I don’t yet need Peggy Cappy‘s Easy Yoga for Arthritis, thankfully, but one day I might, so I granted a perfunctory spin to her fifth sell-through yoga DVD special, and came away fairly impressed.

It’s said that one in three adults suffer from arthritis, so this sort of title would seem to service an important niche. (Of course, if I were being a smart-ass, I’d question whether elderly, chronic arthritis sufferers could figure out how to get their DVD player to work let alone master yoga poses, but I’m trying to cut back on my unleavened snarkiness so I’ll let that point lie.) A 30-year veteran and advocate of yoga, Cappy demonstrates movements to use at home to help strengthen muscles and increase mobility for people who are challenged by either arthritis, joint injuries or the general stiffness that comes with aging. This new special is divided into seven easy-to-use segments. The first section highlights gentle warm-up exercises to loosen the shoulders, neck, back, legs and feet, while a secondary segment spotlights separate warm-ups for the hands, wrists and arms. Standing poses, seated poses and reclining poses are then covered, followed by bits on deep relaxation techniques and meditation.

The routine Cappy presents is appropriate for people of all ages and abilities, allowing three modifications for each pose: standing, seated or using a chair for support. It’s also nice that the viewer can basically pick and choose which exercises work best for them, depending on their own personal areas of physical trouble. Finally, the inclusion of meditation techniques, which are medically proven to increase one’s ability to deal with stress, is also quite nice.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Easy Yoga for Arthritis comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen. Somewhat surprisingly for a title like this, a clutch of bonus footage is also included, in the form of a featurette that runs about 40 minutes in all, and follows Cappy as she travels to back to her hometown of Peterborough, New Hampshire, to meet folks whose lives have been improved by her
classes. While it sometimes plays a bit like an extended infomercial add-on, this is a well-intentioned supplemental feature that connects solidly enough with its demographic. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or click here; if Amazon is your thing, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

It seems silly now, but for generations of sports fans either scattered to distant time zones or locked into commitments that ran counter to the schedules of their favorite teams — in particular college basketball’s March Madness, and conference tournaments — listening to games on the sly, on a Walkman, became a special sort of clandestine art. Wires were run up shirtsleeves, innocuous languid poses perfected — it was its own sort of game, defying authority to indulge in the exploits of your favorite athletic heroes. Or maybe someone had a portable TV, in which case said item was shielded by a fortress of books, or tucked into a locker, or corner workspace.

The advent of TiVo and other digital recorders forever changed the landscape of sports viewing in America, and would seemingly provide a death blow to the sort of specialized DVD release that Los Angeles Lakers: 2010 NBA Finals Series Collector’s Edition represents. But if Americans love their sports, they also love reliving the contact highs of athletic events, and so gussied-up commercial releases of Super Bowls, Final Fours and the like continue to do well (provided the winners aren’t regional weaklings or complete one-off underdogs), even as the traditional DVD market recedes.

An eight-disc DVD set celebrating the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA championship run earlier this summer, this definitive box set features all seven games of the 2010 NBA Finals series in their entirety, chronicling an epic rivalry renewed, and a hotly anticipated rematch two years in the making. The 2010 Finals series actually exceeded the considerable hype, as the Lakers and Boston Celtics — the two most successful hoops franchises in NBA history, accounting for a combined 33 of the sports’ 64 championships — picked up where they left off in 2008 when the Celtics defeated the Lakers to earn a first title for stars Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. After splitting the first four games, the Lakers put themselves in a double-elimination-game hole before smoking the Celtics 89-67 in Game Six, led by Finals MVP Kobe Bryant. Taking the series to a Game Seven at home, Los Angeles found themselves down by 13 points in the third quarter, only to claw their way back and eventually prevail 83-79, repeating as champions in what would be the most watched NBA game in over a decade.

Housed in eight slimline cases in turn stored in an attractive cardboard slipcover, Los Angeles Lakers: 2010 NBA Finals Series Collector’s Edition comes presented on DVD in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with a Dolby digital 2.0 surround sound audio track. As anyone who is familiar with the high-definition presentation of sports telecasts knows, the image tends to be fairly crisp, while there is a slight bit of fuzziness to some of the graphics packages. Regardless, the sound is crisp, and certainly an upgrade over almost any homemade digital transfer to disc. In addition to reliving all the dramatic in-game action of this epic
series, this collection comes with a separate bonus DVD that includes
postgame press conferences, and celebratory mini-movies partially
comprised of locker room footage.

The only thing that would have given this set more value-added punch — something beyond a wallow in purple-and-gold glory for diehard Lakers fans — is more “color packages” (interviews with fans at the arenas) and some postmortem interviews from any of the vast array of ex-hoopster talking heads that populate ESPN and sports talk radio during the month-long NBA playoff season. Sell more aggressively the league’s history, NBA, and then even when your dynastic franchises stumble, you’ll be able to move units of that Oklahoma City Thunder Collector’s Edition. To purchase the DVD set via Amazon, click here. Or to purchase the DVD set via Half, click here. B+ (Collection) B (Disc)

Cat lovers turn away — this isn’t the documentary for you. Dan Child’s fawning, hour-long Dogs Decoded examines the unique relationship we have with “man’s best friend,” and how hundreds of years of domestication have made dogs nearly human.

While feline companionship is lauded in some segments of popular culture, we mostly tend to regard cats with bemusement, and a cool detachment. Humans have undeniably developed a unique relationship with their other furry friends, meanwhile, owing largely to the fact that dogs have been domesticated for longer than any other animal on the
planet. When people talk about feeling that their pet can understand them in a way that other animals can’t, they’re almost always talking about their dog. Now, new research is revealing what dog lovers have suspected all along: many mutts have an uncanny ability to read and respond to human emotions.

Though thin and suffering a bit from preaching-to-the-choir syndrome, Dogs Decoded digs into this incredible relationship between humans and dogs, and why, even though they are so closely related to wolves, canines by and large behave differently. In engaging fashion, Child delves into new discoveries in genetics that are helping to illuminate the
origin of dogs. (He’s less convincing with research that humans, in turn, respond to dogs with a release of oxytocin, the same hormone responsible for
bonding mothers to their babies.) For enthusiastic dog lovers, this is a slice of manna you can watch with your pet. Others may engage it with a bit less native interest.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Dogs Decoded comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with an English language stereo audio track. Unfortunately, there are no supplemental bonus features. To order a copy of the DVD, call (800) PLAY-PBS or click here. To purchase DVDs with public
performance rights, meanwhile, click here. Or, if Amazon and only Amazon is totally your thing, click here. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)