Which brings me to Living Landscapes' The World's Most Beautiful Places, the HD equivalent of those "soothing sounds" CDs you see at places like Target. The disc is literally nothing but nature shots, each set to music. There are several available, ranging from the Redwoods to Bali to the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains.

Unlike a nature documentary, The World's Most Beautiful Places does not offer any kind of commentary or narration. It does not attempt to explain what the audience is seeing. Instead, it leisurely crossfades from shot to shot, letting the viewer bask in its HD glory. There's even an option to put a specific location on repeat, so the cycle doesn't end until you turn off your player.

I could see using this on a TV in a fancy restaurant, perhaps. It's a mood setter. I don't think it was designed to get the whole family together to sit around together and watch. Rather, it's good for throwing on in the background. It certainly looks very pretty. Looking it up on Amazon, I noticed someone listed it's good to use to put you to sleep. I think it was meant to be a compliment.

There's really not much else to The World's Most Beautiful Places. It's pretty scenery and nothing more. What else is there to say? If you're the kind of person who likes watching beatific shots of nature, check it out.

The HD DVD:

The Image:
The World's Most Beautiful Places is encoded in a 1.78:1 1080p MPEG-2 encoded transfer. In general, this is a pretty smart looking disc. The image is brimming with detail and the colors pop just as much as you'd expect from something like this. In some of the close-ups I thought I detected some artificial sharpening of the image, while some of the wide shots appear overly soft. Still, these are minor quibbles that hardly ruin a very strong transfer.

The Audio:
While the disc does offer a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack, it's not very aggressive. Which makes sense, considering the entire point of the project is to soothe and calm. The rears are not often used, and the entire soundtrack is very muted and lacking in the low end. Again, for a project like this, I wasn't expecting much and it didn't really affect my viewing of it.

The Supplements:
Nothing, unless you count the ability to loop a given location.

The Conclusion:
Had The World's Most Beautiful Places been released at the start of HD DVD's life, I probably would have recommended it. But now that programs like Planet Earth are available, this feels entirely superfluous. What it does offer are some pretty landscapes and nature images. If you're someone who can't get enough of that kind of content, go ahead and buy it. Otherwise, Rent It.

Daniel Hirshleifer is the High Definition Editor for DVD Talk.