The Animated Views MIA: DVD Thread

Post by **Jeroen** » April 25th, 2007, 6:32 am

Tiny Toons: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Warner might bring Tiny Toons to DVD (let's hope):
http://www.animated-news.com/2007/warne ... to-decide/

Also, I'm not sure where this goes, but Balto and The Powerpuff Girls movie really need a widescreen release too.

I have both of those in widescreen.

btw, welcome to the forum brandonsc!

Post by **Ben** » April 25th, 2007, 7:01 am

Hi and welcome!

I'm guessing this is in response to our MIA-DVD thread, so I'll move it there!

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » June 13th, 2007, 10:11 am

Jeroen wrote:
Also, I'm not sure where this goes, but Balto and The Powerpuff Girls movie really need a widescreen release too.
I have both of those in widescreen.

I can't speak for Balto, but I know The Powerpuff Girls movie has NOT had a widescreen release on DVD in the U.S.

It's very probable that it wasn't widescreen in the first place.

A lot of so-called widescreen films are actually composed 4:3 and then get matted to 16:9/1.85:1 ratio. That's what WB TV Animation did for the first season Justice League as well as the Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

Return of the Joker's initial DVD release revealed more picture information than the later widescreen "Unedited Edition." It was also mastered from a higher-quality print.

Post by **Ben** » June 14th, 2007, 6:56 am

For fact:

BALTO was animated 1.66:1, cropped to 1.85:1 for theatrical and widescreen LaserDisc release. The 1.66 image was cropped for 4:3 showings.

PP GIRLS was animated for 1.78:1 and slightly cropped for theatrical. On DVD in the UK it's back to its original 1.78:1. The US DVD crops the sides severely for 4:3. This is also obvious from the deleted/extended scenes on the US DVD which are presented in letterboxed 1.85:1 and show the added image areas.

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » August 1st, 2007, 7:54 pm

Ben wrote:For fact:

BALTO was animated 1.66:1, cropped to 1.85:1 for theatrical and widescreen LaserDisc release. The 1.66 image was cropped for 4:3 showings.

PP GIRLS was animated for 1.78:1 and slightly cropped for theatrical. On DVD in the UK it's back to its original 1.78:1. The US DVD crops the sides severely for 4:3. This is also obvious from the deleted/extended scenes on the US DVD which are presented in letterboxed 1.85:1 and show the added image areas.

Hmm... Interesting. Did not know that about PPG.

Now as far as what to buy to own, I'd recommend getting the first season set of PPG or the original single-disc releases (except the PPG Movie and probably the X-Mas Special DVD).

Early PPG is way better than what came after the PPG Movie.

There are clips of the Japanese reimagination of PPG on YouTube, but I don't know how accurately they convey that series. TV shows are really meant to be soon on the Boob Tube, not YouTube!

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » August 7th, 2007, 9:18 pm

More Blu-Ray releases from Sony according to today's TheDigitalBits.com:

"Finally, we're gotten word from our industry sources that Sony is current working on Blu-ray Disc versions of Das Boot and Run Lola Run for release early in 2008. Here's hoping that Leon: The Professional is on the way too."

Post by **Ben** » August 8th, 2007, 8:47 am

Apart from the big fall, limited releases like Blade Runner, I'm still holding off pre-buying BR discs at the moment, mainly because I don't want to end up double dipping on everything and also because I want to see what the upscaling is going to be like from the BR player feeding into my projector against true HD.

I saw the upscaling on a friend's Plasma from the BD-01 player and was pretty impressed...enough not to warrant going out (immediately) and buying things like Spidey in HD right away.

I want to concentrate now on titles I would have bought on DVD anyway, like Pirates 3 and classics that I either have on LD and have been waiting to upgrade (and didn't see the point in DVD) or that are coming out for the first time.

Leon: The Professional, is a great movie, but I saw it in the theater, on TV, on LD, on DVD, and hardly watch it now apart from when it's on TV! So jumping for something like that, when it's not going to look too shabby upscaled anyway, seems to be a waste of money when I watch the actual disc maybe once every couple of years.

My goal is to buy new titles (classics and new releases) as they come out, and to build up the Disneys again, which I have in a mix of LD and DVD anyway.

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » August 23rd, 2007, 2:19 pm

BTW,

I hate buying multiple editions of movies on DVD.

Disney is the company most guilty of getting me to break down for these. As a rule of thumb, I generally don't do it because of cost. I'd rather save the money for NEW releases to DVD, not re-issues.

I waited a long time for the perfect edition of RoboCop (1987) to show up on home video.

Glad I saved my money, otherwise I would probably have gotten the earlier Criterion release with the extended footage edition (on the new 2-disc release that just came out, too) and commentary exclusive to that edition. Well, the commentary didn't make it onto the new RoboCop edition but since people tend to tell the same stories over and over again you generally don't miss much with the new commentary. On the other hand, the Criterion was lacking in an anamorphic transfer on top of a new digital transfer. This August's release is probably the best looking, most complete edition so far of RoboCop...

(The lack of anamorphic video was also a reason I skipped over Criterion's Time Bandits release and got the newest 2-disc release of that film as well. Lack of anamorphic transfer/widescreen is a deal-killer for DVD as far as I'm concerned. There's no excuse now NOT to do this for ALL films. On the other hand, I also hate it when films that were shot P & S get reformatted widescreen as well...)

I wouldn't bother with RoboCop again until at least the Ultra-Edition high-def release which is inevitable... along with the millionth re-releases of Star Gate, Starship Troopers, and The Mummy (1990s edition) which nobody is asking for!

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » October 26th, 2007, 11:19 pm

Ben wrote:Apart from the big fall, limited releases like Blade Runner, I'm still holding off pre-buying BR discs at the moment, mainly because I don't want to end up double dipping on everything and also because I want to see what the upscaling is going to be like from the BR player feeding into my projector against true HD.

I saw the upscaling on a friend's Plasma from the BD-01 player and was pretty impressed...enough not to warrant going out (immediately) and buying things like Spidey in HD right away.

The PS3 upscales well, too.

In fact, it's supposed to be pretty darn good and ranks as one of the better Blu-Ray players on the market.

{Yeah, it's scary. Sony actually made a major consumer electronics product that hasn't had a lousy reputation of breakdowns or screwing up DVDs --- yet. As much as I like my PS2, it's a lousy DVD player. PS3 is supposed to be very good at movie playback whether it's DVD or Blu-Ray.

{I guess I'll find out how good it is since I bought a PS3 60GB model this past Wednesday. It'll be another year probably before I find out how good it is in high-definition. For now, the old 27" standard-def TV will have to do. Guess I'll be saving pennies until next year!

}

Post by **Ben** » October 29th, 2007, 8:22 am

Samsung has a pair of new combi players coming out.

Could this be the thing that gets me to jumping in?

Post by **Randall** » October 29th, 2007, 10:36 pm

The new Samsung combi has been getting good reviews, and I'm considering it, since it'll cost close to what a top-line BluRay player would anyways, and it would save me some connections since I already have a HD DVD unit.

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » October 29th, 2007, 11:02 pm

I don't think the combi units are going to take off simply because of the hardware cost. We'll be lucky if any these units come near to $800 by the end of the year. I just don't think it's going to happen.

The combi manufacturers are having to pay royalties on TWO patents and that's going to make it difficult for them to cut the price on hardware.

As things stand, even with the slow transition to HD, clearly Blu-Ray is still outselling HD-DVD by nearly 2-1. High-definition sales still split close to 50/50 at times depending on the week's releaseses, but generally speaking the yearlong average has been closer to 2-1 in favor of Blu-Ray. That's even with the roadbumps of the lousy Toshiba/Universal/Dreamworks/Paramount quartet and Microsoft's continuing attempts to confuse the issue with the XBox 360 HD-DVD drive add-on and its own download service.

Consider this -- you can still take a wait-and-see attitude since most of the public is still undecided on disc format (other than standard DVD which everybody owns), hardware costs for HD are high, and software sales still only represent maybe 3% of total sales. The best-selling high-definition discs are still barely raking in sales within the range of 100k-200k ==> still well below the 2 million+ average of the standard Hollywood/Disney blockbuster. Absolutely no comparison in sales as of yet.

Sure, it would have been better if ONE HD disc standard had been agreed upon and if all the associated hardware costs (HD TV sets, HD players, HD software, etc.) had been appreciably lower.

I still think the HD transition is coming -- albeit a lot slower than most people thought and would have liked --, but it will happen and most of us will still buy high-definition on an optical format which still looks to be most likely Blu-Ray in the end. The number-crunching in sales, as well as disc capacity, seem to heading that way.

Post by **Ben** » October 30th, 2007, 3:39 pm

I'm very lucky to be able to say that price isn't a primary concern. Sure, I don't want to pay over the odds or bet on the wrong horse, but I'll pay out for what is going to do the job.

I'm half tempted to jump into Blu-Ray right now and hold out on those HD-DVD titles, but the idea of a combi, for what a good high-end BR would cost anyhoo, is very attractive, as is the promise of just one deck rather than two, as Rand says.

However...the switch from Paramount/DreamWorks DOES raise some questions as to which way the format war will swing over Christmas, which could well be worth holding out for. My thinking is that those without PlayStation 3s will be looking to plug that gap before they go buy an HD unit, so buying the PS3 solves both problems in one go for those into games and movies.

We're also looking at going for a new all-in-one DVD Recorder this month, with hard drive, VHS (it's worth it for me!), HD upscaling, digital TV and multi-region playback all built in (the snazzy Panasonic). Again, the idea is to shift two/three units and get them down to one. A couple of friends have models in this range and are very happy, so I'm about to buy.

While cost isn't a major issue, I don't think I can push to a new DVD-R deck and an HD unit, whatever format, and my usual standard disc buys, already on the heavy side at year's end. Since the DVD-R is probably more of a concern for me right now, I'll go for that in November and more than likely go for one of the Samsung combis in the New Year, once any bugs have been ironed out.

If there had been no format war, I'd have been in there early, just as I was buying LDs and DVDs before I had players at the time. But with everything else (and looking to possibly carry out a complete upgrade of my home theater kit when we move next year), this has slid down to being something I'm tracking rather than actively ready to jump into. I am tempted to start collecting BR discs though, so that tells you which way I'm leaning...!

There, in writing that all out, I just justified my plans! Now time to go and break it to Jen...

Post by **Foxtale** » November 14th, 2007, 5:08 pm

I'm not sure if we are talking about just movies or tv series that are MIA but the last season of Jem and the Holograms is missing. I don't know if there are any Jem fans here but they Rhino came out with season 1, 2, and half of 3. They are missing the second half of season 3 and all of season 4. >.<It>.< Also I would like the Jem Movie, which was just the first 6 (I think) episodes cut together to be one big movie. I love it best in movie format. Even though I just got the VHS sealed from a tag sale my tape player will eat it I'm sure. So I wish they would release a dvd version of it. ^.^

*Edits so not to double Post*

The Princes and the Goblin- One of my favorite movies growing up. It needs to be on dvd.

Star Fairies - Hanna Barrera- A made to promote toys animation but I really loved the story as a kid. ^.^

Post by **Therese** » December 30th, 2007, 4:00 pm

Count me as another vote for Richard Williams' "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure." I discovered this when one of the TV networks (CBS, maybe?) aired it many years ago, and fell totally in love with it. Loved the Joe Raposo songs; my favorite was Andy's big number, "No Girl's Toy." This definitely needs a good DVD release.

And here's something way out of left field: I think the last and only fondly-remembered cartoon series from my youth that I've never seen since has got to be "Bailey's Comets," which was sort of like Josie and the Pussycats meets Wacky Races on roller skates. It was c. 1973, and produced by DePatie-Freleng. It is probably gosh-awful, and certainly not worth reviving, but it would have been nice to see it turn up on cable somewhere.