A few words about...™ Bambi -- in Blu-ray

 

 I haven't seen Bambi for a long time.  I'm looking forward to watching it in the next few weeks with my kids.  I am amazed with what Disney did with the multi-plane camera.  We got to visit Disney during our last HTF meet and they had a multi-plane camera in the lobby of one of the buildings.  It was really cool to be able to see one in person and think about everything it had photographed.

OK, now I am resisting the urge to crack open my DVD copy .  Wait for the Blu-ray, wait for the Blu-ray, wait for the Blu-ray.....

There is a lot of controversy out there over what these classic Disney animated films now look like from Fantasia, to Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, and now Bambi.

 

One interesting thought is it would be a cool approach if on future releases Disney were to include a version of each film just as a scan of a film negative to HD, meaning film carries grain and thus it could be noticeable, and even if the colors are muted etc let's see what that looks like.

 

We'd still have the choice of viewing the version that sometimes leaves us who have watched them over the years scratching our heads and debating why do they look this way?

 

I think it would be a nice topic to delve into, and try to get some real facts from those at Disney, not sugar coated- but good technical information to explain why the difference at times is so extreme we go running back to our bleeding LaserDiscs and VHS copies thinking WOW this Blu-Ray is a whole new animal, and I don't mean in terms of resolution.

 

I am looking forward to Bambi. :-)

I don't know what it is, but the only Disney movie I saw as a kid and liked was Fantasia.  That film, of all the original Disney films, is the only one I'll ever consider buying.  I can remember thinking when I was maybe 6 or 7, that I hated seeing animals that talked.  "They don't do that in real life, so why are they talking now?"

 

Anyway, it's a shame that Disney is over compensating for the expectations of today's audience on how a film should look.  For me, it strips away the need to ever bother watching them again, even when I do have kids!

Bambi was the first movie I saw, too.  Not the original release, though.  :)  Snow White was the second.

 

Still haven't decided whether to upgrade this one.  (I didn't upgrade Fantasia, and suddenly a week ago my son developed an intense interest in it!)

Inever understand whats the right amount of Grain,since bad Transfers are bad because of too much grain,a 35mm photo always looks better on a contact sheet,when you  startblowing it up you get grain,till by the time its 8x10 its color has changed because of grain,

   

       

 

 

 

I don't understand why the original RKO logo has been replaced for this release. Disney was starting to include it on all of the proper releases. The one and only time it was released for home viewing was on the mid-90s release.

You couldn't handle talking deer but you accepted demons, centaurs, sorcerers, dancing animals, and walking mushrooms? 

The Blu-ray includes no DTS-HD MA track - it goes for DTS-HD HR.   From what I can tell, this is a lossy format that appears virtually nowhere else.

 

Which makes me wonder: why?  Why would Disney opt for this format for the first-time ever here?  Weird!

I've been mulling this over today, wondering if this might be the one that breaks my pattern of religiously acquiring every new classic Disney release.  What's on this BD, except for the latest advances in a certain clarity of image, that I couldn't just be content enjoying the upconverted Platinum DVD and even the LD?  I'm serious.  I'm a collector, but not a "completist".

DTS HD-HR???
This is a travesty without equal in our new decade.

HR stands for Hi-Resolution.

From what I remember that was one of the audio formats that we where to expect on early releases to blu.
I'm sure there where a few but don't ask me what they are.

I found an article from about 3 years ago that mentions it.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/high-def-audio-hdmi,review-1088-4.html

"DTS-HD High Resolution
The DTS alternative to DD+, DTS-HD High Resolution (often simply called DTS-HD HR) provides
an enhancement to plain DTS similar to what DD+ offers over Dolby Digital,
including higher bit rates and improved compression characteristics.
Again, as with Dolby Digital and DD+, DTS-HD HR is encoded in the
form of an extension to the core DTS data. Likewise, DTS-HD HR is optional for
Blu-ray players as well, so many players extract only the 1.5 Mbps DTS core and ignore the extension data.

As with DD+, an examination of high-def tracks available for commercial Blu-ray discs
appears to indicate that the studios have forgone both of these formats in
favor of the original core format, plus the uncompressed high-bandwidth
versions — namely Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Apparently,
the guiding notion seems to be to provide the highest possible fidelity with i
ts inner compressed 5.1 core, so that equipment that can handle uncompressed
audio can work with those bitstreams, and other equipment defaults to the compressed core 5.1 formats (Dolby Digital and DTS).



Here again, we can find no Blu-ray discs that incorporate DTS-HD HR encodings.
Though some foreign import HD DVD titles from Warner Brothers indicate
support for this format, reviews of such discs indicate that Blu-ray versions
that support Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio offer vastly superior
sound when compared to their HD DVD counterparts — see, for example,
this review of Ghost Rider (French Import). If there were to be a database
entry for such an unlikely beast, following our earlier entries, here’s what it might look like:

The Audio Codec is DTS-HD High Resolution.
The Audio Channels (sound scheme) can appear as 5.1 (most typical) or 7.1 (unusual).
Audio Fidelity data: the DTS-HD specification indicates it is 24 bits deep,
and can be recorded at 48 kHz (typical for HD DVD) or 96 kHz
(would probably be used for Blu-ray, but there aren’t any).
Audio Bit Rate values can go as high as 6.144 Mbps for encoded data,
but might be either 1.5, 4.5, or 6.144 Mbps, depending on the bandwidth
that the studio decides to allocate to this type of audio track.
Those HD DVDs that supported DTS-HD invariably used 1.5 Mbps bitrates.
See Table 1 for more information about sound schemes, SPDIF, and HDMI
handling for DTS-HD High Resolution. Interestingly, despite a total lack of
DTS-HD encodings on Blu-ray discs, numerous players (including models from Panasonic, Onkyo, and Samsung)
support DTS-HD, though I can find no mention of Sony’s support for this format,
except through a firmware upgrade for the PS3. According to various sources,
DTS-HD HR achieves compression ratios of around 3:1.

DTS-HD HR is another constant bitrate (CBR) encoding, which means it operates
at the same bitrate at all times, regardless of the compressed audio material it is
handling at any given moment. Most serious listeners who compare DTS and Dolby Digital
to DTS-HD HR and DD+ are quick to observe that despite their apparent
similarities (constant bitrate encoding, lossy compression algorithms),
both of the “advanced” versions deliver better sound quality than their standard DD and DTS counterparts.

DTS-HD builds a set of enhanced extensions around a DTS encoding core,
so even if extensions can’t be played back, the core DTS sound track remains available and accessible."


Further looks seem to show that only non U.S. releases have used the HR sound format.


Would be very odd for Disney to do this.
Colin do you have the disc and can verify this?

I have the disc, but with a stack of other discs that come out next week, Bambi with a street date of 3-1 had to go to the bottom of the pile (as much as I'd love to do it now). I can say that the cover notes and the press release both identify the audio track as DTS-HD HR 7.1.

 

The disc is also marked for regions A-B-C.

Lossy audio?

 

Sometimes Disney is, well, just plain goofy.

 

Thanks folks, I'm here all week. Tip your waitress. 

Nonetheless, it is surprising considering that every past platinum/diamond/precious-metal-of-the-week has had a lossless track, even Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio.

Color me as one who is concerned about this latest development.

 

The Disney full-length features are important to me just as they are to many of us here.  I've swallowed hard on many of the issues that have arisen with these releases.

 

But, lossy audio? 

 

I don't pretend to understand all the tech talk surrounding the different audio options in the hobby...but this development has sent up some red flags for me about this release. 

 

From wikipedia:

 

 

HERE'S an article from High-Def Digest explaining DTS HD-HR's place within the different HT audio options.

Oh great, another thing that enthusiasts can nit-pick about. Personally I think this one is a minor infraction. I'm wondering, was the Bambi Blu-ray single or dual layered? If it is single-layered (25 GB is plenty of space for a 70 minute film plus extras by the way) then perhaps they downgraded the audio stream just to avoid spilling over into a second layer. If the disc is dual-layered, then I find it hard to believe there wasn't room for a lossless track unless there are several hours of documentaries that are in HD.

Minor or not this is an "infraction" and is a violation in what I expect from blu ray discs released from here on out.

 

It seems to be a growing trend on blu ray releases, especially budget-type releases. The recent release of "Red" had Dolby Digital 5.1 only on the "bare bones" blu ray. I also noticed recently a blu ray release of "Interview with the Vampire" that had only DD 5.1 audio.

 

Is the cost involved in including a lossless audio track really so much more than a lesser quality track?

 

It really seems like a slap in the face from the studios to all of us who have bought into blu ray and upgraded our systems to use the HD audio options.

I understand where you're coming from, Mark. 

 

I am a veteran of many of these discussions.  For the most part, I have stayed clear.  As I stated above, I might agree with much of the criticism of different aspects of the Disney HD presentations, but I have swallowed hard and quietly accepted them.  One I did not readily accept is the missing lines of dialogue in Pinocchio.  And, I'm afraid, lossless audio is one of my favorite aspects of Blu-ray.  So this one, to me, is major. 

 

As Colin noted above, I wonder why they would change their audio encoding with this release?

 

"Disney" and "budget-type release" hardly belong in the same thread.

Lossy audio should never be used on BD, DTS should be ashamed they even created another lossy codec.
Disney on the other hand should recall BAMBI and re-author it with DTS-HD Master Audio!!!

 

Perhaps for one of the reasons I speculated about? ^^^

 

Yes, I do, and yes, I can.  I popped the disc into my player and saw the "DTS-HD HR" listing and headed to the Internet to find out what it was . I thought it might've been a step ABOVE MA, but obviously not!