Planet Earth Box Set (5 Discs) (Blu-ray)

I don't need to repeat again how good this series is so I'll just say that if you think there's even a remote chance you'll enjoy this then you should watch it.

Some reviewers have complained that it's 60i. Extras aside, it's not. The main series is 24p (60i with pulldown). The picture quality is also great with only occasional non-HD parts. Night scenes are obviously going to be lower quality. It's not like you can set up a lot of spotlights just to get a nice picture.

The downside? Unfortunately the BBC have decided to compromise this version, presumably for the US market. The episodes are indeed 24p. However they should be played back at 25fps, not 24. In other words it's too slow. The audio also suffers because of this. It's been slowed down and pitch corrected. This leads to some unpleasant artefacts that are easily heard during the orchestral score.

The Snow Leopards / Desert Lions extras suffer too. Again both should be 25p. One has been interlaced to 60i,… more »

I don't need to repeat again how good this series is so I'll just say that if you think there's even a remote chance you'll enjoy this then you should watch it.

Some reviewers have complained that it's 60i. Extras aside, it's not. The main series is 24p (60i with pulldown). The picture quality is also great with only occasional non-HD parts. Night scenes are obviously going to be lower quality. It's not like you can set up a lot of spotlights just to get a nice picture.

The downside? Unfortunately the BBC have decided to compromise this version, presumably for the US market. The episodes are indeed 24p. However they should be played back at 25fps, not 24. In other words it's too slow. The audio also suffers because of this. It's been slowed down and pitch corrected. This leads to some unpleasant artefacts that are easily heard during the orchestral score.

The Snow Leopards / Desert Lions extras suffer too. Again both should be 25p. One has been interlaced to 60i, the other blended to 30p. At least the audio's ok on these.

So I'm torn. On one hand it's still a fantastic series. On the other I don't want to encourage these kind of authoring issues.

In the end though the quality still shines through, so I'll just drop a star because of the problems.

Hi there,

i recently bought this series to add to my ever expanding blu-ray collection, i saw the series when it was broadcast and loved it. it is by far the best piece of nature television ever filmed and by that alone would justify your purchase of it. but unfortunately the picture quality isn't quite as good as i was expecting.

i watch my blu-rays on my PS3, hocked up to my 40" Sony bravia with a full 1080p resolution, and also connected to my Sony 5.1 surround sound, now apparently Planet earth was the first documentary to be filmed almost entirely in HD, i would disagree. within the first 5 episodes (these are the ones i have got round to watching on blu-ray) i would say only about 30mins of footage appears to be shot in full HD with these scenes looking crystal clear. but a lot of the time the image is very grainy and that presents a lack of detail almost as if you are watching the upconverted DVD version..

Now my advice would be, the hour or so of actual HD… more »

Hi there,

i recently bought this series to add to my ever expanding blu-ray collection, i saw the series when it was broadcast and loved it. it is by far the best piece of nature television ever filmed and by that alone would justify your purchase of it. but unfortunately the picture quality isn't quite as good as i was expecting.

i watch my blu-rays on my PS3, hocked up to my 40" Sony bravia with a full 1080p resolution, and also connected to my Sony 5.1 surround sound, now apparently Planet earth was the first documentary to be filmed almost entirely in HD, i would disagree. within the first 5 episodes (these are the ones i have got round to watching on blu-ray) i would say only about 30mins of footage appears to be shot in full HD with these scenes looking crystal clear. but a lot of the time the image is very grainy and that presents a lack of detail almost as if you are watching the upconverted DVD version..

Now my advice would be, the hour or so of actual HD content in the series does not justify the £40 price tag but this series does need to be owned so i would say save yourself £23 and get the DVD version, because all BD player will upconvert DVD's and that is about the same quality you will get from the blu-ray version, if you are looking to show off your HDTV i would suggest picking up the pirates of the Caribbean films (easily the best looking blu-rays to date!)

i gave the rating 4 stars because the series is just so good but i would rate the BD transfer 2 stars