DVD Birds of Britain and Europe (1 Viewer)

As the old thread has been closed, I am opening a new one: This 6 DVD set is really a fine collection, as had been stated earlier. There is room for improvements, however.

For one, why not include a compact list of all the species. Now, one has to download it from the autor's website, and if you want a compact version to go with your set of dics, you have to compile it yourself.

Also, some footage is clearly open for additions or improvements, but the majority is outstanding. Certainly no reason to wait for a later edition, you'd miss too much in the meantime!

The instructions are a bit on the stingy side. At least for someone like me who has to look at the DVDs on the computer (I do not own a TV), it might help to get a bit more info. For one, I have to close the Real Player before I start a new disc, otherwise things don't seem to work (I just get horrible noise or even a blocked system). Also, I assume that there is a way to go directly to a particular species, but I have not managed to find out how. And if there really is no such way at present, then there ought to be one in future editions.

Finally, the attempt to call the same species the same everywhere has not yet been followed here. At least the loons are still called divers unlike what one finds in Collins nowadays.

Robert

In an ideal world this 6 DVD set would have arrived complete with glossy booklet (inc. instructions, notes, index etc), still more excellent footage of the birds and cost even less than £29.95. As neither I nor Robert nor, more importantly, Paul Doherty live in an 'ideal world' such a product would have cost a damn sight more and would have been endlessly delayed. I look on it rather as, in retrospect, I regard the original Peterson field guide; a damn fine product which, if we all buy copies, the author/publisher will be able to successively improve until it becomes what we'd all like it to be! In the meantime just be thankful that it's as good - and cheap - as it is! To be honest if it'd been £50 rather than £30 I, and many others, probably wouldn't have bought it. John

John Cantelo said:

In an ideal world this 6 DVD set would have arrived complete with glossy booklet (inc. instructions, notes, index etc), still more excellent footage of the birds and cost even less than £29.95. As neither I nor Robert nor, more importantly, Paul Doherty live in an 'ideal world' such a product would have cost a damn sight more and would have been endlessly delayed. I look on it rather as, in retrospect, I regard the original Peterson field guide; a damn fine product which, if we all buy copies, the author/publisher will be able to successively improve until it becomes what we'd all like it to be! In the meantime just be thankful that it's as good - and cheap - as it is! To be honest if it'd been £50 rather than £30 I, and many others, probably wouldn't have bought it. John

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John, I fully agree, except that I would have bought it for £50 as well, at least in hindsight, i.e. after knowing its contents. Thus, it has never been my intention to discourage from buying it. That should be clear if the text is taken as a whole. It is truly more than worth the money, to make that clear again! I am definitely going to show it to my birdwatcher friends this next weekend. And I'd be very surprised if none of them is going to get it as well.

Robert

By today's value of money, this is a super buy. As Robert said, at £50 it would still represent very good value - well done Paul doherty!:clap:

Roger

I don't think I'd have bought it for £50 - but I'd have missed a hugely enjoyable product and a wonderful ID aid which is well worth that price. Yes, it's not perfect, but, like John says, maybe the proceeds will fund future improvements. My only real niggle is that it really does need a full, hard-copy list of the species covered.

Bluetail said:

I don't think I'd have bought it for £50 - but I'd have missed a hugely enjoyable product and a wonderful ID aid which is well worth that price. Yes, it's not perfect, but, like John says, maybe the proceeds will fund future improvements. My only real niggle is that it really does need a full, hard-copy list of the species covered.

Click to expand...

Until that happens, maybe I can help. I copied the impractical list available from the website and condensed it onto 3 pages. I'll gladly e-mail it to anyone interested. It's a word document which, if printed at 85% size will fit nicely into the DVD box of the set. Just send me a PM. I assume the author does not mind! Make sure you give your e-mail address in your PM as I can't send attachments or word documents in the PM,as far as I know.

For the list to come out as intended, you then need to set the margins at 0.7cm all around and the footnote etc at zero.

Robert