Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl

I saw the same interlacing problems as metamer. Fortunately, the 720p version does not have the same interlacing artifacts. Hopefully the encoding will be corrected soon.

The content is great, but there is a serious issue with the video encoding : I downloaded the 1080p version, and on both my desktop mac, and on the 3rd generation AppleTV, the playback quality is terrible: motion is jerky (as if a 3/2 pulldown went wrong) and it appears to include a ton of interlaced video, that's poorly (or not) deinterlaced.

I have wanted to know more about this era my whole life. It always seemed as though it was referred to and then passed over, except in the few histories written about it. But the dust bowl era and the depression never received the attention the First and Second World War or even the prohibition era did when I was growing up. Even though my parents had lived through it as young people in the south they never talked about it much either, but it was a time that had obviously changed everyone who witnessed it. This is that story I have been wanting to hear, mostly from the people who were there, and I really will treasure having this on my iTunes. The photography of that era is great on a big screen television in hi-def as well, though it looks as though some of the footage has been digitized from videotape because the original filmed footage the video was made from was lost. An excellent job. If Ken Burns is an industry unto himself, rightly so, for things like this.

Great documentary. Ken Burns & Co. Treats us to a great story telling 4 hour event. Directly from those people impacted by the Dustbowl…. Hardly a Rehash! Hardly a repeat, instead a one of a kind Masterpiece..