The Universe: The Complete Season 1 [Blu-ray]

     Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 11/18/2008 Run time: 705 minutes      The sky and outer space have fascinated man for centuries and the History Channel's series The Universe is the story of man's study of the cosmos from his earliest attempts to map and understand the heavens through modern day scientific studies, advances, and theories. A mix of historical footage, modern space imaging, and conceptual computer graphics presented in high-definition, the visual component of this production is absolutely breathtaking. Each of the 13 44-minute episodes begins with a general introduction of subjects ranging from the sun to individual planets, alien galaxies, the search for extra-terrestrial life, and scientific theories like the Big Bang. Each topic is then broken down into a series of segments that detail specific ideas, theories, or components integral to the understanding of the main topic as well as historical material, current studies and theories, and projections of potential future events and scientific advances. The 90-minute "Beyond the Big Bang" feature relates "the story of everything"--from the universe's formation following the "Big Bang" to its eventual projected demise from unchecked expansion dubbed the "Big Rip." Leading experts from universities and scientific institutions around the world do a great job of taking very complex subjects like galaxies with spiral density arms and relating them to easily graspable concepts like a city with a downtown core surrounded by suburbs and plagued by freeway traffic jams. Amazing photographs from the Hubble space telescope, infrared views from the Spitzer space telescope, and x-ray images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory augment understanding as do demonstrations of modern science's ability to simulate historical events like the formation of earth and to project future cosmic events. The Universe is a fascinating and understandable study of space that speaks to viewers ranging from the generally curious to the serious student of cosmology. --Tami Horiuchi

Comment:
    History Channel's "The Universe" is an intriguing look at what we know from space and beyond. Every episode glues you to your seat until you know everything there is to know about Jupiter's moon, or how the moon became our moon. This is a perfect collection for anything with a open mind to the worlds outside of our world. ANYONE interested in space would surely want to pick this set up on blu-ray if possible; but lucky they have it on DVD for anyone who hasn't caught up with technology yet ;)Its as good as everyone says it is. The picture quality is amazing, even on a 67" screen (1080p helps quite a bit at 60"+ sizes) and the camera work on the nature scenes is extremely well done. Even the narration is great...good voice and good script/points made. They show you a lot of rare stuff, and even rare animals doing things that one might think would be hard to capture on film...just extremely impressive in every way.All of you who are thinking about buying this must know that it uses a variety of poor and old picture quality sources. From interlacing content to sources with dot crawl. But all of that does not compare to the experience you will have just watching 1 episode. A absolute must own!!! Our Universe is more then just possible ETs out there. Prepared to be scared, wowed and feel small.