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Serenity: Southern Seas
DVD International // Unrated // October 30, 2007
List Price: $24.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Featuring cinematography by David Hannan and a soothing New Age score by Terry Oldman, Serenity: Southern Seas aims its high definition cameras squarely towards the Australian coastline. This 54 minute disc consists entirely of shots of the ocean -- the reflective sparkle of sunlight on the water, waves lapping and crashing against the shore, and a panoramic look beachside of the sea at dawn and dusk. There isn't any sort of narrative or even any intertitles to put the footage in context; Serenity is meant to be viewed purely as a relaxing sort of high definition screensaver.
With an extensive background in tropical and marine footage, Hannan has an eye for this sort of photography, keeping the compositions varied and taking particular interest in deep, contrasting colors. The images he captures may be striking, but the quality of this Blu-ray disc -- presented at 1080p and encoded with AVC -- isn't a marked improvement over similar nature footage I've seen on cable. Although there's never any doubt that I'm watching high definition video, clarity and fine object detail are rarely all that striking.
Terry Oldman's flute-driven music is presented in both traditional Dolby Digital stereo as well as in lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The audio quality is fine but unremarkable; since Oldman's music is meant to be an aural quaalude, it maintains a deliberately timid presence. The distinctness of the instrumentation and clarity of the recording aren't an improvement over what I'd expect from an audio CD.
I have to admit to not being part of the target market for this sort of relaxing backdrop, but because the presentation of this high definition footage doesn't outclass programs like Sunrise Earth on HD Theater that viewers can watch for free, Serenity: Southern Seas is hard to recommend. Skip It.
With an extensive background in tropical and marine footage, Hannan has an eye for this sort of photography, keeping the compositions varied and taking particular interest in deep, contrasting colors. The images he captures may be striking, but the quality of this Blu-ray disc -- presented at 1080p and encoded with AVC -- isn't a marked improvement over similar nature footage I've seen on cable. Although there's never any doubt that I'm watching high definition video, clarity and fine object detail are rarely all that striking.
Terry Oldman's flute-driven music is presented in both traditional Dolby Digital stereo as well as in lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The audio quality is fine but unremarkable; since Oldman's music is meant to be an aural quaalude, it maintains a deliberately timid presence. The distinctness of the instrumentation and clarity of the recording aren't an improvement over what I'd expect from an audio CD.
I have to admit to not being part of the target market for this sort of relaxing backdrop, but because the presentation of this high definition footage doesn't outclass programs like Sunrise Earth on HD Theater that viewers can watch for free, Serenity: Southern Seas is hard to recommend. Skip It.
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