Lewis - Series 1-9 [DVD] [2015]

Loved this show. I wasn't a fan of Inspector Morse shows, so I came to this show hoping it wasn't anything like it. Thankfully, I was surprised. It is a completely new show and absolutely brilliant. Set in the beautiful Oxford setting, you're amazed with great script-writing, superb acting and lush scenery. Lewis (Whately) returns to Oxford five years after Morse's death to take up a Detective Inspector position after recently becoming a widower. He's cranky and dry-witted.. Laurence Fox plays Lewis' DS James Hathaway, Clare Holman as Dr. Laura Hobson, and Rebecca Front as Chief Superintendent Innocent. I would highly recommend this series and wouldn't hesitate to purchase this again for a gift.This is the full 9 series with subtitles. Each episode is approximately 90 mins.Series One: Whom The Gods Would Destroy; Old School Ties; ExpiationSeries Two: And The Moonbeams Kiss The Sea; Music To Die For; Life Born Of Fire; The Great And The GoodSeries Three: Allegory Of Love; Quality Of Mercy; The Point Of Vanishing; Counter Culture BluesSeries Four: The Dead Of Winter; Dark Matter; Your Sudden Death Question; Falling DarknessSeries Five: Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things; Wild Justice; The Mind Has Mountains; The Gift of PromiseSeries Six: The Soul Of Genius; Generation Of Vipers; Fearful Symmetry; The Indelible StainSeries Seven: Down Among the Fearful; The Ramblin' Boy; Intelligent DesignSeries Eight: Entry Wounds, The Lions Of Nemea, Beyond Good And EvilSeries Nine: One for Sorrow, Magnum Opus, What Lies TangledExtras: The Pilot Episode; Cast Interviews; Behind The Scenes* this was packaged well as it doesn't take up much space.

This is my favourite out of the three Colin Dexter inspired series. Excellent story telling - I managed to follow all the convoluted threads apart from The Gift of Promise. I’m still not sure who did the first murder! Superb acting from all the main stars but particularly Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox. They really inhabited the characters and produced a very believable chemistry that was a joy to watch. It is set mainly in Oxford and the scenery is stunning. I love the Radcliffe Camera - an exquisite building and shown at its best.The DVDs themselves are housed in one box and can be fiddly to get in and out. There are one or two places where the picture/sound drops out for a second or two but nothing horrendous.

There are lots of other reviews telling you about this excellent series, so there's little benefit to me repeating them here.I have two points that I hope are of interest.Firstly, to answer several queries, yes there are English subtitles for the hard of hearing, available from the 'Set Up' menu on each disc. They work very well, being large enough without being too obtrusive. You can also choose the sound set-up there (2.0 or Dolby 5.1, whatever those mean!)Secondly, my familiar gripe about most ITV crime series. Many of the episodes were first broadcast in the UK in HD, yet if you want them on Blu-Ray, you'll have to buy them from Amazon.com as individual series, at considerable expense. In an age when 4K is starting to become available,I can't for the life of me understand why we're always stuck with DVDs of HD series in this country.But enough grumbling, this is a great box set and highly recommended.

We've watched it through twice in the last year and a half. It's very different from Morse, the crotchety old beggar. I'd have liked to see it go on a bit longer, but it was well timed, in retrospect. I'd have also liked to see Hathaway (L.Fox) keep flowering, Never mind. Lewis was damned good entertainent.

Good, but it ain't Morse.

Lewis - Series 1-9 [DVD] [2015]What can I say about “Lewis? You either like the “Morse” family of crime dramas, or you don’t.Obviously I do.The quality of the recording is fine by me. For those that require them subtitles in English are available.I had a weird problem with two tracks; Series 6 “Generation of Vipers” Series 7 “Intelligent Design”. For some reason they played in 4:3 format instead of 16:9. That is to say the picture was a 16:9 distorted into 4:3 stretching the image vertically.Here I will digress.Some time ago I had another Box Set which had one track which would not play. I put up with that and watched the rest. When I came back to it a year or two later most of the disks would not play. This taught me a lesson and henceforth I copied my DVD collection onto hard drive and I watch them from the HDD (“In spinning rust we trust”!) The DVDs are stored in my loft, just in case. If the HDD corrupts I can go back to the originals. However if corruption of the DVDs occurs… So I back up the HDDs. This is all legal.I use Linux distributions, Mint and Arch, on my computers and the programs I use for back-up are MakeMKV and Handbrake. The latter compresses the MKV files to M4V. This enables HDD storage compressing 3 – 4 Gb to 600 – 700 Mb. No problems in quality IF you have a good graphics card.Now back to the 4:3 tracks Using the above process does not solve that problem, but subsequently using a CLI program does. That program is ffmpeg. It pulled the video back to 16:9 in an instant.To watch the DVD in 16:9; VLC media player will do the trick because the adjustment can be made Tools > Preferences then the video tab and set the aspect ratio.None of this is available on a DVD/BluRay player as far as I know.So has anyone else had this problem with this boxed set? I suspect that they are all like that as I cannot see any way a track could spontaneously corrupt in this manner. I have certainly never come across this before.Further Information.I use Kodi as the media player for my DVD collection on HDD. (It would also work on the DVD, but for HDD files it helps keep track of where you are in the series by ticking the files that have been watched.You may well be able to do this sort of thing on a Microsoft or Apple computer, but I have no idea how. Unless the programs I used are available for them.