Rating: 
Summary: Worth owning
Review: After excitedly buying and watching this DVD, I had to remind myself, to keep from getting discouraged, that music videos in the 70's were not what they are today. I found the lip-synced material on this recording slightly disappointing in comparison to the We Will Rock You DVD (rumored to be nothing in comparison to more famed Queen performances). Nevertheless, this collection is worth having if only as a piece of history, a documentation of the band's first decade. Visually speaking, we can probably anticipate greater things to come with Volume II as technology improved as Queen's career progressed.One note: If you are on the fence about whether or not you should by this, and you consider yourself a fan, do it--if only for the bonus material on disc two which features Brian May deconstructing, track by track, the many layers of Bohemian Rhapsody from the original tapes. If you ever wondered what Freddie's piano solos sound like by themselves, or if you are curious to hear the individual "Galileo" harmonies one by one and then combined, here's your chance!
Rating: 
Summary: Stateside Queen fans rejoice
Review: Before 2002, the only source for Queen music videos in the states were the VHS counterparts to the red and blue Hollywood Records collections, and the only video in the Greatest Flix series to be released in the US was Greatest Flix III. That said, videos for so many songs were unavailable to stateside fans, such as "Spread Your Wings," "Scandal," "Flash," and a host of others.
In 2002, Queen released their first DVD (excluding the concert video "We Will Rock You"), entitled Greatest Video Hits 1. The package both looked and sounded promising. The tracklist on Disc 1 is essentially what was included on the original Greatest Flix in Europe. That being said, there is plenty to enjoy here. The disc kicks off with "Bohemian Rhapsody," which has since become regarded as the first music video. Included for the first time in the US is the video for Spread Your Wings, a great song from Queen which never made it onto the greatest hits. A real bonus here is a completely new video for "Bicycle Race," using newly-found footage of the band performing the song, and also includes more clear views of the nude females ("I would have liked to have gone to the bicycle race," says Roger Taylor during the audio commentary). Every Queen video from the seventies until 1981 is included here, nothing is left out.
On Disc 2, there are a few more videos previously unavailable on Greatest Flix. A real treat here is "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy," performed live on a BBC show. The version of "Now I'm Here" performed live at the Rainbow Theatre quite stunning as well. Also included are "Keep Yourself Alive," "Liar," and the Live Killers versions of "Love Of My Life" and the fast "We Will Rock You."
Also on the second disc, there is an entire section dedicated to Bohemian Rhapsody. When watching this, it is recommended that all Queen fans have a napkin handy in order to catch the drool. First, we have all new exclusive interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor discussing the creation and birth of the timeless song, providing a lot of insight to this amazing song. And if that weren't enough, there is an entire half-hour where Brian May plays bits from the original Bohemian Rhapsody master tape, including the individual harmonies in the operatic section, and goes into even more depth about the creation of this masterpiece. Be warned, the drool factor here is extremely high. Also included is an insight to the making of the video, and Brian and Roger being honored for Bohemian Rhapsody being the Song Of The Millenium by the Guiness Book of Records.
Lastly, you will notice things about a "hidden bonus." All you have to do to access it is enter Title 10, Chapter 1 on your DVD remote to access it. I'm not going to tell you what it is, buy it and find out for yourself.
This DVD is a must-own for all Queen fans everywhere. It is truly worth its weight in gold, and set a high standard for subsequent DVD releases from the band (all of which maintain the same high standard). Stateside fans (like myself) should be thankful that Hollywood Records have been nice enough to release this for our enjoyment as well. A grand time is guaranteed for all who watch this DVD.
5/5
Rating: 
Summary: Great content, lousy DVD picture quality
Review: Being a huge Queen fan, if I had to rate this by the songs and the videos themselves I would give it a 5 star rating, but this DVD set is incredibly marred by the absolute worst video compression I've ever seen on a DVD. Whoever is responsible for encoding the video for it should be fired. The video artifacting is so bad that non-moving objects in the background seem to continuously jump up and down, and large areas of solid color seem to have little squares moving around in them. (This effect is, fortunately, minimized by the fact that usually everything on screen is moving anyway - it is a collection of music videos, after all.) Worse, the widescreen aspect ratio is improperly encoded on the disc, so when I try to watch the videos on my TV with my DVD player, it stretches them out to the full height of the screen, resulting in in an abnormally tall rock band. To view the videos properly I have to view them on my computer, which thankfully figures out whatever the problem is and displays the videos correctly. Queen fans such as myself will no doubt want to acquire this set anyway for the new audio mixes and just to have some video material of Queen, but I urge you to do so with the understanding that they messed up the video so prepare to be tolerant of the video quality.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Queen hits brought to life!
Review: Excellent quality, whatever the 'negatives' of other reviewers, it's really fun to watch.
[Look for the easter egg on disk 2: highlight the RHAPSODY button, press 'ENTER'; then highlight the BACK TO MAIN button; then press on your hand-held UP, RIGHT, LEFT, UP. I haven't quite mastered the button series, it's like long UP, long RIGHT, quick LEFT, quick UP, a-la dash-dash-dot-dot. It's just a Bohemian Rhapsody variant -- flames super-imposed at the beginning, nothing earth-shattering.]
Rating:
Summary: cool jewel
Review: Excellent quality, whatever the 'negatives' of other reviewers, it's really fun to watch.
[Look for the easter egg on disk 2: highlight the RHAPSODY button, press 'ENTER'; then highlight the BACK TO MAIN button; then press on your hand-held UP, RIGHT, LEFT, UP. I haven't quite mastered the button series, it's like long UP, long RIGHT, quick LEFT, quick UP, a-la dash-dash-dot-dot. It's just a Bohemian Rhapsody variant -- flames super-imposed at the beginning, nothing earth-shattering.]
Rating:
Summary: Finally.....
Review: Finally the band that many credit as the pioneers of the promotional video get their work released on DVD for the world to see. With pretty much the same track listing as their multi-million selling Greatest Hits album, the most loved and memorable songs from the early career of Queen's Freddie Mercury, Brian May, roger taylor, and John Deacon are showcased in wonderful fashion. Here's what you get: Disc1: 01. Bohemian Rhapsody
02. Another One Bites The Dust
03. Killer Queen
04. Fat Bottomed Girls
05. Bicycle Race
06. You're My Best Friend
07. Don't Stop Me Now
08. Save Me
09. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
10. Somebody To Love
11. Spread Your Wings
12. Play The Game
13. Flash
14. Tie Your Mother Down
15. We Will Rock You
16. We Are The Champions Disc 2: 01. Now I'm Here
02. Good Old Fashioned Loverboy
03. Keep Yourself Alive
04. Liar
05. Love Of My Life
06. We Will Rock You (Fast Live Version)
Bonus hidden video: Bohemian Rhapsody (alternative edit) Plus a Bohemian Rhapsody Documentary telling all about the recording or Bohemian rhapsody in the studio, and the making of the video for it later. And you get Brian May and Roger Taylor Commentary, a Picture Gallery, and Queen-online homepage links. All Disc 1 tracks re colour graded and pan and scanned for 16:9, 5.1 Audio mix , PCM Stereo mix. So hurry up and get yours today, so that they will see that U.S. fans do still love this band and their music, to gurantee that they will release a Greatest Hits II DVD!
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Collection, Despite Some Technical Irritants
Review: First off, I liked this immensely. The sound is great, even if you don't have DTS yet. Brian and Rog's comments (and a few inserted taped bits from Freddie and John) provide new insight into some of the videos. Wish they could've made MORE comments about the vids, and/or wonder why some of the directors' comments weren't included. Like some other reviewers, I don't care for the widescreen. Note to anyone who may be reading this that has a hand in the production of DVDs: At least give the viewer the OPTION to view the films in widescreen or letterbox. Case in point: "The Buddy Holly Story" with Gary Busey can be viewed either way, and believe me, there's a big difference. I've noticed that having both allows the viewer to watch everything twice and get a different feel from each viewing. Anyway, if options for audio are going to be part of DVDs for yearsd to come, can we also get screening options? Here's what made me subtract a star. For DVD #2, you may have to download a DVD viewer, Interactual, based in the U.K. I had nothing but trouble with this. I immediately knew I was in trouble when I tried to access the original viewer, called PC Friendly, and was told that the company was now under a new name on a new Web page. So I went to the new site and tried to download the new player, which I did, but it still didn't help. The video and audio were jerky and stuttering, and only "Inside the Rhapsody" played well, for some reason. The other tracks on the second DVD all suffered from the "Morse Code" style of playing. BTW, I have a Dell computer that's about 3 years old with a good DVD player built in, so it's not as if I'm running Windows 3.1 with a self-installed early model DVD. I was put off when I saw the Web site's long list of potential reasons why DVDs don't play well on Interactual, and naturally, none of their solutions listed helped me. I was able to get an e-mail to tech support, who were helpful in solving the problem, at least temporarily. After 10 minutes, the DVD froze midway through one of the tracks and I couldn't even eject it. I had to reboot. Now my original DVD player, Quadrant International Software CineMaster, can plays both DVDs, but only when Interactual is running in the background. So if you have troubles with DVD #2, go directly to technical support and hopefully you can avoid spending an entire afternoon installing software and drivers and rebooting after each one. The hidden video is nothing more than a slightly different edit of the original Bo Rhap promo video. If you aren't able to locate it, put in DVD #2 and go to Title 10, chapter 1. You can get to this by right clicking on your DVD player screen and looking for "Chapter/Title Search" or by using your remote, if you have a stand-alone DVD player. I also noticed that by using the above method with DVD #1, you can find short intros for each video with a graphic and sound clips, which are isolated bits from each song's mix, ranging from Freddie shouting solo "Hey hey hey" for the "Don't Stop Me Now" video to Brian holding a single quiet guitar note (before hitting the first power chord) on "We Will Rock You." All in all, a necessity for Queen fans. Let's just hope that by the time Volume 2 is released, we'll have something that we can pop in and watch without much ado about downloading, selecting default viewers and contacting overseas technical support.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent - Where's the Bonus Video??
Review: First off, let me say that this is a superb quality DVD of videos. Positives: sound quality is top notch even in PCM stereo - I have 5.1 but do not have DTS, so couldn't get it in 5.1. Picture quality on most videos are the best I've seen...full of color and not cut at both ends like the USA Queen Greatest Hits Video collection. Even better, a newly produced Bicycle Race video is shown with the "nude bicyle race" footage restored in all it's uncensored glory.
The Rhapsody documentary is very interesting...kind of like a separate program. The main negative: Having trouble finding this hidden bonus video. I've heard the ways to get at it but still can't find it! Please help! The only other negative - which really doesn't bother me that much is the fact that this set is presented in 16.1 or Letterbox format. Because of appearing in this format... the top of the picture is cut off thus losing some of the footage. This is really evident in the Bohemian Rhapsody video. But it's not THAT annoying to me that I refuse to watch it. Bottom Line: For what's on the market, this is the most comprehensive, best quality collection of Queen videos. If you're into their videos or are a fan, GET IT!!
Rating:
Summary: Watch out - the image has been butchered
Review: For some reason, they decided to reframe all videos to widescreen - thus cutting away top and bottom of the image - not realising that widescreen TVs and discs were created to maintain the ORIGINAL frame ratio of movies.
I thought it would not matter in a music release, but it is quite noticeable, and damages what would otherwise be a perfect DVD.
I will NOT buy the second disc if they do the same.
Rating:
Summary: I would buy it anyway
Review: Having been a big fan of Queen since 1974 and having seen them perform live several times before they gave up on the US market, there was no way I was going to turn this down. I greatly appreciate seeing some of the videos on this DVD for the first time, since they weren't widely shown in the US. Unfortunately, I wish the quality were better. I realize that these videos were mostly done in the '70s and I don't expect miracles. I would hope that the stereo sound could be better, especially since I actually lose some of sound on the DVD on "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Somebody to Love". Also, a few of the videos look like bad lip-sync(which they may very well have been.). That being said, I would still buy this DVD again, and am anxiously awaiting #2.
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