy duck. The sound quality is very poor - it sounds like the track was dubbed from a kid speaking into a circa-1975 tape recorder with one of those little microphones. At one point, the DVD references another DVD from the same manufacturer that we had never heard of! Plus, many of the shots are very-fast motion and barely show the machines working.
Despite all this, my son will watch it because he doesn't understand how random and incongruous this thing is. I, on the other hand, plan to put this in the trash. Really a poor-quality product and not at all worth the money. I highly recommend "Under Construction" instead. That is a fantastic DVD that was better than all the other ones we ordered put together."