Post your RAW 2 and Coaster Expedition 11 Thoughts!

[televisedconfession]

Ok, Well, this is late, and I didn't read all of the other reviews, so I hope I'm not repeating anything, but wanted to share my opinions:

 

1)These DVD's really help to bring a sense of community to TPR. I've never been a fan of forums. The last forum I was active in, was a Garbage Forum, and all it was, were people trying to compete to be the biggest Garbage/Shirley Manson fan. And even a few other Coaster Forums have that same problem of who has the most coaster knowledge. But what separates TPR from everything else is this sense of community. We all respect each other, and we're all in it for the love of the ride. It shows in these DVD's. It captures pure fun, coaster thrills, and sexy rides.

 

2)Roller Coasters in the Raw I & II are my all time favorite Movie/DVD coaster videos simply because of the lack of music. Now, as much as I don't want to come off as a music snob, but I am. I don't think I can take much more Blink 182 as I watch a coaster DVD (Sorry, Tyler). When I'm on a coaster, I love the sound of the wind, the clank of the wood, the roar of the steel. Though, using a camera, sometimes all you hear is the wind, it still is a lot better than sitting through a song that I loath. Now if you came out with a coaster series called Roller Coasters in the Garbage! and showed nothing but coaster footage and Garbage songs, I'd be a happy man. But nobody, but me, wants to hear that, so that's why these series are amazing. It's something everyone can agree on.

 

That's it. Those are my opinions. If you ever had any doubt about buying one of these films, forget them. You'll get addicted. Not only will you get addicted to the DVD Series, but to the sense of community that TPR brings. It's a site full of people brought together for the same reason, and it shows in the videos, and it shows in the site.

 

My grading over all is a 94% as there is always room for improvement, but it's pretty darn close. Awesome job Robb, keep them coming!

[Kevin Long]

I hope this doesn't' come as cop out, But what more can truly be said.

 

I took the 10 minutes to read all of these posts and reviews carefully and I must say anything I could add would be redundant. There are a few comments and opinions that I may not agree with but the comments on the actual footage and how it was and is shot are completely accurate. If you are a fan of coasters and can't travel the world to ride them, you can do no better than to purchase any of these DVD's. Shot by fans - for fans - and you can really tell. The "expedition" series is like traveling with friends, and the "raw" series is like riding with friends. Best of both. I can certify that you will not be disappointed with any of these Disc's.

 

Note: The post office manhandled my disks at some point and cracked one disk holder in each of my cases, but no real damage was done, everything played fine. I know they weren't shipped that way, but IF you are tracking potential damage problems here is my two cents.

(I transferred the case cover and disks to another coaster vid box from another company and turned their vids into cup coasters - a fitting end for them)

 

great product buy it - worth every penny.

 

sincerely

Kevin Long

Old guy

[coasterbear30]

Hey there. I recently purchased some coaster videos as I had to since my place got broken into and all my previous TPR videos got stolen! I bought Coasters in the Raw 2, Expedition 10 (midwest), America's Theme Parks and re-bought Coasters in the Raw 1.

 

I thought Coasters in the Raw 2 was really freaking good. Almost all of the steel coasters were things I wanted to see and although I could have done without some of the woodies, they were still good too. This is a video to have and I think that this one was better than Raw 1. Go buy it now!

 

Expedition 10 was one that I also enjoyed, but am coming to the same view as some other people that have posted here. If I hear one more Britney or dance song I am gonna kill myself. I love the off coaster footage, the antics and everything else but sometimes the music is just too much. There is always the mute button!

 

As far as America's theme parks DVD, to be honest, I wasn't impressed. It was ok but I wouldn't buy it again.

 

I used to have Expeditions 1-7 (before they got stolen) and have always enjoyed TPR videos. Thanks Robb for making these videos for us to enjoy in the off season.

[ElToroGirl84]

I got Coasters in the RAW vol 1&2 and Coaster Expedition vol 11 for my birthday along with a t-shirt! Best birthday gift ever!! I took today off and spent most of it watching them, the only one I didn't watch yet was RAW vol 2 but I'm sure it will be awesome. I love that you get multiple shots of the coasters off ride as well as the pov for the raw dvds.

 

CE vol 11 was awesome, and makes me rather upset I passed on the west coast bash this year mainly because I wanted to try and make it to ireland and I couldn't afford to do both. I mainly picked this CE dvd first because I want to visit japan some day and wanted to know what they offered as far as parks go over there and there seems to be alot to choose from! I loved the ride through videos of the japan dark rides.

 

I plan on buying more dvds for myself when I get the funds, I'd love to see more tpr antics!

[HEADCHEEZ]

I loved the RAW series! Even though I tortured my family by playing them in surround sound as loud as possible!

[ghost007jas]

I know I'm a little "late to the party" as it were, but I haven't been "on track" with the coaster scene lately and just bought the steel portion of "RAW 2" for my iPod the other day to get me "back in the groove" and I have to say it was fantastic! The POV's were incredibly life-like, unlike anything I've seen in POV's before.. The Mystery Mine one especially was great - I felt like I was on the ride!

 

Thanks for making these available for iPods, Robb, I don't have a functioning DVD player handy right now (it's killin' me man) and this worked perfectly!

 

Keep up the fantastic work!

[Bubba83]

Hi Robb,

 

I like the new distribution option of $3.99 for an iPod version of the video, but I was thinking it would be cool to go one step further and offer the actual .iso DVD disk image itself for download. This way, us folk with DVD burners could download the .iso and burn it onto our own DVD-R or DVD+Rs and save the shipping costs.

 

-Kevin

[robbalvey]

Hi Robb,

 

I like the new distribution option of $3.99 for an iPod version of the video, but I was thinking it would be cool to go one step further and offer the actual .iso DVD disk image itself for download. This way, us folk with DVD burners could download the .iso and burn it onto our own DVD-R or DVD+Rs and save the shipping costs.

 

-Kevin

Hey Kevin!

 

It's a good idea and I have researched it quite a bit! The iPod files are only about 250 megs each, but an .iso of each disc would be about 4.5 gigs! If you figure that I'm eventually going to have our entire library available for download, well, that's currently 12 volumes of Coaster Expedition and 3 volumes of RAW, each being 2 discs, so if someone wanted to download the whole lot at once that would be 135 gigs worth of data!

 

Unfortunatley the TPR store just does not have that kind of bandwidth power.

 

It would end up costing me WAY more in bandwidth charges than the store would make via the downloads!

 

It's a good idea, just not feasable right now in TPR's life.

 

And $5 for shipping is not terrible. I know a lot more sites that charge more.

 

--Robb

[Bubba83]

That's a good point I hadn't thought of.

 

I guess I am used to just getting torrents of other disc images which utilizes the power of seeders and peers. Can't really use a torrent for the TPR DVDs though because once you do that there's no way to verify payment.

 

Oh well...

 

I guess I'll mail order some more soon then.

[FitchCoaster]

I just bought my first two TPR DVDs two weeks ago, which was Coaster Expedition 11 and the first RAW.

 

I just have to say, that these DVDs exceeded my expectations (and my expectations were pretty high). As everyone else has said before, CE11 really captures the spirit of TPR. It really shows what sets TPR apart from other coaster websites. The friendly, almost family-like atmosphere shines and it's just pure entertainment watching the typical TPR antics in interesting parks. Put quirky people in a quirky country, it's a match made in heaven. The editing was awesome, also. I found myself not only impressed by the content of the DVD, but how it was edited and put together as well. All in all, it gets a big 'A' from me!

 

I got the first RAW DVD because I wanted to get the first one of the series before I got the second one. Reason being I wasn't sure how I was going to like it. I'm not a fan of 'raw' coaster footage, and being a long-time fan of coaster videos with 'TPR antics' in them, I was pretty sure that I was going to enjoy CE11 much more than RAW. I was wrong. I enjoyed it as much, if not a bit more than CE11. The TPR atmosphere was still present throughout the whole DVD, even if all the footage was just of roller coasters. The POVs were flawless and I particularly enjoyed the the 'woodies' DVD. I was thoroughly impressed with this DVD and it also gets an 'A' from me.

 

Awesome job Robb, I can't wait for May 11th for CE12 and RAW 3!

[Phaota]

Like FitchCoaster, I just recently snagged Vol.1, as well as 2, of "Coasters In The Raw! and the first C.E. set. I really, really love the Raw! DVDs and desire more. (Do you use Convert X to DVD for the conversion software? Looks like the layout for it on the menu). With all of the coasters you guys have ridden throughout the years, there ought to be five or more discs by now of just POV footage on them. The C.E. disc is also excellent, though one or two of the songs used were not to my liking due to the repetitive nature of them, but that's just me. Would have liked to hear more 80s songs. You only used one on the second disc, that being "Walking On Sunshine" and a cover of The Buggles "Video Killed The Radio Star" (prefer the original myself). I'm a HUGE 80s music archiver with a collection way of 11,000+ MP3s and continually growing. So, if you desire anything, just let me know.

 

Gotta ask something concerning the C.E. discs. What's up with the avid fanship for that annoying Dance Dance Revolution game? Every segment on the disc had to have at least one shot of you guys dancing on it. Other than that, the editing, timed music and rides were very fun to watch and hear, though more POV is always a must. Thanks for making this series.

[robbalvey]

^ You'll find that over the Coaster Expedition series we kind of "grew out" of Dance Dance Revolution! That series really is like living vicariously through our travels, our habits, our interests, our music tastes, etc, and you'll certainly see things change over the years.

[Phaota]

Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely going to start collecting the rest in the series.

 

On a different, but coaster related subject, I was looking through the pictures from the West Coast Bash 2009 and noticed one that caught my eye since I'm an amateur ghost hunter when time and people allow. Here's the image:

 

Notice the brilliant orb in front of the guy in the green hoddie? If you zoom in on it, there is a female side profile facial detail within it. This isn't common with most ghost orbs, so this is a good image. Would be nice to know who the woman is and if she are connected to the guy in question. There were some other orb shots in the photos taken after the Magic Mountain history show, but most are more than likely dust. The one in the photo above is not and the spirit is directly in front of him too. Very cool shot.