Classic Doco Series to Get New Life on Blu-ray

Two of Sir David Attenborough’s landmark documentary series have been remastered in HD in time for Christmas Blu-ray sales.

Both Life on Earth and Trials of Life will go on sale here a month after their November 5 release in the UK.

Each of the four-disc sets will retail for $60.

However, both series were shot in 4:3 and don’t appear to have been reformatted for 16:9 viewing.

Trials of Life first aired in 1977 and Life on Earth two years later.

The latter chronicles the development of life on Earth, from the first single-cell organism that appeared in the seas about 3,500 million years ago to the millions of diverse and complex animals and plants that share the world today.

Among its breathtaking photography and unforgettable footage are Attenborough’s legendary encounter with the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, a live ceolacanth (long believed extinct), a tiny tadpole ejected from the mouth of a Darwin frog and the interior of a cave full of bats.

Trials of Life examines animal behaviour from birth to adulthood, with each of the 12 50-minute episodes focusing on a different aspect of the journey through life, from finding food and hunting to making homes and protecting the next generation.

The series remains a TV classic because of such signature wildlife sequences as killer whales beaching themselves to catch sea lions, chimpanzees undertaking a brutal hunt for colobus monkeys, the inside of an army ant bivouac and the amazing surge to the sea of millions of red crabs in Christmas Island.