**** Official Review thread: Snow White Initial Impression (1 Viewer)

[Ken_McAlinden]

Wow! I had only about 30 minutes to play with this disc, but my first impression could not be more favorable. The disc presentation alone deserves some kind of award. Disney seems to have gotten a lot of the little things right that they used to annoy us by getting wrong.

• The menus and transitions are detailed and elaborate, but they can all be skipped by tapping the advance (>>|) button on your remote.
• The mono track is 1.0 rather than 2.0 and sounds like they spent as much care mastering it as they did with the new 5.1 mix
• The disc tours are liable to get people interested in supplemental features that otherwise would not be and yet they are completely ignorable if you want to access these features the normal way
• Even the kiddie game is more fun than usual!!!

What I have seen & heard of the picture and sound are a noticeable improvement over the previous laserdisc, as well, although I will not get to watch the whole thing until this evening. I will post more tomorrow.
Regards,
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Ken McAlinden
Livonia, MI USA

 

[Bill Catherall]

I too just picked up my copy and look forward to spending some more time with it tonight. Thanks for your review.
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Bill

 

[ChristopherS]

I just got mine today and quickly popped it in. I have it on behind me and my one year old is watching it (kind of - he is more into the teletubbies it seems). I do have an initial question: what is the o.a.r. of Snow White?
Thank you for your help.
Chris

 

[Rain]

...what is the o.a.r. of Snow White?

1.37:1

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"Imagine all the people, living life in peace..." - Imagine by John Lennon
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[Dylan Davis]

(stalking) Rain always has the right answers! ;-)
I got mine this morning and tried in on a friends laptop at work. Picture looks amazing!
I can't wait to get home to try out the sound.
Dylan

 

[PatrickM]

I just picked mine up and it is very impressive indeed. Picture quality is excellent and the sound is very good. The fact that they kept the original mono soundtrack deserves kudos. Although the 5.1 soundtrack does sound very good.
Only nitpicky point, the cover art for at least the Canadian version is a little bigger than it should be so that it ends up poking out of the plastic protective cover which caused a bit of damage when I removed the stupid security/title sticker on the top so beware.
Patrick
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My DVD Collection
Patrick The 69th most popular name for boys according to the Social Security Administration.

 

[Peter Kline]

I've just finished watching what is to me almost a miracle. After seeing this film many times in theatres through the years, the last time in the early 80s when I had a letter published in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner complaining about the badly cropped image refering to the film as "Snow White And the 3 1/2 Dwarfs, this version looks brand new. Colors are bright and clean. The pesky dirt, dust, scratches and smudges are finally gone. Those artifacts were there from the very begining, due to the multi-plane cells sequences. But now they are gone.
Now to the sound. Since the original recordings were done on optical film (which had a very minimal frequency range probably only up to 8,000 hz) it is amazing that they were able to increase dynamic range, eliminate hiss and give some bottom to the sound. There is still some minor peak distortion on Snow's signing voice but overall the sound is as impressive to me as the picture. The menus are very good, the extras excellent and overall this is a triumph for all concerned. This certainly puts to rest the overt hand-wringing that went on several months ago with all the misinformation that was presented here at HTF. Those of us that knew Disney would not botch this job have been rewarded. (Actually, we've all been rewarded).

[Edited last by Peter Kline on October 09, 2001 at 03:58 PM]

 

[Steve Hauben]

I look forward to watching it tonight for the first time ever in the best format ever
-Steve

 

[Matt Butler]

Steve,
I cant believe youve never seen Snow White!!

Oh well. Enjoy!
[Edited last by MatthewButler on October 09, 2001 at 04:01 PM]

 

[Dan Brecher]

I'm still jet lagged from the LA meet, but Snow White arrived yesterday and I've only touched the surface but am nevertheless already very impressied with the care taken in the mastering and the innovation in the navigation. Hope to go through the whole thing before the months end...October is insaine.
Dan (UK)

 

[Rusty Ray]

Don't worry Steve.. I've never seen it either.. My wife thinks i have had a deprived childhood.. oh well at least i can relive it now!!!
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"As long as you are out there, I can never be number one...."
My DVD List

 

[Heinz W]

Amazing! The Platinum Line appears to live up to its namesake. Disney has confirmed that they can do DVD right AND HOW! Every superlative used by the others is absolutely true; superb and innovative menus (skippable though!), impeccable audio/video, tons of extras...
One caveat, however:

Only nitpicky point, the cover art for at least the Canadian version is a little bigger than it should be so it ends up poking out of the plastic protective cover which caused a bit of damage when I removed the stupid security/title sticker on the top so beware.

Mine also! Grrrrr! Some of the silver on the 'Platinum Edition' banner on the front cover was pulled off with the security sticker. Minor; perhaps. But I KNOW its there!

 

[Peter Kline]

I just wish the audio was changeable on the fly.
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[Michael Caicedo]

Fantastic!!! Kudos to Disney for putting out a world class DVD. The picture lovingly restored to pristine quality- bright colors - black blacks. The 5.1 audio is fabulous- you can't tell you're listening to a soundtrack from the 1930's. Loaded with extras all for $19.99 and they threw in another Disc with my preorder. Also, I am not really a fan of Barbra Streissand, but I gotta say her rendition of Someday My Prince Will Come is ,well, sublime.
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Michael Caicedo
Winter Park, FL
- At my signal, unleash hell...
[Edited last by Michael Caicedo on October 10, 2001 at 09:43 AM]
[Edited last by Michael Caicedo on October 10, 2001 at 09:44 AM]

 

[Rob Tomlin]

This DVD is absolutely INCREDIBLE!
Disney has truly raised the bar with this DVD release! The video quality is amazing, especially in light of the age of this movie. The new 5.1 mix is incredibly, and tastefully well done, remaining true to the original.
The menus and extra features are fabulous. And to think I have only gone through about half of them is remarkable!
Roger Ebert said something to the effect that this was the best DVD he has seen. I must say, it would be hard to argue with that statement!
Any serious DVD collector MUST have this classic, landmark movie in their collection!
So, my initial reaction is:

 

[Dean Cooper]

I couldn't be happier about this disc. Fantastic color and sound! I'm very impressed indeed and am so thankful that this classic was given such an over the top treatment. Thank you Disney!

/

Dean

 

[Patrick Lyons]

Does anyone know why there are two versions of this DVD? I purchased a copy for myself and one for a gift and noticed that the top security stickers were physically different and had different numbers. One has two numbers (F6446 and 22254) and the other just has 2225403. Upon checking the discs of both sets it appears disc two is different on these sets. The 22254 disc 2 is a dual layer gold disc, and 2225403 is a silver disc. Numbering on inner ring of discs (disc 2) are completely different as well. Anyone know why, etc. I don't want to be stuck with a defective version if there is such a thing...
Thanks,
Patrick

 

[Kurt N]

I'm speechless. I popped the disc in and planned to check e-mail. I couldn't do it. I could not take my eyes off my television. Beautiful picture. At least 3 times I uttered "wow" outloud to noone. An amazing package.
The commentary, though not a traditional commentary has a huge amount of information and stays interesting start-to-finish.
The game was fun once. If I had kids, I'd expect them to get a lot of pleasure out of it.
Streisand's version of Someday My Prince Will Come is the best thing I've heard from her in decades.
And I still have another whole disc to go through.

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I suppose you think that's very funny, Harold.
my DVDs
[Edited last by Kurt N on October 10, 2001 at 02:10 AM]

 

[Geoffrey_A]

Man, is this a gorgeous print or what? I was totally blown away. I never thought Snow White would ever look this nice. A solid package all around, great sound, great picture, tons of supplements. Only one thing pulls it down, the gawd awfull rendition of "Some day my prince will come" by Striesand, wow, talk about butchering a song. Loves to take artistic licence with cadence she does. Beyond that little miss-step, with the equally ill advised intro (who decided striesand was the world's most beloved voice?) this is one hell of a package, especially if you took advantage of the Disney store's kick ass pre-order promotion. Well done Disney!
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Geoff
Now with Kung-Fu grip and realistic facial hair!

 

[SpenceJT]

I sure as heck hope the studios notice that the Home Theater Forum crowd 'can' be satisfied!
I am amazed not only the quality of the movie itself, but also the extras! The historians at Disney must have worked overtime on this one!
...only one negative thing. No DTS? (just kidding -- no flame please)

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SpenceJT
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"...now what's all this crud about no movie tonight!"
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