Premieres Sunday, September 27 at 8pm ET/PT, HDTV

The National Parks: America's Best Idea is a six-episode series directed by Ken Burns and written and co-produced by Dayton Duncan. Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska - The National Parks: America's Best Idea is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.

Sunday: The Scripture of Nature (1851-1890). In 1864, Congress passes an act that protects California's Yosemite Valley; in 1872, Congress passes an act to protect a part of Wyoming, which becomes America's first national park -- Yellowstone.

Monday: The Last Refuge (1890-1915). President Theodore Roosevelt champions the national parks; conservation movement fails to prevent the building of the Hetch Hetchy dam at Yosemite.

Tuesday: The Empire of Grandeur (1915-1919). The National Park Service is established in 1916; Stephen Mather campaigns to establish the Grand Canyon in Arizona as a national park.

Wednesday: Going Home (1920-1933). The automobile allows more people than ever to visit the national parks; campaign to protect the remaining virgin forest in the Smoky Mountains.

Thursday: Great Nature (1933-1945). The national parks provide a source for jobs and peace; the park idea expands to include new places and new ways of thinking.

Friday: The Morning of Creation (1946-1980). America's last frontier becomes a testing ground for future park ideas; families pass love for parks on to the next generation.

Each episode shown twice each night on most PBS stations. Check local listings.

Caught the first hour of this and the PQ was very soft.

And the colors don't look right. This looks more like old stock footage than a new film.

I'd say 99.9% of it looks like SD not HD. In my opinion, it's quite deceiving to call this HDTV. The really interesting thing is they're going to release this on blu-ray. Unless the BD version is a whole lot better than what we saw tonight, why bother? Just release it on regular dvd and be done with it as there will be no difference in PQ.

It has been 10 years in the making, but even with that the film to HD transfer doesn't look that great.

It looks to be film and not HD video cameras. So what? I found it pretty well done.

It has been 10 years in the making,

But that's really no excuse. We seen old movies shot on film and transferred that look much better than this. I recall seeing Lawrence of Arabia on HDnet and it made this look like pure crap. How many years ago was Lawrence of Arabia filmed? More than 10.

It looks to be film and not HD video cameras. So what?

Film should offer more resolution than HD video cameras. Anyway, I guess my expectations may have been a bit too high.

In the credits they said the film was transfered from 8 and 16 mm.

The story was great. I loved every minute of it. But 16 mm? Why? Cinemax it ain't.

Film should offer more resolution than HD video cameras. Anyway, I guess my expectations may have been a bit too high.

Film is not always as sharp as, say, Planet Earth. I think lots of people who have been disgusted with theatrical presentations of film have forgotten how film can look. Sometimes it's sharp, if it's slow enough, sometimes it's grainy if it's faster. And sometimes it's soft. But it should be still sharper than a DVD with its inherent compression. The National Parks is sharper than your average DVD. And the photographs and paintings in it appear to have been shot with high resolution digital cameras, and they are crazy sharp, as sharp as Planet Earth.

I found an article that says they shot 400,000 feet of Super 16 for this series.

What kind of tv's do you guys have that you can tell it's soft? It looked razor sharp on my 60 inch SXRD. And there's no reason it shouldn't, even from 16mm (LINK (http://cinematechnic.com/super_16mm/resolution_of_super_16mm.html)). Obviously some of the archival stuff wouldn't be HD, but the new shots looked fine to me.

16mm doesn't transfer to HD as well as 35mm. Not as much grain to image so a lower "resolution" if you will. Sony and CBS did some tests in the late 90's using 16mm film since some of the Sony catalog was shot in 16mm to see how well it would transfer and it was decided then, that 35mm was the way to go for maximum transfer quality. 16mm was acceptable, but not desirable. It was a "cheap" way to do HD when using film.

I found an article that says they shot 400,000 feet of Super 16 for this series.

If Ken Burns loves nature, he should've thought of a "greener" way of capture it. Digital is the way to go. The technology is probably sophisticated enough to do the editing, cropping, colour and contrast enhancements you saw in the finished products.

I thought it looked pretty good. Since most of last night's program seemed to be comprised of black and white stills, I can't really complain about the color. Watched on MPT-HD, via RCN.

Am I the only one who saw color problems? Some, but not all, of the film shots had a green tint: green skies, green snow, green clouds, green rivers, and so forth. But most shots had good colors.

Even if the series was "ten years in the making", it would have made sense to shift to HD acquisition at some point. Super 16 is capable of HD quality resolution if handled with very great care, but Planet Earth has shown us how superior HD capture can be (and that series was many years in the making too). From a cost point of view it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to stick with film either (processing, film to tape transfers, film stock - all expensive items that are missing from electronic capture).

That said, some of the images were quite beautiful, although some went through too much color correction and processing (near-black information felt crushed in some shots), and it felt at times as though the camera were stuck in time-lapse mode.

However, the biggest problem for me was that the first episode was just too slow and plodding. There are some great stories to be told about our National Parks, and eventually Burns got to them, but I felt my fingers edging towards the 'fast forward' button on my DVR too often.

I'm wondering if he has an executive producer (or someone) who gives him notes after seeing his cut. I hope he has not become too big a star in Public Television for him to get sensible advice. Burns is a very talented film-maker, and I take my hat off to him for tackling 'big' subjects, but this series (so far) is a disappointment.

During the early broadcast I only watched parts of it, and I did think it was slow and plodding, and I expected to delete my recording.

Then I watched the second broadcast from start to finish and was totally captivated. There wasn't a frame that I would cut out.

Of course, I don't know if all 12 hours will be like that. The reviews indicate that it does get less interesting as it goes along.

However, the biggest problem for me was that the first episode was just too slow and plodding.

Burns is just being Burns. He's established a formula and he sticks to it. It pretty much sank The War; I guess we'll see what happens with this one.

I'd say 99.9% of it looks like SD not HD. In my opinion, it's quite deceiving to call this HDTV. The really interesting thing is they're going to release this on blu-ray. Unless the BD version is a whole lot better than what we saw tonight, why bother? Just release it on regular dvd and be done with it as there will be no difference in PQ.Agreed! I was hoping for this to really captivate me visually...

[QUOTE=Stefan;17257555]But that's really no excuse. We seen old movies shot on film and transferred that look much better than this. I recall seeing Lawrence of Arabia on HDnet and it made this look like pure crap. How many years ago was Lawrence of Arabia filmed? More than 10.

A bit more than 10 years ago. Lawrence of Arabia won the Oscar for best picture of 1962.

Blu-ray and DVD will have about the same price, $73 and $70, respectively, according to Amazon.

So is there any chance he'll remaster Baseball in HD? That I would like to see.

I found the picture quality of Ken Burns new "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" in HDTV on PBS to be lacking in many areas. The PQ is soft, colors are wrong, blacks in many shots have a color tint and black levels are bad and definition, detail and depth are lacking. I am severely disappointed to say the least because I have been looking forward to this for a good while.

I consider the height of a American broadcast HDTV picture quality to be some of the prime time dramas on CBS and NBC in 1080i60, originating from 35mm film. Shows such as "The Mentalist, "Two and a half Men", Cold Case, Law and Order, Law and Order:SVU, etc. These are shot on 35mm or Super 35 and transfered to HD video by top notch processors such as FotoKem, Modern VideoFilm, etc.

"The National Parks: America's Best Idea" apparently was shot on 16mm and the transfer to HD seems to be severely lacking. Isn't it a shame that such an important document of American history gets this shameful treatment while much less important entertainment like CSI:NY gets it right.

He's working on a "Tenth Inning" episode of "Baseball" to air next year. No word on HD.

Blu-ray and DVD will have about the same price, $73 and $70, respectively, according to Amazon.

Perhaps so, but last night at the end of the show they advertised the Blu-ray and DVD and the price they quoted for the Blu-ray was much higher ($129 vs $69 for the DVD if I recall correctly). If amazons price is more correct then that's not so bad. However, if the other price is more correct then that's nearly double. If that's the case, then I suspect a lot of people who don't see the series now and therefore don't know about the disappointing PQ may purchase that blu-ray and wind up being very upset for being charged nearly double for something that offers no real improvement.

Edit: I was mistaken. It was $99 for the DVD versus $129 for the Blu-ray. However, that's still a significant difference for little or no improvement.

The Amazon price might go up. The $73 price for the Blu-ray is only guaranteed if you buy it now.

Some other prices:

Target: $93
Walmart: $110
Costco: $90
Fry's: $100
J&R: $120
Barnes and Noble: $122 (if you're a member)

I love Burns, I love our Parks and I love this show. But it's incredibly ugly to watch. I've been wondering if any of the outdoor photography so far has been original. It looks like it might be restored archival stuff. The colors are bizarre and moving water looks animated. It looks like bad Sierra Club calendar photography (you know, everything shot with a polarized lens.) It looks like they're trying to hype the picture instead of letting the natural beauty shine through.

I'd still rather have this than video of all things, but something is wrong. Somebody made a bad decision. I want an explanation! lol

Okay, I'll offer my own explanation. This show would by its nature involve much more current photography than his others, so he might have thought matching it to the archival stuff made some kind of artistic sense. In other words he didn't want to blow away the audience with jaw dropping high res images while he's trying to tell his story.

It's still ugly as sin though.

He's working on a "Tenth Inning" episode of "Baseball" to air next year. No word on HD.

The final chapters of the original "Baseball" had a running storyline of the (then) current management and players ruining the sport. I wonder if that's going to carried onto the "Tenth Inning". On the technical front, it probably will be produced and mastered in HD with a lot of SD and HD mixed in -- just my guess.

Very poor HD,soft,color dull. What a waste,of what I thought would be a visual treat of our national parks.

Very poor HD,soft,color dull. What a waste,of what I thought would be a visual treat of our national parks.

I think expectations of the series was not set properly during the promotional period. Maybe people weren't watching the promos or visiting the website. There's a lot of history to the parks. No offense, but a lot of people thought this is a travelogue. If you want that, switch to the travel shows on HDnet.

I thoroughly enjoyed the second episode, but it continues to be a technical disaster with the color films. The old photos are the best part. I cracked up when they showed the woman wearing a stuffed bird on her hat.

I have watched both episodes and found them to be both educational and enjoyable.
It does tend to plod along in some areas but not to the point where I wanted to stop watching.
The PQ does vary considerably during program but again I didn't find it to be overly objectionable.
If you are trying to compare this series to some of the other nature productions such as Planet Earth or Disney Nature I could see where you might be disappointed.

I'll admit I am comparing it to "anything" shot correctly on 35mm film and transferred to HD video for editing and eventual broadcast in a manner that maximizes the PQ of the final result. This happens literally everyday on commercial TV and cable networks, so why could it not be done on something like this. And really, the argument of budget issues doesn't hold water with me. Shorten up the series until you have the budget to do it right. 4 hours of beautiful picture quality and concise content trumps 12 hours of this series easily.




If you are trying to compare this series to some of the other nature productions such as Planet Earth or Disney Nature I could see where you might be disappointed.

If you want beautiful images rent or buy "Planet Earth" in bluray. All I can say after watching part 2 is thank god for John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt.

If you want beautiful images rent or buy "Planet Earth" in bluray.

A "beautiful image" on this forum doesn't just mean landscapes it means picture quality.

And even if that's a closeup of Keith Richards it still counts.

This series doesn't have beautiful images, because the image quality is poor for HD.

And really, the argument of budget issues doesn't hold water with me.

Possibly it did to Burns and his co-producer.

Shorten up the series until you have the budget to do it right. 4 hours of beautiful picture quality and concise content trumps 12 hours of this series easily.

Burns does tend to get long-winded, and lets his various interviewees say the same things over and over. He is stuck in the it's-got-to-be-long-enough-to-fill-a-week mentality for his really grand design projects. But you do get beautiful, high-resolution images of the old large-format photographs and the occasional painting.

If he has been gathering footage for this over a long period of time the objections of people expecting razor-sharp, high-def imagery just wasn't a consideration. It does seem that 16mm and even 8mm photography was too little resolution, but there just might not have been enough money to buy copious quantities of 35mm film.

As said previously, this is not just a travelogue. It is a historical program showing the fight of people wanting to save a little portion of America's wilderness versus the insatiable hunger of American capitalism's tendency to adopt a scorched earth policy in order to make money. It's a cautionary tale, much like PBS' long-running and excellent Nature, which features beautiful photograpy but virtually always points out that time is running out for whatever animal or ecosystem featured.

For this series, somehow everyone seem to have a standard of excellence as compared to Burns' other ones ... "Baseball" and "Civil War" in particular.

I didn't recall anyone saying the PQ was bad for neither of those 2 series, nor did most critics complain that they were too long. Burns took what he thought was the appropriate length of time to tell his story about those 2 subjects. They were deemed critical successes.

I think he was doing the same thing for "National Parks". Why did everyone choose to pick on his choice of photography and editing?

Wow, what a great thread. It's always been obvious that many AVSers prefer PQ over content, but I don't recall anyone actually coming right out and saying it.

Yes, it looks horrible, surprisingly so. But give up content to get a pretty picture? Absurd ...

...Why did everyone choose to pick on his choice of photography and editing?

Because it's very jarring when they go from a crystal clear, razor sharp 150-year-old photograph to a blurry, off-color modern film riddled with color noise.

That doesn't stop me from appreciating the outstanding content. It's only a minor distraction. But why should there be a distraction? It is totally unnecessary.

If the point was get the viewer totally immersed in nature, to see what John Muir saw, then they failed to achieve that.

KCET in Los Angeles has 4 sub channels. According to Titan TV, they were running this, while broadcasting Nature in HD on another of the subs.

My thought as I observed the poor picture quality, was that it was as a result of the over stuffed bandwidth. Even the KCET channel bug looked to suffer from over compression.

KABC has been doing the same. Their offerings have become rather soft focus lately as well.

I didn't recall anyone saying the PQ was bad for neither of those 2 series, nor did most critics complain that they were too long. Burns took what he thought was the appropriate length of time to tell his story about those 2 subjects. They were deemed critical successes.

I think he was doing the same thing for "National Parks". Why did everyone choose to pick on his choice of photography and editing?

Because it's a decade later and standards and viewing equipment have changed. We see better HD quality on lesser programming and even older content than Baseball or Civil War has been presented and transferred better in HD.

You're asking why people are calling him out here? This is an AV forum which places video quality as an important factor, and this doesn't pass. Simple as that.

Content is a completely separate issue and has no bearing on the video presentation.

I don't know if this is in reference to me or not but I am NOT calling for picture quality over good, concise content.

What I am saying is this: we get beautiful picture quality everyday for (let's face it) essentially mindless entertainment on commercial TV. When television goes beyond this to become a potentially important historical document it would nice to have the same level of picture quality. Additionally, I say the series could be more concise without compromising the content, which would allow for more of the budget to be used on getting the visuals up to par with current HD standards.


Wow, what a great thread. It's always been obvious that many AVSers prefer PQ over content, but I don't recall anyone actually coming right out and saying it.

Yes, it looks horrible, surprisingly so. But give up content to get a pretty picture? Absurd ...

I must be watching a different program than you guys. I see none of the softness, color noise or dull colors reported here. I have to ask again what kind of tv some of you have. Anybody got some screen shots to illustrate the magnitude of this apparent HD disaster?

Are you guys sure that it's not your PBS affiliate or provider that's to blame here? The picture is soft, sure, but it's not end-of-the-world soft, and I haven't noticed any other issues besides that. It's better than most things I watch on my local ABC affiliate (WJLA in DC). It's certainly not a dealbreaker.

Watching PBS affiliate MPT via FiOS.

I just got out my "Baraka" DVD for comparison and looked at a variety of scenes, including some at the same or similar locations as the Burns film. I can tell it's not HD, barely, but there is absolutely nothing annoying that jumps out and calls attention to itself. The colors all look like real world colors are supposed to. The shadows don't go totally black. The noise is held to the lowest possible. There is no green sky, or green snow, no extreme color noise in dimly lit scenes.

The PBS film, on the other, does have issues that grab my attention. I can't help it.

Update: The third episode has much better PQ. What happened? Now the sky has the right color, as does everything else. Perhaps a bit oversaturated, and a bit noisy at times, but it looks good.

The third episode has much better PQ

Agreed. But there were high-definition shots from photographs in the first two. I saw no really bad color in these episodes.

Wow, what a great thread. It's always been obvious that many AVSers prefer PQ over content, but I don't recall anyone actually coming right out and saying it.

Yes, it looks horrible, surprisingly so. But give up content to get a pretty picture? Absurd ...

This is the Audio Video Science forum after all. If we don't hold a program's feet to the fire when it comes to technical quality, no-one will. The point I think that most are making here is that it is the program maker's job to provide both: good content together with good image and sound quality.

There might be an issue in some cases of the broadcaster sharing responsibility for "soft" or "noisy" images. It would help to know which broadcaster or cable system a poster is watching. I'm on Time Warner Cable in Manhattan, and find the newly shot images OK, but not great, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

35mm film is almost never an option in documentary film making; the shooting ratio is too high, and the budgets too small when compared with scripted programs. However electronic capture in HD can be even cheaper than shooting 16mm, and usually will produce superior images.

People should post what station they are watching on, here in Boise (KAID, I watched OTA) our idiot station downrezzes PBS HD to 720p so they can have a bazillion subchannels and it doesn't look good. I wonder how many other PBS stations are either reducing bitrate, resolution or both. Anyhow I agree with most posters here that the picture is soft and not great HD but this may be because of the above factors.

You people are crazy. Not only are we watching B&W and sepia film prints, but any archival footage seen so far dates from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. As with all other Ken Burns documentaries, we are treated to a mixture of film and still photos, and a detailed narration.

Complaining that a color film shot before 1915 is blurred and off-color and not comparable to HD video is like complaining that a fabric and wood airplane from that same era is drafty, slow, noisy and not at all like a modern jetliner. YES older film seen on screen before today's episode (1915-1919) was shot when motion pictures were new, Edison only popularized the now-standard film format in the decade following 1896, and the "Edison/Lumiere standard" was set industry-wide in 1909 as 35mm, 24fps, 4 perfs per frame.

It is to Burn's credit that he bothered to convert the scant few non-standard films shot in the 1851-1890 and 1890-1915 episodes to a format that would actually be displayable on a 1080i60 or 720p60 video broadcast. This would have involved considerable effort and expense and consumed a lot of time. And yet you TRULY CLUELESS viewers want to complain that 100+ year old non-standard film images are not comparable to today's HD cameras. Well, DUH.

Nor do I particularly care if the modern talking head is filmed in 16mm film. That still exceeds the resolution of an HD broadcast, if those newer parts of this work are inferior in quality, then blame your local broadcaster for bit-stealing for subchannels.

Overall I'm enjoying the series, but I do find the picture quality distracting at times. Ultimately I think nature documentaries look great on HD Video, although I still prefer my movies to be captured with film.

And for the most part, most PBS shows could be described as slow, but I'll take that and the lower quality, 10-1 over the super-sensationalized crap on Discovery and History these days.

Complaining that a color film shot before 1915 is blurred and off-color

There is no color film shot before 1915 unless you want to count Autochrome, and that was for large format still cameras. What the complaint was about was the obviously modern color footage. Everyone is spoiled by the various high definition sources that look really sharp, and get peevish because everything doesn't come across with that sort of resolution.

You people are crazy. Not only are we watching B&W and sepia film prints, but any archival footage seen so far dates from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. As with all other Ken Burns documentaries, we are treated to a mixture of film and still photos, and a detailed narration.

We aren't talking about archival film, we are talking about film shot specifically for this series. Which means all the interview footage etc.

well i can't comment on the hd quality because dish still hasn't gotten around
to adding pbs to its local hd lineup. thanks a lot dish. ota hd antannae won't work for me due to location. what is up with dish and no hd pbs. they're still adding crap channels but not pbs. direct locals give you hd pbs correct?

as to the content..... wonderful, enamoring, my favorite burns work since the civil war. better than baseball, jazz or the war imho.

as to the quality, pbs in known for overloading their bandwith with subchannels.
are you sure the poor hd quality is in the original material and not the result
of a degraded signal?

"And yet you TRULY CLUELESS viewers want to complain that 100+ year old non-standard film images are not comparable to today's HD cameras. Well, DUH. "

I don't think it is necessary to insult those who are posting here in order to make a point.

I doubt that anyone is confusing early film imagery with that from today's HD cameras. It is pretty clear in the series what is old/archival material and what is new. I for one love to see archival film and prints which have been found and then reproduced as well as they are here, and take off my hat to Burns and his researchers. The comments about less than optimum quality are about the film that was shot specifically for these programs (i.e. in the last decade).

Or am I just taking the bait? Not sure you were being serious.

Complaining that a color film shot before 1915 is blurred and off-color

There is no color film shot before 1915 unless you want to count Autochrome, and that was for large format still cameras. What the complaint was about was the obviously modern color footage. Everyone is spoiled by the various high definition sources that look really sharp, and get peevish because everything doesn't come across with that sort of resolution.

Clearly there's a lot of people around here that have never sat through a typical NP evening naturalist presentation/film. To me, grainy 8mm/16mm color footage reminds me of trips long past.

"And yet you TRULY CLUELESS viewers want to complain that 100+ year old non-standard film images are not comparable to today's HD cameras. Well, DUH. "

I don't think it is necessary to insult those who are posting here in order to make a point.

I doubt that anyone is confusing early film imagery with that from today's HD cameras. It is pretty clear in the series what is old/archival material and what is new. I for one love to see archival film and prints which have been found and then reproduced as well as they are here, and take off my hat to Burns and his researchers. The comments about less than optimum quality are about the film that was shot specifically for these programs (i.e. in the last decade).

Or am I just taking the bait? Not sure you were being serious.

well someone explain to me how the quality of the hd material being broadcast is somehow imperfect if some think it looks like a quality hd broadcast and some find it look like rather poor quality. without knowing what pbs stations those complaining about the quality are watching, we cannot rule out a degraded hd pbs signal

It seems like everybody lost interest in commentary on this series. And now it's over. I thought it was pretty good, though every time I went to the kitchen to get a snack they were back in either Yellowstone or Yosemite by the time I got back to my chair. It's as if these two parks served the function Louis Armstrong did in Jazz. Surely there were more stories they could have related about the establishment of the many other parks.

But it does indicate that eternal vigilance is the price of protection of land needing protection. W wanted to give some admistration of the parks to private industry just recently, and budgets for the parks continue to be slashed. Let's hope this doc helps to raise public awareness.

I haven't gotten to the end yet. It's not lack of interest. It's just too much for one week.

Computer glitches -- mainly a teenager mucking about on Facebook -- negated my capture of Thursday night's episode. Anybody know of any source or location for a capture (transport stream format) so I could complete my "set"?

Computer glitches -- mainly a teenager mucking about on Facebook -- negated my capture of Thursday night's episode. Anybody know of any source or location for a capture (transport stream format) so I could complete my "set"?

I am not certain about just what you want, but this might help.

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/watch-video/#872

Also, my local PBS station is repeating some episodes at odd hours on a sub-channel. Might yours?

All I can say after watching part 2 is thank god for Jon Muir and Teddy Roosevelt.

You got that right!

Hey, it's not over yet. They are showing a series of "Untold Stories" episodes tonight, 15 minutes each. It appears that they are only broadcast once and I already missed most of it.