Over British Columbia Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Over British Columbia Blu-ray Movie Review

A picturesque view of Canada's gorgeous British Columbia.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 28, 2010

Having grown up for at least a part of my childhood and early adolescence in the Pacific Northwest, and then having returned to the region for the bulk of my adult years, I’ve been lucky enough to have Canada’s gorgeous British Columbia province within just a few hours’ drive. Some of my fondest childhood memories are trips I took with my father to Harrison Hot Springs in BC, as well as many other family vacations to such wonderful places as Vancouver and the Buchart Gardens. All of those memories came spilling back to me as I watched Over British Columbia (actually titled Over Beautiful British Columbia on its title card), another one of the nice aerial tours that frequently pop up on Public Broadcasting, especially during pledge weeks. If you’ve seen any of these outings, you know the drill: occasional, sometimes rather flowery, narration accompanying a series of really lovely fly-by’s of teeming metropolises and sylvan agrarian locations. Over British Columbia falls into that mold and delivers some exquisite imagery, as well as having an unusually diverse and entertaining soundtrack of various kinds of music.

The 'Over' series always has a wealth of beautiful aerial photography.

I find it a bit ironic that while in real life I am not the calmest flyer out there, I find these Over videos one of the most relaxing series imaginable. Watching the camera glide through clouds and over mountains and cities, oceans and rivers, hills and dales, one can almost imagine oneself as a bird taking in all the natural beauty. Over British Columbia does in fact start with various cloud scenes before it then splits off the province into various regions and examines sections of each area.

The first region to be explored is British Columbia’s Southwest. This area has two of the more populated regions, Victoria and Vancouver, as well as the signature ski resort of the region, Whistler. Also on view are Nanaimo, Port Hardy, and Mount Waddington. Next we move to the Interior, where probably the best known sights are Kamloops and Prince George. A gorgeous spin around Williams Lake is also featured. The Southeast offers some relatively lesser known areas, including Cranbrook, The Bugaboos (unusual mountain formations), and Nelson. Next we’re off to the North, home of Dawson Creek, Prince Rupert, Fort St. John, Mt. Edziza and Fort Nelson. Finally we make seaward to the Queen Charlotte Islands, home o two large parks, the South Moresby National Park and the Naikoon Provincial Park, as well as the lovely Queen Charlotte City.

Over British Columbia ends with a montage of wonderful aerial scenes which are not region specific. One of the only unfortunate musical choices appears here, an original song by writer-narrator David Hoole that is sadly pretty cringe worthy. Interestingly, the rest of the piece has one gorgeous musical selection after another in a wide array of idioms, and I was really surprised to see no music credits at the end. I really can’t believe these all came from a public domain music library, but if they did, I’d love to have access to that library—it contains some wonderful music.

This is an engaging and relaxing tour through one of North America’s most splendid terrains. If Hoole’s occasional narration is a little too overtly poetic for its own good, it at least proves that the man has a deep feeling for the territory, one which he’s attempted to convey to his audience. Over British Columbia may not be a good substitute for actually visiting this beautiful province, but for armchair travelers, it may well be the next best thing.

Over British Columbia Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Over British Columbia arrives from Topics Entertainment with a generally excellent 1080i image encoded via VC-1, in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio (which may display on your television as 1.78:1). With so many gorgeous sights to see, it's mostly good news to report on the budget priced Blu-ray. Colors are very strong, beautifully saturated and very lifelike. Contrast is also excellent so that, for example, even white-clad skiers pop out nicely against a snowy background. While being up so high deprives close up detail from ever getting too overwhelming, there's amazing depth of field, and the viewer is shown vistas where sightlines proceed for literally miles and miles. I did notice a couple of very brief artifacting issues, and they were on geometrically patterned high rises in the cityscapes. Brief line shimmer attended these buildings, but the problem was extremely short lived and not very distracting.

Over British Columbia Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unfortunately there is no lossless audio option on Over British Columbia, but it's also sad there isn't even a surround standard Dolby option. We've got good old fashioned Dolby Stereo here, and it's fine for what it is, but will probably leave a lot of BD audiophiles shaking their head in scorn. This is a piece comprised of nonstop music, with very occasional narration. All of the music sounds great, with no fidelity issues or anomalies to report. Dynamic range is acceptable if not stunning, There's really not a whale of a lot of discrete stereo separation here even in the music mixes. But the mass of sound, and Hoole's understated narration, are always easy to hear.

Over British Columbia Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements on this budget priced Blu-ray are offered.

Over British Columbia Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Over series has become a favorite on PBS stations in America. It's easy to see why when you consider the glorious sights featured throughout Over British Columbia. Though the audio is not up to high def standards, visually this is a very impressive piece and should give lots of pleasure to travel enthusiasts.