Everyone
on the internet claims to have "great fights", but do they?
Check the comments from customers
on theSurvey Results page on this website, and you'll see the
answer.
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-------------------- boxingvideoclassics.com's video quality ratings
--------------------
Everyfight on this site has a video quality
rating. Taking those ratings into consideration when selecting
your fights will allow you to order fights that are exceptionally nice
video, dating back as far as you want to go.
Our video quality ratings
are based on what each fight looks like compared to an original
broadcast live on TV. If the broadcast was excellent, your copy
will be excellent. If the broadcast was mediocre, then the copy
will be too. Fortunately most TV broadcasts were nice video.
VG: "very good video" Our highest
rating. Other websites may have some fights that fit this
category, but 90% or more of ours do. This rating means the fight
looks like the live broadcast it was recorded from. A fight can
only look like the broadcast it was recorded from if it was recorded in
the SP mode. Most other collections are made of of mostly EP mode
recordings. 90% of our fights are SP mode recordings, and that
makes a big difference in what your fights will look like when you order
here. G: "good video" Fights rated G are just
that: Good. Fights with this rating are generally good
quality fights that we got from other people. These fights are
equal to the best that most other websites have, because most of them
are selling fights they traded for. If you order fights with
a G rating on this site, you will never be disappointed.
In my opinion, only fights
rated VG or G are candidates for dvd recording. It's up to you to
pay attention to the ratings on each fight; I can't do it for you.
FG: "fairly good
video" Older hard to find fights may not be available in VG or G
video, but may be well worth having at this level of quality. And
of course, there are the fights that people have sent me without telling
me the quality wasn't very good. There may be problems with
brightness or contrast, the images may not be sharp, there may be minor
tracking lines at the top or bottom of the screen, or other
issues.
F: "fair video" Unless there just
isn't a better copy on the planet, don't order it. This is
the kind of video quality that made me stop trading. Buying it
would be even worse. I only keep these on my list to remind me
that I have them, but that I need to get an upgraded copy.
P: "poor video" I only have
these fights on my list to remind me of the jerks that sent them to
me. Some people have no sense of right and wrong. Fights like
these can infect your collection and turn all your other tapes into a
stinking pile of refuse. Wear gloves when handling.
Decontaminate your equipment after attempting to view. Get
psychiatric counseling if you order one.
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comments about video quality in general --------------------
It makes sense to mention a couple of
things that most people don't think about.
The size TV screen that you view fights on makes a big difference as to
how the fights appear in terms of video quality. For instance,
almost any fight, even relatively crappy ones look pretty good on 19"
screens and smaller. By compressing the video into a smaller
screen size, many of the flaws are not as easily seen. This may
help to explain why some people who sell fights on the internet think
they have nice fights, when in reality, their fights may have many
problems or flaws that they cannot see on their small TV sets.
Even 27" screens are somewhat "forgiving", in that they also tend to
deemphasize minor flaws in video quality, such as the "smear factor"
commonly present in copies of EP-recorded video. Many of the early
fights on this site were rated when I had a 27" screen, and looked very
nice on that size screen, but might need a lesser rating when viewed on
a large screen TV, such as 35" or larger. We moved from a
27" TV to a 35" TV in 1996, so all of our ratings since that time have
been much more critical, as we see every detail and every flaw on the
high resolution 35" Toshiba TV.
So, when taking ratings into consideration on this website and any
other site, keep in mind that TV screen size, both yours, and the size
screen the person had when rating their fights, plays a large role in
how those fights are perceived.
Finally, fights recorded on a stand-alone dvd recorder will not
necessarily display well on a computer screen. If you are watching
your fights on your computer, and you are thinking "these fights are
pixillated or have other flaws", take them out of your dvd drive and
watch them on TV, as they were intended to be watched. They'll
look like they should. Very few people use the slow, plodding,
computer recording method to copy their fights onto dvds. We
don't. We would be so far behind in filling orders that we would
be out of business soon if we did that.
