Every morning on Discovery HD Theater is a show called Sunrise Earth. The premise of this show is simple: they take their (topnotch) cameramen to gorgeous, sometimes out-of-the-way places somewhere on Earth, and film a sunrise. Although they show various views of their locale of the day, there is no jumpy editing. There is also no music and no narration, just the natural sounds of the place as they happen. It is a slow-paced, relaxing and hypnotic series.
They’ve been to the Grand Tetons, Vermont, central America, and Alaska. Now they’re in a new series, which has been so achingly beautiful that I had to post about it. They’re currently showing films from Asia, and the last three shows have been:
Cormorant fishermen on the Li River in China.
Terraced farm paddies in a village in China.
A monks’ temple in Cambodia.
Good lord, they’re beautiful - the fishermen on the river in particular. It was dark when they started filming, with the river showing a midnight blue and touched with the golden ripply gleams of the fishing lanterns. Then as the day got lighter, you could see those tall, ghostly limestone mountains that are next to the Li River, and the fishermen in their long bamboo boats festooned with cormorants. Wow.
I’ve seen a few minutes of a few of these programs, but unfortunately I’m too impatient to just relax and enjoy it for very long (curse my short attention span). The images really are beautiful, and the natural ambient noise, instead of some annoying background music is an especially nice touch.
I made a point of recording one that was filmed during the most recent total solar eclipse in two different locations; one in the south Atlantic, I think, and one in a small town in Turkey. It was truly amazing.
In my opinion, though, it absolutely wouldn’t work if it wasn’t in HD.
That’s what I do. Then, when I get sick of the violent international news or of political ads, I watch the latest SE, and it soothes me right down.
The series of central American visits was also awesome, particularly the Mayan pyramid in the jungle. Sound effects provided gratis by howler monkeys, parrots and toucans.
Awile back, someone here pointed at it laughingly and called it “LandscapeTV” or something equally diminishing. They, in my estimation, totally missed the point.
It’s not a replacement for getting outdoors. It is though a convenient bookmark until you can do so yourself and, in some instances, a pleasant introduction to places you might not have known about otherwise.
We don’t watch it as we would with other shows, attention held for an hour or two at a time. Instead, it’s a pleasant background feature as we’re doing other things, much like one of the Sirius music channels. In that regard, it’s a far superior alternative than 99% of the other choices available.