The series is inspired by the tales of the raiding, trading, and exploring Norsemen of early medieval Scandinavia. It follows the exploits of the legendary Viking chieftain Ragnar Lodbrok and his crew and family, as notably laid down in the 13th century sagas Ragnars saga Loðbrókar and Ragnarssona þáttr, as well as in Saxo Grammaticus's 12th century work Gesta Danorum. Norse legendary sagas were partially fictional tales based in Norse oral tradition, written down about 200 to 400 years after the events they describe. Further inspiration is taken from historical sources of the period, such as records of the Viking raid on Lindisfarne depicted in the second episode, or Ahmad ibn Fadlan's 10th-century account of the Volga Vikings. The series is set at the beginning of the Viking Age, marked by the Lindisfarne raid in 793.
The first season portrays Ragnar (Travis Fimmel) as a young Viking warrior who longs to discover civilizations across the seas. With his friend, the gifted craftsman Floki (Gustaf Skarsgård), he builds a new generation of faster longships and challenges the local ruler, Earl Haraldson (Gabriel Byrne), a man of little vision, to allow raids into unexplored North East England. He is supported by his brother Rollo (Clive Standen), who secretly covets Ragnar's wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick). Ragnar succeeds in carrying out the first Viking raids into the English kingdom of Northumbria, returning with rich loot and the monk Athelstan (George Blagden) as a slave. This not only earns him the enmity of King Aelle (Ivan Kaye), but triggers a series of increasingly violent confrontations at home with the autocratic Earl, ending with Ragnar killing and succeeding him. Ragnar pledges fealty to King Horik (Donal Logue) and represents him in negotiations about a land dispute with Earl Borg from Götaland (Thorbjørn Harr), in the course of which he is seduced by the princess Aslaug (Alyssa Sutherland).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2306299/
All episodes in XviD from WEB-DL
Codec ID, Format: XVID, MPEG-4
Aspect ratio, Dimension: 16:9, 720x400
Audio: MP3, 2 Channels
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Episode 1 example:
General
Complete name : Vikings 1x01 - Rites of Passage WEB-DL.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 423 MiB
Duration : 44mn 11s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 338 Kbps
Writing application : MEncoder r33883
Writing library : MPlayer
Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Simple@L3
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : XVID
Codec ID/Hint : XviD
Duration : 44mn 11s
Bit rate : 1 202 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 400 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.174
Stream size : 380 MiB (90%)
Writing library : XviD 63
Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Mode extension : MS Stereo
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 44mn 10s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 123 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 38.9 MiB (9%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.58 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 130 ms
Writing library : LAME3.98.4
