At the least Warner should be giving us SD-DVDs of the 5th disc with every set if they're not going to bother remastering it in HD. I'll settle for the SD-DVD Documentary disc considering I'm paying a premium for the whole BD set. Better than nothing.

The other problem is the extra 11mins "making of" each episode we're not going to get, I'm not sure how that's solvable, or why they even cut it to begin with?

I'm thinking of getting both. One for my classroom, and the other for the home theater in my house. I'm still debating it though. I'm curious to see how good the SD will look on an upconvert DVD player, on a 61inch Samsung DLP. My guess....pretty darn good.

By the way....check out the book too its got some amazing pictures. Its a wonderful companium to the series. I highly reccomend that people pick this up as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Earth-Y...5902525&sr=1-1

Also, if you are huge on nature and animals like my wife and me, you might want to check out this site. Its got lots of excavations to various parts throughout the world. A great tour, and extremely informative and friendly people.

http://www.earthwatch.org

The lack of additional content in the BD and HD releases is pretty disheartening. Disheatening enough to make me cancel my Bluray order and change to standard. With a show this epic, how they got these magnificant shots are just as important to me as the shots themselves. Down the road, it's possible that I'll pick up a copy of the BD if I can find a good sale, but for now the standard version with the added content is the way to go.

I tend to agree with your way of thinking kurupt. I'll pick the SD release NOW and get the Blu ray release later down the line, when they hopefully fix the problem.

Will the SD discs looked as good as the broadcast on the Discovery Channel?


I will have a 61" Samsung 1080P TV
and a great upconvert dvd player.

I'd be surprised if this issue isn't sorted by the release date.

I can't fathom any case where I would choose feature+extras in SD over feature only in HD when purchasing a new movie. No matter how good you think your upconverting SD player is, it will have 1/6 of the resolution of the HD version, and for eye candy like this originating from high def cameras, the difference will be immediate and undeniable.

Agree. This series was shot in HD. I can't imagine buying it in SD for the extras.

That said, it is extremely unfair that this series is so much more expensive in HD and missing so much content.

I think I would lean more towards not buying it at all, but I got a fairly good deal so I'm going through with my order.

I can't figure out why studios are neglecting extras on High Def discs either.

This is sort of a first for Warner (who so far have been really good about porting all their SD content to BD/HD DVD) but Sony and Fox BD titles suffer from this constantly.

Are they hoping the enthusiast consumers are going to purchase both SD & HD copies to get the extra content?

I love extras and probably fit in the enthusiast category - but this practice is just making me avoid purchasing bare-bones HD discs entirely.

Bare bones version now, and an all-inclusive version later. That's probably how it's going to be unfortunately. It stinks but I'm not surprised if true.

At a $100 MSRP I don't think that's neccessarily the case. There must be some other logic to it, but of course we have no access to the people in charge of Warner's Home Video dept to find out what's up.

I have the R2 set and it's beautiful. Not an HD presentation to be sure but, quite good for SD. I've pre-ordered both the HD & BD (one set for upstairs & another for downstairs) and can't wait to see it. I'm not watching it on DiscoveryHD because I prefer Attenborough to Weaver (in this instance).

Warner is only handling the distribution of these discs, the BBC is producing their content. They were authored in the UK according to Amir at AVS.

rotfl

The new updated info on Amazon's website for both HD versions state lossless audio for both HD formats, so that's probably true but still list extras, but I'm not sure if that's correct.

I guess we'll find out next week.

Here is the Product Update form Amazon....The addition of 90 Minutes and a "Bonus Movie" Info taken from the HD DVD. Only difference with Br is that it has Lossless and Not TrueHD
Product Details

* Actors: David Attenborough
* Format: Color, Widescreen
* Language: English
* Region: All Regions
* Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
* Number of discs: 4
* Rating NR
* Studio: BBC Warner
* DVD Release Date: April 24, 2007
* Average Customer Review: based on 10 reviews. (Write a review.)
* DVD Features:
o Original U.K. broadcast version narrated by David Attenborough, including 90 minutes not shown on the Discovery Channel
o Dolby TrueHD sound
o Bonus movie: The Dream Is Alive

Hopefully this will be in HD. Cool bonus. This is a really cool movie; I saw it many years ago in Kennedy Space Center's OmniMax theater, and I jumped on the DVD when it was released.

so i am confused...are the hd and bd versions getting extras?

i ordered from the warner sale and am very close to canceling and writing a nasty e-mail as to why I am canceling.

RE: The Dream is Alive
 

'The Dream is Alive' wouldn't it have made more sense if they included 'Blue Planet' as the supplement movie??

Yeah, I would like to have Blue Planet as well.

The Dream is Alive?!?

Well, that's a welcome addition, but... rather random isn't it?

One of my favorites is from the episode, Great Plains...

Sigourney Weaver: "Wild ass... Female ass are strange creatures. They come and go as they please. And much of their behavior seems unfathomable."

yeah, 'Dream' is about:

(imdb)
Traveling on the Space Shuttle, covers training, launch, flight, deployment of LDEF from Challenger in April 1984 (STS-41C).

I really don't see how this interelated to the subject matter of 'Planet Earth'

as I noted before 'Blue Planet' has more context for inclusion as the bonus film.

Perhaps they'll at least release it separately at some point, under the title "Planet Earth: The Future" but include the behind the scenes footage for PE as well. It sucks that would cost extra, but at least it would be better than making you buy the set again to get it.

BTW, I'll be interested to see how TDIA is presented, as it could indicate how IMAX films will be handled for HD. A 1.78:1 version would be cropped, right?

DVDEmpire has scans of the backs of both the BD and HD sets and neither has any mention of lossless audio (only has DD) or "The Dream is Alive". I guess that was just incorrect info from Amazon :/.

Maybe "The Dream is Alive" will be packaged in a cardboard insert or something?