Take the ultimate journey back in time to the reign of the dinosaurs! State-of-the-art digital effects and animatronics by the Emmy Award-winning FrameStore Group (The Odyssey, Merlin, Gulliver’s Travels) combine to form living, breathing images that put you in the scene of a virtual lost world. Using the latest scientific findings, Walking With Dinosaurs examines the 155-million-year history of these great creatures, from the aggressive Coelophysis, who first learned to hunt in packs, to Tyrannosaurus Rex, the most terrifying carnivore on the planet.

Feel the ground tremble as dueling Triceratops lock horns, and soar with Ornithocheirus, who could travel over 300 miles on a single wing flap. Narrated by Kenneth Branagh, this expanded video edition contains fascinating additional material not included on Discovery Channel broadcasts. (Barnes & Noble)

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This series is brilliant. The special effects are truly impressive, the style (made like a fake nature documentary, as if the filmmakers are just observing the dinosaurs in the wilds) is clever, and it’s all just fascinating. Some of it is quite graphic with dinosaurs battling each other, eating each other and dying off in lots of different ways, so I was worried that my almost-four-year-old wasn’t ready for it.

But he’s started to ask questions about dying and animals eating each other and this has actually been a nice segueway into those discussions. We’ve especially enjoyed the “making of” featurette - lots of information there well beyond how they acheived the special effects. This is a classic–we checked it out a million times from the libary before finally buying it ourselves.

There are six episodes and each one examines the lifestyle of a particular type of dinosaurs from one major group (flying, swimming, adapted for cold climates, predators, early dinosaurs, and the big ones with long necks). My son is a dino-maniac and pulls this out & watches it again every few weeks, absolutely loves it and it’s EDUCATIONAL!!! (Amazon)