The Living Sea Blu-ray

The Living Sea

 (1995)

Documentary | Nature | Short



The Living Sea takes you to the world's oceans, traveling to Palau, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Alaska, Nova Scotia and the Red Sea. Explore the mysterious depths and come face to face with life-sized humpback whales when you dive into "The Living Sea." Swim with thousands of golden jellyfish and witness the bizarre spawning behavior of giant clams. Surf in Hawaii, deep-sea dive in Palau and test your courage with the Coast Guard in some of the world's roughest seas! Follow a remotely operated vehicle 3,000 feet down through the ocean depths to view strange creatures (one as long as a football field!) which live where sunlight never penetrates. The Living Sea celebrates the "world ocean"—its beauty, diversity and importance to all life on earth.

For more details about The Living Sea on Blu-ray, see The Living Sea Blu-ray Review

Narrator: Meryl Streep
Director: Greg MacGillivray

The Living Sea Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


The Living Sea floats on to the Bluray Format with a beautiful 1080p/AVC encode and presented in a 1:78:1 aspect ratio. Originating from 70mm film, the source looks to be in great condition with only an occasional speck here and there. Detail and micro detail are excellent, as images are naturally sharp without any trace of edge enhancement or any other post processing. This clarity extends far into the background giving whole scenes that coveted three dimensional look that is common in good high definition video. Black levels are deep, stable, and inky dark with contrast being spot on. Colors are well saturated and vibrant with no chroma or video noise. Daylight scenes have a bright and punchy look. Undersea images are captured with eye popping detail, with each different color fish coming through beautifully.

The Living Sea Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


The Dts-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is the main audio feature in the sound department, and it is as good as the video. This soundtrack is not system threatening by any means, as the mix is rather conservative as IMAX movies go. The music of Sting is highlighted on this film, and is wonderfully captured to the point that the speakers positions are not given away, but a wall of transparent sound that is both very wide stretching from wall to wall, and from floor to ceiling, extending all the way back to the front wall. The LFE is in constant use, with some really floor shaking low level bass emanating from my dedicated LFE subwoofers. Almost all of the mixes bass is in the LFE, with just a few points of below 40 Hz bass coming from the three front main speakers. Dialog is always mixed dry and unaccompanied by any music or effects in the center channel, so clarity is excellent is not a little close miked for my taste. Surround usage is generally ambience and music bleed, but during the coast guard scenes they become very aggressive with the sound of waves moving from front to rear with a smooth and accurate motion. Waves splash into the mains, then back to the rears with great phantom imaging along the side walls, and great fill across the center rear. For those of you with 7.1 systems, you will find a slight widening and deepening of the sound field via the center rear speakers, but the effect is not as profound as you would expect as this mix is optimized for a more enhanced effect. Great sound is presented with great visuals that give a very satisfying presentation overall that will not invoke any complaints from lovers of IMAX presentations.