Any New/Recent 'Coaster Thrills DVD's Out (Or Ever Coming Out)?

There's a number of specials yearly on Discovery Channel & the Travel Channel on wild thrill rides & amusement parks.

Back in the mid to late 90's, there were also a number of releases of videos & DVD's on rollercoasters. Most notably are:

America's Greatest Rollercoaster Thrills: The Ultimate Scream Machines
America's Greatest Roller Coaster Thrills in 3D
America's Greatest Roller Coaster Thrills 2 in 3-D
and finally:
World's Greatest Roller Coaster Thrills in 3-D

There may have been others, but that collection seems to be the most known professionally produced Roller Coaster video collection out there.

My question. Are there any others out there that have been made in the 21st century basically highlighting the newest thrills since 2000 including an on-ride point-of-view that's professionally produced, and not some garbage that was slapped together by some fanboys (ie: Horsecreek Production videos)?

There's Cedar Point's official, which is nice... but rather short (less than 45min) and doesn't give a POV of all their coasters.

The ones from Goldhil Video were nice because they gave both an overview of the park itself and then giving a brief snyopsis of the coaster and then the on-ride view (the latest giving you 3 angles to watch it at).

*** Edited 3/14/2006 5:14:21 PM UTC by DawgByte II***

Even though you dogged "being slapped together by a fan", I highly suggest Robb & Elissa Alvey's videos. Yah they are fan made, but really the quality is pretty good, you get a GREAT assortment of rides, and some good music to go along. And then the videos of them at the parks are always amusing on it's own level. Check them out: www.***************.com is has sample videos for you to test out also!

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I'm thinking you can't link to that site here. Just google Robb or Elissa Alvey and look for the site that way.

It's Theme Park Review dot com.

After the thread was closed edit: Jeff - What's with the attitude? We all know someone that's been kicked out or banned from a park... Especially if you're an enthusiast in northern Ohio. One of "your own" got busted stealing park property a year or two ago, and he's allowed back in the park now. So what's the big deal?

Look, I don't care if anyone likes Robb or visits his site. It's not my business, and quite frankly, I couldn't care less. But what he's now doing is legit. If you took 5 minutes out of your day and followed up you'd see it too.

This whole "blame Alvey" fad has gone on far too long. As Matt (skankinrab) stated, we've ALL had 1-2 click rides, and most of us have taken "illegal" onride pictures and/or video... Even you, Jeff. The fact is that we're all just as guilty as the Alvey's... The only diffrence is that they've got a well traffic'd website and make DVD's.

Which reminds me... Why is Coasterbuzz promoting illegal on-ride photoraphy? It doesn't make any sense to me that this site (which happens to be so safety conscious, specifically against on-ride photography/videography) - just happens to be promoting it! Scorcher, Deja Vu, and Dueling Dragons just to name a few.

I'm not for or against on-ride photography and video. I guess I just don't really care that much about coasters! However I am against censoring links to websites which provide relevant, quality information.

Oh, I'm also against making smartass comments that no-one can respond back to. Pretty lame if you ask me... *** Edited 3/17/2006 7:50:04 PM UTC by rOLLocOASt***

I also enjoy the Alvey's videos, but the above videos are have been available through Amazon in the past, (at least that's where I got a few of them!). Plus, there have been Discovery Channel coaster shows available for purchase in the past from their site. But if you do find 'em there, save your money, wait till they show them again, and then record them for free.)

IMO, Alvey's videos are better than anything else out there. And now that they've started including a POV disc with every DVD that makes them that much better.

I don't care for the "Alvey videos" for a few reasons, a couple of which being they are not taken with the park's permission usually and it means you're giving money to Robb Alvey.

It's nice that you want to give money to people who have made it a business to take videos and pictures from on the ride when it is not only taken without the park's permission, but potentially dangerous if the unmounted cameras had been lost during the ride. Not to mention the flaunting of basic safety measures (like the wonderful pictures of "one click" lapbar rides) and you give business to people who give enthisasts a bad name.

So the Alvey videos aren't even mounted on the train AND weren't given permission by park officials?

Somehow, I can't justify giving my money for something that is more or less an amature home video and essentially violating park policy.

I'm surprised there aren't more official coaster videos out there. I'm sure there's an audience for 'em (besides us) that'll help it sell. If Discovery Channel & Travel Channel holds yearly specials on them, why not have special-edition DVD releases?

The Goldhil videos were best, even though the 3D effect wasn't all that realistic, on a flat-screen monitor, you did get a little sense of 3D when showing the park overview.

Yes, giving money to that moron is a bad idea. I don't think people understand the kind of harm that his actions have done between the enthusiast community and the parks.

Think outside of being an enthusiast for a second. Is there really a market for coaster DVDs to the public? If one was offered at say Target, would it sell well? Would it be profitable?

Maybe after I complete film school I would consider doing a project like this.

...Just a thought.

Film school? What do you need that for?

It really is a limited market. People ask if I think CoasterBuzz is going to grow, and frankly I accepted a long time ago that there is a certain plateau it might reach. I'm OK with that. I accept that short of going out and selling my own advertising, the revenue is going to be pretty constant. CB can't support a family!

Niche DVD's are a tough sell, sure, but there is an opportunity through legal and sanctioned channels to create a DVD for just about anything. The cost of publishing has gone way down. For me at least, if I can't sell a thousand, I don't know that it'd be worth my time.

And yes, I have the fancy gear to do it. :)

Yes, there is a market for it... why else would Goldhil have release 5 DVD's (4 in the VHS days of the mid-90's)?? So somewhere out there, there is a niche market for this stuff, just as there's a niche market for shark-attacks, girls-gone-wild, mount Everest expeditions and other small events... AND could easily be profitable.

Jeff, if you made an HD roller coaster DVD I'd love you long time. ;)

I'd love to invest in an HD movie camera...

If everybody pitches in some money, i will gladly film some coaster videos for everyone :)

// Alan "$2,000 to go...." J. *** Edited 3/16/2006 8:58:36 PM UTC by SFDL_Dude***

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DawgByte II said:
Yes, there is a market for it... why else would Goldhil have release 5 DVD's (4 in the VHS days of the mid-90's)??

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I think if it were profitable then they'd still be selling them. There's probably a reason that they're not anymore.

HD is getting less expensive, but I know the kit I'm building, by the time you add microphones, lights and other accessories, is pushing $10k. In all honesty I'm only looking to recover about half of that cost, since I half-bought the camera to do an indie film, but even as a hobby it's an expensive proposition.

I think you all are mistaken. Alvey's DVDs have all been with parks permission and many of them are train mounted cameras. He just recently did lift hill walks of Kumali and Expedition GeForce. They were on the catwalks of EuroMir and Silver Star. Did backstage construction videos of Tatsu. Walked the launch track of Stealth. Had a hard hat tour of Mummy. Had behind the scenes construction photos of El Toro. You can't do all that without the park knowing.

Their Balder and Kanonen video is all train mounted, same with SheiKra, Thunder Coaster and Colossus and I can't image that wasn't without the parks permission. And their awesome train mounted Hades video even had the park owner introducing the video!

Seems everything they do is with the parks permission and anyone saying otherwise is just rumor and speculation. I even recently saw them credited to some Discovery Channel and TLC shows. Think those companies would use their footage if they didn't have parks permission? I really think you should check your facts before posting speculation.

Are there better downloadable videos or DVDs available on the net elsewhere? I've yet to find better quality or selection. *** Edited 3/16/2006 11:23:43 PM UTC by mrbeanz***

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mrbeanz said:

Seems everything they do is with the parks permission and anyone saying otherwise is just rumor and speculation.

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If you were really that sure would you be using the word "seems"?