Ultimate Guide - Big Cats & House Cats

Ultimate Guides is a series of documentaries made by the Discovery Channel which cover a wide range of subjects. This time around it is the turn of the big cats and house cats, or quite simply felines. Broken up into two lengthy documentaries, this release allows the viewer a greater insight into the world of the feline.

Big Cats
The first documentary looks into the many types of big cats of the world. Focussing predominantly on the lion, it also looks briefly at others such as the cheetah, the leopard and the tiger. Footage used is a mixture of that taken in the wild, archival footage and visual effects. It goes into great detail on the eyes, teeth and skeleton of cats to show how these killing machines are so skilful.

Personally I found this first documentary a little disappointing. The majority of big cats were only touched on, such as the cougar and tiger, while others didn’t even get a mention, such as the black panther. The whole documentary seemed to focus mainly on the lion and even more so on people and efforts they were making to discover more about the lion. With most documentaries of this type there is terrific footage of big cats stalking their prey and the eventual kill - this is only touched on briefly here. Granted the work of humans to further understand these kings of the wild is necessary to avoid their extinction, but I personally found the human content of this documentary excessive. The time used on interviews and such meant that actual footage of big cats in the wild was limited.

This may be rated PG, but I was also a bit shocked with some of the footage used. There is film of a lion being speared to death by Masui warriors, a tiger being shot while in a trap and a cougar after it has been hung. Perhaps the intention in including this footage is to show just how cruel mankind can be, but for those unaware it could be really off-putting and disturbing. I for one cannot tolerate any form of animal cruelty and would have appreciated some form of warning.

"All felines have one thing in common - they are all natural born killers!"

House Cats
The second documentary is the better of the two in my opinion. Covering the domestic cat in great detail, this is both informative and humourous to watch. It goes into detail of how man and cats have become companions over the last 4000 years and how the cat has never really been domesticated, even though we think they have been. Again there are a lot of visual techniques used to demonstrate why they can see in the dark, why they can jump so high and why they land on their feet.

Cats sleep for anything up to eighteen hours a day, I bet that is a shock to cat owners as most probably feel it is longer. There is again a large human content in this documentary, but in this case it is needed. There is one human couple that have nine cats and to accommodate them, they have built a 150 foot cat path that runs through their house, hanging from the ceiling. It's a touch excessive for me, but each to their own.

Most cat owners will enjoy this second documentary along with the first. Both are narrated beautifully by Will Lyman who does an outstanding job and they are both visually appealing. My only criticism is on the content of the first. As yet I have not seen the others in the Ultimate Guide series, but I would imagine they make a worthy collection. The problem I have with wildlife documentaries is that I always compere them to the National Geographic and David Attenborough Trial Of Life series’, these don’t come close but are good in their own right.

Both of these documentaries look terrific. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and 16x9 enhanced, the sharpness is wonderful. Colours are true and blacks are very deep. Detail is good dependant on footage, but overall it is of a very high standard indeed. Aliasing is rarely an issue and grain can only be detected in archival footage used. Over-saturation is not really a problem and colour bleeding is also minimal. Some of the scenery is spectacular and this really does do it justice. Very nice indeed.

Audio supplied is Dolby Digital 2.0 and as is the case with most documentaries this is more than sufficient. Dialogue is clear at all times and sync is never a problem. There are a few added on sounds that, although obvious, are not really an issue. There is little in the way of separation and the subwoofer is fairly quiet. Overall the audio matches the video quality and makes this very pleasurable viewing.

There's not a thing in the way of extras, apart from scene selection - even advertisements for other releases don’t get a mention.

If you love wildlife and in particular those of the feline variety, then this is well worth a look. Dependent on your expectations of content, it is still an enjoyable and educational DVD. The two documentaries run for approximately fifty minutes each and look terrific. Perhaps the intention here was to cover different areas of cats that has not been done before, but I was disappointed with the amount of human content, making this more like a science film you would see in school. Having said that, other viewers may enjoy that type of filmmaking.