Halo: Season One Blu-ray review

Nov 05, 2022- Permalink

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing Season One of the Paramount+ series Halo on both 4K and Blu-ray. I had a chance to get a look at the Blu-ray version.

Based on the insanely popular video game franchise, the series follows a 26th-century war between the UN Space Command and the Covenant, an alliance of alien races who want to eradicate humanity. It stars Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, a genetically engineered supersoldier and Jen Taylor as Cortana, a AI implanted in the Master Chief’s brain to influence his decisions. The series also stars Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Yerin Ha, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy, Danny Sapani, Bokeem Woodbine, and Natascha McElhone.

The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 2.00:1 aspect ratio. Facial features, armor and sets have excellent clarity and detail whether they’re real or CGI creations. The colour palette ranges from golds and greens to cool blues. The black levels are deep with details in the shadows. Though there is some occasional noise, it’s a very good transfer.

On the audio side of things, there is an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack with subtitles available for English SDH and Spanish. Though there is generally good immersion with the surrounds though the soundtrack does feel a bit subdued at reference levels. The music is clear and dynamic while dialogue is centred and well placed in the mix.

The nine episodes of season one are spread over five Blu-discs. There are several hours of bonus material with each episode getting a piece that includes recaps, fan reactions and cast and crew interviews hosted by Sydnee Goodman. There are also several pieces looking at the characters and production design. The package also includes several collectible character cards.

Halo: Season One comes with excellent video and good audio plus a ton of extras. I haven’t seen the 4K but I imagine that fans of the series and video game will want that version for the higher image resolution.