2012 World Series Champions: San Francisco Giants Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

2012 World Series Champions: San Francisco Giants Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 1, 2012

2012 may not have had the intrinsic drama of the 2011 World Series, what with St. Louis’ staggering, dogged determination to seemingly win the pennant at any cost, but there was still plenty of excitement to go around when the San Francisco Giants took on the Detroit Tigers. As has been the case for at least the last few years, A&E Home Video has been teaming (no pun intended) with Major League Baseball to release commemorative videos which typically feature an all encompassing documentary about the championship aspect of the season as well as copious supplementary material, and that’s once more the case with this latest offering.

The main film in this release offers a good look at the entire seasons of both the Giants and the Tigers, offering quick overviews of various dramas in the American and National Leagues, while also presenting good coverage of the League Championships and of course the Series itself. There are copious interview segments included, and some special attention given to a couple of things that did set this series apart, including Pablo Sandoval hitting three home runs in the first game, as well as the fact that the series featured a titanic showdown between two batting champions, the Giants’ Buster Posey and the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera.

2012 World Series Champions: San Francisco Giants Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

2012 World Series Champions: The San Francisco Giants is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of A&E Home Video with an AVC encoded 720p transfer in 1.78:1. The documentary features decent if not overwhelming clarity and sharpness, though the 720 presentation is noticeably softer in places, especially in some of the outdoor location shots. The interview segments, which typically feature close-ups of talking heads, fare much better and pop with appropriate sharpness along with well saturated color and good fine detail.

2012 World Series Champions: San Francisco Giants Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

2012 World Series Champions: The San Francisco Giants' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 really only springs to life during the snippets involving any of the many ball games caught in the main documentary. There we get great reproduction of what it feels like to be in a huge stadium, surrounded by screaming fans. The bulk of the feature, however, is voice over narration and talking head interview segments. Those offer good fidelity if an obviously very narrow soundfield.

2012 World Series Champions: San Francisco Giants Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Complete NLCS Game 7 (720p; 2:45:15)


• Caught Looking: Hunter Pence/Brandon Belt (720p; 2:16)


• Caught Looking: Buster Posey (720p; 1:43)


• Caught Looking: Matt Cain (720p; 4:21)


• Giants Clinch NL West (720p; 1:19)


• Postseason Highlights (720p; 3:39)


• Pablo Sandoval 3 Home Run Highlights (720p; 3:02)


• World Series Last Out and Celebration (720p; 3:02)


• World Series Parade (720p; 4:01). (There seems to be a slight authoring error with this supplement: on my disc, this briefly exited to the main menu before loading the supplement.)

2012 World Series Champions: San Francisco Giants Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Baseball fans will certainly want to add this decent compilation of a Major League Baseball Official Film along with some great supplementary material to their collections. And friends and family of baseball fans may want to keep this in mind for a reasonably priced stocking stuffer. Recommended.