Shoot For the Stars DVD from YA Entertainment

I'll post this review now and add more to it later.

Netflix has this series available to rent, and I decided to add it to my list of movies. I added only the first disk, to check the quality before added the rest of the series. When the disk arrived, I popped it in my disk drive without really looking at it and started watching.

The DVD menus are a bit amateurish, but they're colorful and there's music playing in the background, presumably from the OST. I liked the fact that they have multiple chapters for each episode (3 per disk), rather than each episode being one chapter, like some other TV series DVDs that I've rented/purchased in the past.

As the first episode started, I was rather horrified at the video quality. I understand that the series is older (2002/2003), but ...wow. I would provide a screenshot to show the quality, but about 3 minutes into the first episode, it froze and I eventually realized that Netflix had sent me a cracked DVD, so I packed it up to send back. I should be getting a replacement shortly.

I don't believe Shoot For the Stars was ever fansubbed, but I did manage to find some raw videos and downloaded the first episode of it. I wanted to compare the quality, and the raw was only very slightly worse quality than the DVD, so I'm assuming it was a DVD-rip? The question is, where did YA get their video from? It was pretty pixelated and fuzzy...not at all crisp and clear that you would expect from a DVD. Again, I understand that this is an older series, but it's not any older than 2000, and I have some TV DVD sets from 1999 that are 100% better quality (Angel!!).

The video format is 4:3, I guess. I have a widescreen laptop, and the people looked distorted until I fiddled a lot with the video settings for media player classic. There were also the black bars on the sides of the screen.

Now, for the subtitles...they didn't seem bad, but I didn't get a good sample of them because the disk froze from being cracked. I'll have to update this section when I get my replacement DVD. One thing I noticed is that they translated noises...the one girl sighed at one point, and they translated it to something like "oh dear" Maybe she was muttering something while sighing, but I don't think so. I'll have to see how the subs for the rest of the disk are.

As of now, I would not recommend purchasing the YA Entertainment version of this DVD set, mostly because of the video quality. If I was rating a RAW file, I would give it a B- rating because I understand some quality is lost during encoding etc.., but since this is a DVD, I'd have to give this a C rating, because I don't think there's any excuse for such poor video quality in a DVD set.

Here's the link for the DVD set on Amazon.com. It's retailing for $85.99 USD, and I see that it's available on Amazon.ca too for approximately the same amount.
http://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Stars/dp/B000EQ5US2/sr=8-1/qid=1171416575/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-8250933-9710020?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

If only the video quality were as good as the image on the box set cover...
If you want to watch this, I recommend just renting it from Netflix, if you already have a subscription. I'll probably continue watching this series because it has Lee Seo Jin in it, and I love him, but I would, never, never purchase this DVD set unless it was perhaps $20.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 4:05 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thanks for putting up your comments because I have actually been thinking about buying this one as I can't get enough of Jo In Sung Tongue

I have download 1 episode of this show before. It was the usual quality of a KBFD which is a B-/C. You would think YA would have better quality. How disappointing.

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:32 am Post subject: Post Rating: 0

I was disappointed too...I'll post up a screenshot of the video quality when I get my new disk on Fri./Mon. That, and a more detailed description of the subtitles and how good they are.

Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject: Post Rating: 0

Thanks for the review! It's too bad the video quality doesn't seem to be too hot; I wonder how it compares to the original Korean DVD release.

Anyway, just thought I should mention that this is one of several YA Entertainment DVDs currently on-sale at www.yesasia.com (is there an affiliate link for the yesasia U.S. website? The banner on d-addicts takes you to the global site, which doesn't sell YAE releases). The sale goes until March 31. Shoot for the Stars is selling for $55.

http://us.yesasia.com/en/Specials/KVLClearance/Index.aspx