Blue Planet II [4K ULTRA HD + BLU RAY] [2017] [Blu-ray] UK IMPORT

The delivery of the disc was on time and with no hassels. As for the disc itself, it is breath taking. David Attenborough's voice evokes nostalgia of one's childhood when one used to watch those one hour NatGeo specials on DD. The content and quality of the disc are superbly shot but you must have a 4K TV to truly enjoy it. It is a special collection and a keeper.

You don't know what your 4k TV and player can do unless you've let this loose on them. Tested on a Sony A9F65 OLED with a Samsung 4k player. The visuals are stunning and the experience will leave you breathless. Should be part of every av enthusiast's collection.

its 4k world amazing nature

Good story-telling from Attenborough, as usual. Good image quality

One of the most ambitious nature series ever undertaken, and it shows. Over four years in the making, the world’s five oceans explored, the most sophisticated hi-tech photography equipment used, thousands of man-hours and millions of pounds invested in 125 expeditions and 4,000 dives. Along with this, the beautiful haunting music of Hans Zimmer and Radiohead in collaboration, as well as the wise, elegiac voice of Sir David Attenborough who speaks in near-lament at what we are doing to the oceans with our plastic junk, carbon effluence and industrial-scale overfishing. If anything, the world’s beautiful coral reefs act as a marker of the health of our planet and civilisation. If they go, if we manage to kill them off with rising ocean temperatures and polluted, acidic seas, maybe they constitute the suicide note we are unconsciously writing to the world. This is the tone of the programme: so much beauty and variety, so much knowledge and intelligence, yet between them so much fragility and thoughtless destruction. It’s as if Sir David is beseeching us to grow up and become mature and responsible adults, leaving our reckless teen years behind. Here is a vivid portrait of all the underwater beauty and diversity we stand to lose if we do not change our way of thinking and living.But apart from morality tale, it’s also a great education, punctuated by simple facts and stats. For instance, the landmass of Earth makes up only 30% of our planet’s surface. 97% of all water on Earth is contained in the oceans. The world’s greatest wilderness — the open ocean or Big Blue — covers 50% of Earth’s surface, the marine equivalent of a desert. In it, Sir David says, there’s nowhere to hide and little to eat. 90% of all fish live in the so-called twilight zone where light from the sun begins to fade at a depth of 200 metres. This zone extends to a depth of 1,000 metres, thereafter called the midnight zone, which is pitch black. How do animals navigate there in the dark? With their own lights, which are wild, weird, spooky, and colourful like flashing disco and strobe lights. Dancing at the bottom of the oceans? Of course. Didn’t you know God has a sense of humour?Other facts and assertions. We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the geology, chemistry and biology of our ocean floors. The chemicals of life were first mixed in the hothouse kitchen at the centre of our planet then released through thermal vents into the oceans. Life most likely began at the interface of these ocean vents and Earth’s interior. One day our technology may allow us to confirm this, as we know some of the moons of Jupiter (Ganymede and Callisto) and Saturn (Titan and Mimas) have oceans as well, and we also know the laws of physics are universal, equal, unequivocal. Why should life only exist on Earth? In all probability it does not. Our home, our planet, is special and precious, but that doesn’t mean it’s unique. This should cheer us. At least it cheers me.A few spoiler examples of extraordinary animal behaviour in the oceans of Earth follow, so please stop reading if you’d rather not know (though it’s just a sampler list with many other examples omitted).• Dolphins in South Africa ride and surf the crests of huge waves for the sheer joy, pleasure and fun of it. No kidding!• Other dolphins and whales congregate and communicate in order to coordinate large underwater hunting pacts and packs.• A fish in Australia has worked out the dynamics of cause and effect, clearly seeing into the future through its logic. He smashes the sturdy shells of clams against hard rock or coral to get at the soft, juicy, tasty bits inside. He is clumsy but persistent, keeping his eyes on the prize. Like us and chimpanzees, he is a toolmaker.• Another fish of the oceanic deep lives in the midnight zone. His skull is clear and luminescent. You can see right through it and so can he. Why? Better to spot prey (and predators) above him without turning over to look. Easier just to peer right up through your skull to examine the world. Given enough time to tinker and experiment, evolution by natural selection always arrives at ingenious ways in which to survive and thrive.There are seven episodes in the series, each an hour in length:One OceanThe DeepCoral ReefsBig BlueGreen SeasCoastsOur Blue PlanetThe final episode (Our Blue Planet) is the most sobering, as it details what is happening to the planet and its oceans and what must be done to limit or halt the destruction. Less than 1% of our international waters are protected, and as Sir David says:“The creation of marine reserves is vital if we’re to safeguard the future of many ocean creatures.”In the last three years over two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs are thought to have suffered from rises in ocean temperatures. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolved in seawater forms carbonic acid which destroys the calcium carbonate shells of sea creatures as well as coral reefs. Our cars, jet aircraft and especially our factories dump millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere as if the planet had an infinite capacity to absorb this noxious chemical compound. Homo sapiens sits in the dock of some celestial courtroom in my imagination, guilty as charged for ruining his planet. The judge shows no mercy, the prisoner dragged away in chains to serve out his sentence with extreme finality, that sentence being extinction.But not all is lost, including hope. As more knowledge accumulates, the better we understand and are better equipped to logistically take well-informed, intelligent action. The final episode highlights local success stories around the globe and the work of dedicated people in educating others to make a difference. If one thinks this is pie in the sky, then they are just not trying or caring enough to want to try. It all begins at home with the choices you make in daily life: recycling, bicycling instead of driving, less flying, less needless consumption, no plastic shopping bags. This is true whether many in the world want to believe it or not. You are responsible for your own carbon footprint.I have never before seen underwater photography as clear, vivid, colourful and beautiful as this. I should probably re-watch the entire series in the bath for full immersion sensation. As it is, even on the settee, I feel as though I am snorkelling above coral reefs. Wondrous experience. I shouldn’t be able to imagine anyone disparaging this series, though there will always be nitpicking malcontents impossible to please. Thankfully, these form a slender minority here. The series currently has an 83% 5-star rating at amazon.co.uk, and my review may push it closer to 84%.I’m thankful Sir David is still living (now aged 91) and working. No retirement for some! Thankful too for the professionalism and commitment of the BBC in commissioning the series. When I saw Blue Planet over ten years ago I thought to myself:“That’s it. They’ve gone all out. This series can’t be bettered.”But I was wrong. Very wrong. The current series is even greater. I would even say greater by far. The technological development in underwater photographic technology over the past dozen years has been truly phenomenal. The clarity of the images, even at 11,000 metres deep in the Mariana Trench (the deepest gash in the surface of the earth), is astonishing. If I didn’t know better, I would think I was looking at CGI — but we are not in this series.A dozen years ago I was in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia, visiting Tahiti, Mo’orea and Bora Bora, among other beautiful islands and atolls. What I saw snorkelling and scuba diving underwater there with my own eyes I now see reproduced here almost perfectly. I was joking about the bath, but maybe it’s not such a bad idea (even if it is). Imagine that — getting electrocuted by the BBC! Anyway, full immersion with this series. You will not see better underwater photography anywhere else anytime soon.Bravo to Sir David and the BBC.And love the earth, the only home you’ll ever have!

Having purchased the 4K UHD of Planet Earth 2 last year i had high expectations for this UHD release and boy Im not dissapointed.The Detail in this release is mental and the colors just pop off the screen, the UHD format really shines with releases like this, the BBC should be very proud :)Planet Earth 2 & Blue Planet 2 are the 2 4K UHD releases you should definatley own if you have a 4K/HDR TV.Video: 10/10Audio: 8/10Notes: The HDR is beautifully done, its not BANG in your face, it pops with color but is really natural looking.

Amazing. I bought this partly because I thought it would be good for my young kids to watch, partly to have some nice 4K content for my new 4K screen. I'm embarrassed that I thought as a middle aged person I've seen lots of nature documentaries about the ocean, going back to Jacques Cousteau films in the 70s, and wouldn't have much to learn. This is fantastic viewing, both photographically and learning. If you have the slightest interest in the Ocean and nature, buy the best version (4k vs bluray vs DVD) you can view.

A super in-depth educational updated series exploring the oceans of our planet. I learnt so much watching this it really does overload your mind with beautiful images and so many facts. Timelapse footage reveals just what's going on inside the rockpools we so often walk past.The image is nearly always crisp, clean and colourful with lovely depth and contrast, get ready for a lot of blue. Even some of the murkier low light shots still look good. This is a vast improvement purely in terms of image quality over it's standard definition prequel. The audio is also excellent with good clean narration and sound. The programme also directly tackles the pollution problem and shows it's impact on our oceans.The series does suffer from the 'attack if the ridiculous sound effect" syndrome. Certain sequences contain jump scares accompanied by the kind of music you'd expect from a generic Hollywood horror flick.So watch and enjoy, be amazed, be horrified, just don't be indifferent.

When I first watched the original Blue Planet series, I believed it to be sufficiently visually impressive to be impossible to better, however Blue Planet II in 4K UHD, with advances in filming facilities and techniques managed to outshine its magnificent predecessor.Personally, I also appreciated the music which accompanied the visuals. As I prefer to use subtitles in order to fully digest the wisdom of David Attenborough's words, the music was able to convey the mood of the moment in its own dramatic way, although it could easily overpower the essential speech for those not using subtitles. (Incidentally the subtitles themselves were beautifully presented, too.)Consequently, I would recommend Blue Planet II as an absolutely essential purchase for those wishing to see 4K film-making at its very best.