Beautiful Planet: France & Italy + Spain
& Portugal (Mill Creek Blu-rays)/Flicka:
Country Pride (aka Flicka 3/2012/Fox
Blu-ray)/Ocean Giants (BBC
Blu-ray/DVD set)/Secret Life Of Birds
(2010/Mill Creek DVD)
Picture: C+/B-/B- & C+/C Sound: C/B-/B- & C+/C Extras: D Episodes: C+/D/B-/C+
And now
for some nature-related titles, most of which are special interest titles.
Mill
Creek has issued two Blu-ray in Beautiful
Planet: France & Italy and Spain
& Portugal that are good programs, but not great or up to the level of
the Visions series from Acorn. However, they are different enough by not
being all sky-based shots (i.e., flying around on a helicopter) and offer some
less glamorous shots throughout, making them useful in unexpected ways. However, they only offer so much we have not
seen before and performance is mixed, so only serious fans of the given locales
should consider getting them. There are
no extras on either disc.
Even
worse is Flicka: Country Pride, aka Flicka 3 (2012) which Fox has issued on
Blu-ray and aimed at a young female audience.
However, this Flicka revival has been pretty forgettable as our coverage
of the initial revival release Flicka
in 2006 showed in our DVD coverage at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4886/Flicka+(2006)
Clint
Black and Lisa Hartman Black co-star and try to make this work, but it is
extremely routine and proves once again that most horse narratives do not
work. Kacey Rohl is the young lady
discovering the joys of horses, but she is the only one having any joy I guess
because this was a total bore. See War Horse or Secretariat instead. Extras
include two boring featurettes and an even more boring music video.
The
standout here is the new BBC Earth release Ocean
Giants which takes another look at the biggest animals in the sea in yet
another effective documentary mini-series.
These programs still hold up and are quality productions, but they also
tend to have a slight overlap in approach and feel. Still, this is almost three hours and it is
always offering something you have likely never seen before. It also makes us wonder how many of these
creatures will survive in the face of hunting, abuse and planetary changes that
are not for the better. There are no
extras on either the Blu-ray or DVD here.
Finally
we have the 5-part Secret Life Of Birds
(2010) which after the many years of this site is one of the only direct looks
at our winged friends we have ever seen.
Iolo Williams is an expert on the subject and sees and knows much on
them, so it is a good, interesting show, but I thought the format approach
flattened out the programs overall, so expect a quieter show than expected. Still, it is not bad and worth a look if you
are interested. There are no extras.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on the Planet Blu-rays have some good shots, but more have noise and
detail issues than expected, plus some shots are pale and other have motion
blur. Overall, both disappoint more than
expected, but they are not expensive either.
The 1080p 1.78 X 1 AVC @ 22 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer
on Flicka looks marginally better,
but has its share of motion blur, detail issues and color range limits, so the
1080i 1.78 X 1 image from Ocean is
actually just as good and by a very narrow margin the best on the list. That leaves the anamorphically enhanced 1.78
X 1 image on Birds the weakest, with
softer images throughout than I would have liked and that’s a shame because
some of the shots are great.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Flicka is more towards the front speakers than it should be and it
is limited overall in soundstage, so the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 lossless Stereo
on Ocean actually is its equal with
healthy Pro Logic surrounds and just a warm overall recording for what it
is. That leaves lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo on the remaining Mill Creek releases, sounding simpler and more limited
than expected.
- Nicholas Sheffo
