WWII in HD
Mar.25, 2010 in
Uncategorized
Description
The only people to see the war like this were the ones who lived it. Until now…
Seventy years in the making. Three thousand hours of color footage no one knew existed. The first documentary to show World War II from the perspective of both sides in full, immersive HD color, the world premiere HISTORY series WWII in HD uses the diaries of soldiers who fought in the war’s biggest battles to create a personal, introspective and detailed look at life on and off … More >>
Tags: WWII
March 25th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Although they advertise this as WWII in HD, be warned! The DVD version of this is not in HD, because (as a video producer) I know that DVD’s cannot display HD media. This would have to be a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to actually be in HD. This is false advertising at its finest.
Rating: 1 / 5
March 25th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
I put this dvd in my Sony Blu-ray player and it froze it up completely. The only way I could get it out was to disconnect the player, connect it up again and eject the dvd. Until I did this my player wouldn’t respond to any command. Watch out for defective merchandise like this!
Rating: 1 / 5
March 25th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Literally itching for this! however there is no region coding in the description? could anyone tell me weather or not this will play on a UK PS3? Thanks in advance folks.
Rating: 5 / 5
March 25th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I was intrigued by the idea of rare, recovered color film footage from the World War II era, something that can give a glimpse into a foggy past. I had hoped to be shown recovered film from the area, perhaps accompanied by an explanation of where and how the film was shot, what the context of the film is, other significant details, and how it was found and recovered.
That’s not remotely what this is.
Instead, this is a poorly done “recollections of World War II” documentary that follows a dozen people through the war, and uses quick snatches of color footage to accompany it. In other words, the color footage is distinctly secondary at best.
The show does not explain where these recollections come from. Actors are paid to voice them. The show constantly switches from geographic place to place, and also inexplicably switches back and forth in time.
The footage is ostensibly related to the battles, places, etc., where these people were, but the producers essentially ignore the footage itself. None of it is ever explained. Moreover, it is chopped so much in editing that the average time any given roll of film appears on screen is one or two seconds. Then, bam, cut to another shot for a second or two, bam, cut, bam, cut, bam, cut. The viewer has absolutely NO OPPORTUNITY to spend time actually taking in any of the film footage, because it has been diced to bits and spliced together.
Moreover, there’s no sense that much of the footage is even related to the events talked about in the show. I saw many things that looked like they were filmed elsewhere, but were just stuck in here because there was something about them that provided a visual for what the voice actor was saying. This includes stock footage of the “enemy,” such as Germans firing machineguns. Are we given to think that somehow color footage of German machineguns being fired at Lammersdorf was recovered to be shown along with the American footage of Lammersdorf? Obviously, it was from something completely different, just stuck in because it looked good. How much of this is actually the case? We are never told. Indeed, the end credits flash by so quick, and are so information-free, that it is impossible really to know what footage came from where. There was one shot of a country-side that accompanied a voice actor talking about being sent back to San Antonio to recover from wounds–well, I have lived in San Antonio and I know that shot was taken nowhere near south-central Texas.
This show will be totally disappointing to anybody who wanted to experience color WWII film footage.
Moreover, not all the film is even in color. There is still considerable black and white film. Some of the film, too, bears some of the hallmarks of colorization, though I can’t be sure.
Also, I am sure none of the film footage shot had accompanying sound. This means that all the sound in the show is completely fabricated–though it is inserted in such a way that the viewer is clearly meant to think that this is sound that actually was recorded at the time the footage was recorded.
This was tremendously disappointing. I am amazed that the producers of this show deliberately butchered so much color footage and rendered it completely useless. Shame on them.
I could only recommend this to someone who knows very little about World War II.
Rating: 1 / 5
March 25th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
This was a terrific documentary with my only complaint being that a very few of the “restored” scenes were done very poorly, as the colors were oversaturated with little tones and shading. The producers are adamant that this was totally original color footage, but these scenes look like the crappy Turner colorization.
Again, a very very few scenes, certainly less than 1% of all the footage shown so this is a very minor criticism and I readily give the overall series 5 stars of 5 and 10 out of 10 on the IMDB scale.
My main reason for commenting is that before ordering I would make sure this is the entire series, the price would seem to be what you typically see for one ep and not a 10 hour series, and the description says length is 60 minutes.
Rating: 5 / 5