Customer Reviews

Living Landscapes HD Hawaii [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The picture is amazing and truly brings you to Hawaii's beauty. The TV screen turns into an amazing moving picture frame.

The only thing that bothered me was the advertising on the screen. Throughout the entire disc, a message reads the company's web site in the lower right hand corner in white text. It seems a little absurd that even after you have paid this money to the company; they still feel the need to advertise to you.

Other than that, the disc was put together nicely. And after time, you may stop noticing the ad, I hope.

I have been choosing to watch these beautiful HDEnvironments DVDs instead of watch TV or movies. They are so uplifting and absolutely thrilling. I have been watching Hawaii, and even though I have been to these islands many times, I am seeing things I never saw or could have seen. I keep thinking "How did they get that shot?" And you don't need a high definition TV set to get amazingly realistic video. It's like being there!
Living Landscapes HD Hawaii [Blu-ray]

Photography is great but really needed native Hawaiian music to make it work. The music on the DVDE is soothing but inappropriate

I sure am glad I got this HD-DVD before it went out of print, if it hasn't already! :-)

If you are looking for a documentary or something educational, this is not it. Living Landscapes Hawaii is an hour of footage accompanied by music. And nothing else. There is no narration, no menu, and no special features.

It's really more of a fancy screen saver than anything else. As such, it is hard to recommend, unless you are specifically looking for something like this for, say, demo'ing your TV. If you didn't tell me that this was Hawaii, I would've had a hard time identifying which tropical locale it was. It's missing that Hawaiian flair. The palm trees and surf pounding against rocks could be anywhere. No shots of volcanoes, pahoehoe, plumerias (lei flowers), pineapples, and many of the things that most people associate with Hawaii.

The most obvious music choice for a DVD of Hawaii would be some Hawaiian music. But instead it's all piano music with some ambient/New Age-y sounding pieces, along with chirping birds in the background of most scenes. Overall, it's very relaxing and pleasant, like a lullaby or Enya - The Celts, but not at all Hawaiian.

In keeping with the relaxing mood, all the shots are gentle pans or slow zooms, with dissolves in between. I enjoyed the closeups of ginger flowers, orchids, lilies, and other plants the most. I would've liked at least to have the names of the flowers and animals to be written in small letter at the bottom of the screen just so I know what I'm seeing, or where the scene was shot... Not that there are a lot of animals to see. I remember only seeing 1 anole lizard, a bee, and several shots of a bird.

The beginning starts with pounding surf and the end goes back to surf, with an especially boring last 5 minutes of slow-mo waves.

Lastly, a semi-transparent URL for the company is permanently glued to the lower left corner. It is distracting and unnecessary.

Overall, it's hard to recommend this disc. It's certainly not something I'd watch again from end to end, or have as background music while I work or do chores. It's pretty hard to justify that amount of energy consumption just to listen to music from my TV when an mp3 player accomplishes the same task with much less wasted electricity.

I bought this BluRay based on watching the current television series Hawaii Five-0. I expected the BluRay to showcase Hawaii spectacularly as the series did and without the plots, and truly show off HD on my tv . . . However all I can say is Hawaii Five-0 does Hawaii a lot better than this BluRay does. Where is the sweeping majesty of the Ko'olaus and the windy, dramatic Pali cliffs? Where are the crashing combers of the North Shore and Sunset Beach? Where the spectacular views of volcano mountain peaks and lava flows? Not present unfortunately. A lot of the scenery is shot during dull overcast days. Now I'm one for a dramatic skyscape and storm, but not 8/8 overcast grey skies and dull beaches. Too much of that. Too many odd camera placements, so instead of focusing in on a nice beach wave set, you get a lot of trees stuck everywhere around the frame and your eye gets confused about where to look. This is especially evident during the rainforest scenes. A lot of leaves and water dripping but no real focus. Some of the waterfalls were nice though.

There are some exquisite scenes, especially the blowholes and some of the floral offerings, but a lot of it is rather dull, and you don't know which island you are on, so you are uninformed as well as bored. I love HD landscapes, but really I know Hawaii is much more beautiful and spectacular than this BluRay suggests. I was expecting to be blown away as I was with the World's Greatest Mountains BluRay, and I wasn't.

This DVD has nice photography, but not much else. It does not tell you which Island you are seeing, or where you might be on that Island. There is no narration. I was very disapointed with the movie, and if I had to choose again, I would choose not to purchase this movie.

I love Hawaii, but I did not love this movie. It could have been so much more if only they had taken the time to take viewers through a virtual tour of the Islands. But they didn't. Don't waste your money on this movie.

I was very disappointed with this disc. The majority of the time it is showing ocean waves on cloudy or hazy days. There are also lots of ocean waves at sunset. You don't really see much of Hawaii in this, just the ocean. When it is not showing waves the shots were still taken on cloudy, hazy days. Very poorly done. I will not buy any products from this company.

Terrible movie. All it is is a movie with average video. No words just music and it repeats itself in certain spots. I learned nothing new or even knew what island the movie was filmed on. Do not buy this. Boring. Snooze faces.

There are a lot of dvds produced these days to provide viewers a chance at virtual relaxation without leaving the confines of your own home.

Living Landscapes is a stellar entry into this genre, with each title giving an actual destination instead of just a theme, and the visual and musical productions a step above the competition. I don't just want beaches, I want Hawaii. Everytime I view this dvd, I can prepare for the day that I get to make my Hawaiian trip a reality.

Start with the sampler dvd from this series, called "Most Beautiful Places n the World" to get an idea of what is offered with this series. Each disc is its own unique experience. I will
keep coming back for more!


Dana Paull "teagal" (Reno, NV USA)
Originally posted for Standard Definition of this DVD