- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit)
- Subtitles: English SDH
- Region: ABC (Region-Free)
- Rating: TV-MA
- Discs: 7 (5 x Blu-ray + 2 x double-sided DVD + Digital Copy)
- Run Time: 720 Mins.
- Studio: HBO Home Entertainment
- Blu-ray Release Date: May 29, 2012
- List Price: $79.98
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Purchase True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4.5/5]
The Series
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:4/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Series
[Rating:4/5]
The fourth season of HBO’s hit series True Blood rolls out onto Blu-ray (and DVD and Digital Copy in this Select edition) just ahead of its new fifth season which will bring closure to the season’s shocking cliffhanger.
Season Four of this dark comedy/horror/drama (yeah, it’s that difficult to pigeon hole) continues its addictiveness with a new season of shocks, terrors, and melodramas. Sookie (Anna Paquin) returns from Fae, the land of the faeries, after finding out the secret to her supernatural abilities. For her only minutes have passed, but for Bon Temps, it has been over a year. She also finds herself involved in a love triangle between Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer), Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård), and the werewolf Alcide (Joe Manganiello).
As is usually the case with True Blood, there’s a looming danger, and in this season that danger comes from a powerful witch, Marnie (Fiona Shaw) who can control the dead and thus is a risk to all the vampires in Bon Temps and around the world. Her control over her coven, which happens to include Sookie’s friend Tara (Rutina Wesley), becomes a major issues when she begins to use her necromancy to directly challenge, control, and kill vampires and innocent humans.
Meanwhile Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) has found a new love interest and is still dealing with his ne’er-do-well brother and Jason has struck up a friendship with the sexy vampire pup Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) that just may lead to something more.
These many interconnected story lines all head to a dramatic conclusion and a shocking cliffhanger that should be answered in season 5.
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
HBO’s AVC/MPEG-4 1080p/24 encodement of True Blood: Season 4 arrives on Blu-ray superbly rendered and vastly superior to the series’ 1080i broadcasts in every way. Gone are all instances of artifacting like macroblocking, posterization and video noise. Contrast is wide with dark, inky blacks and bright whites. The production’s original 35mm film source is clean with a sharply textured grain structure that looks natural and gives up strong amounts of detail in the fore- and background. There are a few scenes scattered throughout that look just a little gritty and that could be a combination of the lens effects and mid-level bitrate encodement.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit) soundtrack is par excellence for a television mix, despite being just 16-bit. It is full of atmosphere, nicely balanced between the front and surrounds, with spacious imaging and clean dialogue, occasionally panned directionally across the front. The lows can be quite deep, especially during the opening theme song sequence.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:4/5]
Typically, HBO has loaded this set up with select episode commentaries from the cast and crew, a great in-episode enhanced viewing mode that takes you deeper into the series, and couple of HD featurettes that a are well worth sitting through.
The supplements:
- Enhanced Viewing – This in-episode viewing mode allows you to watch True Blood with pop-up trivia, picture-in-picture character point-of-view commentaries and break-away flashback scenes from previous seasons’ episodes.
- Inside the Episodes (1.78:1; 1080p/24)
- Commentary on Episode 2 “You Smell Like Dinner” by Stephen Moyer (Bill), Deborah Ann Woll (Jessica), and Brian Buckner (writer, co-executive producer)
- Commentary on Episode 3 “If you Love Me, Why Am I Dyin’?” by Anna Paquin (Sookie) and Alan Ball (creator and executive producer)
- Commentary on Episode 4 “I’m Alive and on Fire” by Alexander Skarsgård (Eric) and Michael Lehmann (director)
- Commentary on Episode 6 “I Wish I Was the Moon” by Raelle Tucker (writer, co-executive producer) and Gregg Fienberg (executive producer)
- Commentary on Episode 9 “Let’s Get Out of Here” by Sam Trammell (Sam) and Romeo Tirone (director)
- Commentary on Episode 10 “Burning Down the House” by Fiona Shaw (Marnie) Nancy Oliver (writer, co-executive producer), and Lesli Linka Glatter (director)
- True Blood: The Final Touches (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:28:25) – A roundtable discussion with the True Blood post-production staff wherein they discuss much of their visual/special effects work.
- True Blood Lines – This interactive feature lets you explore the diffferent character types in the world of True Blood (ex. Vampires, Werewolves, Faeries, Werepanthers, etc.) and the interconnection between each type in the ongoing storyline.
- DVD — Two double-sided DVDs of the entire series
- Digital Copy — Downloadable Digital Copy for Mac/PC, iPod/iPad/iPhone and Windows Media-Compatible devices
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4.5/5]
The campy, sexy, and purely addictive horror of True Blood continues in this fourth season. The series sets the standard for the vampire genre, steering clear of the overly melodramatic navel gazing of Twilight and Vampire Diaries. True Blood easily mixes dark comedy, drama, and a reverence for classic horror into its fabric. The Blu-ray set makes it even more enjoyable to watch with reference quality picture and sound that trounces anything you can see in broadcast or streaming versions.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product]B003UD7J76[/amazon-product]
Purchase True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4.5/5]
The Series
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:4/5]
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