Dorling Kindersley Vision hard media releases

All series of Dorling Kindersley Vision shows have been released on at least some form of hard media, such as VHS, DVD or CD. Almost all are VHS exclusives, with only Eyewitness getting multiple DVD releases in different parts of the world.

## See How They Grow

See How They Grow has been released multiple times on VHS. Two of the earliest videos, Farm Animals and Mini Beasts, have brightly coloured covers with the animals depicted in the form of hand-drawn cartoons.

All ten videos in the UK have also been released in a more standardised format. The cover is mostly white, with stock images of the animals arranged around the cover. In some earlier videos, not all the animals are shown on the cover – for example, Wild Animals is missing the snake, Pets is missing the puppy and Farm Animals is missing chicks. The other seven VHS covers include all four featured species. There are hand-drawn borders showing one or more animal species, one above the title and one at the bottom of the cover, above the Dorling Kindersley Vision credit.

There have been some paired VHS releases in the UK where two episodes are combined onto one video, such as one for Farm Animals and Pets. The covers of these releases remove the border drawings, replacing the top one with another animal stock picture. In the case of this paired VHS, there is an error – one of the six animals depicted in stock images is a pair of rabbits, which are a subject species from Wild Animals.

The American releases by Sony Wonder change the layout of the covers. While they mostly share the same standardised format as the UK videos, some covers have been altered and animals removed – for example, Tree Animals is missing the stick insects, while Pond Animals has lost the damselfly as well as the tadpoles and one of the salamanders. The bottom border drawing is removed and replaced with the Sony Wonder logo. Superfluous theming pictures from the UK release are also removed, such as the palm leaves from Jungle Animals.

Sony Wonder cover for Jungle AnimalsSony Wonder cover for Tree AnimalsTwo VHS released by Reader’s Digest, using the American version, combined multiple episodes into four-episode volumes. Volume One includes Pets, Farm Animals, Pond Animals and Insects and Spiders, while Volume Two combines Jungle Animals, Wild Animals, Desert Animals and Sea Animals, meaning that Woodland Animals and Tree Animals were not released under this format. The covers of these VHS show stock images of five (Volume One) or six (Volume Two) species, although they often do not align with the animals in the episode itself – for example, the Volume One cover includes a red-eyed tree frog, red-spotted newt and chafer beetle in place of the common frog, fire salamander and ladybird that actually appear. The back covers also include two or three animal stock images, most of which again do not align with the species in the episode.

Volume one coverVolume two cover
## Eyewitness

Eyewitness is the most widely-released of all Dorling Kindersley Vision series, with at least two different VHS releases and no fewer than five DVD releases. The official VHS covers all share features in common – they all have a single larger picture that links to the episode itself, with the addition of several smaller pictures also linked to the subject matter. The number of smaller pictures ranges from a minimum of three (Pond and River and Weather) to a maximum of seven (Bird), with most having four or five. The pictures are primarily taken from the Dorling Kindersley stock image library. The main difference between the UK and American releases of the VHS is their tagline on the front cover – in the UK release the tagline reads ‘*See the world as never before’*, while in American versions it says ‘*Narrated by Martin Sheen’*.

Some VHS are released in a paired format, consisting of two episodes on the one cassette, which play one after the other. The most commonly seen of these paired VHS is one that combines Ape and Jungle.

In the UK, only eight episodes have been officially released on DVD. These interactive DVDs cover two episodes from season one (Jungle and Dinosaur), two from season two (Arctic and Antarctic and Prehistoric Life) and four from season three (Monster, Human Machine, Planets and Natural Disasters). Three of the episodes were renamed in the DVD version, with Jungle becoming Rainforest, Prehistoric Life being shortened to Prehistoric and Human Machine changing to Bodyzone. The interactive DVDs each have two cover variations. Each interactive DVD includes a 10-question quiz, a number of hotspots which appear as a clickable button in the top-right of the screen during the episode itself that link to relevant clips from other episodes, a making-of documentary and a list of websites that can be accessed for further information. Some episodes break this mould – Dinosaur adds a Dino Oscars feature to look at dinosaur record holders, while in Planets most of the hotspots are not clips from other episodes and are instead factsheets specially made for the DVD. All the DVDs include the episode in full, although Prehistoric adds a 15–20-minute segment from Dinosaur within the episode.

Monster interactive DVD coverMonster interactive DVD alternative coverIn the USA, there have been considerably more episodes released onto DVD. All of season one, and at least eleven episodes of season two and seven episodes of season three have been released. The covers all have a larger stock image not sourced from the Dorling Kindersley library, which fades to white near the top of the cover, where the title is. Above the title are several Dorling Kindersley stock images, varying from a minimum of four images to a maximum of six.

The UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper ran a series of DVDs that came for free with purchases of the newspaper. A total of twelve episodes were released as part of this set, containing two episodes from season one (Jungle and Dinosaur), four from season two (Rock and Mineral, Seashore, Pond and River and Weather) and six from season three (Flight, Human Machine, Plant, Ocean, Planets and Natural Disaster) These DVDs also came with posters and stickers based on each episode. The DVDs simply contain the episode, with no further special features.

Jungle cover for Daily Mirror DVDPond and River cover for Daily Mirror DVDFlight cover for Daily Mirror DVDFree posters and stickers with Daily Mirror DVDsIn Australia, the company Nomad Distribution produced a set of paired DVDs for Eyewitness. Each box contains two discs, one for each episode. The front cover is perhaps the simplest of all the DVDs, consisting of a plain white background with four isolated stock images – two for each of the episodes. The spine and back cover have no images, with the back cover having a three-paragraph introduction to the entire season and a smaller paragraph each for the two episodes. These paired episodes often have no links to the other and may not be from the same season – for example, the volume 1 DVD contains the episodes Ape and Shark. There is also a collection DVD available, with five different volumes all bundled together. The covers of this DVD are green, interspersed with yellow squares, and has a stock image for almost every episode included on either the front or back cover.

Shark and Ape paired DVDAmphibian and Bear paired DVDMonster and Human Machine paired DVD - full coverCollection One of paired DVDsIn Korea, another set of paired DVDs was released. These are generally ordered by season. There are two versions – in one, there is one DVD box that contains an episode from seasons two and three, while the other includes the relevant making of programmes for each season in the collection. The covers of these DVDs are split down the middle and consist mostly of still images taken from the episode itself.

Korean paired DVDs, combining Pond and River and PlanetsKorean paired DVDs, with Making Of episodes includedThe season one episodes were also released on video CD, including the Making of Eyewitness. These have a similar appearance to the VHS covers, but the images have often been changed to suit the square-shaped box as opposed to the rectangular VHS cases.

Bird CD coverDinosaur CD coverThe Making of Eyewitness CD cover
## Amazing Animals

All episodes of Amazing Animals have been released on VHS. The title writing of each episode is coloured differently and is the same as the title that appears in the episode itself. Below this a large picture of Henry the Lizard dominates the cover. Often, he is doing something relevant to the episode. Accompanying Henry are stock images from the Dorling Kindersley library. Often there are three images, but there can be as few as two and as many as five. Most of these stock images depict animals that appear somewhere in the episode. In seasons three and four the logo at the top of the VHS cover changes, with Henry removed from the top of the show’s logo and replaced by a picture of Henry’s face and the word ‘*Henry’s*’ in green letters.

In the American versions of the VHS release, a Dorling Kindersley Vision logo replaces one of the stock image animals on the front cover.

Animal Colors UK VHS coverAnimal Colors US VHS coverThe spine of the VHS release can have another animal stock image, although this is not always the case. The back cover can also have another stock image, but again this does not always happen. Some versions of the VHS have a complete picture collage showing all the VHS covers from that season, while others move this to the inside of the cover. Many of the back covers include an image showing a variety of the cartoon characters that appear in each season – seasons one and two have unique character collections, while seasons three and four share the same cartoon line-up. A few versions combine the cartoon characters, an animal stock image and the collage of VHS covers.

    In a trailer for the season four VHS set that ran prior to the beginning of each episode, the covers of the presumed UK VHS are shown. Very few of the covers (five in total - Animal Flight, Scaly Animals, Polar Animals, Animal Partners and Around the World) are unique to the episodes themselves. Of the others, seven are taken directly from the covers of former VHS boxes albeit sometimes with minor alterations, with the one remainder (Woodland Animals) being an animation still taken from within the Armoured Animals episode.

## Creatures Fantastic

Creatures Fantastic has only been released on VHS. The front cover usually combines several artworks or, more occasionally, still images of characters from the programme itself in front of a faded background that bears some relevance to the episode. For example, Mythical Cats has the skin of a tiger as its faded background, while for Birds and Things with Wings the background depicts a flock of birds overlaid by a nearly transparent photograph of a bird’s wing.

The spine of the VHS case has a screenshot taken from the respective episode, which also appears on the back cover as the lower of two pictures. The upper picture on the back cover varies depending on region – in the original UK release, the upper image is a screenshot of the opening sequence with the free-standing unicorn. In the American release, the upper image is a screenshot of Pegasus from the episode Mythical Horses. Most of the blurb, to the right of these two pictures, outlines the episode itself. A more general smaller blurb introducing the series itself is below these pictures.