DVDizzy Forum

I'm trying to take a poll of what the worst Disney DVD transfer you've ever seen is. Right now, I think the one that I was most dissapointed in was A Goofy Movie. It was in fullscreen, and was a bad PAL downconversion. But then again, I thought Homeward Bound was pretty bad too. Not in Widescreen, and terrible picture. (But hey it was one of Disney's first 2 releases) Either that or The Black Cauldron. I was so excited about it finally coming to video, then to laserdisc (Which got cancelled) and then to finally to a widescreen DVD. The DVD however wasn't 16x9 enhanced, and was way too sharp in some areas, and had a lot of transfer problems including grain, edge enhancement, and film artifacts galore. What is your least favorite Disney DVD transfer?

I don't have much Disney DVDs, but while The Rocketeer gets bonus points for being OAR, the transfer is as bad as it says in the Review.

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/rocketeer.html

The Review for The Rocketeer wrote:The Rocketeer is nicely photographed and makes fine use of the 2.20:1 widescreen frame (the packaging and other reviews claim it's 2.35:1, but it's not). Unfortunately, the word that comes to mind in describing this DVD transfer is "murky." It's as if the film is covered by a layer of film, and everything seems more distant and than it should be. It lacks the sharpness and clarity it should have, and while there are no distracting flaws or inconsistencies, the film would very much stand to benefit from a new anamorphic transfer. As it is, it's an overly dark transfer that is pretty disappointing.

Escapay

<i>Blackbeard's Ghost</i> is pretty atrocious. <i>Journey of Natty Gann</i> is a pan-and-scan of a 2.35:1 film and not a very good looking transfer. <i>Family Band</i>'s transfer was weak, so was <i>The Happiest Millionaire</i>. Those four come to mind.

Luke, I really agree with you on The Happiest Millionaire,
it was such a good flick, I wish it was at least framed 16x9...
but then again, I should probably just be happy it's on DVD
at all, much less in Widescreen and a Roadshow Edition.
(Even if Anchor Bay did all the work )

pocahontas! i was so dissapointed with the transfer.

Not the worst, but I was really disappointed at it- Beauty and the Beast Special Edition. I hate those artifacts that disturb the picture ever 10 secs!!

lolopimp wrote:Not the worst, but I was really disappointed at it- Beauty and the Beast Special Edition. I hate those artifacts that disturb the picture ever 10 secs!!

That's exactly what I thought! (But I thought If I mentioned it others would disagree.)
There are way too many artifacts on that disc...
I wish they would have moved some of the other supplements,
and maybe the work in progress edition over to the other disc, where
the film could have recieved more attention.
Oh well.

The worst DVD release I think was on One ANd Only Genuine Origional Family Band, it was so grainy. I compared it with the White Puffy 1983 White Clamshell VHS Edition of that movie which I own. THe VHS was even better quality then the stupid dvd, the only good thing about the dvd was it included the Family Band Album.

i agree pocahnotas is poorly served in its current dvd release.

it was such a good style in the cinema, with its lines and simplicity, but on the dvd it looked soooo flat and 2d.

also the powerful colours used in many of the crucial scenes just looked really really bad.

roll on pocahontas SE!!

The Rescuers

A Goofy Movie

The Black Couldron

Blackbeards Ghost

As far as the animated films go, I'd certainly call "Pocahontas" Gold Collection the most disappointing. Besides not being anamorphically enhanced, the print used is extremely grainy, specially for such a recent film. Besides, the colors look murky and detail is poor, which is a shame considering that this is one of the greatest-looking Disney animated films.
All of the animated movies from the eighties but "The Great Mouse Detective" don't look very good either, specially "The Black Cauldron" (which makes me even more curious to see how good the French anamorphic edition is).

I think of the discs I have. the one that has the most obvious transfer "defect" is Brother Bear, with the (very slight on my system) color banding, which some viewers don't see on their systems. I've seen high res sourced pics (but still 8bit) of Brother Bear and they also have the banding, so I think it may be an error of how the software encodes 8bit files from the higher bit CAPS data. The disc's image and color look so good anyway that i don't mind the slight banding i ocasionally see in a couple of shots. But my Disney DVD collection is still in its embryonic stage so i haven't seen that many DVDs. Yet.

Of the Laserdiscs I have, if anyone cares, I think that the Musicland (im not sure if that was the name of the short) and Lambert The Sheepish Lion shorts on the Prince and the Pauper disc had very faded colors that neeeded boosting up a lot. (Prince was fine).

lolopimp wrote:Not the worst, but I was really disappointed at it- Beauty and the Beast Special Edition. I hate those artifacts that disturb the picture ever 10 secs!!

and That1GuyPictures wrote:

That's exactly what I thought! (But I thought If I mentioned it others would disagree.)
There are way too many artifacts on that disc...
I wish they would have moved some of the other supplements,
and maybe the work in progress edition over to the other disc, where
the film could have recieved more attention.
Oh well.

The R1/4 NTSC disc doesn't come with the Work In Progress version, so it may have a less compressed/bigger file version of the movie than the R1 NTSC disc. I haven't personally checked this out yet.

The Beauty and The Beast Special Editions 2099net and I have, which do include the Work In Progress version, look free of artifacts, and in fact is one of the best DVDs i have. 2099net and i discussed this a little on an older thread.

Jungleprince_55 wrote:A Goofy Movie

If you want to boycott the special features for a good flick get the Australasian version. It was re-shot in widescreen and got a good treatment. But as I said no special features and bad cover-art... Wait, this is disney! Cover-art should always be done by somebody who has never seen the film! AEGM has a pic of Max with goofy eyes and the whole of the Goof Troop series Goofy had max eyes!

Realy, they should get the animators to do the cover-art, just pass it around like a get well card then send it off to be coloured.

Disney Guru wrote:The worst DVD release I think was on One ANd Only Genuine Origional Family Band, it was so grainy. I compared it with the White Puffy 1983 White Clamshell VHS Edition of that movie which I own. THe VHS was even better quality then the stupid dvd, the only good thing about the dvd was it included the Family Band Album.

A 21 year old VHS played probably over 100 times has better quality that a new (albeit P&S) DVD? As John Stossell (of 20/20) would say, "Give me a break!"

Escapay

Escapay wrote:

Disney Guru wrote:The worst DVD release I think was on One ANd Only Genuine Origional Family Band, it was so grainy. I compared it with the White Puffy 1983 White Clamshell VHS Edition of that movie which I own. THe VHS was even better quality then the stupid dvd, the only good thing about the dvd was it included the Family Band Album.

A 21 year old VHS played probably over 100 times has better quality that a new (albeit P&S) DVD? As John Stossell (of 20/20) would say, "Give me a break!"

Escapay

Regaurdless of the format, they are two seperate transfers, and the VHS transfer though made many years ago has better color and looks more natrual than the very grainy transfer with bad color on the DVD.
The fact that the VHS may look better in someways is becuase the VHS hides some of the print problems but displays a better color pattern. The DVD looks worse because all the print problems are on full display, and the film looks older becuase the print itself is 21 years older than that VHS release. The VHS master may have deteriorated less that the film print that they used to master the new DVD which was possibly done recently (although I have doubts about that.) However, DVD always has better picture quality from a compression and resolution technique. However there are some movies that have a better VHS transfer than a DVD transfer...and that is a great misfortune indeed.
Understand?

That1GuyPictures wrote:

Escapay wrote: A 21 year old VHS played probably over 100 times has better quality that a new (albeit P&S) DVD? As John Stossell (of 20/20) would say, "Give me a break!"

Escapay

Regaurdless of the format, they are two seperate transfers, and the VHS transfer though made many years ago has better color and looks more natrual than the very grainy transfer with bad color on the DVD.
The fact that the VHS may look better in someways is becuase the VHS hides some of the print problems but displays a better color pattern. The DVD looks worse because all the print problems are on full display, and the film looks older becuase the print itself is 21 years older than that VHS release. The VHS master may have deteriorated less that the film print that they used to master the new DVD which was possibly done recently (although I have doubts about that.) However, DVD always has better picture quality from a compression and resolution technique. However there are some movies that have a better VHS transfer than a DVD transfer...and that is a great misfortune indeed.
Understand?

More or less...I think I understand. Nevertheless, it's a sad day when a 21 year old VHS has better quality than a new DVD.

Escapay

More or less...I think I understand. Nevertheless, it's a sad day when a 21 year old VHS has better quality than a new DVD.

I couldn't agree with you more!

It's incredibly frustrating when you get a newly minted DVD and the transfer/picture quality is worse than the previous dvd or LD or VHS or even TV station prints you've seen before. Makes you think: if that's the best they could do, why didn't they just use the previous, better looking master?

For example, if the VHS of the One ANd Only Genuine Origional Family Band looks better, there must exist at least a FULL NTSC resolution BROADCAST quality MASTER of it which would at least look TWICE the quality of the VHS. Sometimes I've gone out of my way to tape "old" transfers" shown on TV cus they look better than the current "digitally remastered" versions...

I know that the Archive Edition Laserdisc transfer of Mary Poppins that I have in 1.66:1 was far more superior in color (And even framing) when compared to the 1.85:1 DVD edition which lops off the top and bottom slightly. (I'm still scratching my head on that one.)
Where the DVD surpasses the laserdisc though is in the area of artifacts.
The laserdisc is full of film artifacts, but the colors and framing are far more superior. The DVD is a port from the MASTERPIECE edition laserdisc transfer which included hardly any artifacts at all, but had very poor color timing and was improperly framed. Oh well...it's a mute point now, for it shall all be resolved (Hopefully) on this new 40th anniversary edition.

But part of me wonders why Disney didn't use the Archive Laserdisc transfer...maybe because it was older. I wish they'd have compared them...they might have chosen differently.

Pocahontas - Golden collection looks horrible, my old VHS looks so much better than this