Apollo 12: Ocean of Storms

Starring:Apollo 12-Ocean of Storms
Studio: Spacecraft Films
Product Type: DVD

Description

At 3 DVDs, this set brings you the most comprehensive account ever assembled of the Apollo 12 mission. From Spacecraft Films, the acknowledged leading provider of the definitive DVDs of America's space history, the set contains over 12 hours of material, much of it from new, digital transfers of archival film. From preparation and training, to rollout and launch, to both EVAs (reconstructed from TV, 16mm, photos, maps and more) you'll relive the mission of Apollo 12 as never before. Features rare pre-mission interviews with the crew and NASA engineers, plus rare onboard audio of the crew in the CM during launch and recovery.

Customer Reviews:

As good as it could be in terms of the film, but subtitles are desperately needed.......2006-12-31

Apollo 12 was hampered by the fact that the TV camera broke as it was being set up, so a lot of the usual footage we get from Spacecraft Films DVDs is missing on this one. The Spacecraft Films team does a good job with the rest of the material, but I feel that subtitles are desperately needed, as the poor quality sound recordings make it very hard to tell what anyone is saying when they're on the Moon. I've watched the DVD twice now and I must say that I don't think I picked up a single sentence from any of the astronauts during their Moon walks. Perhaps it would be easier to figure it out if I had the Apollo 12 NASA Mission Reports book, but the lack of subtitles still seems like a glaring omission. None of the Spacecraft Films DVDs have subtitles, so I fear it's likely to be a problem in the other Apollo DVDs too.

Don't get me wrong, I still think this DVD is worth buying for those of us who are Apollo nuts, but if these DVDs ever get re-released I urge Spacecraft Films to PLEASE add subtitles.

"Blind" moonwalk made live !.......2005-06-13

I just went through this another marvelous material from Spacecraftfilms and of course, I was most curious how they will manage with moonwalk reconstruction having not a full hour of both TV footage and 16mm sequence camera film footage available. They did very well! The combination of TV, film, photos, maps, training footage is made very lively extracting maximum from existing minimum. It's really a pitty that TV camera was gone - the few minutes available show that this colour camera quality has been a giant leap compared to the misty Apollo 11 pictures.

I have (again) a comment to the final part of the flight - parachute descent, splashdown and recovery. While the onboard parachute descent and recovery (after splasdown) footage is very good, the parachute descent footage taken either from the ship or rescue helicopter (?) is taken from a big distance and it's not focused. There must be some other - better quality - material available somewhere, however, I admit, it may be very difficult to locate it after so many years.
As the parachute landing is the integral part of the flight I would always appreciate more material, even having multi-angle option (onboard, from the ship, from the helicopter) in full length, the parachute descent does not take more than five minutes! The drogue chutes descent (not onboard)is also available ( with AS-16 at least, see NASA movie "Nothing so Hidden")- these are very rare and interesting materials. I hope that this kind of footage will be included in some of the Skylab or ASTP material (afraid it's too late for Apollo 14 and 16).

Launch sequence is short but very nice, the TV footage of the spent S-IVB after TLI is unusually long and also very nice (listen to the discussion between Pete Conrad and MCC trying to identify some light reflections from the stage - Conrad being quite excited, MCC cool and "not that much interested").
The most beautiful footage (for me) is the LM undocking and station keeping (it's even twice here - once in the Undocking section and the second time in the Lunar landing section). The light conditions are excellent and you can watch the LM from the undock to being far away (from CSM) above the lunar horizon - very impressive. I think this is the best from all Apollo missions.
Onboards are in usual very good quality, it would help to have chapters identified in the disc brochure.
Overall comment - excellent material, very challenging to put together, I can't wait the rest of Apollo and Mercury mainly, Spacecraftfilms deserves again a big THANKS!

Laurenc Svitok
Bratislava, Slovakia

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