The Battleships

• Cert:
• Cat.no: 82118
• Running time: 205 minutes
• Year: 2000
• Pressing: 2000
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 44 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: None
• Fullscreen: 4:3
• 16:9-Enhanced: No
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras: Photo Gallery

Director/Producer:

Rob McAuley

Narrator:

Music:

At the rate of a year-per-minute, Battleships is a history of said war-mongering devices from 1800 to the present dayincluding the Mary Rose, HMS Victory, HMS Queen Elizabeth and the Bismarck.

Narrated by Robyn Williams (no, not that one), this series providesall the info you’d need if your only experience of battleships is the penciland paper game you used to play or the electronic version which made coolnoises, but it’ll mainly appeal to those who are old enough to remember thetwo World Wars which get mentioned along the way, including the Queen Motherwho turned 21 just as the very first ship rolled off the production lineat the start of the 19th Century.

Marvel at the muzzle-loading cannons, the 18-inch guns, the rocket launchersand missiles, the competition they face from more superior forms of attacksuch as submarines and fighter planes, but it glosses over the fact thatthey’re completely useless when up against the time-travel doobery used inThe Philadelphia Experiment.

I didn’t see this programme on TV but I presume the 4:3 fullscreen ratioseen here is how it was presented on TV. Usually most documentaries are shotin 16:9 nowadays, but those that largely contain 4:3 footage will be editedthat way. There’s no problem with artifacts, but the quality of the image onscreen is down to the varying nature of the archive footage used.The average bitrate for each episode 4.86Mb/s.

As for sound, stereo won’t make a great deal of difference here but it keepsthe narration clear. This isn’t a DVD with which to show off your home cinemasystem, but those buying it will know that already and can rest assured thatnothing looks in any way less than it ought. As a result, if this DVD ticklesyour fancy don’t be put off by the middle-of-the-road scores since the contentis the main one to take notice of and if the subject is up your street youcan’t go far wrong.

The only extra is a Photo Gallery for many of the battleships featuredwith brief accompanying info. However, in similar fashion to many documentaries,you could argue that the “extras” score isn’t really applicable here becauseit just adds more information to the heaps of facts and figures alreadysupplied.