Living Landscapes: Pacific Coast Blu-ray offers solid video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Experience the many moods of America's Pacific Coastline from Washington State's northern beaches to California's Big Sur coast. Linger among the tree-covered sea stacks that tower above the remote shores of Washington's stark and jagged northwestern coast. Feel the salt mist in the air as you wander Oregon's hidden beaches and quiet coves allowing the waves to gently soothe your soul. Sink into deep relaxation as the sun sets into the sea along the Mendocino coastline.
One of the more peaceful and tranquil entries in the Living Landscapes series offers beautiful scenes of the Pacific blended with one of the better soundtracks in the series.
United States highways are numbered more or less sequentially, as you trivia hounds may be aware. The roads running north-south start at the west coast and proceed eastward, while those running east-west, start at the south and jump by numerical degrees as they traverse more northerly latitudes. My wife, sons and I decided to start at the beginning, as it were, a couple of years ago, and take a leisurely trip southward from Portland, our home, to Los Angeles, courtesy of the largely interchangeable Highways 1 and 101. I wouldn't recommend this trip to anyone prone to motion sickness. Portions of Highway 1 are notoriously curvy, with switchback after switchback, and rather precipitious drops in incline, making even a 5 mile per hour journey feel like a roller coaster ride at times. In fact, both my wife and youngest son ultimately had to opt for Dramamine to keep their wandering stomachs under control. On the other hand, large swaths of this particular journey offer one stunning vista after another of the greatest expanse of water on our mostly blue planet: the Pacific. From the towering cliffs of the Oregon coast through the equally towering Sequoias of Northern California, the Pacific hugs the coast, eternally daring the drivers of Highway 1 to take their eyes off the road for just a moment to enjoy the exquisite beauty of the ocean and beach. Perhaps a safer way to take in all this splendor is to pop in one of the Living Landscape Blu-rays, Pacific Coast.
The Pacific Ocean washes up against a pebble-strewn shore.
Digital Environments is a boutique label which has so many soubriquets in its "ambient television" offerings that it's sometimes hard to keep track of them. This particular release bears the series name Living Landscapes as well as Earthscapes, in addition to the regular Digital Environments imprint. What Pacific Coast provides, as is the case with virtually all of the Living Landscapes series, is some ravishing shots of its subject matter. There is probably nothing more hypnotic than watching (and listening to) the ocean, and Pacific Coast obviously provides that in spades. What is to producer and director Michael Heumann's credit, however, is the variety of shots included here. We open on a pebble strewn beach, but are soon greeted with a nice panoply of different vistas and shots. There's really an amazing variety of scenes included here, including some unusual for the series slow motion shots of water exploding against a craggy shore.
Some of the more beautiful segments feature sunsets, and one of the more astounding scenes is of the setting sun literally bathing the ocean in deep reds and oranges, making the water look more like flames than liquid. There are other nice shots of the sun melting into the ocean as it sets for the day, sending out a wavering image of itself over the turbulent surface of the sea. Along with the water scenes, we're greeted by the calls of gulls and other seabirds as they catch the ocean currents and alight over the water's edge.
Pacific Coast also offers one of the more serene and pleasant music soundtracks to accompany the ambient nature sounds in one of the two Dolby 5.1 mixes provided on the Blu-ray. The soothing music is by Raphael, who crafts beautiful harp and string synth sounds to a very relaxing effect. In fact, this is easily one of the stronger soundtrack offerings in any of the many Living Landscape Blu-rays I've reviewed.
I know many high definition aficionados have a hard time wrapping their head around this niche use of their equipment which I have dubbed "ambient television." Frankly, I have much the same reaction to audio only Blu-rays, though I'm overcoming that consternation as better and better releases see the light of day. While it's true that these scenic Blu-rays are certainly never going to replace your favorite films, whether they be summer CGI-fest blockbusters, or more down to earth dramas or comedies, they still offer a nice alternative use for your HDTV and surround system when you might be otherwise occupied but still wouldn't mind something on in the background. Yes, it's patently counterintuitive to have something playing when you've already established you won't be paying full attention, but releases like Pacific Ocean do offer a visual feast when you do deign to glance at your HDTV, and with a soundtrack as nicely rendered as Raphael's on this particular release, you also have some very melodic and soothing music to listen to as well.
Most of Digital Environment's releases have been at the least above average, and several have been rather excellent. I'm please to report that Pacific Coast falls in that latter category, with a sharp and good looking 1080i AVC encoded transfer delivered with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. What might occasionally disappoint some viewers is the rather pallid palette of a lot of these beach vistas, but as someone who lives close to the Pacific coast, I can attest that this is indeed the color spectrum with which you're greeted quite a bit of the time. Therefore, expect a fair amount of grays and whites and a sort of turgid, dark greenish-gray color for the water on occasion. That said, Heumann has managed to capture some alluring deep blues in at least one or two of his ocean-bound segments, and the sunset footage is truly spectacular, with gorgeously saturated reds and oranges.
No, there's no lossless track on this offering, as is the case with all of the Digital Environments releases I've reviewed thus far. That said, both of the Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes are quite good for what they are. There is one track that provides only ambient nature sounds, and another which blends those sounds with the excellent music score by Raphael. Personally, I recommend the music score only because it's so beautiful in and of itself and is also well blended with the ambient noises. As I've discussed with some other Digital Environments releases, it's fairly apparent that the ambient soundfield is not always directly related to whatever scene we're watching, but in an hour long show such as this which is almost entirely comprised of waves crashing against the shore, that anomaly isn't very distracting at all. Fidelity is excellent here and surround channels, while sparingly used, do help give an immserive quality to the listening experience. I doubt few people will be moved to complain too loudly about no lossless alternative with this release.
Soothing, relaxing and more than a bit hypnotic, Pacific Coast is one of the better Digital Environments releases, aided by a really nice music score by Raphael. And the best part is, you won't need any Dramamine to get to the ocean to enjoy it--just your local or online Blu-ray shop.
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