Discovery Atlas: Italy Revealed [DVD]

This documentary covers a number of sites in Italy by picking a human subject in each of the locations, and telling us the story of a slice of life in that individual and its bonding with local culture and history. These narratives run in parallel, we are taken back and forth between the heroes, as their character story lines progress.The main feature on this Blu-Ray disk is compressed more than what I've seen on Blu-Ray titles from other studios. The picture is a little washed out, especially where fast movement is shown. The quality of the camera work is exceptional for the most part; but some of less than stellar footage, with bad lighting and color fringing, was also mixed in.This DVD has extras. But, when I started watching the first one, I immediately noticed that there were some mastering problems, showing bad digital artifacting, most noticeable at scene changes. Fortunately, the main feature does not suffer from this.Overall this is a very interesting work: it takes the concept of a dry TV documentary and adds a lot of warm human touch to it. I wish the Discovery Atlas: Italy Revealed makers would have taken better advantage of features offered by the Blu-Ray format, but this is still a very interesting and great looking film.

My husband and I are very big fans of Italy, Italian cooking and Italian wine and thoroughly enjoyed this Discovery Atlas DVD. The high definition photography is breathtaking. The telling of the modern day Italy and its historical roots through the eyes of different Italian people from many walks of life from areas all over the country is inspired. We highly recommend this DVD.As an interesting aside one of the stories told by the DVD involves a man from the Italian Alps area of the country and who has been a member of a volunteer mountain rescue team for many years. The narrator makes a passing comment that due to global warming and the melting of the snow pack the man is now able to visit a warming hut used by his grandfather during an historic battle with the Austrians during World War I. Following World War I that same warming hut was covered by decades of snow pack denying access to the hut until recent global warming had once again revealed its location. Clearly a bit of unnecessary political commentary on Discovery's part and that might have inadvertently missed its intended mark.Although an Interesting piece of history the warming hut story left my husband and I wondering what changed in the Earth's climate (global cooling perhaps) during the late 19th century and early 20th century that allowed the man's grandfather and his fellow soldiers access to the warming hut and then subsequently kept the warming hut covered by snow pack for decades until the late 20th and early 21st century. Although a single data point, the described circumstance does have the feel of a trend rather than a politically correct crisis management event.

It's very well put together. It breaks down every facet of the a few special locations around the world. It's more about social structures of each country than it is geography.

Unlike most of the reviews here, I was able to play this HD DVD without any problems. I use my Xbox 360 to play HD DVDs, which is able to automatically get any updates that are needed.Anyway, the movie follows the stories of multiple Italian people, all of different ages and background, as they embark on different milestones in their lives. The video is full of beautiful shots with great hi-def detail. The narration really adds to the video as none of the people speak English.I definitely would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Italy. My wife and I went there a few years ago and were happy to once again see places that we had visited.

It's a great documentary. I showed it to my high school students and they were interested in the stories of the young individuals trying to reach their goals, while facing obstacles. The only problem is that it was out of synch. I really don't know how to explain it, but at a couple of points the story was abruptly cut off and it skipped into another story and then it went back to the same scene that we had already viewed.

This is worth watching in HD for the stunning photography alone.Contrary to some reviews, there is nothing wrong with the disc. Certain HD-DVD players have firmware bugs which have been fixed in newer versions, that keep them from showing several titles including this one. Connect your HD-DVD player to the internet and run the update utility under Settings.

The only part that I was disappointed was was when it was all over. It not only shows the beautiful country of Italy in high definition, Discovery follows several Italians during a pivotal point in their lives. I'm sad to say that Discovery will probably not make another Italy exclusive in HD for quite awhile. I'm infatuated with the Italian culture and lifestyle as well as their geography, landscape, and architecture. The Discovery Atlas series is excellent if you're at all interested in worlds outside of ours.

Man, watch this DVD on a High-Def TV and you feel like you are really in Italy. They do a nice job of showing the beauty of Italy while showing the day-to-day stories of a couple of actual Italians. The stories keep you captive as they are unique to Italian culture. This is a tremendous disc for educational purposes or just for those that miss being in Italia...I highly recommend!

So beautiful!