"Earth: The Biography" Coming to Blu-Ray!

[Arkadin]

from BBC films. day and date with sd dvd.
on July 22.
The new set will contain 5 episodes from the series on 2 discs, and retail for $39.99

www.themanroom.com

[Glenmulder]

this will be great if Planet earth is anything to go by

[Gbeav]

How old is this production?

[Super-VHS]

Only Dolby Stereo? Oh well, I guess they had to skimp somewhere. @ $40 SRP for 230 minutes of 1080 HD I'll (begrudgingly) take lossy audio.

I said begrudgingly.... doesn't mean I'm happy about it..... I would have preferred at least 448 kbps Dolby 5.1.... whatever

Also the HDD announcement says "1080 video" - does anyone know if that's 1080i or 1080p. Not that it really matters much but 1080i with 2.0 stereo is kinda lame. 1080p with 2.0 is a little more palatable.

EDIT: The man room lists it as 1080p so it probably is.... then again they also list the aspect ratio as 1.85:1. Is that true?

[Super-VHS]

How old is this production?

According to the BBC

BBC series to tell Earth's story

Earth: The Biography will be screened on BBC Two later in the year and presented by Dr Iain Stewart, host of Journeys From the Centre of the Earth.

Dr Stewart will visit some of the planet's most remote places to explain phenomena such as the meteorite thought to have wiped out dinosaurs.

BBC natural history series Planet Earth attracted up to nine million viewers.

This article was from April 24th 2007 so it's a pretty recent production.

[Gbeav]

Then I'll buy it and the people from BBC will be happy.

[padanx]

Sometimes these early announcements aren't definitive, so far as audio stats. Perhaps we will end up with a hi-def audio format by the time it goes to press. That aside, 90% of the sound will probably be narration anyway. There probably won't be much splash in the audio department anyway.

I'm still hoping for the 'Blue Planet' series. I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

[dankir]

Oh my parents will love this. Will go nice with Planet Earth and Galapagos.

[steaky]

I think this has been airing this month on Discovery in Canada. Its not bad, but not as good at Planet Earth.

[Geonosis]

Looks good, but rather one BD50 than two BD25s.

[PeteB]

Also the HDD announcement says "1080 video" - does anyone know if that's 1080i or 1080p. Not that it really matters much but 1080i with 2.0 stereo is kinda lame. 1080p with 2.0 is a little more palatable.

EDIT: The man room lists it as 1080p so it probably is.... then again they also list the aspect ratio as 1.85:1. Is that true?

If it was actually shot with interlacing HD video cameras, e.g., Celine Dion, I'd rather have that put to disk as 1080i and trust my own gear to handle the deinterlacing and such. Planet Earth (BBC), shot on video, was encoded at 1080p, so I would hope that they had used actual 1080p (at least) cameras in that case.

If it was shot on film (or progressive-scan video cameras), I'm with you. A 1080i transfer from a film source would be a clear foul-up, e.g., Terminator 3 on .

[have@you]

So it's a different release from this which was essentially a truncated version of Planet Earth with some new footage a Patrick Stewart narrating? They need to start coming up with some better titles.

[ben1080p]

Ill have to check it out.

[chaz_uk]

Is this a renamed "Earth - The power of the planet" series that was recently on the BBC?
This will be beautiful in HD if so. (I can't get BBC HD so I only got to see it in SD on freeview)

That reminds me, this paycheck i MUST get Planet Earth.

[chrizgrv]

I'm still hoping for the 'Blue Planet' series. I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

I totally agree. I loved that series and have emailed bbc and discovery to release it on blu-ray. That rant aside, I'll be picking this up.