Skinny Puppy, "Ain't it Dead Yet?" & "Video Collection" DVDs
I struggled for a non-hostile way to start this review, but I eventually
caved in:
In software circles, the term "Shovelware" refers to a piece of media (usually CD-ROM) that is full of whatever free software the publisher could find to fill up a disc. Nettwerk definately drew inspiration from this concept when releasing these piles of trash.
First a history lesson: When Nettwerk/Capitol released "Last Rights" in the US, there was a pressing error causing the entire disc to be shifted 39 seconds... Well, masters of ineptitude, Nettwerk has managed to do it again with their DVD release of "Ain't it Dead Yet?", completely skipping the entire intro and starting the video well into the song "Anger"... Nettwerk has admitted the error and recalled the defective discs. In addition, the cover art for the disc is stolen directly from the video, INCLUDING an error ("God's Gift Maggot" is REALLY "One Time, One Place", funny that they remembered to fix it when they reissued the CD...)... Beyond these clear examples of quality control mastery, this disc is as bare-bones as they come... Nettwerk literally pressed play on their VCR, and record on their DVD Mastering software, and added a menu screen. The video quality is less than superb, with definate compression artifacts and no attention to cleaning up the masters at all. The audio is two channel, and I am not even sure if it is up to par with the CD release of this show... Very disappointing.
The Video Collection disc is just that, 8 SP videos, shoveled onto a disc with a single menu as the "Special Feature". Again, this DVD is identical to the VHS release of the same name. Both the DVD and VHS are missing the video for "Worlock", but that is probably due to the fact that the video was almost entirely comprised of clips from various horror movies, and Nettwerk couldn't afford/didn't feel like expending the effort to acquire the rights. It also would have been nice for them to get the videos from "The Process", that aren't that difficult to get ahold of, but would have definately rounded out the disc. The video quality isn't too bad considering the age of some of these videos, and the sound is stereo, but a decent stereo...
Christ, even shoveling some video of their performance at Doomsday last year would have been throwing a bone to their consumers. But Nettwerk has again shown that they really don't care about their consumers or their artists... If you own the VHS versions of these two videos, don't waste your money on the DVDs unless you want to eliminate the scourge of VHS from your collection...
In software circles, the term "Shovelware" refers to a piece of media (usually CD-ROM) that is full of whatever free software the publisher could find to fill up a disc. Nettwerk definately drew inspiration from this concept when releasing these piles of trash.
First a history lesson: When Nettwerk/Capitol released "Last Rights" in the US, there was a pressing error causing the entire disc to be shifted 39 seconds... Well, masters of ineptitude, Nettwerk has managed to do it again with their DVD release of "Ain't it Dead Yet?", completely skipping the entire intro and starting the video well into the song "Anger"... Nettwerk has admitted the error and recalled the defective discs. In addition, the cover art for the disc is stolen directly from the video, INCLUDING an error ("God's Gift Maggot" is REALLY "One Time, One Place", funny that they remembered to fix it when they reissued the CD...)... Beyond these clear examples of quality control mastery, this disc is as bare-bones as they come... Nettwerk literally pressed play on their VCR, and record on their DVD Mastering software, and added a menu screen. The video quality is less than superb, with definate compression artifacts and no attention to cleaning up the masters at all. The audio is two channel, and I am not even sure if it is up to par with the CD release of this show... Very disappointing.
The Video Collection disc is just that, 8 SP videos, shoveled onto a disc with a single menu as the "Special Feature". Again, this DVD is identical to the VHS release of the same name. Both the DVD and VHS are missing the video for "Worlock", but that is probably due to the fact that the video was almost entirely comprised of clips from various horror movies, and Nettwerk couldn't afford/didn't feel like expending the effort to acquire the rights. It also would have been nice for them to get the videos from "The Process", that aren't that difficult to get ahold of, but would have definately rounded out the disc. The video quality isn't too bad considering the age of some of these videos, and the sound is stereo, but a decent stereo...
Christ, even shoveling some video of their performance at Doomsday last year would have been throwing a bone to their consumers. But Nettwerk has again shown that they really don't care about their consumers or their artists... If you own the VHS versions of these two videos, don't waste your money on the DVDs unless you want to eliminate the scourge of VHS from your collection...
