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Planet Earth: Complete BBC Series [Blu-ray]
Planet Earth: Complete BBC Series [Blu-ray]
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List Price: £49.99
Buy New: £33.95
You Save: £16.04 (32%)
Buy New from £33.95

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars(based on 33 reviews)
Sales Rank: 379
Category: DVD

Actor: David Attenborough
Publisher: 2 Entertain Video
Studio: 2 Entertain Video
Manufacturer: 2 Entertain Video
Label: 2 Entertain Video
Format: Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Exempt
Media: Blu-ray
Running Time: 550 minutes
Number Of Items: 5
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.5 x 1.3

EAN: 5051561000010
ASIN: B000SKNIWE

Release Date: November 12, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.co.uk Review
Not only is Planet Earth one of the most jaw-dropping, ambitious, nature documentaries the BBC has ever produced, it's now taken on another role: as a superb demonstration disc for the potential of HD DVD and Blu-ray.

Spread over a good ten hours, the series charts life and nature in dozens upon dozens of differing locations around the earth. Diligently and warmly narrated by Sir David Attenborough, Planet Earth calmly goes close in on its subject matter when required, and then pulls out some stunning perspective shots that are simply breathtaking. It's hard to come up with the right superlatives to do the photography on the programme any kind of justice, and that it's married to such fascinating subject matter is all the better.

And if you think the original broadcast of Planet Earth was something special, or you were gobsmacked by the picture quality on DVD, just wait until you see it in 1080p HD glory. Particularly some of the broader shots here are all but without parallel, and it's a real reward for those who have invested ahead of the crowd in high definition technology.

Presented over five discs, and matching wonderful content to spot-on visual presentation, Planet Earth is now not just a landmark in nature documentary film making. It's also a chartermark of quality for just what HD DVD and Blu-ray can offer. A stunning release, in more than one sense. --Jon Foster


Customer Reviews:   Read 28 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars Jaw-dropping   May 2, 2008
  1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Watching this release on a Full HD set is, for lack of a better word, astonishing. I watched this series with my jaw open, and at times was actually moved to tears by the stunning beauty of the images of our planet on show here. This is what I invested in Blu ray for, and time and time again, hi def proves not be a marketing gimmick but a genuine next-step experience in home entertainment; the amount of pin-point detail, dimensionality and scale takes you into the images, so that you feel as if you are there, and in this regard Blu ray is involving in a way DVD cannot match. The wonderful thing about Planet Earth on Blu ray is that the stunning image actually makes clear the filmmakers intentions-not necessarily to give an in-depth education, but to remind us of the beauty and awe inherent to our troubled planet, and the vast open vistas, mountains, plains on show here are enough to make anyone remember why our planet is so very special and worth saving. If that isn't reason enough to invest in this set, I don't know what is.


2 out of 5 stars Should have been better   April 25, 2008
  0 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is a very disappointing release & it should have been much better. The biggest let down is that the UK version runs at 1080i NOT 1080p as some reviews state. A "flagship" release like this should be 1080p. Also - due to technical restrictions during filming, many scenes show no discernable difference in quality to the conventional DVD release. The making-of segments are also missing & when you consider that at the time of writing this is twice the cost of the DVD, I would advise any potential buyers to buy that instead.


5 out of 5 stars Brilliant but not better than HD DVD!!   February 29, 2008
  2 out of 10 found this review helpful

I have watched the whole of this series, I must say it was fantastic and the HD quality is second to none. But...I have watched the series on Blu-ray and HD DVD and HD DVD is far superior to Blu-ray by a mile. It is a shame that HD DVD has died a death and Blu-ray has won the battle in the end. It was like the VHS & Betamax war..VHS won but everyone knows that Betamax was the better player and the same goes for HD DVD v Blu-ray. I give it 5/5 on HD DVD and 3/5 on Blu-ray.


4 out of 5 stars Amazing, yet with some image quality issues   February 25, 2008
  8 out of 10 found this review helpful

NOTE: The following review only concerns the footage from the original series (Disc 1-4). Disc no 5 is sub par both in terms of image quality (I'm 80% sure most of it was filmed in standard definition) and content itself.

*********

I bought this collection not knowing what to expect. I haven't seen it before in SD or on TV, and I was expecting the average documentary various wildlife TV channels offer now and then. However, it goes beyond that in all aspects: image quality, amount of information (and the way it ts presented) , and degree of novelty. Even for the average Discovery viewer this collection has so much to offer: from surreal, breathtaking landscapes presented in a superb quality 1080i format to footage of rarely seen predators pursuing their prey. Whoever is still unconvinced of the benefits HD video has to offer should rent or buy this one... in fact it's so revealing that for somebody like me - watching this for the first time in HD - it's almost impossible to imagine this documentary is standard DVD format (the few scenes shot in SD are quite easily spotted).
And this brings us to the cons... although the series was advertised as being almost entirely shot in HD (1080i on the box and 1080p as mentioned by various Internet sources), on one or two occasions the image clearly degrades to SD quality (presumably 576i). That is, thankfully, only for a few brief moments. What happens more often is a certain degree of softness/blurriness in the footage occasionally accompanied by grain-like noise artefacts, which doesn't quite match the top quality characteristic to the rest of the documentary. It definitely not DVD material, but it's not full HD stream either... my guess is that they either shot in 720p format (which is still high definition, alright, but not to the fullest) subsequently upscaling it, or the footage was rather old. It might not be noticeable on those "HD ready" TV sets (e.g. 1366x768) because their resolution is only slightly higher than 720p format, but if you have cutting edge LCD display with resolution of 1900x1080 or higher you'll probably see this. Given the price of this collection (already substantial in SD), I don't think they should get away with it that easy...
But, don't get me wrong, for more than 70% of the documentary the image stays clear and sharp, and the colours are so rich and intense that there's no better way to experience the transition from winter to spring... other than being there, of course.
Also, please have in mind that some footage is reused from one episode to another. Arguably there will be some overlap between "From Pole to Pole" and "Ice Worlds", but the fact that they used the same footage for certain action scenes gives the impression of sloppy, cheap work... 40 cheap that is!



5 out of 5 stars Regional coding   February 24, 2008
  1 out of 3 found this review helpful

Only the BBC does natural history so well.

But why is the listing showing region 2. Surely a Blu-Ray disk should be region A, B or C?


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