Short review:
Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony DVD
Released by Solar Multimedia Corporation (which owns the TV rights as well). This is released on DVD9! Most of Solar's previous releases were DVD5s, so I was surprised it's on dual-layer media. Content is 7.7 gigabytes and around 4 hours 20 minutes of video.
The DVD is of the opening ceremony from the start until just after the fireworks that follows the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. Video quality is just above VCD quality, which means it's not good. On my 32" screen, the crowds is a blurry mess. Details on the costumes and items are lacking and blurred. You can still enjoy the show as it's still TV-quality but of course, DVD-enthusiast like most-of-us demands more. It's fullscreen. The whole show is probably the live-feed recorded by Solar Multimedia then put on DVD. No onscreen commercial nor commercial interruptions.
Sound as stated is 2 channel but feels like mono. Again TV-quality. No subtitles.
Another downer is that it doesn't have chapter selection, so you can't skip to say, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron on ordinary DVD players.
So is it worth the asking price of 450 pesos? Maybe, maybe not. The show is indeed spectacular and you can still enjoy the show, so to speak, but people who watch DVD are a pickle bunch, and we pay the premium because we wanted to see more of the details. And in that respect, the video quality fails.
Still, this is the only legal way to rewatch (or watch, if you miss it the first time) the Opening Ceremony, so whether it's worth paying for is up to you...
For me, I might spring for the MSNBC (Opening/Closing plus highlights of US athletes, I suppose) one but it's pretty expensive (@$40 yata) and September 15 pa release...
