GIANTS DVD

[LARRY LONG]

Has anyone purchased and received the Giants DVD yet?

Larry Long

[MR2Glenn]

I asked Mike A.(he helped w/graphics/driver info) a few days ago. He tried to get in touch w/his contact but hasn't heard anything yet. I will be seeing him tonight to see if there is anything new.

[LARRY LONG]

Thanks!

I sent in my check four weeks ago.

Two phone calls have not been returned.

Hopefully it's just a production problem.

Larry

[MR2Glenn]

Well I asked Mike and still nothing new. We talked about it for a few minutes and the discussion went on a different tangent and forgot about it. I guess that happens after a few drinks.

[LARRY LONG]

I finally got my Giants DVD I ordered.

Good and bad.

Good coverage of cars. Mine is in there three times as are many others.

Very poor video quality. Looks like some one copied it to a VCR tape at the slowest speed. There are pauses and skips way to often.

It's the only video I have of my car in action so I guess it is worth it to me.

Larry Long

[driftonite]

Larry,

You don't mention what version you purchased, but a long DVD is going to have less quality. Anything over about 2 hours starts to degrade because resolution is given up for DVD space. If they don't have a mass DVD copying machine or if they are tied up with other projects it could take a while to produce them.

I am going to call them to see what's up. The cable company and WYLN were pleased with the feedback they got and appear to be interested in doing it again next year.

I'm glad we at least have a DVD compared to other years, but I'll see if they can perhaps put it on more discs. That will take more time and money, but if the quality isn't up to par it may be necessary.

Matt K.

[georgebowland]

I still have not received the DVD, although my check was cashed months ago. Who do I call?
George

[LARRY LONG]

Matt

The DVD is about one hour long. Looks as if nobody cared enough to do a good job on it.

George

My check was cashed the week after Giants. Three phone calls and two e-mails to them were ignored.

I posted the contact information on the forum somewhere.

Larry Long

[LARRY LONG]

George

Look in Hillclimb info under"Giants" for contact phone #.

Good luck.

Larry Long

[LARRY LONG]

I just received another Giants DVD in the mail today.

This one is of much better quality. My numbers now show up correctly as silver instead of orange as on the original DVD.

With the improvement in quality and very good coverage I can now recommend purchasing the disk. Mine is the $25.00 copy.

I think all orders are being filled now .

It would be nice to have a TV in the pits with the live feed if they do it again in 2011.

Larry Long

[Mwilson]

It would be nice to have a TV in the pits with the live feed if they do it again in 2011.

Larry Long

In the pits during the day would be fine. But in the evenings would not be such a good idea!

[Dogpatch]

Hey Guys,
I received my copy over the weekend. The announcers are pretty good but the video absolutely sucks. Its hard to believe something could actually be that bad.

Kurt

[LARRY LONG]

The first DVD copy I got was much worse.

Larry

[Dogpatch]

Larry,

How many copies did you buy?

Kurt

[LARRY LONG]

I only purchased one $25.00 copy but I ordered that the week after Giants. I never got it until I came home after Weatherly.

I had tried to contact them at least four times with no response from them. I think they made a DVD and sent it to me so I would stop contacting them.

Just recently I received a second copy. Still not HD but much better then the first one.

I also find it surprising that a professional outfit would ship something with such poor quality.

It is a shame because the coverage is good.

Larry

[driftonite]

I spoke to their General Manager about the complaints.

They never planned to sell a DVD, they did it as a favor to those who were asking for one. During the event a lot of people (mostly drivers) kept stopping by asking to purchase DVD's, so in response they said they would make one available. In the end, they only got a handful of orders anyway. They really didn't prepare beforehand to produce a copy, luckily they were burning a DVD of the raw footage just to have a record of it. Again, I mentioned before, when you start putting more than a couple hours on a DVD quality goes down.

Because they don't have a large staff and actually had layoffs last year (a good friends daughter was a news reporter and got layed off) they were using a summer intern to produce the DVD's. They really have never been in the business of selling a lot of DVD's so they don't have mass duplication equipment so this kid was making them one at a time. The manager was surprised when I told him about the phone calls not being returned, etc. and realized that the intern was already long gone for the year and never responded to the inquiries.

If anyone still has a problem, please contact this guy. He is a full time employee that can probably help you out:

Bill Waschko
WYLN 35
1057 East 10th Street
Hazleton, PA 18291
billw@gmicable.com
570-459-1869 ext. 1302

Please be kind, they were doing us a favor. The Cable Company and WYLN had very positive feedback. So did we as the board of NEPA SCCA. It sparked a lot of interest in the event as well as SCCA as a whole. That is something that has been lacking over the years. They plan on doing it again next year with perhaps even better preparation. They have small budgets for this, but if anyone has reasonable ideas or comments, please let me know.

[LARRY LONG]

Matt

That explains a lot.

I am going to try to make contact with them and offer to make replacement copies. That is if the original is of any quality.

See how that works out.

Larry