Anyone seen Ganges?

[tqmilymi]

This is a new BBC release. Anyone seen it on Blu? Is it worth picking up?

[mr peepers]

i got it from amazon yesterday but havent watched it yet.

i love all the bbc stuff they have on blu now, so i cant imagine it will be a disappointment.

[mr peepers]

just watched the first of 3 episodes.

im not too terribly impressed just yet. pq isnt quite up to par with the planet earth or galapagos bd's. aq is actually pretty good though. its still a nature style bd, so its not going to have your mind blowing explosions. but its pretty good given the material.

the substance of the documentary itself seems rather redundant and repetitive as well.

not sure. ill probably watch the other 2 episodes later tonight. maybe it'll redeem itself. but if you're looking for an extension onto your planet earth bd collection, this probably wont satisfy your needs.

[alexakajeff]

Planet Earth looked AMAZING

[Russell_L]

I saw about the first hour or so of 'Ganges' and thought it was pretty good. It didn't immediately grab me the way 'Planet Earth' or 'Galapagos' did, but there were still many good moments. I'm hoping it will get better. I initially didn't think the PQ was as good as 'Galapagos' (which I think looks better than 'Planet Earth'), but it was still very good nonetheless, and some scenes--notably the waterfalls and flower close-ups--were stunning. The jury's still out on this one until I find time to watch the rest of it.

Russell

[Russell_L]

HDD has just put up a review:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1398/ganges.html

I've now watched the first 2 episodes and pretty much agree with everything in the review. It's much more of a thought-provoking documentary than either 'Planet Earth' or 'Galapagos', both of which could be watched simply for the eye-candy factor. There's a fair amount of that in 'Ganges' as well, but it comes across as more serious in tone.

Russell

[jcarys]

If you know the BBC shows, then you've already got a good idea of the quality. I enjoyed the content much more than Galapagos - I thought it was less redundant from episode to episode, and the material covered a lot more ground. It is a lot about the natural environment and animal life, but also a lot of Indian religious beliefs and practice. It's as much about the people as the animals, for once. If you like this type of material, it's highly recommended.

[SoCalTiger]

I finished watching this last night. Here is my review:

Content - This documentary was pretty good, covered the Ganges river, it's relationship with humans along the river as well as some wildlife. I rated this a 3.5 only because the majority of the documentary focuses on the river's interaction with humans and I was expecting it to be more of a "nature" documentary focused more on native fauna and flora. I would say it's rated a 4 if you are okay with this.

PQ - Decent. The still shots are very detailed but motion shots are really lacking and were hard for me to focus on. I don't know if it is compression, the fact it is interlaced or what. Color saturation and black levels were both very good. Overall PQ, I rated this a 3.5. For comparison I would have rated Planet Earth 4.5.

AQ - Good, there is actually a ton of LFE here (for a documentary.)

Extras were okay. It was nice having insight into how some scenes were done and more content is always good. Extras appeared to be in SD, though.

Overall rating = 3.5 / 5