Post Description

HDScape - Serenity Southern Seas.

Be transported into a dreamland of seascapes and ocean moods with Serenity: Southern Seas captured in High Definition by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker David Hannan and set to a beautiful soundtrack composed by Terry Oldfield, one of the world's masters of music for relaxation. It's as refreshing as a summer's breeze. Decorate your home or office with Serenity's spellbinding seascapes. Fall asleep and wake up to mesmerizing music, breathtaking sunsets and sunrises, and golden beaches. Lose yourself on spectacular coasts, dappled by dawn light and washed by azure seas. Let the stress float away with the waves.
Presented in 1080i utilizing the AVC codec (at an average bitrate of 19Mbps), Serenity: Southern Seas has a flat visual quality that matches the boring nature of the content. Detail appears noticeably hazy throughout the entire feature, rarely surpassing the level of clarity I'd expect from an up-converted DVD. I'm sure we can all agree that a production of this type should at least get the visuals right, but I'm sorry to report that is simply not the case. Colors during the dusk or daylight sequences all appear a touch on the yellowed side, pushing the spectrum into territory best described as drab and dingy. Continuing the string of disappointments, black levels during scenes at dusk rarely dipped below a dark shade of grey and contrast took a damaging hit as a result. Lastly, I noticed some banding in several shots with the sun glowing on the surface of the water, and light noise can be seen in the darker areas of the picture from time to time.
The primary audio track on the disc is a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, which consists solely of music. If you enjoy flute or wind instruments, you'll probably find a lot to appreciate about the track, considering that's the only type of music featured throughout the entire 52 minute runtime. Personally, I would have preferred guitar or piano arrangements to accompany the visuals, but we have to take what we're given. From a technical standpoint, the music is well-balanced among the speakers in the room, with an emphasis on the front sound field, but adequate use of the rear surrounds as well. There's a nice airy clarity to the different instruments in the mix, and music lovers shouldn't find much to complain about here. I still would have appreciated a bit more variety in the musical choices, but that may be asking a lot considering the lack of variation in the visual aspect of the production as well.
THNX to HDScape[/b]