Rating: 
Summary: Avoid Madacy Productions--this is proof of the advice
Review: After viewing several productions of Madacy Entertainment, I have found a common thread among all of their works--including this one--old material and poor production. I even got one DVD from them that had the right label on the disk, but the content was entirely something else. Their productions are cheap and apparently intended to loosen the customer's wallet, while providing a very low-quality product.Advice: Avoid anything with their name on it.
Rating:
Summary: Rare footage that everybody should have - But poor quality
Review: First of all, hats off to Madacy Video for compiling such rare historical NASA footage. I'm pretty sure that that they did their best to obtain the best quality possible. I'll talk from an eye of a television broadcaster, which is my full-time job. I'll leave the historical part to somebody else. It appears however that the info is good. As far as the technical quality is concerned, I have to make the following observations: The DVD mastering itself uses too much MPEG-2 compression and a low data rate. As a result, some artefacts occur such as blocking. The type of analog video dropouts suggests that the material contained in this DVD was compiled from a variety of ANALOG sources such as VHS and U-matic 3/4". One the first DVD, the footage was mastered to DVD from VHS and the audio used is from the normal linear mono audio track. The film was transferred with a film-chain 5-blade projector connected to a camera via a multiplexer box. - This is the cheapest film transfer. Furthermore, the green hue in the picture suggests that the camera videotaping the projector was an old misaligned tube camera. On some other footage obtained by more professional formats, the picture quality is OK. I have to point out that ALL the footage is PUBLIC DOMAIN. This means that any company can go down at NASA, get the original films, transfer them and re-publish them on DVD, THE RIGHT WAY. I hope that one day Madacy Video, or anybody else will re-publish these public domain films the Right way. I've seen some clips of these same films transferred to video with a datacine film scanner, and the quality is simply amazing. I don't know why Madacy chose to go towards the easy way compromising seriously the quality.
Rating:
Summary: Rare footage that everybody should have - But poor quality
Review: First of all, hats off to Madacy Video for compiling such rare historical NASA footage. I'm pretty sure that that they did their best to obtain the best quality possible. I'll talk from an eye of a television broadcaster, which is my full-time job. I'll leave the historical part to somebody else. It appears however that the info is good. As far as the technical quality is concerned, I have to make the following observations: The DVD mastering itself uses too much MPEG-2 compression and a low data rate. As a result, some artefacts occur such as blocking. The type of analog video dropouts suggests that the material contained in this DVD was compiled from a variety of ANALOG sources such as VHS and U-matic 3/4". One the first DVD, the footage was mastered to DVD from VHS and the audio used is from the normal linear mono audio track. The film was transferred with a film-chain 5-blade projector connected to a camera via a multiplexer box. - This is the cheapest film transfer. Furthermore, the green hue in the picture suggests that the camera videotaping the projector was an old misaligned tube camera. On some other footage obtained by more professional formats, the picture quality is OK. I have to point out that ALL the footage is PUBLIC DOMAIN. This means that any company can go down at NASA, get the original films, transfer them and re-publish them on DVD, THE RIGHT WAY. I hope that one day Madacy Video, or anybody else will re-publish these public domain films the Right way. I've seen some clips of these same films transferred to video with a datacine film scanner, and the quality is simply amazing. I don't know why Madacy chose to go towards the easy way compromising seriously the quality.
Rating: 
Summary: NASA-25 Years of Glory
Review: First, the good news: there is a ton of great old NASA footage in this set, including historic launches from every phase of the manned space program, lots of "firsts", and quite a lot of footage that is difficult to find elsewhere. If you're a space freak, you need these DVDs. The bad news: video transfers are marginal, with lots of image artifacts from the digitalization process; sound varies from poor to terrible, and the computerized soundtrack music is loud, repetitive and distracting. Many of the extras like biographies and spacecraft details are simpleminded one page splash screens that are difficult to read and not worth the effort in any case. Bottom line: good information, poorly presented.
Rating: 
Summary: Historically Great - Technically Disappointing
Review: From an historical point of view this 5 DVD set is fasinating. Especially if you have never seen the 25 minute films from the early NASA missions. Yes, the narration for these films is a little dated; talk of "free men everywhere" sounds a bit odd these days; but back in the 1960s, well it was a different world then. I was extremely disappointed, not so much with the quality of the film stock as the transfer to DVD. Volume One; Film One; "Freedom 7" has some dust stuck in the projector for the length of the feature. Not Good Guys!. Later missions done on video are much better. Also Volume One indicates 4 programs; but appears to have only 3; (at least I can't get program 4 to play on my DVD player); even the index listing only covers 3 programs. About the index listings for these DVDs. Each DVD has (except Volume One) 4 programs. Each DVD has 8 index points; none appear at the start of a program; they are randomly (?) located throughout the DVD. Again a bit silly. Also this 5 DVD set leaves out a number of Nasa missions. I'd love to see a properly done set including all Nasa missions, and properly indexed. Finally; the advertised extras on this DVD set are pretty lame. The 5 DVD set is a good effort; and worth getting (? ) if nothing better appears on DVD. (Fingers crossed something better appears!).
Rating:
Summary: DON'T LET SLICK PACKAGE FOOL YOU!
Review: I bought this DVD set and was apalled to learn that this company has simply re-packaged OLD NASA FILMS with a misleading new cover. These 1960's-70's-era films are garbage, with bad picture, bad sound, and narrators so terrible that you expect to hear a projector start skipping, just like when you were a kid in elementary school. Shame on this company. There are many excellent space videos out there--and this IS NOT ONE OF THEM.
Rating:
Summary: Remastered? Who Says!
Review: I purchased this series with eager anticipation. And while I'm not sorry I bought the set, I am somewhat dissapointed in the picture quality of much of the material. I know some of the sourced Nasa films are old, but I have some digitally remastered videotapes obtained from another, Nasa-affiliated online store, and they have better picture quality than these DVD's! That is simply not on, and it's obvious these disks were not mastered from the same source as those tapes. So until someone does this collection over again, this is the best you can do for now. I've no qualms with the content, however, except for the surprise omission of the Apollo 14 Fra Mauro movie. For the future, I strongly suggest a top-notch remaster and a dual-sided 6 DVD set incorporating the whole 30 film history of Nasa series. Such a set would be worthy of 6+ stars!
Rating:
Summary: Better than nothing but...
Review: I was grateful that finally my favorite subject was available on DVD, however, after purchase, I became sorely disappointed with the lack of cleanup for both the film and audio, especially the film. I am grateful to Madacy, a Canadian company, for putting the NASA footage to DVD and am a little annoyed that a caring U.S. company didn't do so. But if you're not going to clean up the film, you're not doing justice to the world for preserving all that history! I wish that some company would expand on what Madacy started and offer to consumers world wide all of the pre - Space Shuttle era footage for interested rocket and mission buffs. Granted that the material would have to be greatly staggered in it's release (in Stages, naturally) due to all of the unmanned launch vehicles launched (and the failures), the Mercury era, the Gemini era and the Apollo era, but it could be done. I believe that all of the archival footage would of course have to be cleaned up for release on DVD. This would be time consuming and expensive but it would most certainly preserve the American contribution to manned and unmanned space flight. Again, the releases would have to be staggered, in stages. This Madacy release is merely a safety net. But it's still better than nothing.
Rating:
Summary: Better than nothing but...
Review: I was grateful that finally my favorite subject was available on DVD, however, after purchase, I became sorely disappointed with the lack of cleanup for both the film and audio, especially the film. I am grateful to Madacy, a Canadian company, for putting the NASA footage to DVD and am a little annoyed that a caring U.S. company didn't do so. But if you're not going to clean up the film, you're not doing justice to the world for preserving all that history! I wish that some company would expand on what Madacy started and offer to consumers world wide all of the pre - Space Shuttle era footage for interested rocket and mission buffs. Granted that the material would have to be greatly staggered in it's release (in Stages, naturally) due to all of the unmanned launch vehicles launched (and the failures), the Mercury era, the Gemini era and the Apollo era, but it could be done. I believe that all of the archival footage would of course have to be cleaned up for release on DVD. This would be time consuming and expensive but it would most certainly preserve the American contribution to manned and unmanned space flight. Again, the releases would have to be staggered, in stages. This Madacy release is merely a safety net. But it's still better than nothing.
Rating:
Summary: Appearances can be deceiving
Review: I was very suprised at the age of some of these films. Basically repackaged stuff from the 60s, 70s and 80s. The footage is everything you've seen on TV, so if you want copies of that, get the series. If you want to learn anything new, don't bother. The series covers the early missions, the moon landings, Apollo 13 and the early shuttle. If you're looking for an A&E or History Channel series you'll be upset. While it looks "cool", I think there are products out there.
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