Platinum DVDs in Blu-Ray format

[Jack Skellington]

It seems like the first Platinum Edition DVD to release in Blu-ray discs is Sleeping Beauty in the fall of 2008. So does that mean that 101 Dalmatians isn't going to be available in Blu-ray discs ? If so, I really hope that Disney would stop releasing 2 platinum DVDs each year, and start making them 3 or 4.
7 years is a long time. I've already suggested this to Disney at their website, but like any other company, Disney needs to hear the suggestions of the majority of it's fans in order to be convinced to make some exciting changes to it's release schedule.

If you agree with me, please suggest this to Disney Videos at: (http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/conta ... actus.html)
Thanks !

[darth_deetoo]

I am really miffed that we're going to have to wait 7 - 10 years for The Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians on Blu Ray. I can, kind of see where they're coming from. A lot of people were left out in the cold with DVD's of Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia. Many studio's won't release their top catalogue titles until the format achieves a certain market penetration. It's for exactly that reason we won't see Star Wars on Blu Ray for a good while.

[Jack Skellington]

This is the reason why i'm not tempted to buy an HD player or discs, I want blu-ray to be more popular in order for the movie studios to be assured they made the right choice. I'm really glad Disney picked Blu-ray it has more capacity than HD DVD therefore everyone will get to see more bonus features than if Disney picked HD DVD. I already have a full HD t.v and when I saw the animated prologue in Casino Royale, the luminousity was incredible ( almost 3D), I was so amazed , so imagine how animated classics like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin would look like !
I really want to own all the platinum dvds soon, 7 years is almost a life-time with all this anticipation .
But I'm sure Disney would consider releasing them 3/4 each year, if all you Disney Fans out there who are reading this post left a comment for them. Pleeeease express your comments to them ! (I wrote the link above)

If 3/4 movies were released each year that would mean you could own them by 2012/2013 instead of 2019/2020 !

[darth_deetoo]

Well, I don't see this 'format war' ending anytime soon now. I bought a HD player about a month ago, so now I'm enjoying both formats.

I would have preferred to have had one format, but there are too many things I want on either side, to just opt into one format.

With Paramount now exclusive, that's going to put some high profile stuff firmly on the HD side. I think I'll probably still end up with about a 2:1 ratio of stuff on Blu Ray, as it goes on, but there are a lot of HD DVD's I want. And a lot of stuff which will be coming on HD DVD.

[Jack Skellington]

Yeah I know what you mean, there's also great movies coming in HD DVD too, but maybe this format war would be over when they'll introduce a dual HD DVD/ Blu-ray player : (http://digital-lifestyles.info/2005/09/ ... ay-player/) Cool Eh ?

[SpringHeelJack]

I have no desire whatsoever to buy either player. I'm still fine with DVD for the time being, thanks.

[Jack Skellington]

Well DVD is good too, but I felt that way before but when I actually saw some movies in HD, I totally want to sell my whole Disney DVD collection and start from scratch with Blu-ray, if youve got a freind who has got the whole HD package (T.V,Bluray) you'll know what I'm talking about.

[SpringHeelJack]

No, I do, and I just don't see that big a difference. I mean, there obviously is one, but it's certainly not the exponential difference from VHS to DVD. And it's certainly not enough to make me want to upgrade any time soon or start selling my DVDs.

[Jack Skellington]

Yeah I know it's not a dramatic format change like when everyone discovered DVD and threw the VHS player in the trash, but you know now after a decade from the first time the DVD player was out it's very rare to find a VHS at Virgin Megastore,etc., and none of my friends use the old player. What if after half a decade the same thing could be applied to DVDs, and movie studios might stop producing DVDs as much as before and focus on HD formats ? Besides HD discs not only offer better sound and picture quality, they also have more bonus features than the dvd that's releasing at the same time. I think because of the big capacity for the bonus features in the new format, Disney fans would start to prefer the Blu-ray disc more. I'm sorry if you don't like this possibility but I really hope that other movie buffs would prefer it because the speed in which Disney releases it's platinum dvds on this new format depends on the popularity of the Blu-rays.

[singerguy04]

Well, if you want quality special features and a good resoration of all the platinum titles then we have to stick with the 2 a year. After seeing the fall in quality from the transition from 1 a year to 2 I would hate to see what going to 3 or ever 4 a year would do. Look at the differences between the Snow White PE and the Peter Pan PE. As far as I'm concerned Disney can take it's time to release these films as long and the wait is worth it.

Of course, with some of the past DVD's Disney has released they've restored them and transfered them to a Digital database, therefore we wouldn't have to wait for them to be restored. Also many of the special features can be ported over to new releases, but I'd rather see something new.

Overall, I'm just fine with 2 a year. It makes their release more special, besides if Disney released the Platinums that often the demand would lesson and sales would drop. Disney would also be too preoccupied with releasing the Platinums to really care about any of the other films, some of which many people love more than some of the Platinum titles.

Lastly, Disney does listen to it's consumers and I even think they pay attention to what goes on in this forum. It's just that Disney can't always give us everything that we ask for. It wouldn't be good for business to cater to us all iniviually. You have to keep in mind that the company is a lot more than animated movies now.

[Jack Skellington]

I doubt that there even going to release 2-a-year and make it once a year after Seeping Beauty is released. The reason disney made it a 2-a-year is because that's the time they heard that a newer HD DVD format is coming out, so in effort to make sure theyre remaining DVDs are best-sellers Disney doubled the remaining platinum DVDs, this is why were not getting a 101 dalmatians or a Jungle book bluray disc now.

Bonus features aern't as difficult to produce it's the remastering that's complicated. Peter Pan's lack of bonus features is coz Disney is only trying to save some ideas for the Peter Pan blu-ray releasing in a decade from now. (I doubt that it's going to be 7.)
All the platinum disney dvds are already beautifully remastered, so a 1-2 year time is crazy for a good transfer.

One again please help me prevent this from happening by sending a comment to Disney. I think Disney need to be assured that the majority of it's fans are agreeing to a 3-dvd a year release in order to motivate them to make this a reality.
The more comments the better ! Here's the link again and thanks !
(http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/conta ... actus.html)

[David S.]

Peter Pan's lack of bonus features is coz Disney is only trying to save some ideas for the Peter Pan blu-ray releasing in a decade from now

Well, if that is true, your post may actually inspire me to contact Disney, but not for the reasons you intended it to!

It would be to ask them to PLEASE stop watering down the bonus features on standard DVDs in order to try to manipulate people into buying a player that many of us do not want or need!

There has already been speculation on the boards here that the reason the long-awaited Tarzan reissue was dumbed down at the last minute to a one disc set missing "making of" material and artwork stills found even on most one disc DAC DVD reissues was to "hold this material back" for a possible Blu-Ray release - despite being (falsely!) advertised as a 2-disker.

Likewise, there has been speculation that after solid 2-disc reissues of Alice In Wonderland, Mulan, and Pocahontas, the reason that the other reissues of deserving DACs since then have all been one disc has been to hold back for precious Blu-Ray.

And there is the same speculation concerning the sudden failure of new Pixar releases to turn up in the stellar 2-disc format of their older titles...

Add to all of this the possibility that Disney took the lazy way out and put a subtitled "read-along" version of Peter Pan which wasted over an hour of time on Disc 2 that could have been used for better suplements (like the Christmas show) JUST to hold this back for Blu Ray and I can tell you the only connotation the new format has in my mind is a negative one! This was a PLATINUM title for heaven's sake! ANYTHING that could have fit on there relating to Peter Pan SHOULD have been included.

If this speculation is true, it indicates to me that Disney must not be very confident that the improved resolution of Blu Ray is enough on it's own to make people double-dip (or triple-dip or quardruple-dip) to buy the same titles YET AGAIN on YET ANOTHER new format.

I don't mean to sound negative about Blu Ray; I can understand why technology-minded fans would love it.

In my case, though, even without the controversy regarding them dumbing down what should have been better standard DVD releases, count me in the camp with SpringHeelJack that is in no hurry to upgrade my player.

My DVD player looks AWESOME as it is on my modest 4X3 television. I am really happy with my brightness, contrast, and other settings. I cannot imagine how ANYTHING could create substantial improvent over the way my favorite movies look now on my set. The few times I've felt certain scenes or transfers could have looked better were due to print flaws, which would have also been noticable in a blue ray taken from the same master.

After watching one of my DVDs, I never feel like it would have been more enjoyable with a higher-resolution picture. If my thoughts about the picture enter into the equation, they are usually , "WOW, that looked AMAZING!"

So I don't feel like I am missing anything with standard DVD. I approach movies more from a creative angle than a technical one anyway, and in this regard more lines of resolution will not make the jokes funnier, the songs catchier, or the touching scenes more touching!

There are presently over 200 titles (going beyond Disney) on my "To Buy" list. Many of these are older movies, many filmed in the Academy Ratio 1.37:1 format, and many will probably never even see the light of day in a high-definition format anyway (just as there are many great films STILL "left behind" and only available on VHS).

So I am in no hurry to delay the enjoyment I get each week when I add one or two titles to my collection to invest that money in new hardware instead.

And even a possible ploy by Disney of witholding bonus features from standard DVDs won't be enough to sway me!

[Fflewduur]

It wasn't till we got an HD TV that I began to feel disappointed with DVDs; they look fabulous on standard TVs, but on HDTVs? Not so much. There is an option out there for folks who want better picture quality out of their DVDs on their HDTVs---for anywhere from $60 to $400 or more, you can find <i>upconverting</i> or <i>upscaling</i> DVD players. I'm not technical enough to grok the process myself, but from what I gather they process the standard DVD 480 image and bump it up to 1080, with some sort of processor creating the additional data. (I believe upscaling standard DVDs is also a feature on most Blu-Ray players; I dunno about HD-DVD.)

I got one at the far lower end of the price range...I wish I'd done a bit more research and/or spent a little more money. Playing some discs, particularly in very visually busy scenes, there's a horizontal stutter in the picture: a break where the images don't quite line up. When it works without error, however, it really looks nice. It's not true HD, but it's eye candy! My Pixar collection looks especially gorgeous.

As far as the when & how of Disney home releases---well, I'm dating myself here, but I'm (barely) old enough to remember when the home market didn't yet exist, when the only way to get to see a Disney movie was to wait for them to haul it out of the vault and send it out on theatrical re-release. Now I have a collection of dozens and dozens of Disney films on hand that I can watch at whim, but still I'm angsting over what I haven't got and can't yet get. The more things change, I guess...

[Jack Skellington]

I think ignoring the Blu-ray player and getting an upscale DVd player is a waste of money, Blu-ray also plays DVDs, infact it gets better picture out of it.
Disney is not trying to manipulate people to get the Blu-ray, I have a good feeling that once the Sleeping Beauty arrives on blu-ray it would arrive in DVD as well, ok forget about the picture and sound quality, the Sleeping Beauty Blu-ray will probably have more special features, this is something we can't blame Disney for, because a blu-ray has a lot more space than a DVD, so even if they wanted to put the same amount of bonus features on the DVD release, they coudn't. In the Cars blu-ray disc, you can watch the movie, and when you spot any car,you can pause the movie,pick the car you noticed, and it would give you information on the real car behind it, and trust me there's a lot of vehicals in the pixar movie Cars ! Disney is not going to stop producing movies with good bonus features on DVD, just keep in mind that due to the fact of the diffrence in space between the 2 discs, Disney won't offer as much bonus features on DVD.

[David S.]

Well, the reason I brought up the speculation that Disney was possibly manipulating people to want to buy blue ray versions was because of your comment above that Peter Pan Platinum was lacking some bonus features in order to save them for the Blu Ray 10 years for now!

I have no problem with blue ray squeezing more stuff than the standard DVD into the available space, or blu ray-specific bonuses that are technically not possible on standard DVD.

But the issue here is there was lots of space on the Peter Pan DVD for more relevant bonus features (which you seemed to be suggesting they left off in order to save them for the blu ray, which is what inspired my reply By Platinum standards, Peter Pan is lighter than the rest on bonus features.

Also, Tarzan and TENG got reissued in fall 2005 in dumbed down one disc versions even though the material to stretch them out into two discs (to continue the previous tradition of each current DAC edition being the best ever made available) was obviously complete and available as they had already been released on older, out-of-print 2 disc editions. At the time, there was speculation that the reason the material was omitted was to make people with only the single disc newer versions more likely to double dip for a future blue ray release which would restore the missing bonus features.

Lastly, the Pixar movies had traditionally appeared on standard DVD as thorough 2-diskers. Cars is the first released on blue-ray and also the first to appear on standard DVD in ONLY a one disc format, lighter on bonus features than all previous Pixar DVDs.

So, people in those threads were discussing the logical possibility that Cars was watered down on standard DVD in order to make people more likely to want the blue ray.

As far as Sleeping Beauty, I agree that will be a two disc set on standard DVD since it's a Platinum title; and hopefully it will be as good or even better than the previous 2-disk Sleeping Beauty release.

But the facts are, other than Platinum titles, Disney has not issued any 2 disc DVDs for ANY DACs or Pixar films since they started releasing blu rays.

Which is why some members on here seem to be suggesting that Disney is "abandoning" standard DVD, or at the very least, not putting as much effort into quality standard releases as they should be, presumably to hold the bonus features back (that could and should have been on these watered down standard versions) for future blu-ray editions of the same films.

Which, if true, is sort of "manipulating" the customers to want to upgrade to blu ray, by making the standard versions less than they would have been if blu-ray didn't exist.

[Jack Skellington]

I honestly respect the fact that you have expressed your veiws to Disney and I am not at all bothered if you are less than intrested in HD platinum releases. I like the movies that Disney has created, but like any other company in this material world, Disney is a company which cares about the greens that they get, rather than the people that they are trying to entertain. For this reason, Disney are investing on a theme park in Shanghai, even though it already has a theme park in Hong Kong, because of the wealth that China has recently. And for the same reason, after most of their movies have already been sold on DVD, Disney are selling their films in a new format. They care about the money, and even if we sent them billions of comments Disney is not going to care, so I won't be surprised if were back to a one release each year scheduale for my favourite movies, unless they hear about a Super HD player in 5 years, then there's no doubt that they'll triple their movies each year to us ! At first I thought they doubled the platinum DVDs due to popular demand from the fans, but now I see things much more clearly.

[David S.]

When one HD format becomes standardized and if the writing ever comes on the wall that titles are no longer coming out on standard DVD, I'm sure like everyone else I'll get a player. One thing about format changes is many titles never get re-released in the new format but the good thing here is at least the blu-ray/HD players will be backwards compatable so my DVDs will never be obsolete.

I didn't mean to be negative or a downer; I just wanted to explain what I meant by illustrating some of the ways it looked like Disney's heart wasn't always in giving consumers the best possible standard DVD release, possibly because they were looking ahead to the future blu-rays. I was never against the idea of improving the format per se; only the idea that this may have been affecting the quality of some of the standard DVDs that was a turn off.

I hope you get all the movies you want on blu-ray and that also, until if and when that format completely takes over from standard, that Disney will recommit themselves to making quality 2 disc standard DVDs of their animated classics and Pixar films (besides the Platinums), and that the two formats can coexist together harmoniously.

PS. Cool signature

[Jack Skellington]

I wish Disney would notice these forums, they could be a much better company if they listened to their fans more often, but who knows maybe their reading this message right now ! But I'd think they'd get mad at me coz I said they care more about the greens than their fans earlier !

(BTW thanks for the compliment, James Dean is my favourite actor, he
actually died before his movies came out, so it's really weard that he used to say that before he died ! )

[DisneyFreak5282]

I agree with singerguy04. If Disney releases 3 - 4 PEs a year, the quality WILL be worse (like Peter Pan's recent disappointment).

Plus, I am also OK with not owing an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player. I do have an HD TV, but when I watch regular DVDs on it, the quality is just fine. The picture is clear and the colors are sharp. Not as sharp as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, but it's pretty darn good!

[Jack Skellington]

I was watching the platinum release schedual, and I was wondering why everyone still thinks it's going to be a 2 platinum dvds a year after Sleeping Beauty, doesn't anyone think that Disney is going to release only one platinum dvd after 2009 ?