Finishing up with the first article.
One poster in this thread claimed that the FFVII DVD was only for the first 500 buyers of the Vision Connect but this has not been confirmed elsewhere and is so far only a rumor.
Comma after "Connect."
On June 9th 2011 the item appeared on eBay with the price tag of $1,499.95, by seller qualitydisc. Bidding was closed and opened multiple times in a short period, until it finally closed later that summer. The item article still remained though and when Qhimm forum member SpooX stumbled upon it in early January 2012 he made a thread about it on Qhimm.
Comma after "9th," and one on both sides of "though." Another after "2012."
I was linked to the topic and was overwhelmed by both the very existence of this collectible and its steep price. It took a week of pondering before I made the decision to contact qualitydisc and place a bet on this item which was in fact not officially listed. I paid full price and got the DVD in my hands on February 9th.
Commas after "topic" and "item," and on either side of "in fact."
At the end of the DVD special thanks is extended to DigiCube, AFRICA COMPANY and Square. DigiCube was at the time Square’s marketer and distributor for the company’s video games and game-related merchandise so their presence here is no surprise. I have not managed to find any solid info about this “AFRICA COMPANY”.
Commas after "DVD," "was," "time" and "merchandise." I would also recommend specifying that DigiCube was a Square-owned subsidiary that served as their marketing/merchandising side until the merger with Enix.
Modern DVDs usually have a storage capacity of 4.7GB or higher, but the FFVII DVD shows its age by having a 2GB storage limitation which it fills completely. It cointains about 15-17 complete FMVs (depending on how you count) plus a dozen smaller excerpts. This is only a moderate selection compared to the total of 98 FMVs found among the three discs of the PlayStation game.
Commas after "limitation" and the closing parentheses. "Cointains" contains (
) a typo with an extra "i."
The standard DVD resolution is 720×480 but the FMVs have not been fully forced to adapt to this resolution. There is a heavy use of black borders to fill out the space that the FMVs do not. In all but two cases, you would get an image size of 640×448 if you cut the black borders. Note that the PSX FMVs played at a resolution of 320×224 which which makes them “half” the quality of border-less DVD FMVs.
Commas after "480" and "224." Typo with "which" in there twice. Consider recasting the last sentence as " ... quality of DVD FMVs without borders." The hyphenated construction here is not technically incorrect, but would probably be avoided in news writing if possible.
The FFVII opening FMV and the PerfecTV feature are the two videos where the black borders are much smaller. A snapshot from the opening video but with no black walls would be roughly 717×456 image. With no video segments being cut off it makes you wonder why black borders were used so heavily for the other videos.
The second sentence seems to be missing an "a" before "roughly." Comma after "off."
The saturation appears to have been slightly increased but the most apparent change, aside from sheer quality, is that the DVD shifts the color tone strongly towards green.
Comma after "increased."
Adding more green creates differents effects for every color such as in the GELNICA sequence where we see increases in yellow.
Commas after "color" and "sequence." Typo with "s" in "differents."
-The PSX FMVs suffers from ghosting as a result of poor video practices. Each frame will have the ghost of its previous frame no matter what.
"Suffer" instead of "suffers." Comma after "frame."
This issue does not exist with the DVD clips and though the ghosting is an issue that would go unnoticed to most people playing the game this improvement is most welcome.
Commas after "clips" and "game."
In summary there have been improvements in picture quality but odd choices were made such as overusing black walls and adding more green to every clip. For perfectionists who wish to make an FFVII mod with high quality CG scenes this DVD is unlikely to have anything to offer.
Commas after "summary," "quality," "made" and "scenes."
Upon inserting the DVD we are treated to the Toshiba and Squaresoft logos. The opening FMV sequence of FFVII follows, coupled with the opening music theme, with only one second of the “star sweep” sequence left in. For some reason Aerith’s footsteps are muted but all other sound effects are preserved. The posters and writings on the wall are much clearer and previously indiscernable text is now readable. When the camera zooms back and the FFVII logo appeared it is then followed by the subtitle, “Original DVD High Quality CG Collection”. When we zoom in on the train station the scene fades out in white before the train makes a full stop. After this we are finally treated to the menus.
This is an overly large, somewhat clunky paragraph. I recommend breaking it up into a bullet list, probably after the second sentence.
That second sentence also reads as a bit of a breathless mouthful. Either begin a third sentence after "theme" or add an "and" before "with." The former seems the better route to me.
When you get to the list, preface it with a line such as "Other differences:" or something to that effect. Decide what sounds good to you.
Other comments:
-Typos: "indiscernable" needs to have its "a" replaced with an "i"; "appears" instead of "appeared"
-Commas after "DVD," reason," "muted," "clearer," "appears," "station" and "this"
The menus do not loop, so after sixty seconds in the main menu it will begin playing “CG MOVIE”.
Commas after "so" and "main menu." Alternately, you could recast the sentence as "The menus do not loop, so it will begin playing 'CG MOVIE' after sixty seconds in the main menu."
A 4 min 41 second feature with a number of FMVs randomly edited together. The music track “Bombing Mission” first plays in the background and is then followed by the “One-Winged Angel” theme.
Add a dot after "min," or expand the word to "minute." Since you're using it like an adjective, hyphenate the length of time -- i.e. "4-minute-41-second feature. Comma after "background." Put "plays" before "first."
Only in a few cases are FMVs played in their entirety and these are sequences that can be viewed in the CG CLIP section anyway. 2 min 8 sec, less than half of the entire montage, are devoted to special footage that is not seen elsewhere on the DVD.
Give "min" the same dot or expanded treatment you did before -- but make it "minutes" here if you do the expansion. Commas after "entirety" and "min."/"minutes". For clarity and aesthetics' sake, I would make the punctuation on either side of "less than half of the entire montage" be dashes.
Junon Doctor’s office ...
I'm assuming "Doctor's" being capitalized is a typo.
Rufus in his office while the energy projectiles from Diamond Weapon flies by.
"Fly" instead of "flies."
NRCRL is one of the closest to being a complete FMV but lacks just above half a second of its intro.
Comma after "FMV."
HWINDJET is also close to being complete but four seconds at the end are missing.
Comma after "complete."
After the montage is over the DVD immediately jumps to the next chapter.
Comma after "over."
A date is also included but the DVD doesn’t state what it represents. Perhaps this states when the FMV file was last tampered with?
Comma after "included."
Just like in the montage the native audio of the sequences have been muted and instead excerpts from the game’s soundtrack are played
Comma after "montage." "Instead" relocated to end of sentence.
Like the table above mentions there are differences to be spotted between the FMVs of the final game and those in the DVD.
Comma after "mentions."
While these FMVs are a joy for the eye to watch an eyebrow is raised at the sudden appearance of gameplay recordings with boogsar and weapon1~5 at the end. Not only are the FMVs directly recorded from a game session but the intermediate non-FMV sequences are also shown. This means that there is in fact no increase in quality whatsoever and it boggles the mind why this made it into the DVD’s production as all it does is fill space.
Commas after "watch," "session," "is," "fact" and "production." Last sentence is a run-on and should be separated into two sentence, with "and" becoming a period.
Even the final title card is lying: What we get to see is a brief look at weapon0 (again!) then weapon2 & weapon3.
Comma after the closing parentheses.
After the gameplay recording of Sapphire Weapon crashing into Junon ends the DVD jumps directly to its next segment.
Comma after "ends."
This tv spot was aired on the PerfecTV! channel in Japan, January 24th 1997. The roster of FFVII staff interviewed are: - Hironobu Sakaguchi: Producer. - Yoshinori Kitase: Director. - Kazushige Nojima: Planner. - Ken Narita: Programmer. - Kazuyuki Hashimoto: CG Supervisor. - Nobuo Uematsu: Music Composer.
Capitalize "TV," place a comma after "24th" (replace the comma after "Japan" with "on" if you're concerned about clustering commas here), and drop the periods from after the staff members' names.
While this Making of FFVII feature is a great addition to the DVD it is only just below five minutes long which dwarfs it in comparison to the almost twelve minutes of interview material in the Squaresoft Collector’s Video VHS which indeed covers more ground. Fortunately the DVD version has camera shots of the staff and pre-release footage that the VHS tape does not have and vice versa. This appears to tell us that the DVD supplies us with only a fraction of what was aired on PerfecTV! and that somewhere out there is a “Master Version” of these filmed interviews.
The first sentence is far too long; consider placing a period somewhere or recasting the sentence. I recommend, "While this Making of FFVII feature is a great addition to the DVD, it is only just below five minutes long. It is, therefore, dwarfed by the almost twelve minutes of interview material ...." Commas after "DVD," "long" (if you don't go with the sentence break I recommended), "which," "Fortunately," "have" and "PerfecTV!."
The FFVII Original DVD High Quality CG Collection succeeds in showcasing the DVD format’s power and it is pure eye candy for anyone who wants to explore FFVII’s CG environments to find details that were previously indistinguishable. To someone like me who both likes to collect and analyse I gain a lot from this DVD since I am able to make commentaries on the making of the FMVs and the various aberrations with the final game. The enjoyability is also greatly increased with the PerfecTV! clip which truly seals the deal for me.
Commas after "power," me," "analyse," "DVD" and "clip."
The DVD fails with its waste of disc space though. The desperate use of in-game recordings and the repeated footage between the montage and the titled FMVs prevents this collectible from truly achieving greatness. But then again the DVD was not made as an effort to archive the game’s sequences but as a prompt for people to purchase the Vision Connect when Japan was in the middle of its FFVII fever. The interview feature, while technically it can be considered a “waste” of space as well, was probably added as another way to draw the PC enthusiast to the PlayStation console and its new Final Fantasy title.
Commas after "space," "again" and "sequences." The last sentence should be recast as something like "While the interview feature could be considered a 'waste' of space as well, it was probably added as another way ...."
The green shift was unnecessary and so was the presence of the huge black walls.
Comma after "unnecessary."
I will not sell the DVD for any price nor will I share the original files. It is my hope that with this review the FFVII High Quality CG Collection will become part of the common knowledge of the FFVII fan community and that more collectors will be able to get their hands on it.
Commas after "price," "review" and "community."
If you’ve read this far into the review then congratulations! Your reward is to experience the DVD’s main features directly. You can watch the all the clips in succession in this YouTube playlist with the option to watch each clip in HD if you like.
Commas after "review" and "playlist."
). That should give us some traffic. I feel better with this promotion the more clean and complete the articles are.
we can only roughly estimate the price at which the DVD should be sold at.
