THE LITTLE MERMAID Platinum Edition: October 3rd, 2006 (1 Viewer)

[Bleddyn Williams]

Remembering that back in January, Whiggles.com compared the SE versions of Mulan, and showed that the R2 & R4 versions had sharper transfers, I wonder if its worth holding off on this one next week until we find out if other regions have a better product than ours...

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Bleddyn,

I'm wondering the same thing.

I can assure you that if any other region provides the original sound mix *THAT ALONE* would warrant a non-R1 purchase. My oppo is ready and waiting.

Personally, despite the inferior video, I'd actually elect to watch the older DVD given the better sound than this new disc if no other region offers an improvement. That's right! I think that the superior sound of the previous DVD outweighs the negatives of the inferior video. Most of you know how bad that older DVD looks so this is really saying something!

I too would be happier still if another region provided a better image. It's odd how often this is the case... that the R1 Disney DVDs are inferior to other regions. Another good example is Hunchback... the R2 is much cleaner, less noisy, and more detailed with less edge-ringing than the R1 copy.

 

[Tarkin The Ewok]

How does the audio on the new DVD sound in stereo?

 

[James Ryfun]

This is an especially disappointing turn of events for me, as I don't have any previous version of this film in my collection. I'll still be picking it up, but after all the time Disney has had to restore this footage, I think disappointing is the appropriate word here.

 

[MatthewA]

How much damage could the negative to "Mermaid" accumulate in only seventeen years? The O-neg (presumably successive exposure) would undoubtedly not have been used for printing, only for an IP in 1989, and again for an IP in 1997 (They could have printed it in dye-transfer in '97 but didn't, which is a shame).

From what I can gather on this thread, the noise seems to me like it would be the fault of DVD mastering, not the film transfer or the Lowry cleanup. Hasn't Disney been slacking in this regard lately, as per David's reviews of their product?

I never bought the old DVD becuase of Disney's hubris in charging $40 for a feature-less, non-anamorphic disc.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Collapsing the rear channels into the front mix wouldn't fix the over-cooked, flat, artificial/electronic sound of the vocals on the new mix.

 

[Robert Harris]

I believe, from looking at the image, that the problems come not from a Lowry cleanup, but from the fact that there WAS NO Lowry cleanup. Any digital work was apparently handled by some other vendor with rather poor results.

RAH

 

[DaViD Boulet]

That makes sense to my eyes.

What LDI/DTS images usually looks like to me is a steady, solid image devoid of noise without the smearing and artifacts associated with off-the-shelf DNR.

What I'm seeing on Mermaid looks more like DNR/electronic signatures. Even if sourced from a finished release print, it's just so hard to imagine that such a "dirty" image was the best Disney was able to locate. Unless perhaps the dirty look was intentional on the part of the original artists when supervising the original film production?

 

[Kris Z.]

I thought the picture looked pretty OK when I first saw the screens but I guess I can't really judge it until I have the disc in hand, which is probably a week away still.

As for Lowry, the image may look cleaner, but some people (including me) didn't really appreciate what they did to Cinderella. The feel of vintage animation was completely gone as it looked almost digitally repainted, every film grain eliminated, and it wasn't exactly perfect either. Lots of consistency errors and 'bugs', white dresses and eyes being noticeably blue for example. (And it would seem these 'bugs' aren't uncommon to LDI's restorations; the lightsabers in Star Wars anyone?)

 

[David*P]

It makes me feel like they are treating the adult Disney-philes as kids...yes, at heart we are, but we deserve better art work dammit!!

Now as far as the picture quality goes, I remember the film always looking darking at the first and also in the under water scenes with the exception of "Under the Sea". I think that was intentional.

It'll be interesting to compare this DVD release with the original video release, which I stilll have and treasure above all my Disney movies (and yes it's the one with the "ding-dong" cover).

 

[Matthew Clayton]

Someone else got an early copy of TLM and posted up a bunch of screenshots from the film. I don't see what people are complaining about (sure, I notice the noise but other than that it is beautifully pristine with rich saturated colors), but I guess I'll have to judge with my own eyes when I get my copy.

Umm, whoever said that this film wasn't remastered seriously didn't read what the insert inside the DVD packaging. And the 1999 edition had artifacts and was grainy as hell, at least this 2006 edition fixes that problem. This is a major upgrade, technical problems aside. (BTW, TLM was the last Disney film to have hand-painted animation, but the climax did use the CAPS system.)

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Matthew,

RAH, myself, and Tony have actually *seen* the new DVD. As in watched-it.

:rolleyes

Regardless of what the packaging may or may not say... this DVD leaves a lot to be desired.

Note: we've all also said it does look better than the previous DVD. But that's really not that hard considering how *horrible* that first DVD looked. Right down there with the Poccahontas gold-edition DVD.

 

[TonyD]

you know, looking at the back of the case it has listed
"all-new digital restoration"

in the technical specs area on back also listed seperately,
"all-new 5.1 disney enhamced home theater surround sound"

right under that
"dolby digital 5.1 surround sound"

 

[Mark-P]

Mr. Boulet,
I felt like crying when I read your comments in this thread. I was so hoping for a truly great transfer. I'm horribly dissappointed in the exclusion of the original soundtrack mix (dolby dig. 5.1 didn't exist in 1989, but there was a 70MM six-track mix that would suffice, the earlier dvd was probably representative of that mix).
I've seen a coverscan posted on another website. One bullet says "All-new 5.1 Disney Enhanced Home Theater Surround Sound" and a bullet right underneath it says "Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound" Making it look like there are separate mixes. Why are they being misleading?

 

[Brendon]

The 5.1 Disney Enhanced Home Theater mix is the only English language track on the DVD, delivered via Dolby Digital 5.1. There is no seperate "unmolested" English language track on the DVD, 5.1, 2.0 or otherwise.

Picturewise I'd put the new issue of Little Mermaid around that of the Beauty & The Beast Platinum Edition, but way below recent fare such as Lady & The Tramp, Bambi and Cinderella. I think the latter titles have raised the bar to such a fabulously high level that anything falling short of that, for Disney classic animation on DVD, shows up in sharp relief.

 

[george kaplan]

Just seeking some clarification here. The dvd I have is 1.66, not 4x3. I just want to make sure that I'm understanding what's being said. It sounds like:

- the new dvd is disappointing in terms of how it looks compared to how it could/should

- the new dvd is still better looking than the one I have (or is the 4x3 referring to some other earlier version?)

 

[David Ruiz]

George, what he meant by 4x3 was that it was non-anamorhpic, not that it was literally a full-screen transfer. Lots of reviews talk about non-anamorhpic DVDs being 4x3 "letterboxed" instead of "anamorhpic widescreen."

With that said, I'd also like to chim in about how sad I am to read DaVid's review on how terrible it looks and judging from the screen caps posted here, I very much agree with his comments on the kind of noise that this DVD has.

It's really such a shame too because I very much looked forward to watching this movie on my 127" 16:9 screen. I can already imagine how horrible it's going to look at that size. :frowning: And it's one of my favourite movies of all time too, which makes it even more painful. :frowning:


That's probably because you don't have a system as revealing as DaVid's.

I'm complaining already and I've only seen the pictures. I'm sure that it's going to look even worse when it's actually playing (as others have already stated).

BTW, that "noise" in Ariel's red hair was also there and very apparent in the newly remastered Lion King DVD. There was tons of noise in their red "beards" (for lack of a better word). I think those are compression artifacts that we're seeing. I also noticed very similar noise in Aladdin as well. Still... it looks even worse in The Little Mermaid, but maybe I'm just saying that because I like TLM more than the other films I mentioned.

 

[Steve Christou]

Got mine yesterday. One of my all time animation favorites. Picture looked good to me, but than again I'm not watching it projected on a wall sized screen.

I captured a few frames -

 

[george kaplan]

Well that's pretty confusing IMO. Not trying to criticize David , just pointing out that when I see 4x3 I think 1.33 aspect ratio, not non-anamorphic.

 

[TonyD]

confusing to me too.
non enhanced or non anamorphic is much clearer in meaning