Review of Feels Like Flying A Video Journey

Introduction

This sounded like an interesting idea to me. The chance to experience the great views that can be seen when flying low around the countryside. Most of us are usually cruising at 30,000 feet on the way to some holiday destination, often flying across dull and drab cities, or flying around in the middle of the night when there`s not much to see.

So how about the chance to get a bird`s eye view of some countryside, thanks to some nice friendly pilots who get to do this thing all the time. Sounds like it might be a nice viewing experience.

Video

Ok, here`s the first negative. A full frame NTSC transfer and it`s a bit of a mess. As you can see from the screenshots, they haven`t used the greatest cameras in the world, the colour balance looks rather wishy washy, and things just have that over-exposed, too much light on the lens look. What could have been a stunning visual experience is just a bit rubbish.

The countryside that`s being flown over is not that great either. There are a few nice bits but also some rather dull empty fields.

Audio

No sound effects, no speech, no DTS, this is just a 2 channel stereo music track, with a very cheesey, no copyright fee sound to it. It sounds fine technically, although the music is horrid and that`s all there is to say about it !

Features

Nothing, nada, zip.

Conclusion

So what is the point of this disc? It is another attempt at creating the DVD equivalent of the Landscape channel. For those of you that don`t remember this remarkably dull satellite and cable channel, it consisted of nice pictures of waterfalls, streams, mountains, lambs bouncing through fields etc. etc. all set to various classical pieces. It wasn`t really exciting, and soon went down the pan.

This DVD is supposed to showcase lovely countryside and the feeling of flying over it, and in a few places it does, but the poor image quality lets it down. But there`s no commentary, just music. So you can`t work out what bit of nice countryside you`re looking at, particularly given that this is America, and most of us aren`t that familiar with its landscape!

There really is no point in purchasing this disc at all. Buy a book of postcards and a CD of royalty free music instead - the effect will be much the same. It`s a shame, as it could have been great, but in the end it wasn`t. It didn`t feel like flying, and for the price of the DVD you could get a flight on a budget airline and have the real thing!