CTV Olympics DVD box set review

[rvi5]

CTV OLYMPICS DVD BOX SET REVIEW

I just received my CTV Olympics DVD box set. It contains a hardcover book, and a box set of 5 DVDs. Although I ordered the BlueRay version, it does come in standard DVD format.

Clearly CTV is targeting Canadian audiences with this product. But what do you expect, it is a Canadian television company. Other countries will need to produce their own biased product . Unless the athlete(s) made it onto the podium or are Canadian, they only receive brief mention and excerpts of their performance if they are note worthy.

Disc 1:

Content unknown, it freezes on startup. I'll need to complain about this.

Disc 2:

Hockey... Contains highlight excerpts from various men's and women's key games leading up to the finals. The full mens and womens final games between Canada and the U.S.A. are included.

Disc 3:

Curling: Contains highlight excerpts for the round robin and semi-final games leading up to the finals. The full men's and women's final curling games are included.

Ladies singles figure skating: Includes the full free skates of podium medalists. Other top skaters (including Cynthia Phaneuf) get brief mention and skating excerpts. Only Joannie's and Cynthia's full short program are included.

Mens singles figure skating: Includes the full free skates of podium medalists, Patrick Chan, and Vaughn Chipeur. Other top skaters get brief mention and skating excerpts. No short programs included.

Pairs figure skating: Includes the full free skates of podium medalists, Dube/Davison, and Langlois/Hay. Other top skaters get brief mention and skating excerpts. No short programs included.

Ice Dance figure skating: Includes the full free skates of podium medalists. Other top skaters (including Crone/Poirier) get brief mention and skating excerpts. Only Virtue/Moir's and Crone/Poirier's full original dance are included.

Figure skating Gala: Excerpts from the various skating is included. Only Joannie's and Virtue/Moir's skating are included in full. None of the non-athlete performances are included or mentioned.


Reviews of the book, discs 4 & 5, and disk 1 (hopefully) to follow later once I have had time to examine them.

[walei]

I read that the opening and closing ceremonies on disc 1 were severly chopped up! They crammed the entire opening ceremony into 1 hour and people are not happy about it. I was going to get the box set but not anymore because they butchered the ceremonies...

[rvi5]

Apparently disc 1 did not freeze. It was just poorly designed. After booting, you select English or French. Once selected, the screen goes black except for the two language options. Eventually a portion of the titles for each menu option appears overlapping a background cartoonish video. I don't think it was intended to work that way, it looks wrong. After the video has completed, the remainder of the menu titles appear normally.

I read that the opening and closing ceremonies on disc 1 were severly chopped up!

Yes, very disappointing. I just quickly browsed the contents, but from what little I saw, I noticed things missing. eg...

-In the opening ceremony, they blazed through the athletes march into the stadium. Each country had about 5 seconds, basically just announcing the countries names before moving onto the next.
-In the closing ceremony much of the speeches were chopped (OK, I can live with that ). The passing of the Olympic flag to Russia, and the Russian performances are gone. Likewise, the part where the 1000 grade 9 students ran into the stadium with their snow boards, was completely removed. Catherine O'Hara must be upset. Her entire performance was reduced to her announcing she is Canadian, and thanking the athletes for being guests in Canada. All the various band performances etc. are also gone, including Avril and Alanis Morissette.

I will need to watch the opening and closing ceremonies in their entirety to determine exactlly how much is still sitting on the cutting room floor.

[Skate Talker]

Thank you for the review(s). Very informative.

[JumpinBug]

I've actually already written to CTV and the Olympic Store regarding the set, and would encourage others to do the same. The coverage of the ceremonies is definitely not as advertised, and is simply pitiful. Considering the full coverage is available, and already made into broadcasts (OBS, try watching online), there's no reason why they couldn't have included the full version, other than disc space.

[rvi5]

...The coverage of the ceremonies is definitely not as advertised, and is simply pitiful...

Yes, their web site states...

Opening and Closing Ceremonies in long-form feature entertainment and the lighting of Vancouver 2010 Olympic Cauldron.

...how do they define "long-form"?

Disc 1 contains a 1 hour overview of the games (from a Canadian point of view), the opening and closing ceremony, as well as the Nordic sports ie. cross country, ski jumping, and biathlon. Although a standard DVD may be limited in space, the BlueRay disc should have more available space to hold the full opening & closing ceremony. Also, why not just put the Nordic sports onto a 6th DVD and include both full ceremonies on disc 1? How much can an extra disc cost compared to what they are charging for the box set. Although the opening ceremony was cut down to 1 hour, it was the closing ceremony that received the worst hatchet job. It was cut down to 30 minutes, little more than a summary of the closing ceremony.

[Skate Talker]

...how do they define "long-form"?

Any way they want to

Seriously, that is just a made-up adjective that hasn't even a common usage definition afaik.

[rvi5]

Just watched the mens and womens hockey. slight correction required. Although the mens final game against the USA was included in full, the womens final game against the USA had the first half of the 3rd period cut.

DISK 4

Skeleton
men's skeleton
women's skeleton

Bobsleigh
women's bobsleigh
men's 2 man
men's 4 man

Luge
men's double
women's double

Alpine Skiing
men's alpine - downhill, super combined, super-G, giant slalom, slalom
women's alpine - downhill, super combined, super-G, giant slalom, slalom

DISK 5

Short Track Speed Skating
men's & ladies 500m
men's 5000m relay
ladie's 3000m relay
ladie's 1000m
ladies 1500m
men's 1000m
men's 1500m


Freestyle Skiing
men's moguls
ladie's moguls
ladie's ski cross
men's ski cross
ladie's aerials
men's aerials

Snowboard
ladie's snowboard cross
men's snowboard cross
men's parallel giant slalomn
ladie's parallel giant slalom
men's halfpipe
ladie's halfpipe

Long Track Speed Skating
Ladie's long track 500m, 1000m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m
Men's team pursuit
Ladie's team pursuit
Men's long track 500m, 1000m, 1500m, 5000m, 10000m

As with other Olympic events, the performance of the podium medallists are included, plus Canadians whether they medalled or not.


Overall, the competitions were adequately illustrated from a Canadian point of view. Where CTV dropped the ball with the box set, is as previously discussed ie. the opening and closing ceremony.

Review of the book to follow tomorrow...

[Bailey_]

I simply can't believe that they did not include Yu Na Kim's short program.

Their coverage during the actual event was so wonderful, I guess I was just expecting... more...

[AragornElessar]

And friends of ours wonder why I try to tape everything when there's going to be a DVD box set coming out.

Thanks for the heads up about it!!

[rvi5]

THE OLYMPIC BOOK

Ok, I am a little late



The 2010 Olympic DVD box set initially came with limited quantity release books about the Olympics. I don't think they are shipping the books now, since I do not see it mentioned on the CTVOlympics web site.

The book measures 12" square, and contains 95 pages. Of course the colour is, what else, Red & White . The cover contains the Olympic rings on the front, and the title "The Olympic Games" printed on the back.

According to the cover jacket, the first edition book was released in time for the start of the Beijing Olympics. I assume it must have been focused on the Summer Olympics. This book is focused on the Winter Olympics.

All written dialog throughout the book is presented in both English and French. The book starts with a 9 page introduction to the Olympics, and the Olympic spirit. The remainder of the book is mainly a pictorial with one or two paragraph captions. Sports discussed include Speed Skating, Hockey, Figure Skating, various Skiing events including Cross Country, Curling, Snowboarding, and Biathlon. The photographs consists of a mixture of modern and historical images obtained from the IOC archives. Twenty-two of the total 78 photos are figure skating related. Skater(s) mentioned and depicted in photograph include Oksana Baiul, Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, Sonja Henie, Barbara Ann Scott, Evgeni Plushenko, Magda Julin, Katarina Witt, Elizabeth Manley, Brian Boitano, Brian Orser, Tenley Albright, Jayne Torvill/Christopher Dean, Jamie Sale/David Pelletier.

It was mentioned in one caption, an un-named figure skater received a warning because her routine was "unlady-like". Apparently her skirt flew up above her knees. I guess figure skaters in the old days did not perform many jumps/spins .

[rvi5]

For the record, some final review adjustments...

It appears the performances of Joannie and Virtue/Moir during the Gala were not the full skate. Although CTV did a good job of blending the music into a continuous audio, on further examination the routines are too short.

In curling, the first "blank" Ends for the men's and women's final games were cut. The final game Ends which were included on the DVD, had been accelerated by removing any idle planning/discussions of the players between throwing rocks.

Canada's Skeleton gold medallist Jon Montgomery's beer drinking walk through Whistler (and interview) are included on the DVD.

It is interesting why there had been complaints about the 18+ year old Canadian women's hockey player drinking an after game celebration beer, when nobody mentioned Jon Montgomery illegally drinking beer in public with two cops walking nearby. Montgomery may have won a gold medal, but so did Marie-Philip Poulin who actually scored both of Team Canada's goals in the final game.

[overedge]

It is interesting why there had been complaints about the 18+ year old Canadian women's hockey player drinking an after game celebration beer, when nobody mentioned Jon Montgomery illegally drinking beer in public with two cops walking nearby. Montgomery may have won a gold medal, but so did Marie-Philip Poulin who actually scored both of Team Canada's goals in the final game.

Jon Montgomery's beer didn't have a label on it