Is Disney Done with DVD? (The Never Ending Blu-Ray Debate)

[Fflewduur]

I realize upscaling DVDs on an HDTV doesn't look as good... but that's because, as I've been saying for the past few pages, the methods that TVs and the DVD players use isn't that good.

So if the TVs and DVD players aren't good enough (and there ARE quality standalone upscaling DVD players out there), then what? Mass market migration to home theatre PCs?
If you're not in the HTPC crowd already, you're probably not so inclined; if you are, you don't have to stop at upscaling DVDs---you can get a BD drive and player software and get the other 5/6 of the picture.
(And my PS3 does a better job at upconverting DVDs than my Philips upconverter---but I somehow doubt you're recommending BD players as a solution.)

I can post screenshots of a movie that was taken from a standard DVD (720x480, anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen) and turned into about " 950p". (It's not quite 1080, but it's closer to 1080 than 720."
And I think you'll see what I'm talking about... you probably wouldn't be able to tell it even came from a DVD if I didn't state it.

Unless it were posted next to an uncompressed still of the same scene from the BD release, which is what you're just not going to get until the day you actually jack a BD player into your 50" 1080p TV and watch Sleeping Beauty and get sucked into the endless detail in Eyvind Earle's backgrounds, or realize you can make out fine detail in the incidental surface reflections in Lightning McQueen's paint job or Eve's luminescent whatever-she's-made-of, or can take satisfaction in the fact that there's never any question what Zero's nose is any moment you choose to look at it.

Can't a DVD have 5.1 PCM?

Though I don't even care - I use the speakers built in my TV. Surround sound is just one of those things that looks cool but has no use to me.

DVD-video can't, because uncompressed 5.1 PCM requires bitrate roughly equal the average video bitrate on DVD.

So you have no use for surround sound and listen on your TV's speakers---doesn't that make your share of kvetching about Disney's audio mixes a bit disingenuous?

What I'm saying is that I don't have an issue with the actual Blu-Ray itself...

So that whole BD=Sony=Satan anti-fanboy thing has been an elaborate put-on?

I just think it's more money than it's worth... as with my current TV setup I can't tell the difference anyway.

With your TV the difference should be plain to see, but you've <i>already</i> said you haven't watched a Blu-ray on your TV. More disingenuousness.

As I said, once Blu-Ray players start selling for under $50 at Wal-mart...

I find it really hard to believe you spent $1000+ of your own on a 50" 1080p TV.

[drfsupercenter]

So you have no use for surround sound and listen on your TV's speakers---doesn't that make your share of kvetching about Disney's audio mixes a bit disingenuous?

No, because when those home theater mixes are downmixed to 2.0, they sound terrible. Half the bass disappeared from the songs in Aladdin when I tried it! And there, it's more the concept of "messing with the OTV" that I don't like... not the concept of 5.1 itself. (Making 5.1 mixes as fine as long as you're not screwing with it, like the DEHT of Aladdin vs. the normal 5.1...)

So that whole BD=Sony=Satan anti-fanboy thing has been an elaborate put-on?

No. I still hate Sony for the rootkit, ARccOS crap, and paying off the studios to switch to Blu-Ray. But I'm also not gonna be the type to boycott everything Sony and never buy Blu-Ray either. I'm more of the type to get third-party brands if it's possible, and I guess I'll just have to accept that part of any Blu-ray disc sold goes back to Sony itself.

With your TV the difference should be plain to see, but you've already said you haven't watched a Blu-ray on your TV. More disingenuousness.

Standing a foot from the TV, yes. I can also notice the difference between, say, FOX HD and normal FOX. (We don't have "HD cable" so all I have to compare is broadcast-level channels, and the main reason I watch the HD ones is for the anamorphic widesrceen)
But my couch is like 10 feet from the TV. From that difference, the HD station and the normal station look exactly the same (Assuming the show is 4:3 and therefore looks the same size-wise).
I'm not exactly happy about pixelation, but then again, who stands a foot from a large TV when they're watching movies?

I find it really hard to believe you spent $1000+ of your own on a 50" 1080p TV.

I didn't. My grandma bought it for our family as a holiday gift. And she said she'd get us a Blu-Ray player for it if we want... but what I'm saying is we'll only have ONE Blu-ray player, and she's not gonna be paying for every movie I buy... therefore if I want to watch them on other TVs (like once I move away to college, for example), I'd have to buy a Blu-Ray player of my own...

[Fflewduur]

No. I still hate Sony for the rootkit, ARccOS crap, and paying off the studios to switch to Blu-Ray. But I'm also not gonna be the type to boycott everything Sony and never buy Blu-Ray either. I'm more of the type to get third-party brands if it's possible, and I guess I'll just have to accept that part of any Blu-ray disc sold goes back to Sony itself.

Unlike the payoff to Paramount to go HD DVD-exclusive---which was revealed in their financial statements---there is no evidence to support the allegations that Sony paid anyone anything for Blu-ray support.

As for BD profits going to Sony---you're still laboring under the mistaken impression that Sony owns the format somehow. They don't. The CE manufacturer that owns the most BD-related patents, that stands to gain the most from BD's success, is Matsushita/Panasonic.

I somehow doubt you were personally affected by the rootkit, but whatever. As for ARccOS, I have no sympathy for the fact that it makes your piracy hobby more complicated. Suck it up.

Since you don't own BD, haven't experienced it it in your own home, and are generally wrong regarding almost everything you've had to say about the format, you really ought to stick to what you know.

[ZOOMBOOM0688]

Standing a foot from the TV, yes. I can also notice the difference between, say, FOX HD and normal FOX. (We don't have "HD cable" so all I have to compare is broadcast-level channels, and the main reason I watch the HD ones is for the anamorphic widesrceen)
But my couch is like 10 feet from the TV. From that difference, the HD station and the normal station look exactly the same (Assuming the show is 4:3 and therefore looks the same size-wise).
I'm not exactly happy about pixelation, but then again, who stands a foot from a large TV when they're watching movies?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!


I was out of this discussion, But after reading that I HAD to say something!!

I have the Panasonic 46" 800U and the difference from Standard Deff TV and HDTV channels is HUGE!!

I can ONLY watch the 7 or so HD channels I have now because of this... EVEN AT 20 FEET away I'm sure the difference would be BIG...

[KubrickFan]

Well, 20 feet is a bit extreme. But the difference between Full HD and HD-Ready should already be visible from 10 feet, especially when the screen is 50", let alone the difference between HD and SD.

[drfsupercenter]

Unlike the payoff to Paramount to go HD DVD-exclusive---which was revealed in their financial statements---there is no evidence to support the allegations that Sony paid anyone anything for Blu-ray support.

As for BD profits going to Sony---you're still laboring under the mistaken impression that Sony owns the format somehow. They don't. The CE manufacturer that owns the most BD-related patents, that stands to gain the most from BD's success, is Matsushita/Panasonic.

Why is Sony the only company pushing and promoting Blu-Ray so much then? Heck, I don't even think Panasonic sells Blu-Ray players anymore... I talked to the guy at Best Buy who said the Panasonic they had was actually discontinued now.

As far as the players go, I personally have no problem buying a PS3, because Sony loses about $50 for every one they sell.

I somehow doubt you were personally affected by the rootkit, but whatever. As for ARccOS, I have no sympathy for the fact that it makes your piracy hobby more complicated. Suck it up.

I wasn't personally affected, but it's the concept I'm after. What Sony does is known as "S***ing on their fanbase." All they do is neglect their customers and don't provide any real support (The only company worse is Dell.)
And I have first-hand experience with that. I have a portable Sony DVD player (the kind with a little foldable 8" screen), and one day it mysteriously started stopping every 5 minutes... the only way to fix it was to turn it off and on again. (To this day, it still does that). So I called Sony, explained it to them, and also explained that I bought it only about six months prior. The customer "service" agent said I was indeed under warranty, and tried to charge me $33 to get it replaced.
I asked him why I'd have to pay if it's under warranty... and he said that the labor warranty was only 3 months, the 1-year one is for parts. To which I explained that I wasn't sending it in for service, there's no real labor involved (other than that 5 cents an hour they pay some 12-year old in China...), and that it was a PART that's defective. All he did was ask me for a Visa number. Yeah, Sony, way to go, that's what I call effective customer service. *groans*

As for ARccOS... it doesn't make anything more complicated for me, I can get around anything (including HD-DVD and Blu-Ray encryption.) But one complaint with ARccOS is how over-the-top and incredibly pointless it really is. There's an age-old principle that whatever can be encrypted can also be decrypted. Why can't Sony learn that? And I honestly found it funny how early ARccOS DVDs (Peter Pan's Platinum Edition is one) have a gigabyte or more WASTED on copy protection. Peter Pan appears to be dual layer (about 5.5GB or so)... stick it in a computer and run a decrypter, it's about 4.3GB. Why not use that extra space to give us more extras and better video quality? (I know that's Disney, not Sony... but Sony invented the encryption)

Since you don't own BD, haven't experienced it it in your own home, and are generally wrong regarding almost everything you've had to say about the format, you really ought to stick to what you know.

I do have HD-DVD (as of yesterday when my drive came)... which, as I've already said, is identical quality to Blu-Ray. I watched the included King Kong and really wasn't all that impressed... it looked better close up but it looked the same as anything else from the couch. I will compare Hot Rod later, and I can take some pictures too. (I have both the HD-DVD and the standard DVD)
And as I've said, I actually DID compare HDTV with regular TV... with the exception of anamorphic widescreen vs. letterboxed (I therefore only did the real comparison on shows like Family Guy that are in 4:3), it was impossible to tell a difference from where I sit. And I'm very picky about quality. (Heck, I was showing my sister how we can watch local HDTV now, and she was like "Huh? What's the difference? It looks the same to me!") So obviously it isn't just me.

--Edit--

Here's another ARccOS tale... the region 1 DVDs of Code Geass literally had so much ARccOS encryption that they wouldn't play correctly on a settop DVD player. I know someone who actually bought these DVDs and confirms that. (And the only way to fix it is to actually contact the company and get them replaced for non-ARccOS discs)
Here is a discussion about those DVDs.

And I found some stories about the Sony-WB payoff:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... ry=Toshiba

While neither side has *confirmed* how much money was involved, I doubt it was zero. What reason would WB have to become Blu-Ray exclusive at the time?

[Goliath]

Unless it were posted next to an uncompressed still of the same scene from the BD release, which is what you're just not going to get until the day you actually jack a BD player into your 50" 1080p TV and watch Sleeping Beauty and get sucked into the endless detail in Eyvind Earle's backgrounds, or realize you can make out fine detail in the incidental surface reflections in Lightning McQueen's paint job or Eve's luminescent whatever-she's-made-of, or can take satisfaction in the fact that there's never any question what Zero's nose is any moment you choose to look at it.

And this exactly the kind of BD promotion people like drfsupercenter and me (among others) get tired of. Pretending you can't see all that stuff you mention unless you watch it in BluRay. It's not true, it's a marketing catch and it's annoying to have it repeated every other post in every other thread.

[drfsupercenter]

Yeah, those "Blu-Ray vs. DVD" sampler things they play at the video stores takes the DVD and compresses it about 50 times more than it actually is.

Just as a test I'll try it myself... I'll take the DVD of Cars, Wall-E, whatever, and zoom in on the detailed stuff. It might not be crystal-clear but it's not exactly impossible to see either.

Kinda like when Disney advertises their newly restored movies... are the "before" pictures EVER accurate?

[KubrickFan]

Kinda like when Disney advertises their newly restored movies... are the "before" pictures EVER accurate?

Absolutely not . I wonder who takes those things seriously anyway.

I have a restoration comparison on the Universal Citizen Kane dvd, and the 'before' picture has video noise in it , how's that for false advertising?

[drfsupercenter]

Right, that's what I'm getting at.

And I'm sure they do the same for Blu-Ray vs. DVD

So I used the movie Hot Rod, and compared the standard DVD to the HD-DVD.
Honestly... there was a slight improvement in the HD-DVD, but from my couch it really was only noticeable when specifically looking for stuff in the background, such as the signs in the windows of buildings. (I used a couple of my favorite scenes to compare)
Using the DVD, the picture still looked great and when focusing on the action, I didn't feel like it was subpar at all.

Though with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, I do like the "bookmark" feature, that's really useful when you're lazy like I am. The interactive menus are kinda strange... I had no problem with the click and select DVD menus, these seem a bit pointless to me.

But either way. I admit I can see a small improvement from HD to normal DVD, but it certainly wasn't "WOW! Look at how much DETAIL I can see!" either. And for the price of Blu-Ray discs, it's not worth it to me. DVDs still look far from inferior when using a quality upscaling unit (I'm using the HD-DVD drive for my Xbox 360 at the moment)... and as I said, for focusing on the action of the movie you hardly notice the "missing info" at all.

An odd comparison is that the HD-DVD was a bit louder. Not sure why, maybe when they made it higher bitrate they also turned the volume up. Whatever, that's what volume controls are for.

So bottom line, I realize HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are higher quality than DVD. I don't, however, see the point of buying brand-new movies exclusively on Blu-Ray when you can only play them on one TV.

On a side note, one thing struck me as bizarre: I was recording the rerun of the new Scrubs series on ABC HD. (yes, my DVD recorder can convert HD to 480i) I could see a LARGE difference between the ABC HD 720p coming from my cable and the 480i coming from the DVD recorder. But then when I put the disc in my Xbox 360, it was about twice the original quality, still a bit inferior to the native HD. Which proves that the TVs themselves aren't too good at upscaling, but given the right equipment, it can make a huge difference.

[Rudy Matt]

Yeah, those "Blu-Ray vs. DVD" sampler things they play at the video stores takes the DVD and compresses it about 50 times more than it actually is.

Just as a test I'll try it myself... I'll take the DVD of Cars, Wall-E, whatever, and zoom in on the detailed stuff. It might not be crystal-clear but it's not exactly impossible to see either.

Kinda like when Disney advertises their newly restored movies... are the "before" pictures EVER accurate?

You don't need to waste your time -- there's only about 10 million similar screen grabs on line showing the difference between high def and dvd.

[Fflewduur]

Why is Sony the only company pushing and promoting Blu-Ray so much then?

Um, bull. Sony is the only company pushing the PS3. You've obviously missed the omnibus Blu-ray commercials featuring clips from different studios, and the individual release commercials mentioning their availability on BD.

Heck, I don't even think Panasonic sells Blu-Ray players anymore... I talked to the guy at Best Buy who said the Panasonic they had was actually discontinued now.

Bull, again---seriously, you're relying on some minimum-wage Best Buy employee for your information, and your gonna regurgitate it without even thinking about Google?

Panasonic's discontinued their first-generation player; there are 5 other models available. And they partnered with Disney---arguably the studio which has done the most to promote the format---to bring the Magical Blu-ray tour to a couple dozen towns over 2007-2008 for the 3-day Magical Blu-ray tour events, which is the kind of promotion no other CE has engaged in. And there are at least a dozen other CEs with players on the market, including Pioneer, Sharp, Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Philips/Magnavox, LG---several of them offering multiple models; there are another dozen or so CEs with players announced, including 5 players from 4 different CEs announced just this week (even Vizio is getting into the market).

Peter Pan appears to be dual layer (about 5.5GB or so)... stick it in a computer and run a decrypter, it's about 4.3GB. Why not use that extra space to give us more extras and better video quality? (I know that's Disney, not Sony... but Sony invented the encryption)

They're entitled to protect their assets. If folks didn't steal content, there'd be no need from any copy protection, but it's a fact of human nature that we won't pay for what we can get for free.

Look, if you REALLY want the <i>best</i> available video quality on DVD, you encode the feature at the maximum bitrate and you cut everything else---bonus features, secondary language tracks, everything but the main presentation. Nobody does that, of course. Well, <b>one</b> studio did, for a line of releases called "Superbit" DVDs: Sony.

What reason would WB have to become Blu-Ray exclusive at the time?

The better question is, why did Paramount ditch Blu-ray for the format with substantially poorer market performance? The <a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798 ... >answer</a>:

[Paramount's] [t]heatrical revenues declined 7% to $247 million. That was offset in part by a 22% bump in home entertainment revenue on one-time items <b>including a $29 million payout from Toshiba for Par’s exclusive backing of the HD-DVD</b>.

Which Paramount <a href="http://www.variety.com/article/VR111797 ... s=1">never denied</a>:

Asked about a payout at a later session, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman didn't deny the allegation. "I won't comment on that number," he said.

Why didn't he deny it? Because Viacom is a publicly-traded corporation and there are legal consequences to lying about where their money comes from. So is Warner, yet they <i>have</i> <a href="http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/63608; ... A5">flatly denied</a> a straight cash payoff with no hard evidence to confirm otherwise----your article notwithstanding, as it cites unnamed "analysts" with no real data whatsoever.

The reasons Warner abandoned HD DVD are the obvious ones: because BD had more supporting studios; because BD had more support among CE manufacturers; because BD had more players in homes; because Warner was selling more BDs than HD DVDs; because the format war was going to continue to hold back the general adoption of any HD home media format; because they <a href="http://www.twice.com/article/CA6477849. ... nounced</a> months before the decision to bail on HD DVD they were going to make a decision to back one format, based on their 4th quarter sales, for the greater good of the market.

As for ARccOS... it doesn't make anything more complicated for me, I can get around anything (including HD-DVD and Blu-Ray encryption.)

"You" aren't "getting around" anything---unless you write code, you're using someone else's intellectual property to rip off another party's intellectual property. You're an admitted pirate and that pisses me off no end, especially since you're living with your parents. So many pirates think they're somehow sticking it to the man or some such crap---the truth is, you're not hurting the corporate structure, you're not hurting the superstars: the people who hurt most from revenue lost to piracy are the 99% of the people in the industry who do the nuts & bolts work; who don't have millions of dollars in the bank; who have been dedicated, talented, and lucky enough to break into the most difficult industry in the world to enter; who worry about making house payments and car payments and health insurance payments and how to pay for their kids' clothes and food and education. How much do you earn? How many TB of content do you own that you haven't legitimately acquired? How long would you have to work to pay for it? How pissed off would your parents be if <i>they</i> were losing money to support <i>your</i> quality of life? How much would your parents be willing to spend on your legal defense if you got busted? What entitles you to be a leech and a thief?

[Fflewduur]

And this exactly the kind of BD promotion people like drfsupercenter and me (among others) get tired of. Pretending you can't see all that stuff you mention unless you watch it in BluRay. It's not true, it's a marketing catch and it's annoying to have it repeated every other post in every other thread.

I'm not pretending anything. I'm not some paid shill, I'm a film fan, and if I'm a format fan for BD it's because at the moment BD easily provides the best experience for viewing the films I love, relying solely on my eye and ears to form my opinions. If you can't tell the difference between the recent re-release of Sleeping Beauty on both formats...well, I feel sorry for you.

DVD is only a little more than twice the approximate resolution of VHS, as opposed to BD's 500% increase in resolution over DVD. You want to claim those numbers are meaningless, be my guest: tell me DVD has no presentational upgrade over VHS.

[drfsupercenter]

They're entitled to protect their assets. If folks didn't steal content, there'd be no need from any copy protection, but it's a fact of human nature that we won't pay for what we can get for free.

Yes, but does it ever work? You notice how no matter how they keep advancing the encryption, it can still be decrypted? Methods like CSS and RCE (which I don't really mind, anyone with basic computer knowledge can break them) serve their purpose: You can't just open Nero and click "copy DVD". That takes care of about 75% of the people who could potentially try to copy studio released DVDs.

Look, if you REALLY want the best available video quality on DVD, you encode the feature at the maximum bitrate and you cut everything else---bonus features, secondary language tracks, everything but the main presentation. Nobody does that, of course. Well, one studio did, for a line of releases called "Superbit" DVDs: Sony.

The funny thing is I've seen DVDs better than the "Superbit" ones. For example, the newest DVD of Men In Black (Which has BOTH aspect ratios!) looks clearer and better than the earlier Superbit version.
It's all about encoding and compression... done right, you can fit plenty of extras on a dual-layer disc... or better yet, have one disc for the movie and one disc for extras (like studios have been doing for the past few years).
What I was getting at there is they COULD have used a higher bitrate, but because of the over-the-top copy protection, they couldn't... as it literally took all that space on the disc.

"You" aren't "getting around" anything---unless you write code, you're using someone else's intellectual property to rip off another party's intellectual property.

You know that quote "It's not what you know, it's who you know"? Same concept applies there. I don't need to write the code... it's available on the Internet. And even the newest Blu-Ray profile can easily be decrypted... that shows how truly useless it is.

You're an admitted pirate and that pisses me off no end, especially since you're living with your parents. So many pirates think they're somehow sticking it to the man or some such crap---the truth is, you're not hurting the corporate structure, you're not hurting the superstars: the people who hurt most from revenue lost to piracy are the 99% of the people in the industry who do the nuts & bolts work; who don't have millions of dollars in the bank; who have been dedicated, talented, and lucky enough to break into the most difficult industry in the world to enter; who worry about making house payments and car payments and health insurance payments and how to pay for their kids' clothes and food and education. How much do you earn? How many TB of content do you own that you haven't legitimately acquired? How long would you have to work to pay for it? How pissed off would your parents be if they were losing money to support your quality of life? How much would your parents be willing to spend on your legal defense if you got busted? What entitles you to be a leech and a thief?

I have a few comments to that end.

One, I have quite a large collection of legally-owned movies... bigger than almost all of my friends. I'm not against paying for movies... most of the ones I copy I already own. But is it such a crime to not want to carry the original copies around with me? When it's just as easy to burn a DVD-R and not care if it gets ruined?
As far as who piracy is hurting... how does it hurt the actors and technical crew members? Those people all sign contracts, and make most of their money before the movie even comes out.
From that point, the majority of the profits goes to the studio. And does it really look like Fox, WB, Sony, Viacom, etc. need more money? The same goes with music - I once read that a recording artist only makes about 10 cents from every CD sold. I would rather send them a dime in an envelope and then download the music for free... Why would I support giving a record label 90% of the profit? (And for that reason, there are actually a few recording artists who encourage "piracy", because of issues they've had with their recording label)

So really, pirates aren't really hurting the actors, they're helping. I'm not trying to stick anything to the man, I'm simply trying to get the most out of my media. Why would I buy a DVD and then buy an iTunes copy? I can make my own iTunes copy! Why would I buy a song on iTunes and then re-buy it in WMA? Etcetera, etcetera. I always pay to see movies in theaters - with the exception of a couple of "bad" movies I wanted to see purely to see if the reviews were right, I don't watch camrips. So don't think I'm going around stealing movies. And heck, piracy isn't stealing... they still have the original!

For that matter, Sony has even admitted making money from piracy. What I mean is this. People buy PSP systems, and then flash them so they can play free games. Same with the Nintendo DS, Wii, etc. And I'm talking people would wouldn't buy the system at all if they couldn't get free games. I can find a link to the press article if you want, but I know one of the higher-ups at Sony made a press statement saying they're actually benefiting from PSP hacking. And yet they continue to hunt down and destroy the hackers. Shame.

[The_Iceflash]

I think that the obsession many have over Blu-ray needs to ease up a bit on this board. In threads about new or upcoming releases, all that is talked about is whether there is a blu-ray version of it, complaining when there isn't one, and in other threads I see people saying things they think should be released on Blu-Ray. (i.e Walt Disney Treasures, Classic Disney Live Action, etc). Just give it a rest already. The majority of people aren't Blu-Ray fanboys who are all "Go Blu!!!"

Also since it's been discussed above, I'm not a Sony fanboy at all. I actually take pride in not being one.

[drfsupercenter]

I think that the obsession many have over Blu-ray needs to ease up a bit on this board. In threads about new or upcoming releases, all that is talked about is whether there is a blu-ray version of it, complaining when there isn't on, and in other threads I see people saying things they think should be released on Blu-Ray. (i.e Walt Disney Treasures, Classic Disney Live Action, etc). Just give it a rest already. The majority of people aren't Blu-Ray fanboys who are all "Go Blu!!!"

Also since it's been discussed above, I'm not a Sony fanboy at all. I actually take pride in not being one.

Exactly. Whether or not a movie comes out on Blu-Ray, I will still watch it one way or the other...

I don't dislike Blu-Ray, I just hate all this defending it and acting like Blu-Ray is the only good format out there. And I too take pride in not being a Sony fanboy... 20 years ago they may have been the leaders in quality electronics, but now they're just ripping off their customers while providing horrible service.

[tlc38tlc38]

If a title is only released on DVD that doesn't mean I'm not going to buy it but now that I have a choice between SD and HD, I'm going to buy HD if it's available.

I don't think people are really complaining about titles not coming to Blu-ray. It's just Disney started releasing titles on Blu-ray and some titles that should be released on Blu are not when the DVDs are being re-released (Oliver & Company, Mary Poppins, & Lilo & Stitch...to name a few). Once again, I'm not complaining...I'm just confused as to why this is happening especially with well known titles and friggin Space Buddies gets a Blu release (lol).

[drfsupercenter]

Well,

Most of those movies you mentioned have been "digitally" restored. It's possible that they didn't do it in 1080p resolution... as what reason would they have if at the time it was only being released on DVD?
And yes, Disney double dips their restorations ALL THE TIME. Like the new Sword In the Stone, exact same one as before.

Whereas their new movies, they ARE made in HD so they release them in both formats.

And honestly, for cartoons and animation, high definition makes the least difference. Try watching Cartoon Network in standard definition, and for the most part it looks almost as good as a native HD. (I tried it with shows like Family Guy on Adult Swim)
So as far as the Disney classics go, those are the LOWEST on my priority list to pay attention to high definition.

[tlc38tlc38]

Well,

Most of those movies you mentioned have been "digitally" restored. It's possible that they didn't do it in 1080p resolution... as what reason would they have if at the time it was only being released on DVD?
And yes, Disney double dips their restorations ALL THE TIME. Like the new Sword In the Stone, exact same one as before.

Whereas their new movies, they ARE made in HD so they release them in both formats.

And honestly, for cartoons and animation, high definition makes the least difference. Try watching Cartoon Network in standard definition, and for the most part it looks almost as good as a native HD. (I tried it with shows like Family Guy on Adult Swim)
So as far as the Disney classics go, those are the LOWEST on my priority list to pay attention to high definition.

I can tell a drastic difference in the DVD and Blu version of Sleeping Beauty. The Blu version is so much more crisper and clearer.

[drfsupercenter]

Well, that particular movie has a ton of detail and depth in it.

Try a movie like Snow White on DVD... it probably will look as good as it ever will from the 2001 DVD.