Band Of Brothers - The Complete Series (Commemorative 6-Disc Gift Set in Tin Box) [Blu-ray] [2010]

As a historian, lover of cinema, a career in editing, photography & cinematography, I can safely shout that Stephen Spielberg & Co truly crafted wonders.Band of Brothers should be part of educational curriculum. Whilst there is deserved occasion for artistic license (remember, the mini series had to be compelling for the average viewer as well as WWII buffs & alike), for the most part, the series is as accurate as humanly possible without having to suffer the misery of being there.The success of Saving Private Ryan gifted ol Sir Stevie & Mr Hanx the opportunity to go further and show the world more, much more. Unlike Private Ryan, Band of Brothers wasn't loosely based around real & fictitious individuals. Sure, Private Ryan's backdrop and stage was very much real, yet the individual accounts were semi fictional. Band of Brothers narrative, on the other hand, was taken from real life experiences & accounts.I'll not go any further. Many wanting to purchase Band of Brothers are like me. However, if you're one of the few that have yet to experience one of, if not the most astonishing, enthralling, exciting, thrilling, breathtaking, emotional,harrowing, heartbreak and heart warming cinematic shows ever then please do not hesitate. Buy now! You'll not regret it.

I have had the DVD box set for years but when my wife decided she wanted to see it, I found an excuse to buy the very reasonably priced Blu Ray set.There are multitude of reviews about how great the whole series is so I won't waste time talking about the excellent writing, acting, directing, effects, etc. And I won't go on about the excellent interviews with the (then) surviving members of Easy Company which are sprinkled through the series and available in more depth as part of the extras. I learned while rewatching this recently that Major Winters died in only January of this year. He comes across both in the series and in interviews as an ordinary man who, when put in extraordinary circumstances faced them in the way I would hope to if placed in the same situation. It seems like he had a nice life after the war, and he was surely one man who very much earned the peace he craved.Onto the technical aspects of the Blu Ray box set. The tin box is very nice and although the internal fold out box is a little cumbersome and delicate looking, mine did not fall apart in my hands as others have described in their reviews. Picture quality is top notch and serves as a great example of what Blu Ray is all about. However, for me, the sound is what makes the biggest difference. It is truly awesome and deserves to be heard in full lossless 5.1 surround sound.Extras wise, aside from the usual extra 'making of' and interview features, there is a nice timeline feature which gives you additional information about all sorts of things ranging from military terms colloquialisms through to more detail on specific operations, military ranks and other things which may only get a passing reference in the series.There is also Picture in Picture interviews with the men of easy company but be aware if you have a home cinema sound system that the audio from them will only work if you set your player to output 'PCM' audio rather than 'Bitstream'. It would have been nice if there was a note on the disc or in the box to inform oyu of this; I only found out through searching on line as I thought I had either a faulty Blu Ray player or a faulty disc!I'm not a big flag waver but one thing this series definitely does is serve as a reminder of the sacrifices made by those who fought in the second world war. If you're not teary eyed or at least moved by the end of the series, you must be made of stone.

Band of Brothers is the true story of Easy Company, one of the most active and important companies in the US Army during the liberation of France and the eventual invasion of Germany. It traces the various characters from beginnings in boot camp (look out for a brilliant David Schwimmer in the first feature length episode), through their time in England waiting for the big push, the terrifying brutality of D-Day, the subsequent chaos of the liberation of Normandy and the ongoing campaign in Europe. The characters remain consistent throughout, though their appearances and importance to the story ebbs and flows, sometimes waiting in the background and occasionally coming to the fore, as the series explores the multi-faceted war machine and the personal stories set within the context of this huge operation over 10 episodes lasting at least an hour each.Band of Brothers comes from the same people that made Saving Private Ryan, and it exemplifies the same approach to production values. There have been no compromises made in terms of the effects, with explosions and gore pounding the camera in very visceral scenes that do not pull any punches, and are not suitable for youngsters.Equally, the visual or aural fidelity is outstanding in this bluray reproduction. There is occasional graininess to the pictures, particularly in some of the darker scenes, but these add to the gritty realism rather than detract from the polish. Overall, the bluray picture is outstanding. Of even greater note is the sound. When listened to in 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound this is an amazing experience, as bullets whizz past your ears and explosions rock your sofa. There is an option to have the full, uncompressed Master HD Soundtrack whic must sound unbelievable, but unfortunately my system is not capable of playing it back, which is a shame.This is an amazing box set, and represents great value for money for what is one of the most important pieces of TV cinematography ever, in my view. The intimate stories it tells, set against such an epic and tragic background, are extremely moving, while the action set pieces are filmed with such flair that your heart rate will soar. Of particular note are early sequences in Normandy where Easy Company storm an anti-air battery, and a later sequence in which soldiers are under siege in a snowy forest, as trees literally start exploding around them. Such scenes are likely to stick in your mind for many years, as well they should.