Search - The Universe: The Complete Season Four on DVD

No joy for your HDTV!

C. R. Swanson | Phoenix | 02/25/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Imagine that you work for the History Channel. Suppose that your job is to put together a DVD set for season four of one of your prestige shows; one that looks great on your HD network and really serves to highlight what an excellent network you have.

If you were this person doing this job would you:

A: Release this DVD set as anamorphic, so that when people watch it on their 47" screen the image takes up all the screen and looks spectacular.

B: Release this DVD as non-anamorphic so that either people have to see a stretched version where all the planets are ovals instead of spheres (which they aren't actually, but that's another issue), or they have to watch it both letterboxed and pillarboxed in order to see everything in the correct aspect ratio?

If you selected B, I think the folks at History might have a job opening for you.

"The Universe", the TV show, looks great when it airs on History HD and is really entertaining and informative. I love everything about the show, even if this current season focused a bit much on the "gloom and doom" aspects of space and not as much on space science. I have the first three seasons on DVD and love watching them.

But, well, they're non-anamorphic and that's just not acceptable. This will, as a result, be the last DVD set of this program that I buy until the folks at History wake up and give the show a proper DVD release.

5 stars for the show. 1 star for the DVD set."

The 4th season is a little disappointing

M. Shepherd | 02/27/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The first three seasons of this show were really much better than the fourth season. In the fourth season they have gone much more
into speculation and sensationalism with much less real science.
Still, it is interesting and worth watching, just don`t expect too much from it.
Call it three and a half stars.
"

Widescreen Finally!!!

Anders Blom | 03/18/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I owned the first three seasons of this EPIC series on dvd and had been disappointed by the double black bars (fullscreen letterbox) presentation of this series. A quick fix was to change your zoom settings on your set or player, but this fix was quite awful in what seems to be lower than a 480i resolution.

This product on Blu-ray is awesome, it contains all 12 episodes of season 4 plus additional never-aired segments presented on 3 Blu-ray discs.
Episodes include:
(Disc 1) Death Stars, The Day the Moon was gone, It fell from Space, Biggest Blasts
(Disc 2) The Hunt for Ringed Planets, 10 Ways to Destroy The Earth, The Search for Cosmic Clusters, Space Wars
(Disc 3) Liquid Universe, Pulsars and Quasars, Science Fiction/Science Fact, Extreme Energy.
Bonus features include; Meteors: Fire in the Sky, Comets: Prophets of Doom.

The Blu-ray release of this series is truly wonderful in full 1920x1080 HD. This is a true widescreen release. The audio is presented in lossless 2.0 Dolby Stereo.

The graphics and special effects can be and most of the time are the best of any production I have ever seen. It stands alone in comparison to anything the BBC, NOVA, The Science Channel, or The Discovery Channel has ever created.

If you are interested in a mind blowing, educational, heavily entertaining piece of eye candy, then do not pass this product up."

Way better than season 3

Michael T. Rogge | Minnesota | 07/03/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've watched all 4 seasons of the Universe so far, and I was left disappointed by the third, rest assured the fourth is much better. Even when re-treading old subject matter, they still make the episodes relevant and interesting, often updating old facts. The world of astronomy moves fast, so this is a good thing.

I recommend this if you're the least bit interested in our universe, and/or how it works. Even if you're an astronomical genius (I'm not), you'll likely find something new or interesting in this."