Very Best of One Step Beyond

I, too, hope they will be able to eliminate the humming sound somewhere in the future.. Apparantly, if you wedge a carrot in one ear and a corn cob in the other it masks some of the hum.
I personally find eating crisps/chips, drinking cola/carbonated beverage and chomping on sweets/candy makes the sound almost bearable.

I read all the reviews before posting mine, which I generally do. I don't like rehashing things that have already been beaten to death, and I won't do so here.

There are a few things I wanted to address that have been brought up by other reviewers. One is the quality of the DVDs. Obviously, this is a very subjective issue. Those who are sticklers for pristine picture quality and remastered video and sound will be disappointed and will likely give this release a fairly low grade. Those who understand that this is a program that is almost 50 years old, likely has no excellent quality masters to speak of and is also priced very modestly will likely tell you that it is a great value. I fall into the latter category. With so many boxed sets of old television shows, that are very inexpensive, flooding the market nowadays, we should be growing accustomed to the fact that they have not been remastered and cleaned up. The low price should be our first tipoff of that. Those who expect very high quality for this kind of price are foolish, IMO. The fact is that the quality of these DVDs is really not that bad at all. Some people complained of a humming sound, but I must admit that I did not notice this on the first 3 DVDs I have played thus far. Maybe I am hard of hearing, but I thought they sounded decent. They have also all played just fine on my DVD player, which is not a top-of-the-line model. Others have said certain episodes don't play on their machines. I can't comment on that, as mine have all played fine.

Another thing I wanted to comment on was the style and delivery of the show's host, John Newland. He is delightfully macabre and I always got a kick out of how he tells us about the chilling, bizarre and sometimes frightening tale to come with a smile on his face. The dichotomy is not lost on me and I find it amusing. I like Newland very much.

The last thing I wanted to comment on is the fact that so many reviewers have noted that the stories on One Step Beyond are 'true' and 'based on facts'. Yes, it's true that Mr. Newland never hesitates to inform us that these tales are based upon actual incidents that were reported by the people involved, and that they were never 'disproved'. Well, I doubt the incidents were investigated 'in depth' in order to ascertain their 'truth'. Saying that something has never been 'disproved' is not the same as saying it is true. As someone who has had an experience that was made into a feature film, I can tell you from personal experience that when a studio says a movie is 'based on a true story', what they do in most cases is to take an event that actually happened and weave a whole new plot around it. It is still, however, 'based' on a true story. People tend to want to believe it is true so to them, it is. I'm certainly not trying to rain on anyone's parade, it's just that I'm a bit more skeptical that all these stories are 'true'. I can believe they were reported to be true by those involved, but the fact that they were never 'disproved' does little to fuel my imagination into believing they really happened that way. But then, I'm crazy, I know....

That said, this was, indeed, a fun and entertaining show, and it is fun to see some familiar faces in starring roles. I don't think it was as good as The Twilight Zone, but it was still a fine program, and this box set is well worth the minimal cost.

Peace.

For the current price of $[...] (for 4 DVD's), this is the bargain of the century. Since these stories were based on possibly true events, it's fascinating to witness what might have been. The picture quality is very good, the sound quality is good most of the time but if you focus on the story and not look for the minor imperfections you will be satisfied. Enjoy!!!

This is a review of the DVD itself and NOT content. The DVD wouldn't load. I don't have the "newest" DVD player. From what I understand, if you have a new (last few years) DVD player there shouldn't be a problem. But just know that if you have one that is more than a few years old, you may not be able to play the disks. This has only happened one other time, so even if you have had no problems before, just know it's a possibility.

For any one step beyond fans. I highly recommend this video. the bad part being my computer, burnt the last two disks. So, I guess I'm going to order another one and not play it on my computer.