In late October 2001 Extreme Rocketry (ER) published their first Video production a VHS video and DVD of LDRS XX. I like the magazine that they publish so I thought that I would see what they could do with this medium. The DVD cost ten dollars more than the video but DVD's are usually worth the expense with added video and better picture quality so I went with the DVD. I have watched to DVD several times and have in general been pleased with the quality, length and production of this DVD. There is a very lively and upbeat intro with showing the drive out to the launch site. They start out well with a launch from the Gate's Bothers, I must say that the Gate's Brothers projects are incredible. The Brothers have a great launch complete with two on board video cameras capturing first and second stage footage which ER cuts seamlessly into there DVD. The DVD is never dull or slow there is always action on the screen the production moves along at a quick pace from launch to launch. ER did a number of the Gate's Brother rockets; Wedge Oldham's Nike, Nibbles the Space cat, Aeropac's 1/16 scale Soviet N-1 and many others. They tossed in a few cato's and crash for those who need them, including the crash of Andy Woerner's 1/3 Scale V2, a wonderful effort that makes you cringe watching it go down. The DVD is lacking in interviews and rocket descriptions or design features. Without these extra features I found no compelling reason to buy the DVD over the video other then the format itself. The DVD had no real added footage that would make the extra ten dollars worth while. It did have some maps of the area and lodging info and a few short extra clips. They focused mainly on rockets going up and not much on the ground or the individuals involved, this I think is the DVD biggest failure. Alot of rocketry is the people who build the rockets and the features that they add to them and what their inspiration was to build a particular rocket. While I liked the fast upbeat rocket video I felt the human element was missing from the production. I think that ER wanted to keep the video moving along and exciting and left out interviews thinking that they would slow down the production. This is what makes the DVD the perfect format; they can have a fast paced upbeat launch footage with interview in a seperate part of the DVD. 

The footage itself is well done, the color is good and the focus is sharp and the cameras are steady. There are no pad cams, but the do get a hold of some of the onboard footage from several rockets and add it in. The people that they do talk to are very hard to see as the bright sun cast very harsh shadows on there faces they could have used a second person with a reflector to cut down on the shadows.

Overall I found this to be a good effort by ER for their first video production. I hope that in future release, assuming that there will be future releases, will have more footage of the individuals and their rockets, interviews and add in more bonus features making the for the extra cost of the DVD worthwhile.