Question About Disney Blu Ray

[Thomas J]

I just recently bought a Blu-Ray DVD player and I love it! Now, my struggle begins with purchasing DVDs from now on. Since I really can't spare $40+ to buy a regular AND Blu-Ray copy of each title that comes out, I need to pick one. Clearly, I'm leaning towards Blu-Ray (otherwise I wouldn't have bought the player). My main problem lies within the quality. No, I don't mean picture quality; I mean the extras given to us. For example, the new Hannah Montana DVD of her tour is coming out, and I'd like to buy it for my siblings and for myself (I haven't seen it yet). The 2-Disc Collectors Edition looks great because, well, it's a Collectors Edition. However, I am considering getting the Blu-Ray version, but that only comes with one disc. Does that mean the special features are on that one disc as well? Or do they just leave the special bonus features out of Blu-Ray altogether? I need opinions/help, please!

I know Sleeping Beauty is coming out with three discs for Blu-Ray, which is amazing considering one of them is a copy of the regular disc, but I can see myself buying both versions of that for collection purposes. Hannah Montana is most definitely not my favorite person in the world, which is why I use her as an example; I won't waste my money on getting both. I'll save my money for the titles that matter to me.

So what do I do?

Thanks!

[TM2-Megatron]

For example, the new Hannah Montana DVD of her tour is coming out, and I'd like to buy it for my siblings and for myself (I haven't seen it yet). The 2-Disc Collectors Edition looks great because, well, it's a Collectors Edition. However, I am considering getting the Blu-Ray version, but that only comes with one disc. Does that mean the special features are on that one disc as well? Or do they just leave the special bonus features out of Blu-Ray altogether? I need opinions/help, please!

This could most easily be determined by actually checking the bonus content on a site like Amazon, or comparing the two in a store near you. It's possible the Blu-Ray 1-disc release could contain all the bonus content of the 2-disc DVD set. The main feature is probably the only thing they bothered to put on the disc in HD... a great deal of bonus content on many Blu-Ray discs is SD-only. This allows for considerably more content to be put on a single disc... though most studios probably do it 'cuz they're lazy; and know the average consumer doesn't really care about quality so much as impressing their friends with a big TV, lol.

Personally, I think it would be a waste to buy the DVD and Blu-Ray versions of anything, whatever collectible value you feel they might have. Snow White isn't part of the Treasures line, and will be produced on quite a massive scale for the time period it's going to be released. It will be worth nothing, in the long run. If a Blu-Ray doesn't have the bonus features you want, buy the DVD release if you can't wait. Or wait for a better Blu-Ray release. This was a problem with early DVD releases, as well... I wish the studios had just gone to making Blu-Ray with the same level of bonus content from the start. It would waste a lot less time, on our part.

[2099net]

This could most easily be determined by actually checking the bonus content on a site like Amazon, or comparing the two in a store near you. It's possible the Blu-Ray 1-disc release could contain all the bonus content of the 2-disc DVD set. The main feature is probably the only thing they bothered to put on the disc in HD... a great deal of bonus content on many Blu-Ray discs is SD-only. This allows for considerably more content to be put on a single disc... though most studios probably do it 'cuz they're lazy; and know the average consumer doesn't really care about quality so much as impressing their friends with a big TV, lol.

Actually Disney is pretty good about having their bonuses in HD. All of their "new" films have the majority, if not all of the bonuses in HD. Older catalogue releases may have SD extras, but that's mainly because they were only created in SD at the time.

As an aside, I suspect the main reason we are getting a new "making of" on the upcoming Sleeping Beauty release is not so the Platinum Edition can be seen as "better" than the previous SE release, but so Disney can boast a HD featurette on the back of the Blu-ray box. (That may sound a bit cynical, but its not supposed to be - it just shows how commited they are to the BD format).

As for extras, I think its likely that the Hannah Montana single disc does have all the extras from the 2 disc DVD. Disney's National Treasure's Blu-rays are only single disc, but contain all of the bonuses from the 2 disc DVD sets (all of which is HD on National Treasure 2) and then some extra Blu-ray only bonuses on top! Don't forget with the new, more efficient encoding codecs, you can get HD content with a simple stereo soundtrack in little more disc space than an old MPEG-2 clip on a DVD - and Blu-ray has loads and loads of disc space.

[JDCB1986]

If you bought a Bluray player... you may as well buy just the Bluray...It has the same bonus features... and usually a couple more than the DVD issues...The reason they can fit 2 DVD's worth of features onto 1 Bluray is because Bluray's can hold much more information. It is absolutely pointless to buy a Bluray player and then continue to buy both a DVD and Bluray copy of each film... Doesn't make much sense at all.

*This post has been reformatted by a moderator*

[DarthPrime]

Personally I would buy the Blu-ray version all the time when given an option. Most of the time the Blu-ray versions have everything that the 2 disc + DVD versions have, and sometimes more.

To me better video/audio quality is greater than bonus features.

[Thomas J]

Okay, thanks! I'll be buying the Blu-Ray versions from now on. It didn't make much sense to me to buy the regular versions anyway, but I didn't know that they could fit all of the extras plus the movie on one disc. I guess I'll have to wait and see if they actually put the bonus features on the Hannah Montana DVD (but even if they don't, it's really no big deal).

Thanks again everyone.