Visions Of England (Special Interest)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Main Program: B-

 

 

The WLIW digital High Definition series on lands and history continues with Visions Of England (2003), the third release in the series after installments on Italy and Greece, reviewed elsewhere on the site.  In one way, this is the least exciting since we have seen England much more often than the other locations, but on the other hand, these sky shots are unusual.  They are also some of the first this critic has seen in HD of a country he is used to looking at more often than most in the states.

 

Besides castles and churches, fountains, schools, theaters and parks, we get industrial complexes and shipping that the female narrator makes out to be as exotic as the historical locations traditionally associated with the country like Stonehenge.  These moments are unintentionally funny.  Harrods and Piccadilly Square seem more in line with this, but for under an hour, it is a good show.  No pun intended.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 16 X 9/1.78 X 1 image is the best in the series so far by a slim margin, meaning that the best is being done to capture as much of the digital HD detail as possible.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has no surrounds like previous volumes, but is just fine otherwise.  The only extra is 19 extra minutes of anamorphically enhanced footage that could not fit into the body of the show.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo