<p> Vietnam was, famously, the first televised war, and perhaps America's final conflict where the images flowed freely to networks without tight military controls. Even so, most of the footage shot on mobile cameras was never or seldom shown. The History Channel documentary “Vietnam in HD” (out on DVD and Blu-ray) fills the gap with two discs largely composed from in-the-moment visual recordings of the Vietnam War. High definition or not, the images zoom straight at viewers. In many scenes the cameraman was under heavy fire and inches from death. </p> <p>Historical context for the war is thinly drawn, but the interviews with veterans are interesting and the footage seldom short of riveting. The narrative that emerges from “Vietnam in HD” is of a war whose mission was undercut by hubris and ignorance, entered step by step without understanding the country, its people or the enemy. </p>
