Great Barrier Reef Blu-ray offers decent video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
Stretching a full 2000 kilometers in length and made up of 3000 individual reef systems and hundreds of islands, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is breathtakingly beautiful. Selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981, it is one of the wonders of the natural world. These programs offer a definitive guide to the secrets of the reef -- how it was created, how it works, the intricate relationships between its inhabitants and how climate change and other factors might shape its future. Using the latest specialist filming and visual techniques, the series captures the magic of the reef as it has never been seen before.
If it comes branded "BBC Earth," it's as safe a blind buy as any could be. The renowned BBC Natural History Unit and its filmmakers have a knack for the extraordinary and astonishing, and capture it all on film with the utmost respect for the integrity of their documentaries and subjects. Above the water or beneath the waves, the fascinating creatures and stunning locales the NHU studies and explores are brought to life and into your living room, time and time again in ways once only imagined and now fully and spectacularly realized. Their reputation proceeds their every production, and Great Barrier Reef and its three episodes are no exception.
BBC television presenter, marine biologist, writer, speaker, diver and general man-of-all-hats Monty Halls is an excellent host -- engaging and commanding -- even though, like many before him, his personality and presence never quite rivals British national treasure Sir David Attenborough. His overview of the world's largest coral reef system, located off the coast of Queensland, Australia, is extensive and engrossing, diving into everything from the Great Barrier Reef's origins, evolution and size to its inhabitants, unique attributes and challenges. There's a bit of hopping from one animal to the next, of course. What BBC documentary doesn't follow the same long-established formula? But it stands as a testament to the sheer amount of information about the Great Barrier Reef gathered to date and the number of mysteries that remain unsolved. Like many of the most amazing places on the planet, we've only just begun to understand the complex ecology of the reef's waters.
When it draws to a close, there's also the sense that so much of the Great Barrier Reef has been left unexplored. But then BBC Earth series never really end, do they? The productions flow from one documentary to the next, building upon everything that's come before and leaving more ground to cover for anything that comes after. And it's the journey that provides such joy and satisfaction; knowing that these series can't possibly keep up with the discoveries being made by biologists and scientists on an almost daily basis. There were moments that Great Barrier Reef seemed familiar, but far more where it seemed fresh and full of newfound wonder. While Halls' enthusiasm no doubt plays a part, the three-part documentary's gorgeous photography, careful editing and narrative provide the pure awe the best of the BBC Earth series offer.
Great Barrier Reef episode guide:
Nature's Miracle: The first episode explores the complex structure of the coral reef itself and the wildlife that lives on it. So vast it is visible from space, the reef is actually built by tiny animals in partnership with microscopic plants. It is a place full of surprises that is always changing, responding to the rhythms of weather, tide, sun and moon. Within this magical and intensely crowded world, this episode reveals how the amazing reef creatures compete and co-operate; from deadly fish-hunting snails to sharks that can walk on land, fighting corals and parrot fish that spin sleeping bags every night. Remote cameras, cutting-edge underwater macro and digital time-lapse photography, have captured many sequences which have never been filmed before, providing new perspectives on this extraordinary natural wonder.
Reef to Rainforest: The Great Barrier Reef as a whole covers an area larger than Great Britain but amazingly only seven percent of it is coral reef. The rest is a variety of interconnected habitats including the world's oldest jungle, hundreds of islands, mangrove swamps, mysterious deep water gardens, vast sand flats and meadows of sea grass; all full of amazing wildlife. A giant deep-water lagoon connects all of these, and many of the creatures that live in it are almost impossibly weird - from giant hammerhead sharks to the bizarre 'pearl fish' that lives its life up a sea cucumber's bottom. Marine life here also exists in spectacular profusion, as on the 100-year-old shipwreck of the SS Yongala, considered to be the greatest wildlife wreck on earth. The connections between all these environments mean that, not only do they depend on each other, but without them the coral reef itself would not survive.
Reef and Beyond: The Great Barrier Reef is vitally linked to the rest of the planet in many ways. Creatures travel for thousands of miles to visit in spectacular numbers, including tiger sharks, great whales, sea birds and the largest green turtle gathering on Earth. Alien creatures that are rarely seen, like nautilus, also rise out of the deep to visit the reef's warm waters. Weather systems traveling from across the Pacific also affect the whole reef, including mighty cyclones that bring destruction and chaos to the coral and the creatures that live on it. And it is weather patterns and climate change on a global scale that are likely to shape the future of the Great Barrier Reef and all its wildlife.
Compared to BBC Home Entertainment's higher profile natural history releases, Great Barrier Reef's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation struggles with more troubling issues. Surging intermittent noise and noticeable macroblocking haunt the deep waters of the reef, and tend to appear at random. Banding and ringing are problems too, although both are limited on the whole. Some standard definition footage has also been integrated into the series' episodes, but not so much that it takes a significant toll on the proceedings. Otherwise, colors are fairly lovely (dark and murky as the deeper waters may be), contrast and black levels are satisfying, and detail ranges from decent to good, depending on the various circumstances surrounding any given shot. Perfect? Hardly. Worth the price of admission? I'd say yes, but only by a small margin.
There isn't much to say when it comes to Great Barrier Reef's DTS-HD Master Audio stereo track. For a two-channel mix, it gets the job done -- Halls' narration is clean and composed, prioritization is never problematic, and the soundscape rarely feels overcrowded -- it simply doesn't deliver on the immersive visuals. Flat and anchored to the screen, the lossless track fails to draw the listener into the reef, which is a shame considering how actively the photography draws the viewers into the underwater expanse. All in all, it's more than serviceable. It could just be so much more.
Great Barrier Reef isn't a top tier BBC Earth documentary series, absorbing as it is. Nor is its Blu-ray edition a top tier high definition release. With a sometimes striking, oft-times average video presentation, a decent but... merely decent DTS-HD Master Audio stereo track, and a complete lack of special features, it doesn't go as far as it might have if it had more to offer. The three-part series is a terrific one, though, making BBC's Blu-ray release a bit more enticing and fulfilling.
BBC Home Entertainment is bringing two documentary series to Blu-ray on April 9, 2013: The Great Barrier Reef and One Life. The Great Barrier Reef explores the diverse wildlife of the world's most spectacular coral reef, while One Life is a celebration of the most ...
